#Canada Student Grant

[infofeedhubnews]

5 Top government schemes for Canadian students to support educational pursuits and ease financial burdens

5 Top government schemes for Canadian students

1. Canada Student Loans Program (CSLP)

Eligibility

2. Canada Student Grants Program

Eligibility

3. Canadian Learning Bond (CLB)

Eligibility

4. Provincial Student Assistance Programs

Eligibility

5. British Columbia Student Assistance Program

Eligibility

 Must read: Here are 5 top government schemes for Canadian students, including descriptions, eligibility criteria, and official application links

[allthecanadianpolitics]

"Students doing graduate-level research say Canada risks losing its future scientists to other countries because the dollar amounts of annual grants have remained stagnant for nearly 20 years.

A Canada Graduate Scholarship from one of the three federal research funding agencies is $17,500 per year for a master's student or $21,000 per year for a doctoral student. Those amounts have not changed since 2003.

In return for that funding, the recipients are expected to work full-time on their research, and in some cases are explicitly banned from spending more than 10 hours per week on any other paid employment. 

"Definitely below the poverty line in any capacity," said Sarah Laframboise, a PhD student in biochemistry at the University of Ottawa. 

Laframboise is one of the organizers of a campaign called Support Our Science, calling on the Trudeau government to boost graduate student funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council."

Full article

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[strawburry01]

She Blinded Me With Science

Summary: You and your college bestie Ford go hunt for the Mothman

AN: 2.6k words, there's some flirty friendship moments

Part 2

Hope you enjoy :)

“Forddddd!” you shouted as you slammed at his unfortunately closed dormitory door, “open up Pines I know you’re in there you haven’t left all day!” you continued as you kept knocking louder.

“For god's sake how do you know that?” his muffled voice came through the door.

“Your desk light has been on all night and all day you dork, I know you’re neurotic about turning that light off!” you huffed as you finally stopped knocking. You heard some shuffling of books and chair legs on the ground as Ford eventually opened the door a crack. For supposedly having the nicest dorms in the east coast, you and Ford were both guilty of turning your respective rooms into chaotic mixes of museum, library, archive, and photo studio, in your case. You could see the precarious stacks of textbooks and notebooks behind Ford’s bespeckled face. He looks like he didn’t sleep last night, evidenced by his glasses at a slant and his brown hair mussed up around his forehead.

“Can I…come in?” you asked as you attempted to poke your head in closer, which caused Ford to nearly shut the door in your face. The two of you had met in your first week of university, both sitting in the back of the Physics 101 class, noticing halfway through the class that you were both muttering the correct answers under your breath. Since that class, you had both been the closest of both study partners, and friends. With you being the charming talker, and Ford being the logical brains, you had both moved up the ranks in Backupsmore University. On a drunken night at the end of the first year you’d both revealed to each other that this was never your first choice. For Ford, his project to get taken in by West Tech was sabotaged, keeping him on the east coast. For you, your family couldn’t afford anything else. With 3 younger siblings you knew that your needs were met, but you also had to compromise on a lot of things- for the rest of the family. Ford kept a lot of his own family secretive, only mentioning in the middle of a spring break trip to Canada that he had an identical twin brother which nearly caused you to flip the kayak you were both in. But you were never one to push Ford too far out of his comfort zone. You recognized he was a private person, but also an incredibly bright and witty person. Someone you really liked hanging out with and spending time around. 

“No!” Ford said, “I mean uhm…what do you want?” he corrected himself, still keeping the door only open a sliver. You raised your eyebrow and leaned against the doorway yourself. He was hiding something, and poorly.

“Is there a girl in there Ford?” you whispered with a smirk, knowing there’s no shot in hell it would be the case. His face turned red as he shut the door and unchained the locks before swinging it open fully. You knew he rarely ever hung out with other people, aside from his Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons gaming group and fellow student Fiddleford. 

“No, no females in here, just a damn letter,” he sighed as he ran his hand through his hair as he turned, “it’s the grant letter,” he said as he pointed to it on his desk. You stepped in and sure enough, his desk was somehow cleared, most of the mess being moved to his bed now, with a white envelope addressed to him. 

Stanford Pines, Room 313, Backupsmore University.

“Well shit have you opened it?” you asked, standing besides him as you both stared at the envelope. He applied for a large grant for research months ago, and after tedious interview after interview, this could be it.

“No, I can’t bring myself to. It’s Schrodinger's envelope. Until I open it I could’ve won it or not. I can’t do it. I can’t face the certainty of opening it- either one,” he sighed as he pinched his glasses on his nose, going through the same logic he’d been grappling with for the past hours.

You slowly nodded. He wound himself up like this often. Paralyzed with choice. You personally were the type to make a choice and force it to be the right one- somehow make it correct or at least work out for you. Ford on the other hand needed to know that it was going to be the right one from the beginning. Once again, the logical one.

What had worked before though was you distracting him. Getting him out of his head. Or at least his room.

“Want to check out Point Pleasant? Been reports of some unusual behavior from there recently,” you mused, breaking the silence. You could practically hear the gears in his head turning. “My camcorder’s all charged, I just need your car,” you grinned at him. He couldn’t help but let out a chuckle as he sighed.

“Okay, okay, fine,” he said as he took one last look at the envelope before grabbing his coat and keys. You silently pumped your fist as you fished your camcorder out of your bag. It was covered in random stickers you’d gotten over the years of owning it, from fruit stickers, to band stickers.

There was another thing that brought you and Ford together. An affinity for the unexplained and weird. It had always piqued your interest since you were a child living in the forest, seeing things that practical textbook science couldn’t explain and going headfirst into the unknown. Ford grew to share your passion for this after getting his skepticism proved wrong after tagging along for a few of your drives out to cryptid and weirdness hotspots. Bigfoots, ghosts, aliens, fairies, you’d hear a rumor and you’d grab your camcorder to go check it out yourself. Ford himself realized that he’d been viewed as something different in his own life having six fingers on each hand. The way that you got so excited and enamored with weirdness though made him feel less self conscious about his own quirks. You thrived on the unexplainable, and it eventually began to rub off on him. He could explain most equations and experiments, but he loved the challenge of not knowing how to explain something, which he seemed to always find when he followed you. 

You slid into the familiar passenger seat of Ford’s red 1960 Popular 100E, which was a little car that suited his personality well. He began the engine as you instinctively began flicking through radio channels trying to find some good music. 

The sun was starting to set which was turning the sky a pinkish yellow hue. You turned your camcorder to the sky and started filming.

“Tonight I come to you with a breaking case joined again by my dearest companion Ford Pines,” you begin as you dramatically squirm in your seat to zoom in on Ford’s face who blushes and laughs, but doesn’t take his eyes off the road. He prided himself on his safe driving, which often bored you. “Let’s take a step back my friends into a time before humans, a time before these roads meant anything, a time of empty forest and beautiful lands untouched by buildings,” you continued as you turned back to the sunset, “imagine soaring above this beautiful area one day and then BAM!” you shouted, twisting back to Ford trying to catch him off guard. No luck though. “A billboard! A damn city has popped up in your turf! Where you were just chilling one day. Unbelievable,” you sighed as you turned back to the now darkening sky. “That my friends is the story of today’s search, the elusive and illustrious Mothman,” you said, which caused Ford to scoff,

“You’re kidding me Y/N, Mothman?”. You stopped your recording and put your camcorder back down. 

“You’ve already started driving, it's too late to turn back now,” you hummed as you went back to clicking through channels, “just trust me Ford I’ve never let you down,”. 

The two of you kept driving into the night, discussing recent classes and homework, and you trying to fill Ford in on recent gossip. The car rolled into Point Pleasant around 1:32 am, which is where you sat up again and turned on your screen. Slowly directing Ford down an overgrown path outside of town. Stopped by a closed gate warning to turn back you grinned maniacally as you jumped out the car practically before Ford could stop it. You climbed over the gate with Ford trailing behind you, muttering about tetanus and safety. 

“We start here, on an abandoned road,” you said as you panned around the forest “where this Mothman has been reported to be seen earlier this week,” you continued, “once again with my trusty partner Ford,” you added zooming in and out on Ford who was crouched down looking at the mud.

“Seems fresh,” he said as he pointed to a large claw prints on the ground, with what looked like a walking pattern of a human. Ford pulled out his notebook, which was a precariously put together collection of notes and drawings he started once he started going out on these adventures with you. You had your camcorder, and he had his notebook. It was a spiral notebook you’d gotten for him after getting tired of seeing him lose his sketches he’d done earlier on napkins, although the amount of wear and tear it got was already causing the spiral part of it to get stuck in some spots.

