An Interrupted Dawn

A fresh sadness has cast its cold shadow over me. It caught me by surprise but not because I’m unaccustomed to flickering light. I’m too old to be unaccustomed to such common things. I’m not afraid. Just surprised. Surprised because I thought it was morning.

2020 was such a dark year. Like you, no doubt, the global darkness of the pandemic fell like a lead blanket over a personal season that would also throw a wool shawl over my man & me. Our 2 kids did just what they we’re supposed to do. They grew up. To our great fortune, we still

got to live a lot of family life. The halls of our house rang a constant ruckus. Grandchildren running, skating, cartwheeling, dancing, leaping, hiphopping, dog-ball-throwing, nerf gun launching. Adults eating, discussing, debating, arguing, discoursing and opining as Moores do.

Then the Lord moved one. Then the others. Moved them far away. I blame it entirely on the Lord because that’s how I can accept and embrace it as good. I know it was him because even I can look at it—at what he’s orchestrated for my people—& nod & say, Amen. So be it. It is well.

What he’d given Keith & me in having both our girls & their loves all these years was a gift, not a right. Amen. So be it. It is well. I hesitate to write this part because my girls will see it & I know they will hate it because they love their mother. So I’ll say it quickly like

THREAD: On the full-fledged process of responding to a Revise-And-Resubmit (R&R).

I have written pieces of the process, but I hadn't actually written a thread or a blog post showcasing how all my blog posts fit with one another. I teach this process when I give workshops.

So here's what I do (now), and let me share a lesson from my past lives:

DO NOT SIT ON R&Rs.

I know, they're painful and scary and sometimes we don't know if our paper will get rejected in the end.

But remember, an R&R means an OPPORTUNITY to get your paper published.

Sitting on R&Rs, leaving them for later, and not prioritizing them has gotten me fewer publications. I know this for a fact. I am not ashamed of admitting that I have sometimes felt that I will not be capable of responding to multiple (often conflicting) comments.

HOWEVER...

Sustained, frequent advice from professors who are senior to me (though I am senior myself now too) is always the same and on-point:

The goal is the R&R.

You're not getting a desk rejection.

You are getting your work read, reviewed carefully, thought about, responded to.

What do I do now (and have been doing for the past few years, with success)

When I get the R&R (the "decision letter"), I make sure to calm down, because I am always afraid I'm going to get nasty comments. These have been (luckily) very rarely present in my latest submissions.

Street urchin Keith

Give me fast reflexes, bloodied fists, stiff upper lip. Give me a chip on his shoulder and something to prove because he’s lived this long on his own and he’ll be DAMNED if he’ll let anyone walk all over him.

Give me a secret heart of gold.

Keith’s scrappy, wiry, and muscled, all sharp edges from the outside... hunger and endless fighting will do that, will carve you down to muscle and bone.

He doesn’t get along with others much, but there’s something in him that won’t settle for seeing innocents kicked around.

(Maybe it reminds him too much of when he was young, those years until Shiro when he didn’t have someone to stick up for him.)

He’s got an issue with authority, a cynical streak a mile wide, and a hesitance to open up to anyone who hasn’t earned his trust. He’s used to fighting for himself.

But he’s discovering he’s good at fighting for others, too.

He sees kids getting picked on, people being harassed, and assholes using their power and authority to get their way.

He’s there with his fists raised and a snarl on his face, his attitude flaring up. He scares off the bullies but waves away the “thank you”s he’s offered.

1/ All I keep thinking about in this moment are all the horrible things that Rush Limbaugh did and said. Just flashes of them.

Like how following Trayvon Martin's death, he tried to convince people it was okay to say "n word" now as long as you ended with an "a" (and said it).

2/ Or how, one of his "undeniable truths" was that "Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of pop culture."

3/ Or how if a prominent woman would publicly defend another woman, he would refer to it as "solidarity of the vaginas."

4/ How he absolutely hated Michelle Obama...and used to refer to has as "moo-chelle." He really liked this because it both attacked her for mooching off system as he claimed and because it was his way of calling her a cow (he thought she was fat).

