Esoteric Meandering Shouting Into the Void

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

It’s nearly October and Halloween spirit stores are open and the childish pleasure of Halloween and horror stories is definitely in the air. So I’m gonna start now on explaining many of the legends of Halloween and maybe make them into a semi spooky story.

On a cold October night, when the air grows thin and the shadows seem to move on their own, old words whisper their secrets. One of those words is “lu.” Long ago, in the tongues of our ancestors, lūna meant the moon, casting its pale light across a haunted world. In French, loup meant wolf, the prowling creature of the dark forests that surrounded their villages. Over centuries, these words tangled together in folklore, and soon “lu” was tied to both the light of the moon and the howl of the wolf.

But how did the two become inseparable in legend?

The earliest tales spoke of men cursed to wear the skin of wolves. In Greece, there was Lycaon, who angered Zeus and was transformed into a beast. In the icy north, Norse warriors donned wolf pelts, believing they could channel the fury of the animal. Yet none of these tales mentioned the moon. That came later, when villagers looked up at the swollen full moon and felt its strange pull. It was said the moon stirred madness—lunacy—making men restless, unstable, even violent. And when the wolves howled at that silver disc in the sky, what could be more natural than believing it called to their human brothers in disguise?

So the myth was born: under the full moon’s light, a man cursed with the blood of the wolf would twist and break, his bones reshaping, his voice becoming a howl. It was not just the wolf in the forest to fear—it was the neighbor, the farmer, the friend, who by night might bare his fangs.

And as Halloween approaches, when the moon rides high and the night grows long, the old warning echoes still:

When the lu (moon) shines brightest, the wolf may be walking among us.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

Kamala Harris warned us, point-blank, during the campaign: “If I come into the White House, I’ll bring a to-do list. Donald Trump will bring an enemies list.” Turns out, she was being charitable. Donald didn’t bring just an enemies list—he brought a middle-school burn book, complete with glitter glue, Sharpie doodles, and Pam Bondi playing DOJ Barbie as his enforcer.

Let’s be clear: Kamala’s “to-do list” was about actual governing—fixing health care, protecting reproductive rights, stabilizing democracy. You know, boring adult stuff like making sure people can afford insulin and keeping the lights on in Washington. Trump’s “list” looks more like the scribbled rage notes of a mall cop who got fired for sleeping on the job. He doesn’t want to govern; he wants to settle grudges from the last forty years. If you once said mean things about his hair, his spray tan, or his tragic escalator entrance, congratulations—you’re on the list.

And who better to weaponize the nation’s top law enforcement agency than Pam Bondi, the woman whose résumé is basically “Fox News pundit” and “loyal Trump parrot.” She’s not Attorney General material—she’s a cosplay version of it, all glossy veneers and rehearsed outrage, holding subpoenas like fashion accessories. Lady Justice is supposed to be blindfolded; under Trump and Bondi, she’s wearing false lashes and peeking out to make sure she’s arresting the “right” people—the ones who ever dared cross Dear Leader.

The hypocrisy is Olympic-level. For years, Trump shrieked about the “weaponization” of the DOJ, about how Democrats were running witch hunts. Now? The Mango Moron has strapped the DOJ to his private jet and turned it into his own hit squad. It’s not about justice; it’s about vengeance. It’s not about law; it’s about loyalty. And Bondi, ever the eager Barbie doll, smiles for the cameras while she sharpens the knives.

The sad part is—it’s all so predictable. Trump doesn’t do “policy.” He does vendettas. His idea of a second-term agenda is a scrapbook of grudges. His vision for America is simple: a nation run by one man’s fragile ego. And if you dare laugh at the emperor’s orange clothes, you’re in legal jeopardy.

Kamala Harris saw it coming. She told us the truth. And now, while she keeps ticking off her to-do list, Trump and his DOJ Barbie are busy scribbling new names onto the enemies list. It’s government by tantrum, law enforcement by vendetta, democracy by demolition derby.

We could have had adults in the room. Instead, we’ve got Donnie and his doll.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

Friends, we’ve done this before—and we’re going to do it again.