You zoomed in on the footprints and kept your camcorder down as you followed them farther and farther until you felt a strong gust of wind. You slowly brought your camcorder up to a tree in front of you, where a pair of glowing red eyes looked back down at you.

“Whoah,” you said softly as you marveled at the size of the creature in the tree as your saw the 7 foot feathered? furry? thing sitting in the branch, staring back down at you. You kept your camcorder and eyes on the creature, bewildered as you felt two familiar hands on your hips slowly pulling you back.

“Y/N we gotta go,” Ford whispered in your ear as he kept trying to scoot you back.

“Ford wait-” you protested as you tried to shoo him, which only tightened his hold and urgency.

“Y/N this thing does not play friendly,” he urged again, grabbing your head and forcing it to the pile of deer and other forest animal skeletons nearby that you had missed before. To seal the deal the two of you both heard the creak of the branch and flapping of wings as the Mothman jumped off the perch. 

Very quickly you grabbed Ford’s hand as the two of you began hauling ass back to his car, knowing it would supply a little bit of safety from the claws of the creature. Above there was a screech similar to a bird as you both dove into the car with you flopping on top of Ford as he started to fumble for his keys and scooting to the drivers seat. 

“A show folks! We have a show!” you shouted to the camcorder as you tried to get a view of the Mothman through the window, “we’ve discovered that our Mothman friend is NOT a vegetarian I fear!”. Ford frantically started the car and began reversing back the way the two of you had come. 

There was a loud thump onto the top of the car as you both looked at each other. It was on top of the car. Shit.

Ford continued trying to reverse down the overgrown trail as you resorted to honking the horn for him to try and get the Mothman off the top of the car. The car jolted as the Mothman jumped off the car, letting the both of you take a breath as you rejoined the paved road. 

“Damn that was crazy!” you said as Ford turned the car back into the road. He opened his mouth to respond but was interrupted by both of your screams as the behemoth of the Mothman slammed down onto the hood of the car, metal screeching beneath the claws as it gripped on. 

“YOU SPOKE TOO SOON!” Ford shouted as he attempted to honk the horn, which only seemed to peeve the creature off more as it attempted to hit the windshield. You fumbled with your camcorder once again trying to film this scene as Ford continued to let out a string of curses. 

“Try and throw him off!” you shouted as you grabbed the side of the wheel and yanked it right, very grateful nobody else was on the road. The Mothman certainly wasn’t expecting it as it lost its balance careening off the side before Ford narrowly dodged it to not run it over. He pressed the accelerator all the way down as he tried to put as much distance between the car and the temporarily stunned Mothman.

You were out of breath as you laid your head back onto the seat, taking in the avoided danger. Grateful it wasn’t any worse. The tinny of the radio was the only noise in the car as the two of you stared at the mangled hood of the car.

“Ford I’m-”

“I got the grant,” he said before you could apologize, “I got the full 100 thousand dollars,”. You punched his shoulder excitedly.

“STANFORD PINES!” you shouted as you continued to hit his arm which made him grin and look over at you, “HELL YEAH YOU DID!”. You were overjoyed for your friend. He was the hardest working student and person you knew and truly deserved the cash to make his dreams happen. “I can’t believe you opened it! You had me going! Why didn’t you tell me?” you asked as you settled back down. He shrugged,

“I don’t know- I couldn’t think of how to tell you. I opened it at midnight last night and I’ve been trying to think of how to since then-” he said, “You’ve done so much to help me get it and- I just needed to do it justice,” he sighed. 

You gripped his arm again and gently shook it,

“I’m so fucking happy for you Ford this is going to change everything!” you smiled, “what are you going to do with it all?” you asked.

He let out a sigh, “I want to do this. Full time,” he said, “There’s a place, in Oregon, over in the Pacific Northwest- there’s something supernatural happening there based on my research and I there’s some land available already,” he continued, “I want to make a lab, a honest research lab, to do this sort of cryptid, oddities, weirdness hunting full time,”. 

The car was silent as he sat with himself.

“Damn that was the first time I’ve really said it out loud,” he laughed nervously as he rubbed the back of his neck.

“I think that sounds great Ford,” you nodded with a smile as you continued to gently rub his arm to make him feel a little better.

“But I need you there,” he said, confidently, “You got me hooked on this stuff, and you have a real knack for it. It’s only right if you come with,”. 

“I would be honored, Ford are you kidding me!?” you said excitedly as you squeezed his hand quickly on the wheel.

“It’s going to be really messy, and I don’t know how I’m going to move everything, but I need you to be there with me to make this work,” he said with a firm nod.

“And I’ll be there,” you nodded back as you sat back into your seat, looking back out at the dark road. You couldn’t help but feel giddy at the future Ford had just invited you to.

[maitremaraboutalorfahoun]

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[itgetsbetterproject]

🏳️‍⚧️ We're trying to raise $200,000 for LGBTQ+ youth programs before the end of the year! 🏳️‍🌈 Wanna help?

As they grow up in a world that wants to keep them down, LGBTQ+ youth are fighting to be themselves. But we believe young, queer people shouldn’t have to be "brave" just to exist.

By making a donation to support our programs, you're showing that you believe in the better world that we can create together.

Over the past couple years, the support we've gotten from some amazing donors has enabled us to support queer youth in SO many ways, like:

Granting LGBTQ+ students more than $1.2 million to imagine and create their own safe spaces and resources in schools across the US and Canada through 50 States, 50 Grants.

Creating award-winning content series educating LGBTQ+ youth on safe sex ed, inclusive terminology, careers in STEM, as well as tons more educational and mental health resources.

Handing LGBTQ+ youth the mic to advocate for themselves — at national conferences, on our award-winning Twitch vodcast Perfectly Queer, on social media, and in interviews with major news outlets...

...and so much more that you can see on itgetsbetter.org!

🟣 If you believe in "better" the way we do and want to help us keep doing this work to uplift, empower, and connect LGBTQ+ youth around the world, you can make a donation here!

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

I re-read your Fellow Honest study, and one thing to mention is that Riddle is immensely proud of having no one drop out or transfer out of Heartslabyul/NRC, right? His dorm is the only one at full capacity? This means dropping out of NRC isn't that uncommon, whether it's a money issue or a grades issue, and that's more people discarded simply because they couldn't keep up.

[Referencing this analysis!]

Mmm, that's true 🤔 I wonder how NRC's dropout rates compare to those of other magic schools and regular schools that do not train mages... I can't imagine that NRC has a ton of dropouts though, because otherwise I feel like more dorm leaders and staff would express concern about it? Like if a ton of students were dropping out, it would reflect poorly on their leadership and teaching skills, wouldn't it...? Maybe it's not mentioned because it isn't that relevant to the main story or Riddle in particular is super fixated on it (given how strict he is). At the very least, we know that NRC has a non-zero dropout rate. Even at a school that supposedly has the best and brightest mages-in-training, some will not make the cut.

As cruel as this may sound (sorry, Fellow), it's 100% understandable from a school's perspective why they wouldn't want to keep supporting students who continuously do not succeed and ultimately dismiss them. Many programs irl (especially those in higher education) set standards that students must meet and maintain until graduation if they want to remain in their program. It could harm the school's educational reputation if they do not produce "results".

In some cases, schools that fail to maintain a certain "pass" rate on specialized exams their students take may lose accreditation (an official “quality seal”) for their program(s). For example, irl nursing programs in the U.S. and Canada are put on probation if they have a class of students with an 80% or lower passing score on the NCLEX exam. They are given 2 years to "fix" this low passing rate; if this is not corrected, then the school's accreditation is revoked completely. A loss of accreditation can result in many other negatives, such as less financial aid dispersement and fewer job opportunities (/your diploma not being seen as “legitimate”).

That's unfortunately how it works. Granted, a school shouldn’t spite a student for not being able to keep up with the workload (which sadly may have been the reality for Fellow), but it really is in the institutions’ best interests to drop a student they fear won’t perform well.

[bqstqnbruin]

Mat Barzal Teacher AU

@nicohischier listen I will crtl f if I want to but I didn't do it for this one

But this is the 9th one I've written and posted since Monday so that's gotta be something, right?

Teacher AU Series

Warnings: swearing

WC: 813

______________________________

“What are you doing?” Thea asks, walking into Orla’s room. 

