Never given to optimism, I did see a ray of strategic hope in last night's results. And I don't mean possibly holding the Senate and even the House (still barely in play). I mean the results in FL and AZ. DeSantis put enough thumbs on the Florida scales to DOUBLE his predicted victory margin. His 20% win effectively rocket-launches his 2024 campaign. Meanwhile, a weakened Trump is about to launch his own. IF Lake goes down in Arizona, that will leave Trump and DeSantis -- two massive egos who know no way of fighting but the knee to the groin and the knife to the jugular -- to play RockemSockem Robots with each other for the next two years. It is hard to imagine the political survivor of that lovefest emerging without severe damage. Neither Hitler nor Mussolini had to go mano-a-mano with their own reflection. So perhaps Ron and Don will do our work for us and politically self-destruct. Perhaps.
I'm familiar with Florida's political machine. DeSatan winning means the competition got less than 20% more votes. I was living in Naples in 2000 when 16 managers of elections resigned rather than cheat. DeSatan's problems are mainly, he's boring, and second, on the national scale the NRP cannot cheat on the scale they cheat in Florida.
I'll go to your link, but my instant response is, yes, particularly with the commonality of the siren call of mass cultural/national victimhood. Germany was crushed by the Treaty of Versailles following WWI. Inflation? A wheelbarrow of currency for a loaf of bread. To say they were "hungry" for someone to tell them they were actually the master race would be an understatement. Sadly, America is rife with victims of NAFTA, GATT, and automation. Lowered expectations and the creeping infiltration of brown people. Here comes Covid, and its after-clap of inflation. Even if it's the biggest jerk ever incarnated, who's tellin' 'em they are great?
My blue brother lives in DeSantis country. Surrounded by those in this new cult, he thought about not going, but he went to vote anyway. I told him you don't get to bitch if you don't vote---that's the rule. Another point was the Dems that were running deserved to hear from him.
President Biden talked about the amazing youth vote at his press conference. The points he made was that 18-30 year olds are the best educated, least prejudiced, and most engaged people this country has ever seen. All us old hippies might disagree, but we would join in his enthusiasm to praise and cheer them on.
F-ing Florida. They spotted a crocodile on the beach a few days ago....a croc, not an alligator. Enough with the reptiles down there!
At least they filled Rep. Val Demings' seat with Representative-elect Frost, the first of Gen Z to go to Congress. From The Hill: "Frost, who is African American and Cuban, has a long history as a progressive activist for civil rights and gun control." Maybe there's hope after all, despite DeSantis.
It's astonishing why the MSM (with the exception for the profit motive), or anyone else continues to talk about Trump as a viable Presidential candidate. By any standard, he ranks with the worst Presidents in our history. Discussing the probable outcomes of his multiple crimes and preventing anyone similar to Trump from ever holding any political office is a more relevant and serious challenge. To do otherwise abandons all confidence in our legal system. Our time would be better spent reviewing every one of Trump's corrupt and disastrous policies.
One of our most critical challenges is the Republican-appointed radical-reactionary majority of the current SCOTUS, and their sponsors. They've engineered a continuing Constitutional tragedy that attempts to override fundamental rights, democratic process, and lawmaking, to form a more perfect Union. The Court isn't Congress. It shouldn't rubber-stamp political and religious ideology of their tribe and/or their sponsors merely because it can. That's fascism. Americans don't want unlimited corporate money determining election outcomes and they don't want Justices attempting to make our voting decisions unrepresentative. They also don't want these justices interfering in our private, personal health decisions. Our founders were well aware of abortion practices in Athenian Greece, which served as their example of democratic government. They were also aware of abortion practices in America, at the time they wrote our Constitution. There was a pragmatic and private reason they omitted abortion from our Constitution. The current majority was embarrassingly negligent, Constitutionally violative, and clearly biased in their historical interpretation.
I think TrumPutin will be hoisted out of a rowboat, but by the time they get deSatan lowered in, it will be a life preserver. This is 2001 all over again. Everyone who voted for Bush in 2000 had left the USA by 2001, because NOBODY admitted to voting for Bush. Just substitute FatHitler for Bush...........
Sorry, there is no comparison in electability. Trump is a talented actor and con artist who knows how to read a crowd. DeSatan is a dumpy liar whose not well liked even in Florida. Yes, I know the cultists will worship his flip-flops, but the guy just can't entertain on the same level as Trump.
