The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

 

The good:

"Carlos Oyarbide, who teaches English Language Development in South Central LA, is all too familiar with its reputation as a regular visitor.

'There's truth in the violent stereotype, but I choose to teach there. It is an immigrant hub with a great sense of loyalty and community. And that community has an entrepreneurial spirit.'

That spirit has been harnessed at Mr Oyarbide's school, Nava College Preparatory Academy. The school was the trial site for a scheme that has pitched using the metaverse to help teach English to students with a limited grasp of the language.

The term metaverse is used to describe a series of virtual reality worlds that can be accessed through a browser or virtual reality (VR) headset.

The idea behind the scheme is to harness the power of VR technology to bypass traditional teaching methods and plunge students into a world of possibility in a virtual universe.

The idea that VR can be used to boost learning isn't new. In 2020, a study by business consultants PwC found that through the use of VR students could learn up to four times faster than in a traditional class setting.

However, the falling price of VR headsets has now made them a more affordable teaching aid."

The bad: 

"A series of blasts rocked Kyiv on Monday morning, with some strikes landing in the heart of the Ukrainian capital’s downtown during rush hour, and rocket attacks hit cities across the country — Russia’s apparent revenge for an explosion Saturday on the Crimean Bridge.

Suspected Russian missiles caused heavy explosions around 8:15 a.m., and vehicles were in flames near Taras Shevchenko Park — on a road often jammed with rush-hour traffic.

At least five people were killed, and at least a dozen others were injured in the strikes, Ukraine’s national police reported on its Telegram channel.

Explosions were reported across other major Ukrainian cities on Monday, including in Zaporizhzhia, Dnipro, Kharkiv and Lviv, as Moscow unleashed a barrage of missiles."

The ugly:

"Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville asserted that Democrats support reparations for the descendants of enslaved people because 'they think the people that do the crime are owed that.'

The first-term Alabama Republican spoke at a Saturday evening rally in Nevada featuring former President Donald Trump, a political ally. His comments were part of a broader critique in the final weeks before the Nov. 8 election, when control of Congress is at stake, about how Democrats have responded to rising crime rates. But Tuberville’s remarks about reparations played into racist stereotypes about Black people committing crimes.

'They’re not soft on crime,' Tuberville said of Democrats. 'They’re pro-crime. They want crime. They want crime because they want to take over what you got. They want to control what you have. They want reparation because they think the people that do the crime are owed that.'

He ended his appearance with a profanity as the crowd cheered.

Tuberville is falsely suggesting that Democrats promote crime and that only Blacks are the perpetrators. In fact, crime has slowed in the last year and most crimes are committed by whites, according to FBI data."

War criminal thug Putin is increasing his vile attacks on Ukrainian civilians in a terrorist campaign to shatter their will to continue, as his army of looters and rapists withdraws in the face of Ukrainian forces. 

Racist Tuberville echoes those southern politicians from decades ago, who openly associated African Americans with crime and sloth. He's shown that it's increasingly permissible -- encouraged even -- in the Trumpist cult to say the racist part out loud.