“Looking at my glassware.”

“Is it nice to look at?”

Orla sighs, closing her cabinets. “I have to replace like half of what I bought brand new last year because the students broke everything.” 

“Oh, shit.”

“Yeah, oh, shit.”

Orla gets her computer out of her bag, where it had been sitting since she arrived in her classroom for the first time since the last school year ended, pulling up the Flinn website and praying that they had some sort of sale going on. Not that it was likely for the stuff she needed, but she could still have hope. “How much will it cost you?”

“The smallest beakers I need are five dollars, the largest are twenty three.”

“Each?”

“Each,” she groans, drawing the end of the word out. 

“Oh, shit.”

Orla laughs. “I think we found our new catchphrase for the year.”

“A downgrade from last years, ‘oh, fuck,’ if I do say so,” Thea laughs. 

Orla stares at the screen, adding everything she needed to buy new into the cart and watching the total cost increase by the second. “Why don’t we work at a school that pays for everything?”

“Because I don’t think those schools exist.” The two of them sit there for a second, Orla staring at her computer trying to figure out how she was going to pay for everything she needed for the school year. “Oh, do you know who your new humanities partner is?”

Orla shrugs. “Whoever that new French teacher is, I haven’t met him yet.” 

Thea sighs. “I got paired with Richard,” she grimaces. “Why do we have to do this again?”

Orla sits up straight, folding her hands in front of her on her desk and tilting her head back so her nose was pointed into the air. Thea burst out laughing, knowing that she was imitating the vice principal they both hated. “To ensure that we are providing the most extensive cross-curricular education to our students.”

“More like to ensure that we have more busy work we don’t want to do. I mean, what cross-curriculum stuff can we do between biology and English?”

Thea looks at her friend as she puts her feet up on the top of the desk she had commandeered. “You teach AP Bio.”

“And?”

“Don’t they have to read and comprehend long passages just to write essays about them?”

“And?”

“Babe, that’s English. Richard is the perfect person to pair you with.” 

“He’s a dick.”

“In more ways than one.”

Thea laughs, getting up to head back to her classroom to do some work before they had to head to the auditorium for their first week back meetings. She turns back to Orla “Don’t you know French?”

“Not really, no.”

Thea, with her hand on the door, stares out the window in the center. “One of your ex’s did, though, right?”

“Two; blue eyes and nostril boy.”

Thea nods, a smirk on her face that told Orla she wasn’t going to like whatever her friend was about to do next. 

Orla sat back in her chair as Thea finally left, the door closing behind her. Why would she mention Orla’s exes? It wasn’t like either of them would be a teacher. Blue eyes moved away a while ago, Orla losing track of him after he ended up somewhere in Canada. Nostrils, however, was still somewhere on the island, which she knew because she ran into him way too often for her liking. They broke up because Orla thought he was way too self-involved; stopping just short of an actual temper tantrum when he didn’t get his way. 

Granted, they were younger and much more immature when they dated, but it was still enough that Orla knew she didn’t want that.

She shrugs it off, going back to the Flinn website to see if she could pull any of their free resources that could be useful in order to make her feel better about the nearly one thousand dollar glassware purchase she was about to make.

She’s interrupted by a knock at her door while she’s reading about a nuclear decay inquiry lab, not looking up to see who walks in when she calls for them to enter.

“Orla?” she hears a familiar voice, her head snapping from her computer to see the one person she didn’t want in her classroom.

“Mat?”

“What are you doing here?”

“I teach here,” she says, hoping he can’t hear the shaking in her voice. Having a short conversation with him when they randomly happened to see each other was fine, but this? “What are you doing here?”

“I work here.”

The realization of what Thea’s facial expression meant finally dawned on her. You could see who was coming into the building from the hallway outside Orla’s classroom thanks to the weird design of the building. Thea had to have seen Mat coming in. “You’re the new French teacher.”

“You’re my curriculum partner.” 

“Oh, shit.”

[lonniemachin]

Nagham reached out to me to help share her family's fundraiser. Yasmeen Ouda is urgently raising money to evacuate her family from Gaza to Canada. They have currently only made $13,850 CAD out of their $50,000 goal, a little under 1/4th of the way there! Please donate and share, and if you can't donate, please still share!

Yasmeen's Twitter/X account: @Jasmeen217

From Yasmeen's GFM:

Hi everyone,

My name is Yasmeen Ouda, I am Palestinian born and raised in Gaza city, I moved to London Ontario 4 years ago with my husband. I am raising this fund to help my family flee the war and come safely to Canada and reunite with me and my kids again.

I'm writing to you at a really critical and urgent moment. Presently, my family is in Gaza and is dealing with unspeakable conditions. My family and I are fervently requesting your assistance so that we can help them flee to safety and reunite with me in Canada. I live in Canada with my 2 kids , yet I feel like I'm thousands of miles away from my family and are helpless to stop the suffering caused by ongoing aggression in Gaza. The situation is getting worse every day, and I worry about their safety.

I've been putting my family before myself since the beginning of the war. My heart shatters into even more pieces and hurts more each time I say this but they have already made evacuations inside Gaza with no safe place to go to. They didn’t manage to take any of their belongings except some clothes and important documents as the Israeli occupation forced them to evacuate immediately. Even by evacuating to the safe area as the Israeli claims they have witnessed so many bombs and death everywhere but they have miraculously survived each time.

Recently, Canada announced a program stating that immediate families of Palestinians with Canadian citizenship or permanent residency will be eligible to remain in Canada for three years in a move designed to bring them to safety while war rages in Gaza between Hamas and Israel.

I was overjoyed to hear this news because it gave me hope that, after this extremely difficult period, I would be reunited with my family. However, my joy was tinged with bitterness since I knew that they would not be able to pay for the rent or even the exorbitant living expenses in Canada

My brother is expecting his first child in May 2024 , after 1 year of marriage. he is very worried about this baby after having one miscarriage before and wish to take his wife and baby to safety but he won't be able to afford the costs of the delivery in Canada or even provide for his baby's needs at least for a while until he settles down and finds a job.

My sister is a 4th year medical student, she is studying in the Islamic university of Gaza. She's passionate about her major and dreaming of becoming a doctor but the Israeli occupation has shattered her dream into pieces when they bombed the university and turned it into aches. Now, she has a new opportunity to fulfill her dream again here in Canada, but studying in Canada is expensive and she will never make it without your help and support.

It is extremely difficult and demanding to start over in a new country without any savings, especially for people who are already fleeing the war and have nothing left for them. However, you may assist them by helping them with the initial steps of their new journey.

Your support, no matter how small the contribution, means more than mere financial aid. It's an expression of your solidarity, compassion, and humanity, granting her a chance at a new, secure life .Together, we can make a difference, rebuilding a life and dreams from scratch. Each donation, regardless of size, contributes to their new start.

[onceuponatown]

The Loomis Radio School, Washington D.C. ca. 1921.

The school was located at 401 Ninth St. N.W. and operated with the call letters 3YA. By 1920 it was offering a six month course enabling the graduate to obtain a first grade commercial radio license and by January of 1922 was offering a four year course with a degree in Radio Engineering bestowed on graduates.

The school was founded by Mary Texanna Loomis, pictured in the last photo.

Born August 18, 1880 near Goliad, Texas. She was the second child born to Alvin Isaac and Caroline (Dryer) Loomis. Though born on homestead in Texas in 1880, by 1883 her parents had returned to Rochester NY and then on to Buffalo where Alvin became president of a large delivery and storage company. Little is known of her early years, but appears she had a fairly middle-class up bringing. She seemed well schooled, with an early interest in music and language (she mastered French, German and Italian) Her early years were spent in Buffalo, NY and she later relocated to Virginia. 

During the early years of World War I, she became interested in the new field of wireless telegraphy. There was a family precedent; her cousin, Dr. Mahlon Loomis, had conducted early wireless experiments with moderate success and may in fact have been the first person, in 1865, to send and receive wireless signals. 

Mary soon became proficient enough in wireless telegraphy to be granted a license by the United States Department of Commerce. Thoroughly fascinated with the field now called “radio”, she decided to turn her expertise into a career. Also, she wanted to do something that would honor her pioneering ancestor. Her idea was to do this by founding a radio school. 