This country is already split in two. Question is how much longer can the real democrats tolerate and live with fascism.
There is no hope of a return to normalcy (whatever that really was,with a Democratic party barely distinguished from a Republican party (and yes they were and are)
Face it fascism is not ascendant, fascism has won. Democracy is a corpse it just has not been buried yet.
The Republicans started the culture and it looks like the won. The notion of a hot civil war is ridiculous, the Fascists are armed to the teeth, and liberals have disarmed themselves.
Bill Clinton and Rahm Emanuel are responsible for this state of affairs, because it is they that created the rust belt with NAFTA and Clinton's updated GAAT, the rust belt are the swing states. Blue collar blue states that went red.
Is staying in a United States worth it, when the united states outlaws abortion, gay rights, minority rights and makes voting as much of a mockery as it is in Russia. When being a liberal or a Democrat is in essence a death sentence.Don't fool yourselves, there are many MAGAts who would do that, and some who are doing just that, and they have allies in law enforcement, who had liberals and Democrats as much as the MAGAts,
And the military, well the majority of the white enlisted are from poor southern and mid west states, and the officer class has been tainted by Dominionism which infiltrated the AF Academy in the late 60's and has spread to the other academies since.
Michael Flynn and his brother Gen Charles Flynn (who would not answer the phones ringing of their cradles at the Pentagon) are not one off's either, they are typical of the officer corps today.
Thom knows more about history, politics, energy and alternatives, economics, and many other topics than anyone I know. I have the greatest admiration for him. But someone has to find a way to make him and a lot of others aware of the crucial fact that we do not have “public schools”. The campaign to save public schooling was never going to succeed because our schools are not public schools. They are state schools through and through.
States control every aspect of schooling from the opening of the doors on the first day to the graduation ceremony after the last day. Nothing escapes the attention of state officials, and nothing happens without their knowledge and approval. "The Leader is the state and the state is the Leader".
This constant handwringing, such as, “Republicans want to ban abortion… all while killing the right to unionization and quality public schools…and praising “strong public schools” distracts from the real issue. The schools do not belong to the public and never did and they are not described as “quality” or “strong” schools by those in the know.
We call the schools public schools because everyone is required to attend unless parents have demonstrated that their children are attending (state approved) private schools or unless they are homeschooled by parents meeting state-established standards and conforming to testing protocols. They are not even remotely public in the democratic or popular sense. The public good and welfare is not their purpose by any stretch of the imagination, despite the benevolent images they propagate endlessly and loudly. They were established and they are maintained to serve the market economy, the interests of business and the investor class, and the state.
Education invariably leads to resistance to, and interference with, the goals of the industrial state and the corporate interests, and for that reason is meticulously kept within acceptable boundaries as much is humanly possible. The lowest common denominator is the rule, and rule-following is the rule, because education is typically seen as a threat to the established order, an order which is established through myriad influences and institutions organized and scrutinized by those with wealth, power, influence, and an affection for tradition.
Privatizing the schools further will merely remove the patina of legitimacy and expose the reality they represent in a more conspicuous manner. It will do little to change how schools operate and will only reveal the true intent behind policies which are inimical to the public, as opposed to the privileged few. The wedge that has always existed between rich and poor will merely be larger and more visible but will not be more easily shrunk or eradicated under privatization.
The right wing complains about the permissive, liberal, or left leaning “indoctrination” in schools and colleges. But the schools gave us voters who elected (or voted in significant numbers for) Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Trump, J.D. Vance, and many reactionary Republicans. My five-year-old great grandson just got his first lesson in keeping your mouth shut and being obedient.
A show for which accurate facts, truth, and honest reporting are the watchword and which has as its moderator a highly skilled, talented, and brilliant historian and myth buster must have in its audience a significant number of former teachers, professors, top students, and some who are still active. There may be a like number of extremely bright individuals who saw it all as a great charade and who left early or tuned out early without ascending far up the academic ladder.
They surely all know that regardless of the small or large miracles they worked or witnessed in schools, that in the classrooms down the hall or in the schools across town and across the country, there were and are travesties, tragedies, and hypocrisies. They know that many elementary students do not begin to build a solid foundation for success. They know that many older students are lost or disengaged because they were merely parroting the answers earlier, without having a deep understanding or full appreciation for knowledge and intellectual progress.
