Newly elected school board president sworn in on stack of banned books

stopthatgirl7@kbin.social to politics @lemmy.world – 633 points – Newly elected school board president sworn in on stack of banned books
dailykos.com

Pennsylvania’s Central Bucks School District was one of the places where Moms for Liberty lost big in the 2023 elections, with a right-wing school board majority swept out and replaced with Democrats. On Monday night, Karen Smith—who had been serving on the board in the Democratic minority prior to this election—was sworn in as the school board president, part of the wave of change from the anti-LGBTQ+, pro-book-banning board voted out in November. She made a powerful symbolic choice when it came to what book she’d be sworn in on: not the Bible or another religious book, but a stack of frequently banned books.

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She's a testament that not all Karen's are bad.

There are some damn cool Karen-looking folks out there.

When I was a gawky high schooler, I worked in a pet store. A lady came in demanding a refund for a broken bottle of flea spray. I apologized and took a look at it: turned out she hadn't flipped the little fiddly bit on the end of the nozzle around correctly, so it was actually functional.

She still didn't want it, and demanded a cash refund. Small independent pet store, so we didn't do that for credit card purchases, or ones without a receipt: store credit only, unfortunately. She started to get mad, and I told her she could talk to the manager first thing on Monday. She wasn't having it.

Behold the entrance of a Savior sandwiched between spiky dyed-blond hair and leopard-patterned pants. Summoning the strength of all the Karens out there - but wielding that power for good - she put herself between us. She started by simply telling her to "leave this poor kid alone, he doesn't make the rules", but when it was clear that the lady wasn't going to budge, she advanced on her prey and said "if you're too stupid to figure out how to use a spray bottle you don't deserve a refund anyway".

Wish I could thank her again: it defined the best and worst of working retail.

Retail can be draining but you can also meet some really nice people as well. My experience was fairly innocuous and I wouldn't mind doing it again.

How dare you insinuate my first wife from Harvest Moon 64 is a lush and only likes me for my dog... Wait a minute.

Ah yes the default wife.

All my buddies went with Ann or Maria. I would've gone with Elli or Potpurri next myself.

Elli got them mom vibes and Potpurri was just cute.

I can not remember what version it (the playstation one?) was but if you did not get a wife by a certain point in the game she would just show up and force you to marry her. I guess they did not have it programed to be forever alone.

Never played it, just the SNES one. I liked it and am curious so maybe I'll check it out on emulation or something.

It's definitely worth on emulation too. Making use of 2-4x speed makes things go by a lot quicker if you enjoy efficiency. Getting around and time management were always big in the older games if you wanted to err toward the side of completionist or being a slut lol.

Why not both? Who doesn't love a complete slut.

I don't generally enjoy petty shit injected into what should be boring government actions (return to boring government when?) but this I can definitely get behind.

I hope between this at Central Bucks and Pennridge also getting rid of the MAGA members and canceling the Vermillion "education" contract that all my local school districts will finally be out of the national news for being off the rails.

I don't have kids, but I do care about kids and education, so I was so relieved to see these people get kicked to the curb where they belong.

Central Bucks just needs to fix that crooked $500,000 severance package and "legal immunity" pushed through last minute for the nutty superintendent that only worked there 2 years and supported this stuff.

I read Night in school, but I didn't remember this quote:

“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”

This is what Enlightened Centrists either don't understand or don't care about. I would have been devastated back then to know what the US has become.