Though radio was indeed, for many years, a profession dominated by men, Mary Loomis around age 40 took no notice and in 1920 founded the Loomis Radio School in Washington, D.C. and it quickly gained an excellent reputation. Ms. Loomis set high standards for the school and it attracted students not only from the United States but Europe and Asia as well. Loomis enjoyed teaching as much as she enjoyed radio itself. In an interview, she said, “Really, I am so infatuated with my work that I delight in spending from 12 to 15 hours a day at it. My whole heart and soul are in this radio school.” 

As president and Lecturer of the Loomis Radio School, Mary authored a definitive book on radio, named “Radio Theory and Operating.” 

By January 1922 the school was offering a four year course with a degree in Radio Engineering bestowed on graduates. Loomis also intended that her students understand more than just the inner and outer workings of radio. In addition to a radio laboratory (with equipment constructed almost entirely by Mary herself), the school maintained a complete shop capable of teaching carpentry, drafting and basic electricity. She reasoned that many of her graduates might find themselves at sea, or in other challenging situations and she wanted them adequately prepared. “No man,” Ms. Loomis said, at the time, “can graduate from my school until he learns how to make any part of the apparatus. I give him a blueprint of what I want him to do and tell him to go into the shop and keep hammering away until the job is completed.” 

The school appears to have been in existence at least through the early 1930's, but it has not been possible to find information after that.

In an interview given to H.O. Bishop of the Dearborn Independent in 1921, Mary was asked: “What sort of young men are taking up the radio profession?” to which she replied:

“The Kind who have grit and want to get there! Virtually all of them are ambitious and enthusiastic over the possibility of visiting every nook and corner of the world. My students are not only enrolled from various sections of the USA and Canada but from many foreign countries, such as Sweden, Ireland, England, Poland, Russia, Austria, Rumania and the Philippines. One of the brightest pupils I ever had was Prince Walimuhomed of Far-away Afghanistan. He was an extremely modest young man, keeping his real identity a secret until after graduating. He said he had no idea of earning his living by working at radio, but just wanted to know all about it. He does.You have no idea how much happiness I get out of the success of each individual graduate. My boys keep in touch with me from all parts of the world. Scarcely a day goes by that I do not get some trinket or postcard from some remote section of the world. I have made the wonderful discovery that the only way for me to get happiness for myself is to make some one else happy. I find that I am making these young men happy by teaching them every phase of the radio business so that they can earn a comfortable living for themselves and their dependents and at the same time, see the great big beautiful world.

As far as we can figure out, Mary Loomis left Washington D.C. around 1935 and moved to San Francisco where she worked as a stenographer. She died in 1960 and is interred at Woodlawn Memorial Park, Colma, CA. 

Source

[bellysoupset]

Is it okay if I use 🍁 as my anon emoji? If not then 🦊?

But my request is could you do a story about Vince and Max taking a class on an overnight field trip somewhere and both begrudgingly have to share a room. But of course one of them (I don’t mind who) gets a really upset tummy and the other has to be the reluctant carer while also having to deal with kids who are constantly knocking on their door, complaining or asking for things as young kids do. And then, the next day it’s a painstakingly long, bumpy bus ride home.

-🍁/🦊

-🦊 anon and ☂️ anon requested Max with a tummy ache opening up to others.

I'm sorry it took me so long!!

—----------------

Vince zipped up his jacket and turned around as he looked over the teenagers, all brimming with anxiety over the trip. 

It was a tradition of Doverport’s High to grant senior students a more expensive field trip than usual. Usually all excursions had to fall under the guise of education, with a teacher drafting up a whole proposal signaling why it was important for the students to experience it and how it would benefit their curriculum. 

The seniors trip, though, was exclusively for socialization. The fancy word they used for fun. 

Sophia had been talking about the trip nonstop for weeks now, she had even gone on a shopping trip to get a new swimsuit — one Ma had promptly forbidden her from wearing — and had nearly exploded with happiness when Wendy had gifted her with a fancy toiletry bag with three hundred little pockets that Vince thought was a monstrosity. 

He’d never understand women.

Vin could easily spot his sister in the crowd of excited faces, as they showed Daniels their parent permits. She was in the far back, talking with a much shorter black girl and they were giggling and whispering. Sophia was as tall as the boys in her grade and she attracted quite a bit of attention, so Vince was under sworn duty to watch out for her. 

He hadn’t even wanted to be a part of the trip, unlike Max who had been hand picked by the seniors. Vince had only volunteered as a replacement to Ms. Lobdell after much begging from his mother, only for the literature teacher to injure herself a month ago and end up with a cast leg.

“Hi, Mr. Daniels,” Vince cringed as he heard his sister’s sugary voice, a tell tale of her flirting. This was more awkward than Sophia hitting on Luke. 

“Hi, Sophia,” Max answered without missing a beat, not indulging her in the least, “Hi, Charlie. Permits?”

“I don’t really need papers, mom sent him to follow me around,” Sophia complained glaring in Vin’s direction, but handed Daniels a folded paper. 

Max snorted, “I’ll make sure Mr. Monacelli has enough on his plate he’s not following you around,” he patted the metal of the bus, “go on to your seats, shoo.”

Vince scoffed as he noticed Sophia was red up to her ears as she walked past Max and entered the bus, right in front of him, “comportati, Soph,” he told her to behave herself and she responded by folding her arm in a bras d’honneur, which went over her American friend’s head but meant a loud fuck you to Vin.

“Ready for the trip, Mr. Mo?” Max asked cheekily, as he finished up retrieving the permits and slammed the pile of papers against Vin’s chest, “I’m sure it’ll be great.” 

—------

Senior trips were a dying tradition around the US, but the few schools that still did it normally took their students to Disney World or New York City… Not Doveport. They were mainly a harbor town, made of blue collared workers and glamor wasn’t in their alphabet. 

This year, the trip was to Canada, to a resort that had offered them some incredible rates since it was off season. The only downpoint was that the trip there was nearly five hours long. 

Vince didn’t mind long bus trips, had gotten used to them when in the football team, but he did mind not having anyone to talk to. The teens were noisy, but mostly enthralled with themselves and so excited that no one was causing much trouble. Daniels, on the other hand, had curled up on his seat up the front and gone quiet. 

Vin glanced at his watch. One hour down.

“Are you gonna keep pacing?” Sophia whined, when Vince walked the bus hallway for the fourth time and caused the boys who were chatting her up to sink back to their seats. 

Vince rolled his eyes, “just doing my job.”

“You’re a history teacher, not a hallway monitor,” Sophia spat back without hesitating, “you’re making everyone nervous by walking around like a prison guard.”

He didn’t buy that, but once he glanced over his shoulder, there were more than a couple pairs of eyes glued to his back, probably wondering if he was giving Sophia a hard time and if they were next. Vince sighed. 

“Fine, fine, fine, I’m going back to my seat,” he relented, walking back up to the front. Daniels stirred slightly when Vince sat next to him, grimacing and scratching his prickly cheek.

“Did little miss Monacelli chew you out?” he asked, his voice rough as if he had been sleeping. Vince didn’t know how he could even fall asleep with so much noise. 

“Doesn’t she always?” Vin teased lightly, stretching his legs as much as the cramped seats allowed him. From the corner of his eye he could see Max was still frowning, so Vince squirmed on his seat, retrieving his phone from his back pocket and throwing the other man a quick glance, “you okay?”

“Yeah,” Max nodded, “just tired, that’s all. You got them handled?” 

Vince shrugged, glancing over his shoulder, “they’re all behaving, it’s not as if they’re children. You can take a nap if you want.” 

“Thanks,” the blonde curled up against the window once more, shivering violently and rubbing his hands as if to warm them up.

Not thirty minutes later, Vince snapped out of his New Girl rewatch, because Daniels had just…Kicked him? 

Vin frowned, looking over his shoulder — All of the teens were busy, chatting amongst themselves, napping or listening to music — then back at the blonde. If Vince didn’t know better he’d think it had been on purpose, but no… Max was pressed up against the window and he had an arm curled around his stomach, when yet another twitch hit him and he involuntarily kicked. 

Vin snorted, sliding down his seat and getting comfortable. He was bored, but texting Wendy or his friends was out of question, they were all at their jobs right now. 

An hour later he muffled a yawn of his own, getting up to stretch and looking ahead. Now most of the kids were knocked out and the bus was much quieter. Outside, the sun was setting and the wind had picked up, howling. 

He did another round in the hallway, just to keep his leg from falling asleep and snorted as he passed by his sister’s seat. The teenager was curled up on her friend, snoring softly, long legs folded like an origami project. 

Vince’s stomach rumbled with hunger. There were two more hours to go in their trip, but once they arrived and finished check-in, they had a free pass to the hotel’s restaurant and he couldn’t wait. 