It is time to give up the belief in the tooth fairy and wonderful, enlightening, equalizing, and educating public schools. Extraordinary teachers who manage to inspire and inform can and do give many students a leg up or a head start on their educational journey, especially if parents devote the extra time and energy to stimulate an interest and curiosity with regard to intellectual endeavors and explorations. But they are the exception, and they are always swimming upstream against a strong current in the average regimented school. Thom quotes Mussolini, "...the individual within the state."
That current is powered by arbitrary authority and that authority derives directly and inexorably from the state. Regimentation is essential because the schools’ purposes are not in alignment with those of most students. Cross the officials and see where you find yourself. Every teacher knows.
Does anyone honestly think that the whitewashing that has taken place in textbooks and curriculum for the last century is simply because of a few radical reactionaries who have sneaked in and interjected themselves in their publication as a result of inconspicuous or overlooked white supremacy? Hell no. The door was wide open, and the state left it open by design.
Does anyone seriously believe that schools are not hospitable and that high numbers of students are truant, dropping out, or failing because they are just not motivated or unwilling to try hard enough? Hell no. They are inhospitable because they are founded on a view of children and human nature that derives from bad religion, bad psychology, and bad thinking. More importantly, they are inhospitable because attendance laws necessitate a hostile and controlling environment.
Is anyone naïve enough to think that school administrators, officials, educators, and researchers bear no responsibility for the fact that reforms have repeatedly fallen flat, Brown v. Board was quickly circumvented, scandals and corruption are common, students are inept and semi-literate at graduation, and we are still, and indeed more than ever, “A Nation at Risk”? One can only hope not.
There has probably never been a responsible and competent parent who has not set certain rules as a part of their child-rearing obligations. Schools could not operate for any given purpose under anarchic conditions and without established rules and a set of consequences for disobedience or defiance. But when states utilizing “in loco parentis” as an excuse to use coercion, compulsion, intimidation, threats, and bribery in delivering what is universally purported to be a benefit and a valuable service, we should all question what they are actually providing and why they cannot entice and enlist students without such tactics.
The goals of a stable and orderly society; a disciplined, hard-working workforce; loyal and patriotic minimally educated citizens; well-mannered and courteous community members who obey laws, and anxious consumers of material goods produced within national boundaries do not seem to be sinister or dangerous goals. Socialization, inculcation, training, supervision, education, and even indoctrination are desirable services under optimal conditions (desired by parents and students, not the state).
However, when force and the browbeating of children, and when premature or inappropriate techniques are applied, a perverse dynamic is inevitable. When all of those things are turned over to the state or the state usurps rights and duties, abuse, negligence, and chaos are to be expected.
Education is a process. Education and force are incompatible. Minds cannot be free, and the process of education does not often occur, when the learner is under duress or inhibited.
State involvement under a mandatory paradigm cannot escape coercion, duress, control, behavioral manipulation or modification, inhibition and intimidation, and inordinate stress. School, like church, must be kept at arm’s length from government to avoid harmful and unconstitutional interference.
The message has not been getting through for reasons I cannot understand. People who value liberty, autonomy, and equal opportunity for adults seem to believe that exceptions should be made in the case of children merely because they are dependent, uneducated, or inexperienced. They imagine that an artificial milieu which purposefully deprives children of liberties and independence will prepare them after more than a decade of subservience for living in an adult world.
This erroneous conviction is not based in reason or science. It is certainly not borne out by history or experience. Please spread the word. Our way of life and national security depend on the lives children lead during their formative years and on enabling them to grow organically at their own pace. Privatizers have been given too many valid reasons to criticize. As my evangelist and preacher uncles used to say, it is time to get your own house in order, first.
I think I understand what your vision is for school children, and support a view of education that is predicated on coercion, reward/stimulus, & time expectations for digesting concepts & ideas
Never given to optimism, I did see a ray of strategic hope in last night's results. And I don't mean possibly holding the Senate and even the House (still barely in play). I mean the results in FL and AZ. DeSantis put enough thumbs on the Florida scales to DOUBLE his predicted victory margin. His 20% win effectively rocket-launches his 2024 campaign. Meanwhile, a weakened Trump is about to launch his own. IF Lake goes down in Arizona, that will leave Trump and DeSantis -- two massive egos who know no way of fighting but the knee to the groin and the knife to the jugular -- to play RockemSockem Robots with each other for the next two years. It is hard to imagine the political survivor of that lovefest emerging without severe damage. Neither Hitler nor Mussolini had to go mano-a-mano with their own reflection. So perhaps Ron and Don will do our work for us and politically self-destruct. Perhaps.