Back in 2018, when Trump strutted into Washington thinking he was untouchable, the American people reminded him who really holds the power. We organized. We marched. We voted. And we took back the House of Representatives. That victory wasn’t just a headline—it was a lifeline. It was proof that when democracy is on the line, we don’t sit on the sidelines.

And now, here we are again. 2026 is our moment. The stakes? Higher than ever. This is about whether we continue forward as a democracy—or slide backward into the grip of a wannabe dictator who wants power without accountability, obedience without question, and loyalty to himself instead of to the Constitution.

But here’s the truth: he only wins if we give up. And we are not giving up. We’ve beaten him before, and we’ll do it again. Because we know the playbook—grassroots organizing, relentless truth-telling, and most of all, showing up in numbers too big to ignore.

We are the firewall. We are the movement. And in 2026, we are going to shut him down in his tracks.

So let’s do what we do best. Knock the doors. Make the calls. Register the voters. Spread the word. And remind every American that our future is not his to steal—it’s ours to shape.

Together, let’s make 2026 another turning point. Together, let’s defend democracy. Together, let’s win.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

Alright, let’s wade into this glorious swamp of hypocrisy. The very same crowd that once puffed their perms to the heavens, caked on eyeliner like it was war paint, and strutted across stages in leopard-print spandex tighter than a sausage casing, are now shrieking into their Fox News-branded megaphones about the dangers of men in dresses. Yes, the generation that raised their fists to Twisted Sister’s anthem “We’re Not Gonna Take It” now seems absolutely determined to take it — all of it — away from anyone who doesn’t conform to their suddenly delicate sensibilities.

Let’s start with the obvious. If you were at a Mötley Crüe concert in 1985, chances are good you saw Vince Neil teetering on high heels, doused in eyeliner, and wearing more lipstick than your mother owned. Nikki Sixx wasn’t exactly dressed for Sunday service either — unless your church was run by Liberace. The glam rock era wasn’t just music; it was a full-on drag show with pyrotechnics, shredding guitars, and a chorus of mullets. And the crowd? They loved it. They cheered for it. They bought the albums, wore the merch, and tried to tease their hair into the same Aqua Net-defying shapes. And now these same people — these leather-pants apostles of glam excess — are clutching their pearls over a drag queen reading Green Eggs and Ham to kids at a library? Please.

What makes it even richer is that Twisted Sister’s Dee Snider himself — the very poster boy of glam metal gender-bending — once had to testify before Congress about music censorship in the infamous PMRC hearings. He stood there, in his ripped T-shirt and mascara, defending freedom of expression against Tipper Gore and the moral scolds of the 1980s. Fast-forward a few decades and some of the very fans who screamed “yeah, Dee, stick it to The Man!” are now being The Man — demanding book bans, attacking libraries, and hyperventilating about a drag queen whose biggest crime is probably mispronouncing “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.”

And let’s not forget the sheer absurdity of the complaint itself. We’re talking about grown adults who once blasted songs about sex, drugs, and partying until dawn, yet they’re terrified of children being “corrupted” by someone in a sequined gown reading Where the Wild Things Are. Newsflash: kids aren’t going to be warped by a story hour; they’re going to get warped by watching their dad scream at the television every night about immigrants, or by mom’s Facebook rabbit hole full of conspiracy memes about litter boxes in schools.

The cognitive dissonance is staggering. These folks cheered for artists who strutted onstage in thigh-high boots and fishnets, but drag queens — who are doing essentially the same thing, just without the Marshall stacks and pyrotechnics — are apparently civilization-ending threats. It’s like they forgot their own adolescence, or maybe they’re too embarrassed to admit that their “bad boy” idols wore more makeup than RuPaul.

So yes, the irony here isn’t just thick — it’s practically a new genre of metal. Imagine if Dee Snider had told his fans back in ’84, “Hey, thirty years from now you’re all going to be outraged by drag queens in libraries.” They would’ve laughed him off the stage. Yet here we are: the Aqua Net warriors of yesteryear transformed into cranky culture warriors, still shouting “We’re Not Gonna Take It!” — but this time, it’s directed at someone reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar. You can’t make it up.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

I wanted to take everyone on a little tour of my brain when I’m trying not to focus on the existential threat of what is going on in our world today. Here’s a little trip down the rabbit hole.