He sat back down and rubbed his stomach to stop the growling, only to realize Max was shivering.

Vin frowned, turning off the mini A/C unit that stayed over their heads. Daniels looked much more friendly when he was passed out, face smooth, no snark. 

“Daniels?” Vince whispered, shaking his arm slightly, “you’re ok?” 

“Uhhhm,” Max groaned, forcing his eyes open, looking out of it. It wasn’t a nap, the man had fallen into slumber. 

“Are you alright?” Vince repeated himself, a little louder.

For a moment it looked like Max was going to bite his head off for waking him up to ask such a question, but then the other man groaned again and shook his head, “I’m fff-fucking fee-freezing,” he said, his teeth chattering. 

Vince raised his eyebrows. The temperature had dropped considerably since the sun set and they were about to cross the Canadian border, but the bus was packed with people and fairly warm. 

“Here,” he said without thinking, digging through his backpack and handing a hoodie to the other guy. Even with the beard covering most of his cheeks, Vince could see the man turning red. 

“I don’t-”

“Don’t be stupid, you’re cold, I’m not using it,” Vince shrugged, “but it’s not that cold…” he reached in without thinking, but before he could feel Max’s forehead, the man slapped his hand away sharply, glaring at him.

“Don’t do that.”

Vince scoffed, turning on his seat in an offended manner. The other man was still a puzzle for him: adored by all teenagers, hated by other teachers. An asshole and ex-bully, but at the same time willingly driving Vince back home when he found the man plastered at 3 AM.

And then there was that haunted look on Max’s face, that Vince had seen the other night with Lucas. That horrible, terrible yearning, which Vince could easily place alongside Max’s cavernous one bedroom house, the fact he never saw the guy hanging out with anyone, never texting a soul… 

When they did park outside the resort, two hours later, the teenagers were quickly shaking off the sleep, their voices getting higher and higher. 

“I want- I want-” Vince pinched his nose bridge as loud piercing laughter interrupted him two times in a row. Daniels was watching the crowd with a pacific smile, happy to let Vince deal with it. 

“I WANT TWO QUEUES,” Vince said loudly, startling the teens and cringing, “GIRLS WITH MR. DANIELS, BOYS WITH ME.”

There was a minute of silence, then hurried steps as they organized themselves. Vince grimaced as he felt a thump to his back and Max whispered, “good job, Mr. Moron, you scared the ducklings,” stepping ahead to shepherd his group of teenage girls. 

It was a minor chaos to sort through all the room keys and get everyone checked-in, but around one hour and a half later Vince finally made it to the bedroom he would be sharing with Daniels. His stomach was hurting with hunger and he was starting to get considerably cranky. 

Max’s bags were on his bed already, claiming it, but he wasn’t in the room. Irrationally, Vince felt a wave of annoyance at the fact the man was probably down in the restaurant having dinner, not that this was Max’s fault at all. 

However, when he made it to the cafeteria… The other teacher was nowhere to be found. Their students were already spreading around, playing as adults and getting together in little cliques. Sophia lit up as Vince walked in the room, something she rarely did and Vince raised his eyebrows as the girl waved for him to join her table. 

He grabbed a bottle of juice as well as his full plate and walked over, sitting on the booth and squeezed between a pack of girls who were all blushing. 

“Yeah?” 

“This place is great, Vin,” Sophia told him, “I never wanna leave.”

Vince snorted, starting to eat. Before him, one of the girls started to rave about the hotel having an indoor heated pool. Vince’s stomach clenched with worry as a million little accidents flashed in front of his eyes. 

“You girls are going to behave, won’t you?” he asked seriously, “act like adults.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Soph dismissed him easily, grinning mischievously with her friends, “do you know if Mr. Daniels is single? We never see him with anyone.We should invite him to swim-”

“I don’t know and even if I did it wouldn’t matter,” Vince glared at them, “you’re all underage, this is simply embarrassing.”

“I’m eighteen!” Sophia cried out, as Vince stood up, taking his food, “c’mon, don’t be such a prude!” 

Vince scoffed, “wait until babbo hears about this, Sophia Maria,” he told her viciously, causing his younger sister to glare at him, her light eyes squinting.

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Try me,” he glared back, “focus on the boys your age, or better yet, don’t focus on any boy. Focus on college.”

“Thank you Mr. Hypocrisy,” Sophia pouted, “you were dating in high school!”

Vince sighed, “and it led nowhere,” he pointed out gently, “I just want you girls to be careful and-” he snapped his mouth shut as Soph yawned at his words, exaggerating it and causing her friends to giggle. Vince rolled his eyes, “leave Mr. Daniels alone, this isn’t cute, he’s working.” 

“Are you dating, Mr. Monacelli?” one of the girls called sweetly as Vince started to walk away, only for Vin to hear as Sophia said sharply “EWw Rita, that’s my brother!”

Deciding he’d have better luck eating by himself, Vince found a secluded corner of the restaurant and all but inhaled his food. He hung around as the kids finished up their meals, then ushered them to bed, despite knowing they were allowed to enjoy the hotel facilities. For the next three days, they were allowed nearly everything. 

His sister had long disappeared, much to his worry, and Vince was still scoffing to himself as he made his way back to the room. Vince’s anger vanished with a puff as he noticed the bedroom was untouched. Max’s bag was still on the bed, but no sign of the man. 

“...Daniels?” Vince kicked the door shut, walking further in and noticing the bathroom door closed, “Daniels, you in there…?”

A beat of silence, and then a groan and Vince raised his eyebrows, walking closer to the door, “man, are you alright?” 

“G’away…” Max slurred, his words sticking together, “m’fine.”

“Uhum, you don’t sound so good… ” Vince picked at his nails, glaring at the knob, “did you have dinner at all? Restaurant is closing, but I can get you a plate if you di-” a retch answered him, a muffled little oh-god before the sound of liquid hitting liquid.

Vince cringed, clearly realizing the other guy was sick. He tried the knob and realized the door wasn’t locked, even if the request for privacy couldn’t be more clear as Max let out a loud groan from the floor and tried to kick him. 

“Gooooaway-”

“Shit, Daniels,” Vince crouched down, taking the other guy in. Max had pulled his hair into a manbun, but some strands had already escaped and they were sticking to his clammy face. He was the color of spoiled milk, white with a green undertone, and there was a dark wet spot in the front of Vince’s borrowed hoodie, a clear tell he hadn’t made it to the bathroom in time, “why didn’t you say anything? I could’ve handled the students-”

“Itssssfine,” his honey colored eyes were dazed with fever, “they’re not hard to…To handle…” He turned his face towards the toilet once more, groaning as another wave of nausea hit him, cheeks puffing as he blew out a belch towards the water. 

“Were you already sick when we left?” Vince didn’t know what to do with himself. If this was any of his friends, he’d be all over them. Rubbing their back, holding back the strands of hair, getting them water, checking their fever… But this was Daniels, who clearly didn’t want him there.

“No,” Max pressed his overheated forehead to the cool porcelain, “just a stomach- Stomachache…” he gulped down nervously, “but I- I get those all the time, so…” 

Vince sighed in sympathy. It must be terrible to be sick so often that Max couldn’t recognize when he was coming down with something or not. 

“Okay,” Vin decided, stripping himself of any grudge he might hold towards the guy. He just couldn’t be mean when Max was looking so pathetic, “are you done? Let’s get you into bed.”

The blonde shook his head, leaning forward and panting over the toilet, “not done…” 

They sat there for another minute, the sick man’s breath picking up and then calming down just as Vince thought he was about to puke. He hung his head in shame, “you don’t have to stay, I’m gonna get you sick… Again.”

“I have nothing to do,” Vince shrugged, sitting against the small hotel cabinet and playing Candy Crush on his phone, “my girlfriend is probably at class right now, so I can’t even call her…” 

Max turned his head to face him, pained lines around his eyes and his lips a grayish shade, wrapping an arm around his stomach, “your girlfriend with the cute bob?” he gestured to his hair and Vince snorted, nodding. 

“Yep.” 

He raised a judgmental eyebrow, “Oh no, please don’t say she’s a high schooler…?”

Vince frowned, “Do you always assume the worst in people? Do I look like the type to date a high schooler, when I’m about to turn twenty five?”