DeSantis is not psychologically disabled enough to compete with the pathological narcissist Donald Trump.
I'm familiar with Florida's political machine. DeSatan winning means the competition got less than 20% more votes. I was living in Naples in 2000 when 16 managers of elections resigned rather than cheat. DeSatan's problems are mainly, he's boring, and second, on the national scale the NRP cannot cheat on the scale they cheat in Florida.
Michael Moore thinks the Senate and House election winners are yet to be decided because of mail in ballot tabulations.
Sir! I have just begun to fight... But are references to Fascism/Nazism fair play? My immediate thoughts on the situation:
https://olflawriduhcracker.substack.com/p/we-have-just-begun-to-fight?sd=pf
Thomm, You remain my hands down best insight on America today!
I'll go to your link, but my instant response is, yes, particularly with the commonality of the siren call of mass cultural/national victimhood. Germany was crushed by the Treaty of Versailles following WWI. Inflation? A wheelbarrow of currency for a loaf of bread. To say they were "hungry" for someone to tell them they were actually the master race would be an understatement. Sadly, America is rife with victims of NAFTA, GATT, and automation. Lowered expectations and the creeping infiltration of brown people. Here comes Covid, and its after-clap of inflation. Even if it's the biggest jerk ever incarnated, who's tellin' 'em they are great?
My blue brother lives in DeSantis country. Surrounded by those in this new cult, he thought about not going, but he went to vote anyway. I told him you don't get to bitch if you don't vote---that's the rule. Another point was the Dems that were running deserved to hear from him.
President Biden talked about the amazing youth vote at his press conference. The points he made was that 18-30 year olds are the best educated, least prejudiced, and most engaged people this country has ever seen. All us old hippies might disagree, but we would join in his enthusiasm to praise and cheer them on.
F-ing Florida. They spotted a crocodile on the beach a few days ago....a croc, not an alligator. Enough with the reptiles down there!
At least they filled Rep. Val Demings' seat with Representative-elect Frost, the first of Gen Z to go to Congress. From The Hill: "Frost, who is African American and Cuban, has a long history as a progressive activist for civil rights and gun control." Maybe there's hope after all, despite DeSantis.
It's the gerrymandering, baby! I was disappointed with Deming's loss. I don't know why MSNBC keeps calling Cubans "Latinos."
It's astonishing why the MSM (with the exception for the profit motive), or anyone else continues to talk about Trump as a viable Presidential candidate. By any standard, he ranks with the worst Presidents in our history. Discussing the probable outcomes of his multiple crimes and preventing anyone similar to Trump from ever holding any political office is a more relevant and serious challenge. To do otherwise abandons all confidence in our legal system. Our time would be better spent reviewing every one of Trump's corrupt and disastrous policies.
One of our most critical challenges is the Republican-appointed radical-reactionary majority of the current SCOTUS, and their sponsors. They've engineered a continuing Constitutional tragedy that attempts to override fundamental rights, democratic process, and lawmaking, to form a more perfect Union. The Court isn't Congress. It shouldn't rubber-stamp political and religious ideology of their tribe and/or their sponsors merely because it can. That's fascism. Americans don't want unlimited corporate money determining election outcomes and they don't want Justices attempting to make our voting decisions unrepresentative. They also don't want these justices interfering in our private, personal health decisions. Our founders were well aware of abortion practices in Athenian Greece, which served as their example of democratic government. They were also aware of abortion practices in America, at the time they wrote our Constitution. There was a pragmatic and private reason they omitted abortion from our Constitution. The current majority was embarrassingly negligent, Constitutionally violative, and clearly biased in their historical interpretation.
I think TrumPutin will be hoisted out of a rowboat, but by the time they get deSatan lowered in, it will be a life preserver. This is 2001 all over again. Everyone who voted for Bush in 2000 had left the USA by 2001, because NOBODY admitted to voting for Bush. Just substitute FatHitler for Bush...........