5/ He had this one song called "Barack the Magic Negro." The lyrics were even more racist than the name. And he played it all the time. He was still playing that song during his show a few months ago.

Daily Bookmarks to GAVNet 02/16/2021

I have some thoughts on this.

Coming from a former alt-righter and former cult member who is still deradicalizing.

This is gonna be long.

Thread time.

This is de-radicalization going terribly wrong. This is keeping the tactics you learned in a hate group, but turning them on others. This is not unlearning. This is changing targets.

This is weaponizing what you learned to harm those who personally don't back you.

Look, I could sit here and break down my life. Break down the threats I've faced. Break down the ways I learned to find people IRL. Break down why I endorse being anon if you need to. Break down why this behavior is wrong.

But you know what? Screw that. Others covered that.

What I am going to say, is that it is a tactic of cults to teach you that you are the bravest, the strongest, the best, because of your membership in a group and your goals. That you are better than the masses. Above them. You are superior. "The Alpha", as Amy says.

It teaches you to be belligerent. Aggressive. If they're not with you, they're against you. It teaches you to center yourself. Everyone else doesn't matter. They don't understand. They aren't on the same level as you.

It's a delusion.

Rather than cheat on your spouse, the honourable thing to do is quit the marriage
I know many people would rather want to eat their cake and have it, in principle, people who do that are scums and cheats
Either you are the husband or the wife, you have a duty to yourself to stay

faithful to your spouse regardless of the circumstances or the situation you find yourself in
If the situation is such that you cannot cope with the relationship, the best thing to do is walk out and stay out.
A lady came to my office claiming her husband was a two minute man and

the lack of sexual satisfaction had almost driven her into the street in search of a lover
She hadn't done anything yet...
She was just considering it because of the frustration the quick ejaculation issue the husband has was causing her
She made sure she dragged her husband to

my office too
She had been talking to him about it and she really wanted him to take her serious on the issue so that they can address it
Her husband didn't form
He acknowledged that he had a challenge and had tried so much to address it to no avail
They have a daughter and the

husband was willing to do anything to keep his home
His openness and sincerity impressed me
Many men do not like to talk about their sexuality or deficiency in that area because they assume it belittles them
He was not like most men
I asked him a salient question that day
I said

LEEDS LEADS CLIMATE BREAKDOWN

8 hours and 1000 flawed arguments and biased procedures later, Leeds City Plans Panel voted 9-5 for airport expansion and the false promises of economic growth.
For “what Leeds needs is a premier-league football club and a premier-league airport”
🧵

1/ There was a lot of "I do care about climate change, BUT" – followed by a lot of blah blah. Blah blah economic growth. Blah blah connectivity. Blah blah competitiveness. Blah blah Manchester. Blah blah Westminster. Blah blah offsetting. Blah blah electric planes. Blah blah blah

2/ Also a lot of "I do have sympathy for residents suffering from planes flying over their roofs at night, BUT” - followed by more blah blah.
One councillor kindly offered his advice: “the way to less noise is more planes”. Right, Sherlock. Want to try that in your backyard?🤦‍♂️

3/ The true sympathies were revealed at the end. The Panel's priority was not the well-being of those living under the flight path, nor the lives and livelihoods of threatened by climate breakdown. Their priority was a bigger, noisier airport, with a terminal in bronze-champagne.

4/ First declaring your sympathy for people’s suffering and then supporting a development that directly aggravates their suffering, is a proper kick in the face for those suffering the consequences. Like first declaring a climate emergency and then aggravating climate breakdown.