“Yes,” Max groaned, gagging and spitting. He let out a whimper as a cramp hit him, squeezing his eyes and waiting for it to pass, “fuck my entire life…” 

“See, that’s karma,” Vince teased him, leaning back, “I’m not an asshole, you know? Or a criminal. Wendy’s older than me,” he rolled his eyes, “she’s a doctor.”

“But you said she’s in class,” Max pointed out and when Vince only stared at him, he pouted, “humor me? My gut’s killing me, I don’t wanna think about it.”

Vince let out a huff at that, but indulged the guy, “she takes Interior Design classes on thursday nights, she likes to keep busy,” he explained, “I don’t understand why you think I’m such an asshole, you’re the one who were a fucking bully, not me.”

“You look like an asshole,” Max pressed on his stomach, closing the toilet lid and letting out a groan, “and you acted like a homophobic moron the other day, when I said your boyfriend was there.”

This elicited a startled chuckle from Vince, making him throw his head back with such force it hit the cabinet and made him wince, “shit, ow-” he was still giggling and rubbing his head as he said, “I’m not homophobic, I’m bi! You’re ridiculous!” 

“Ah,” was Max's despondent answer, as he leaned back and rubbed his chest in an uneasy manner, “but you were an asshole for no reason…”

“I thought you were being t-” Vince interrupted himself, cringing. It was not his place to out Wendy, “homophobic. You know, the new teacher is gay haha so funny,” he rolled his eyes, feeling very proud of himself for the save. 

“Now I feel queasy, disgusting and stupid, thanks,” Max said sourly, wrapping both arms around his stomach and making Vince snort all over again. 

“You’re welcome,” he got up from his spot, filling up a glass of water for the guy and then offering him a hand to get up from the floor, “you should be in bed, you’re burning a fever there…” 

“Anyone ever tell-” Max swayed on his spot as Vince pulled him up, bracing against the sink, “ever tell you that you’re such a mother?” 

“Not really,” Vince patted the guy’s back with a little too much force, “I’m the chill one of my friend group.”

Max scoffed, leaning over the sink with a wet belch and spitting some frothy saliva “uhmmm… Don’t- Don’t believe you…” 

[allthecanadianpolitics]

This week’s federal budget quietly cut the support offered by the Canada Student Grant program, which is designed to support low-income and marginalized students, from a maximum of $6,000 per year to $4,200 per year. However, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland used creative math and confusing language to present the cut as a $1,200 “increase” in support for struggling students. With federal budget cuts resulting in tuition increases of over 200% since the 1990s, low-income students have relied on a patchwork of grants to reduce their student debt loads for years.

Full article

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[scotianostra]

On December 25th 1950 four young Scots liberated the Stone of Destiny from Westminster Abbey.

Here is a report from The newspaper The Guardian of the story that was enfolding.

“Scotland Yard had no further news last night of the Coronation Stone, the Stone of Scone, or the Stone of Destiny as it is variously called. There is "absolutely no trace” of it, but the police are still busy all over the country - especially on northward routes - looking for it. The stone was stolen in the early hours of Christmas Day from Westminster Abbey.

One theory is that the thieves - or from the point of view of certain Scotsmen, “liberator” - hid in a chapel overnight in readiness for their coup. They had first to prise the stone out of its housing under the Coronation Chair, which is behind the high altar. Then the stone - which weighs four hundredweight and measures roughly 26 inches by 16 inches by 11 inches - had to be carried round to the Poet’s Corner door where, presumably, it was loaded into a car. The police are looking for a man and a woman in a Ford Anglia car which was seen near the abbey in the small hours of the morning.

Descriptions of them have been circulated, and the police say they speak with Scottish accents. It is taken for granted that the stone has been stolen by Scottish Nationalists. The stone, which is rectangular and is of yellowish sandstone, has two rings let into it and normally lies behind a grille under the Coronation Chair. In 1940 it was buried in the abbey and the secret position marked on the chart which was sent to Canada for safety.

It is believed to have left the abbey only once, when it was taken across to Westminster Hall and used for the installation of Cromwell as Lord Protector in 1657. It has been “attacked” before and was once slightly damaged (in 1914), when a bomb was placed under the Coronation Chair during the woman suffrage agitation. Twenty-five years ago, Mr David Kirkwood was given permission to bring a bill for the removal of the stone to Holyrood Palace, but the bill went no farther.

The Coronation Chair is the oldest piece of furniture in the abbey, and has been used for 27 coronations. It was damaged by the removal of the stone; part of it was broken and a strip of wood from the grille was found lying on the floor. Scotland Yard sent a number of CID men, including fingerprint experts, to the abbey and have circulated a description of the stone.

There is no official confirmation of a rumour that a wristwatch was found near the Coronation Chair, but it has been stated that freshly carved initials “JFS” have been found in the gilding on the front of the chair. It seemed evident that the intruders were amateurs, for they made little attempt to hide their tracks. Whether or not they will make straight for Scotland with the stone is doubtful, though one Scottish paper said this morning that the stone might already have crossed the border.

It should not prove a difficult object to hide once it can be taken out of the car which is carrying it, and the police of the two countries are likely to find themselves with a difficult job - not so much in finding the culprits but in finding the stone. If anybody is brought to court either on a charge of stealing or of sacrilege, the case should produce some fine legal and historical points.“

In addition to numerous road blocks, a special watch was kept at docks and airports, while hundreds of CID officers checked hotels and B&Bs in the North of England. Following the delivery of an anonymous petition promising the “return” of the Stone – on condition that it would remain in Scotland – to a Glasgow newspaper, Special Branch officers soon started making enquiries about student political bodies at Glasgow University.

The liberators were indeed Scots, four students from The University of Glasgow, from the University of Glasgow (Ian Hamilton, Gavin Vernon, Kay Matheson and Alan Stuart, travelled to London, entered the Abbey in the small hours of Christmas Day and nabbed the Stone from beneath the coronation throne. They dropped it by accident and it broke in two. They loaded the Stone into their car boot and brought it back to Scotland – despite roadblocks and police searches.

The four became notorious for the daring heist and in Scotland they achieved nigh-on hero status, while in contrast the English were somewhat bewildered. All four of the group were interviewed and all later confessed to their involvement with the exception of Ian Hamilton. The authorities decided not to prosecute as the potential for the event to become politicised was far too great.

At the time, the leader of Scottish Covenant Association, Nigel Tranter commented

“This venture may appear foolish and childish on the surface, but it will have the effect down South of focusing attention on Scotland’s complaints. It takes a lot to get any news of Scotland’s national existence into the English Press, and this sort of thing is the only type of Home Rule story that gets a break in the English newspapers.”

Mungo Murray, 7th Earl of Mansfield and Lord of Scone, the spiritual home of the stone waded in with how he would be “extremely reluctant” to hand the Stone “to the English authorities,” assuming it should be returned to his property at Scone Palace. “In view of the fact that the Stone undoubtedly pertains to the line of Scottish kings, it belongs to the King as King of Scotland, not as King of England,” he said. “In the future the Stone should be kept at Scone or Holyrood instead of Westminster.”

Despite their best efforts, the authorities on both sides of the Border were unable to trace the Stone, at least until April 1951 when – draped in the Scottish Saltire – it was ceremonially deposited at the site of the high altar within the ruins of Arbroath Abbey. The Stone was accompanied by two unsigned letters, one addressed to the King, the other to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, described as “successor to the Abbots of Scone” and therefore the Stone’s “natural guardians”.

It would be a further 43 years before a UK Government agreed that the Stone. when not required for use in such ceremonies, I covered this in depth on St Andrews Day.

Church-bells across Scotland didn’t ring out in celebration – as portrayed in the 2008 film, The Stone of Destiny – yet Ian Hamilton and his friends nevertheless showed how what had seemed permanent and immutable could be changed.

The Stone of Destiny will again be on the move and will be the centrepiece of a new £26.5m museum, in Perth. Construction work on the new museum at Perth City Hall is due to start in February, with it scheduled to open in 2024. The third pic shows an artist impression of how it might look.

[morbidology]

Todd Cameron Smith, 14, was a student at W.R. Myers High School in Taber, Alberta, Canada. During his years at the school, he was bullied tremendously. He was ridiculed for his appearance and mocked for being “pudgey.” One beating left him with a hole in his lip so large he could poke his tongue through it. “When he was truant, he’d be hiding behind the sofa. He was scared to go to school,” said Dr. Clive Chamberlain. On one occasion, he was doused with lighter fluid and threatened to be set on fire.