Sorry, there is no comparison in electability. Trump is a talented actor and con artist who knows how to read a crowd. DeSatan is a dumpy liar whose not well liked even in Florida. Yes, I know the cultists will worship his flip-flops, but the guy just can't entertain on the same level as Trump.
Of course, whoever spends the most wins.
An interesting situation to watch if Republicans get control of the Senate is this:
Will they abolish the filibuster as a means to enable pushing harder for their agenda?
This country is already split in two. Question is how much longer can the real democrats tolerate and live with fascism.
There is no hope of a return to normalcy (whatever that really was,with a Democratic party barely distinguished from a Republican party (and yes they were and are)
Face it fascism is not ascendant, fascism has won. Democracy is a corpse it just has not been buried yet.
The Republicans started the culture and it looks like the won. The notion of a hot civil war is ridiculous, the Fascists are armed to the teeth, and liberals have disarmed themselves.
Bill Clinton and Rahm Emanuel are responsible for this state of affairs, because it is they that created the rust belt with NAFTA and Clinton's updated GAAT, the rust belt are the swing states. Blue collar blue states that went red.
Is staying in a United States worth it, when the united states outlaws abortion, gay rights, minority rights and makes voting as much of a mockery as it is in Russia. When being a liberal or a Democrat is in essence a death sentence.Don't fool yourselves, there are many MAGAts who would do that, and some who are doing just that, and they have allies in law enforcement, who had liberals and Democrats as much as the MAGAts,
And the military, well the majority of the white enlisted are from poor southern and mid west states, and the officer class has been tainted by Dominionism which infiltrated the AF Academy in the late 60's and has spread to the other academies since.
Michael Flynn and his brother Gen Charles Flynn (who would not answer the phones ringing of their cradles at the Pentagon) are not one off's either, they are typical of the officer corps today.
Waiting for THEIR CiC to give the word.
Thom knows more about history, politics, energy and alternatives, economics, and many other topics than anyone I know. I have the greatest admiration for him. But someone has to find a way to make him and a lot of others aware of the crucial fact that we do not have “public schools”. The campaign to save public schooling was never going to succeed because our schools are not public schools. They are state schools through and through.
States control every aspect of schooling from the opening of the doors on the first day to the graduation ceremony after the last day. Nothing escapes the attention of state officials, and nothing happens without their knowledge and approval. "The Leader is the state and the state is the Leader".
This constant handwringing, such as, “Republicans want to ban abortion… all while killing the right to unionization and quality public schools…and praising “strong public schools” distracts from the real issue. The schools do not belong to the public and never did and they are not described as “quality” or “strong” schools by those in the know.
We call the schools public schools because everyone is required to attend unless parents have demonstrated that their children are attending (state approved) private schools or unless they are homeschooled by parents meeting state-established standards and conforming to testing protocols. They are not even remotely public in the democratic or popular sense. The public good and welfare is not their purpose by any stretch of the imagination, despite the benevolent images they propagate endlessly and loudly. They were established and they are maintained to serve the market economy, the interests of business and the investor class, and the state.
Education invariably leads to resistance to, and interference with, the goals of the industrial state and the corporate interests, and for that reason is meticulously kept within acceptable boundaries as much is humanly possible. The lowest common denominator is the rule, and rule-following is the rule, because education is typically seen as a threat to the established order, an order which is established through myriad influences and institutions organized and scrutinized by those with wealth, power, influence, and an affection for tradition.
Privatizing the schools further will merely remove the patina of legitimacy and expose the reality they represent in a more conspicuous manner. It will do little to change how schools operate and will only reveal the true intent behind policies which are inimical to the public, as opposed to the privileged few. The wedge that has always existed between rich and poor will merely be larger and more visible but will not be more easily shrunk or eradicated under privatization.
The right wing complains about the permissive, liberal, or left leaning “indoctrination” in schools and colleges. But the schools gave us voters who elected (or voted in significant numbers for) Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Trump, J.D. Vance, and many reactionary Republicans. My five-year-old great grandson just got his first lesson in keeping your mouth shut and being obedient.
A show for which accurate facts, truth, and honest reporting are the watchword and which has as its moderator a highly skilled, talented, and brilliant historian and myth buster must have in its audience a significant number of former teachers, professors, top students, and some who are still active. There may be a like number of extremely bright individuals who saw it all as a great charade and who left early or tuned out early without ascending far up the academic ladder.