There is a highly instructive symposium on "Veil of Ignorance" #ProcessTracing in the new @APSAtweets QMMR publication https://t.co/nxqEQ9HaRz There is lots to say ab it. For now, I want to focus on whether (causal) qualitative research has a problem w/ confirmation bias that 1/

needs to be addressed.
In short, Veil of Ignorance process tracing aims to blindfold the data collectors and analysts to the hypotheses to reduce risk of confirmation bias.
Proposal receives a lot of criticism by all respondents, partly for valid reasons, partly not, IMO 2/

If there was no bigger issue with confirmation bias, there would not be much benefit in talking about blinding in qualitative research.
As Beach notes, the intro to the symposium does not present evidence that bias is a problem. This is correct, but there is also no evidence 3/

that confirmation bias is not a problem. It's an absence of evidence situation with regard to comprehensive, direct evidence, i.e. from verification studies of qualitative research (for studies that are built on an epistemology for which the idea of verification makes sense). 4/

However, I'd say there is circumstantial evidence that confirmation bias is a problem.
1) Evidence for confirmation bias in quantitative research: The developments around #OpenScience and transparency in quantitative research in different disciplines present diverse evidence 5/

Reading a Reddit AMA with a former Q believer and he had a really insightful thing to say: “Conspiracy theory thinking hooks the brain because it feels like critical thinking.”

That seems very true from what I’ve observed. The thread is here if you’re interested:

I also thought it was interesting what shook him out of it: a post from Q containing obviously false information about the field he worked in, computers. He realized the technobabble made no sense, so what else was wrong?

As for what got him in in the first place? He grew up a fundamentalist Christian and so was primed with stories about how only they knew THE TRUTH about things like evolution, the end times, etc, and the rest of the culture was just full of powerful lies. Perfect breeding ground

If you want to see a really good in-depth exploration of how someone falls down an internet rabbit hole into extremism (not Q, but related to it in that it’s about white supremacy and far right politics), I’d recommend the podcast Rabbit Hole, from Kevin Roose at the NYT

In light of the Boogie Crew here is a interesting first person account of what these guys and some others are about...

https://t.co/KzeHyuiNCC https://t.co/R1AezblPEx

Was Sent this = Long Winded
Warning: We have received this info yet we ask all of you to discern and take it to the Lord. There is a lot of disinfo right now. We do have faith in the folks who have shared this with us.

Lot of chat about instructional coaching. To get it right, don't underestimate the time it takes!

- There has to be a shared vision for effective T&L from the coaches. Keep revisiting this and keep unpicking all the elements so they are able to break them down and explain them.

We used the Evidence Review by @ProfCoe to create some effective teaching habits, using a lot of TLAC techniques and work from @every_lesson. Knowledge and expertise and ability to break this down is vital.

Lots of time then required with coaches to look at lessons and look at highest leverage point. In one training session our coaching team picked out over 30 tweaks in a 5 minute video. Where do you start? Why there? Consistency key. Leads to great debate.

Time needs to be built in. Time for visits, time for coaching sessions, time to practice. SLT need to all understand the process and buy-in and all live it. Putting staff development first is truly exciting and hugely powerful if actioned in the way it is desired.

Teachers/coaches need to have the process modelled for them. Staff need to understand the why behind IC, not just what it is. Worth talking through research on teacher's habitual practice from @mikehobbiss and @DrSamSims.

He was at the office when he received the phone call
It was from the most unexpected source
It was from the administrator of the Headquarter of the church he was attending
He joined one of the branches of the church as a young man and had grown to become an altar minister. He had

always known he was called into ministry but he didn't know why he had been summoned to the headquarters.
He got there very early the following morning, he was barely seated when the pastor of the branch he was with also came in
They were ushered into the office of the pastor in

charge of the headquarter church
There was a few chit-chats
More like a job interview and then the pastor of the headquarter church told him his pastor was being transferred abroad on mission work and had recommended him to take over the affairs of the church
He didn't see it

coming
The Pastor in charge of the headquarters parish told him he came highly recommended and she believed he would deliver
She prayed for him and told him she would come to their parish the following Sunday to come and make the announcement official
He drove home with his head

in the clouds
He was aware the pastor would be traveling for mission work but had assumed the church will post another pastor to the parish
He was just 33 years old at the time and it was the last thing on his mind
When he got home, he told his wife the good news
He also told som