In mid-1999, Smith’s friend moved away from Taber and Smith’s loneliness and anger exasperated. And then, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold perpetrated the Columbine massacre. Smith became fixated. Eight days later, Smith unlocked his stepfather’s gun cabinet, lifted out a .2-calibre rifle and went to his school. He had 350 rounds of live ammunition in his coat pocket and 25 rounds loaded into the gun. Once inside, Smith began to open fire. He shot and killed 16-year-old Jason Lang and seriously wounded another student. He was wrestled to the ground by gym coach, Cheyno Finnie, before he could fire any more rounds.

Following his arrest, the prosecution argued that Smith was obsessed with violence and that he couldn’t generate true remorse for his actions. In a search of the Brookside Youth Centre where he was being held, several pieces of paper were found where smith had wrote: “I’ll rip your arm off and beat you with the wet end, then I’ll feed it to your dog and rape your girlfriend.” A forensic psychiatrist refuted that a pre-existing medical condition - high blood pressure on the brain - may have led to the violent outburst.

Smith was sentenced to three years after pleading guilty to first-degree murder in 2000. Smith wasn’t publicly identified until 2005 after he escaped from a halfway house in Toronto. Police had to apply to the Ontario provincial youth court with an affidavit in order for the request to be granted. Following the shooting, the father of Jason Lang, Reverend Dale Lang, forgave Smith for his actions. Following the murder of his son, he became a staunch advocate for anti-bullying.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Universities secretly sold their students to online casinos

End-stage capitalism’s defining characteristic is making money rather than making things. Think of how Jack Welch destroyed GE by transforming it from a manufacturing company to a financial engineering shop:

https://the.ink/p/like-capitalism-itself-business-journalism

Hospitals are invoice-generating factories with a sideline in medicine. The electronic health record only incidentally records your health. Its primary purpose is to record your billing-codes:

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/ehrs/physicians-spending-nearly-2-hours-a-day-on-ehr-tasks-outside-work.html

And universities? Ugh. Most universities now have more administrators than faculty:

https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2022/08/administrative-bloat-harms-teaching-and-learning/

Much of that “administration” comes down to begging alums for money to funnel into vast endowments, but heaven forfend those endowments would be used to cover payroll and other essentials, even in a pandemic emergency:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/reneemorad/2020/04/21/harvard-under-fire-for-accepting-nearly-9-million-in-coronavirus-relief-funds/

Nor are endowment funds available to pay the education workers who actually teach students, but can’t afford the rent, food, or family:

https://www.capradio.org/articles/2022/11/14/nearly-50000-university-of-california-graduate-student-employees-launch-open-ended-strike/

The point of the endowment is to increase the size of the endowment — not to improve educational outcomes or research. That’s why Harvard is “A hedge fund that has a university”:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-hedge-fund-that-has-a-university-1510615228

This is the overwhelming logic of capital: capital exists to increase capital, and the underlying mechanism for that increase is irrelevant. This was the reasoning behind the surreal bid to sell the .ORG nonprofit registry to a secretive hedge-fund.

The point of the .ORG registry is to host domain records for nonprofits; incidentally, this throws off some extra money that is turned into grants for public interest projects. The board decided to sell off .ORG so it could make more of these grants, despite the fact that this would compromise the mission of hosting .ORG domain records:

https://www.eff.org/press/releases/org-domain-registry-sale-ethos-capital-rejected-stunning-victory-public-interest

Likewise, this was the reasoning of the Mountain Equipment Co-Op board when they decided to sell off the member-owned co-op (“the most trusted brand in Canada”) to a US private equity fund without consulting the members:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/16/spike-lee-joint/#casse-le-mec

The expand-capital-at-all-costs mindset is a virulent species of brain worms. It’s the basis for surreal movements like effective altruism, which encourages people who want to do good for the world to sell out to the most toxic industries on Earth, amass gigantic fortunes, and then, upon their death, donate them to causes that in some way remediate the harms they themselves wreaked:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earning_to_give

In his new book Survival of the Richest, Douglas Rushkoff calls this “The Mindset” — “I need to make vast amounts of money, no matter what the consequences, or I will not be able to afford to insulate myself from the consequences of how I made all that money”:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/13/collapse-porn/#collapse-porn

Once you let people with The Mindset anywhere near your institution, they will take it over and turn it into a paperclip-maximizing killing machine, one that abandons and then betrays its mission to increase its profits, eventually killing its host. Anything that can’t go on forever will eventually stop:

https://doctorow.medium.com/anything-that-cant-go-on-forever-will-eventually-stop-110ba9711133

That’s what’s happened to higher ed. It’s not just the payroll full of starving adjuncts, facilities workers, etc. It’s not just the way that universities join forces with textbook monopolists to gouge their students:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/07/markets-in-everything/#textbook-abuses

Beyond academics having to rely on food-stamps, students going into lifetime debt to enrich predatory textbook monopolies, and the other horrors of financialized higher ed, there’s the special evil of college sports.

Like all finance-bro motivated reasoning, college sports are sold as a way to do well by doing good: “Look! We’re giving poor people a chance at a great education based on their physical prowess, and we’re racking up tons of money for the university!”

But — like all finance schemes — college sports is a self-licking ice-cream cone that destroys the lives of the people who generate value for it, even as it devours its host institution from within.

Did you know that until very recently, college athletes weren’t allowed to make a penny from their labor?

https://www.scotusblog.com/2021/06/in-unanimous-ruling-court-agrees-with-athletes-that-ncaa-violated-antitrust-laws/

Did you know that those same athletes experience lifelong brain injuries?

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2791303

Did you know that college sports are a cesspit of long-term, officially tolerated sexual abuse?

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/nov/30/ohio-state-michigan-doctors-sexual-abuse-college-football

Did you know that the highest paid public employee in many states is a football coach at a state college?

https://www.profootballnetwork.com/highest-paid-college-football-coaches-2022/

Did you know that college coaches conspired with the rich parents to steal sport-related admission slots from poor kids and give them to mediocre winners of the orifice-lottery?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varsity_Blues_scandal

In many universities — whether public or private — the sports program effectively runs the show. Take the University of New Hampshire: back in 2016, a university librarian named Robert Morin left his life’s savings to the school after 50 years of service. Morin lived frugally for that half century and amassed a personal fortune of $4m.

He believed so deeply in the university’s mission that he turned it all over to the school without any restrictions. Talk about earning to give! The university blew Morin’s gift on a new jumbotron for their sports stadium:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/09/16/university-to-buy-1-million-football-scoreboard-with-thrifty-librarians-money-outraging-critics/

The people who see universities as inconvenient adjuncts to exploitative sports teams know that there are still rivals within higher ed who think the point of the school is to educate students.

That’s why the universities that arranged to allow sports gambling websites to target the young people in their care did so in secret.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/20/business/caesars-sports-betting-universities-colleges.html?unlocked_article_code=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACEIPuonUktbfqYhlSVUZAybfQMMmqBCdnr_EybEnj2XlaTONTixe1KEfDpSc-kHCILdlZsU-xS-aWN5MK_okQ_h2w-BSJAptVwys6NOiqagyHh8U-8i1T39kmNXER6w5-jvnKWDmIe5ymOTn-hvbbzH1XKzbg2lxIVpvvZY2d12t3yMDwKmVFfVnmYUrhYdXDZ54TT8KZiWY7bK_W1glZoLwPlyL4RI2WupZRTnQgdWfjrsCew5TAl7FJ2httSd-sJgPfYNKY9usakIoa8H8gr4OCmd3LYvPBpQ5RILck70Coqf9dPDE9RFVhqXegnp2EK4F

Writing for the New York Times, Anna Betts, Andrew Little, Elizabeth Sander, Alexandra Tremayne-Pengelly and Walt Bogdanich reveal the extraordinary corruption and depravity of college administrators who colluded with sports book companies to bring gambling to campus.

Implicated in the scandal are such top schools as Michigan State, U Colorado Bolder, Louisiana State, Syracuse and Texas Christian Univeristy (mission: “to educate individuals to think and act as ethical leaders and responsible citizens”).

On the casino side, the major player is Caesar’s, which is only fitting — Caesar’s was driven to bankruptcy by private equity who managed to financialize a casino into ruin:

https://www.ft.com/content/a0ed27c6-a2d4-11e7-b797-b61809486fe2

Caesar’s offered universities millions of dollars for the right to directly sports betting to students. The MSU deal, brokered by university officials Paul Schager and Alan Haller, was worth $8.4m. That is to say, Caesar’s was asking the university to help it drain at least $8.4m from students’ bank accounts in order to turn a profit.