They surely all know that regardless of the small or large miracles they worked or witnessed in schools, that in the classrooms down the hall or in the schools across town and across the country, there were and are travesties, tragedies, and hypocrisies. They know that many elementary students do not begin to build a solid foundation for success. They know that many older students are lost or disengaged because they were merely parroting the answers earlier, without having a deep understanding or full appreciation for knowledge and intellectual progress.
It is time to give up the belief in the tooth fairy and wonderful, enlightening, equalizing, and educating public schools. Extraordinary teachers who manage to inspire and inform can and do give many students a leg up or a head start on their educational journey, especially if parents devote the extra time and energy to stimulate an interest and curiosity with regard to intellectual endeavors and explorations. But they are the exception, and they are always swimming upstream against a strong current in the average regimented school. Thom quotes Mussolini, "...the individual within the state."
That current is powered by arbitrary authority and that authority derives directly and inexorably from the state. Regimentation is essential because the schools’ purposes are not in alignment with those of most students. Cross the officials and see where you find yourself. Every teacher knows.
Does anyone honestly think that the whitewashing that has taken place in textbooks and curriculum for the last century is simply because of a few radical reactionaries who have sneaked in and interjected themselves in their publication as a result of inconspicuous or overlooked white supremacy? Hell no. The door was wide open, and the state left it open by design.
Does anyone seriously believe that schools are not hospitable and that high numbers of students are truant, dropping out, or failing because they are just not motivated or unwilling to try hard enough? Hell no. They are inhospitable because they are founded on a view of children and human nature that derives from bad religion, bad psychology, and bad thinking. More importantly, they are inhospitable because attendance laws necessitate a hostile and controlling environment.
Is anyone naïve enough to think that school administrators, officials, educators, and researchers bear no responsibility for the fact that reforms have repeatedly fallen flat, Brown v. Board was quickly circumvented, scandals and corruption are common, students are inept and semi-literate at graduation, and we are still, and indeed more than ever, “A Nation at Risk”? One can only hope not.
There has probably never been a responsible and competent parent who has not set certain rules as a part of their child-rearing obligations. Schools could not operate for any given purpose under anarchic conditions and without established rules and a set of consequences for disobedience or defiance. But when states utilizing “in loco parentis” as an excuse to use coercion, compulsion, intimidation, threats, and bribery in delivering what is universally purported to be a benefit and a valuable service, we should all question what they are actually providing and why they cannot entice and enlist students without such tactics.
The goals of a stable and orderly society; a disciplined, hard-working workforce; loyal and patriotic minimally educated citizens; well-mannered and courteous community members who obey laws, and anxious consumers of material goods produced within national boundaries do not seem to be sinister or dangerous goals. Socialization, inculcation, training, supervision, education, and even indoctrination are desirable services under optimal conditions (desired by parents and students, not the state).
However, when force and the browbeating of children, and when premature or inappropriate techniques are applied, a perverse dynamic is inevitable. When all of those things are turned over to the state or the state usurps rights and duties, abuse, negligence, and chaos are to be expected.
Education is a process. Education and force are incompatible. Minds cannot be free, and the process of education does not often occur, when the learner is under duress or inhibited.
State involvement under a mandatory paradigm cannot escape coercion, duress, control, behavioral manipulation or modification, inhibition and intimidation, and inordinate stress. School, like church, must be kept at arm’s length from government to avoid harmful and unconstitutional interference.
The message has not been getting through for reasons I cannot understand. People who value liberty, autonomy, and equal opportunity for adults seem to believe that exceptions should be made in the case of children merely because they are dependent, uneducated, or inexperienced. They imagine that an artificial milieu which purposefully deprives children of liberties and independence will prepare them after more than a decade of subservience for living in an adult world.
This erroneous conviction is not based in reason or science. It is certainly not borne out by history or experience. Please spread the word. Our way of life and national security depend on the lives children lead during their formative years and on enabling them to grow organically at their own pace. Privatizers have been given too many valid reasons to criticize. As my evangelist and preacher uncles used to say, it is time to get your own house in order, first.
I think I understand what your vision is for school children, and support a view of education that is predicated on coercion, reward/stimulus, & time expectations for digesting concepts & ideas