Louisiana State U did a similar deal with Caesar’s, and then embarked on a direct marketing campaign to sell sports gambling to students who were too young to legally place a bet.

LSU says this was a mistake. Cody Worsham, a university official who holds two offices — associate athletic director and chief brand officer (!!) — said that Caesar’s and LSU “share a commitment to responsible, age-appropriate marketing.”

Meanwhile, U Colorado Boulder struck a deal where it earned a $30 bounty every time a student went from non-gambler to gambler — in other words, Boulder didn’t make money by advertising gambling to students — it made money only if its students started gambling.

These student gambling programs are designed to keep children betting even if they lose money, with teaser offers that refund some losses if students keep placing bets.

This is obviously unsavory stuff. That’s why the architects of these programs went to enormous lengths to keep it secret. The state schools involved funneled their deals through private marketing agencies that were shielded from FOIA requests, specifically to prevent the public from learning how public universities were conducting their affairs.

As MSU executive associate athletic director Paul Schager put it: “With the multimedia rights holder, public institutions like Michigan State no longer have to disclose all those sponsorship deals. This helps with the sponsors being able to spend what they feel is appropriate without having the public or employees or stockholders question that investment.”

The deals themselves are far-reaching. As part of MSU’s Caesar’s deal, tailgate parties before big games would be “Caesarized,” with the casino providing ad-copy for the live announcers to read to attendees. As a figleaf, $25,000 of the millions that MSU received from Caesar’s was earmarked for gambling addiction education.

The deals weren’t just kept secret from the public — they were also hidden from top university oversight. At UC Bolder, the Board of Regents was informed of the deal mere hours before it was announced to the public.

These deals have only been running for a couple months and it’s too soon to chart the long-term harms they’ll create in the student body. But, the Times* notes, there is an one harm that surfaced almost immediately: student athletes are now subject to vicious abuse by their fellow students, who lose money they can’t afford when their peers lose a game.

[Image ID: A gaudy casino floor. In the foreground is a figure in college graduation robes giving a double thumbs-up. His head is a grinning skull with a mortarboard.]

[itgetsbetterproject]

🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ Feelin' rejected - A VA school board rejected our $10,000 It Gets Better grant for students!

We started our 50 States. 50 Grants. 5000 Voices initiative two years ago, and since then we've been able to grant more than $1 million to schools across the U.S. and Canada for student-led projects that support LGBTQ+ students.

Students have used the grant funds to host Pride parades and educational conferences for LGBTQ+ students and allies, create educational materials for parents on gender and sexuality, build gender-affirming closets and gender-neutral restrooms, and so many other amazing projects.

GSA club students at E.C. Glass High School in Lynchburg, VA successfully applied and were chosen for one of our grants for their idea to create a calming, affirming, safe space for fellow students. But unfortunately, we learned that their school board has rejected the grant.

GSA Co-President Brittany said, "We worked so hard to get this. We submitted videos and testimonials from our students and how they have conquered so much; it was so surreal to be awarded the grant."

Co-President Chester said, "I've had panic attacks in classes before and have been sent to the hallway. I used to sit on the floor and cry. Having a room where I could actually go calm down and not worry about the other students judging me - it would be amazing."

Just another example of how anti-LGBTQ+ biases and misinformation hurt real-life queer youth. Let's hope the school board has a change of heart - reblog to show your support and read the article here.

[fatehbaz]

If you wanted to know more about the saga of protests and resistance against Canada’s open-pit copper mining in Panama:

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Screenshot and headline from: “Canadian firm blames Panama for closure of copper mine.” AP News. 16 December 2022.

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Headline from: “Panama: Canadian mining company First Quantum denied to expand copper exploitation area for alleged failure with environmental commitments.” Business & Human Rights Resource Centre. 26 January 2023.

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Headline from: Valentine Hilaire. “Panama won’t allow Canada’s First Quantum to expand its copper mine operations.” Reuters. 26 January 2023.

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Headline by: The Associated Press. “Panama reaches 20-year deal with Canadian copper mine.” As republished at ABC News. 8 March 2023.

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An excerpt and explanation:

In Panama, a dispute has emerged of a type that is common to countries in Central and South America: a huge transnational company has invested in the country’s resource wealth, resulting in a conflict over suitable payments to the government that draws in officials from the company’s nation of origin in defence of corporate profits. In this case, the company in question is First Quantum Minerals, a mining giant with lucrative investments across the Global South -- and the country of origin is Canada.

This summer [2022], Panamanians rose up in nationwide protests against the neoliberal status quo imposed on the country by the government of Laurentino Cortizo.  Beginning on July 1, these protests brought together diverse groups including teachers, students, trade unionists, farmers, and Indigenous organizations [...]. The causes of the summer 2022 protests go back decades and help illustrate the dynamics of the current conflict between First Quantum (and their backers in Ottawa) and the Panamanian state.

Throughout the 1990s, Canada aggressively pushed for states in Central and South America to adopt neoliberal reforms that would permit more foreign investment and fewer regulations for transnational companies. [...]

Several protest movements emerged in Panama in the 2010s in opposition to the effects of free market reforms generally and the predominance of Canadian mining specifically.  At the heart of these resistance movements is the Canadian-owned Cobre Panamá mine, which is the largest foreign investment in the country [...].

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Cobre Panamá was owned by the Toronto-headquartered Inmet Mining until 2013, at which point it was acquired by Vancouver-based First Quantum. In 2011, the Martinelli government attempted to limit the Indigenous Ngäbe-Buglé nation’s rights to autonomy and self-government in order to grant mining companies access to minerals on their land. Meanwhile, Martinelli repealed a law that prevented foreign governments from investing in the mining sector -- a gift to Canada’s Inmet Mining, which at the time was seeking financing from the sovereign wealth funds of Singapore and South Korea.

These moves sparked protests that continued into 2012. Martinelli responded to demands for the annulment of mining and hydroelectric concessions on Indigenous territory with violence by dispatching riot police. The police killed one protestor, injured thirty-two, and detained forty.  The protestors did not budge; instead, they blocked the entrances to Cobre Panamá and another mine owned by the Canada’s Petaquilla Minerals.  Eventually Martinelli relented and vowed not to approve mining projects on or near Ngäbe-Buglé lands.’

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During the 2011-2012 conflict, nobody in the Canadian government issued a single statement on the matter.  When protestors took to the streets again in 2022, Ottawa released a statement that totally omitted the reasons behind the uprising.

Following the economic shock of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Cortizo government declared that Panama’s recovery would rely on incentivizing foreign investment in the mining sector. Social movements have by and large rejected this new arrangement due to the history of corrupt collaboration between state officials and foreign companies and the weakness of environmental protections.

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For example, in April 2022 the Panama Worth More Without Mining Movement -- which arose in opposition to the Canadian-owned Cobre Panamá mine -- released a report that found over 200 “serious” breaches of environmental commitments by the project managers, including the breaking of reforestation promises, “the felling of 876 hectares… in an area of high biodiversity and international importance,” and “the discharge of waste from the tailings tank into natural bodies of water without official endorsement.”

Following the summer 2022 protests, the Cortizo government announced plans to reform the mining sector by instituting greater regulations on foreign companies. In the meantime, the Panamanian state and First Quantum were in the process of negotiating a renewed contract. Jason Simpson, CEO of Canada’s Orla Mining (which is hoping to begin extraction at its Cerro Quema gold project), said, “The biggest story in Panama is Cobre Panamá, so as the government works through their renewed contract law for First Quantum’s asset there, that’ll take priority… We’ll be patient for that to be resolved and then we hope to get working on construction in Panama.”

The negotiations for the renewal of the Cobre Panamá contract began in September 2021. The two parties agreed that First Quantum would provide Panama with between 12 and 16 percent of its gross profit, a new rate that would replace the previous two percent revenue royalty. [...]

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Much like Ottawa jumped to the defence of Centerra Gold following Kyrgyzstan’s nationalization of the Kumtor gold mine last year, the Trudeau government has taken a keen interest in Cobre Panamá and, according to the unnamed Reuters source, is actively backing the mining company’s position. Given Canada’s long history of support for neoliberal reforms and transnational investment in Central and South America, Ottawa’s support for First Quantum in these negotiations should come as no surprise.

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Headline and text by: Owen Schalk. “Ottawa backs Canadian mining giant in dispute with Panama.” Canadian Dimension. 26 December 2022. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph contractions added by me.]