So, here’s the thing—Gilligan’s Island. “A three-hour tour.” A THREE. HOUR. TOUR. And yet, somehow, Ginger shows up with a wardrobe that would make Cher jealous during a Vegas residency. The Howells? They’ve got steamer trunks, evening wear, tennis whites, pearls, and a portable safe. On a day cruise. Who brings formal wear to a glorified booze cruise? Were they expecting a Titanic-style gala on a tiny boat piloted by a guy named “Skipper”? Oh, and let’s not forget the Professor. The man couldn’t fix the boat, couldn’t patch a hole, but somehow—SOMEHOW—he had the tools, raw materials, and electrical know-how to build a radio out of coconuts, a washing machine out of bamboo, and what was essentially a renewable energy grid in the middle of nowhere. But patch the damn boat? Nope. Apparently, coconut-based naval engineering wasn’t part of the curriculum.

And don’t even get me started on the food situation. They were supposed to be gone for three hours. Three. Hours. Yet there was always an endless supply of fruit, pies, and random props like ropes, tents, and medical kits. Like, who’s catering this island? Is there an Amazon Prime drone dropping packages just out of camera range? And why, after YEARS stranded, did no one look remotely sunburned? No peeling, no tan lines, no desperate mosquito-swatting? Either that lagoon had an SPF rating of infinity, or the Professor secretly invented Coppertone out of palm fronds.

But wait—here comes the mental hard left turn—because thinking about TV absurdities makes me leap straight to Happy Days. A show filmed in the 1970s about the 1950s. Fine, nostalgia goggles, leather jackets, jukeboxes, The Fonz smacking appliances into obedience—cool. But here’s the horrifying part: if we did Happy Days now, in 2025, it would be about the year 2000. The year 2000! You know, Y2K panic, frosted tips, Napster lawsuits, the Spice Girls fading out while Limp Bizkit was inexplicably popular. People were still carrying Nokia bricks and bragging about 200 text messages a month. You’d have an entire episode about someone trying to burn a mix CD without ruining the disc, or someone screaming because their mom picked up the phone and kicked them off dial-up AOL.

And as a Gen X-er, this is where the cold sweat sets in—because the 2000s don’t feel like “retro.” They feel like, I don’t know, last week? Like I could still find a Blockbuster return envelope under my car seat. But no, apparently, kids now look at the year 2000 the way we looked at Happy Days. The past. Ancient history. The retro aesthetic. Which means someday, some dead-eyed network exec is going to greenlight a laugh-track sitcom where the “cool guy” is wearing JNCO jeans, flipping open a Motorola Razr, and saying “Talk to the hand” without irony.

And that, friends, is way scarier than being stranded on an island with Gilligan, a suitcase of sequined gowns, and a professor who can invent a nuclear reactor but not a damn raft.

Thanks for taking the short trip down the rabbit hole…

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

Let’s get one thing straight right out of the gate: MAGA is not a political party, it’s not even a political “movement.” It’s a cult. A big, red-hat-wearing, grievance-chanting, logic-immune cult. You can slap some stars and stripes on it, have rallies that look like NASCAR meets Pentecostal revival, and pretend it’s all about patriotism—but at the end of the day, it functions less like a serious ideology and more like the Church of Trump, where loyalty to the Dear Leader is the only sacrament.

Political parties debate policy. Movements advocate for ideas. Cults, however, demand blind allegiance to one man, insist on rewriting reality to fit his narrative, and excommunicate anyone who dares to ask questions. Sound familiar? MAGA doesn’t have a platform beyond “whatever Trump feels like today.” Remember when the Republican National Committee literally gave up writing a platform in 2020 and just said, “We support Trump”? That’s not politics. That’s a cult’s mission statement: “Our doctrine is whatever the prophet tweeted at 3 a.m.”

And let’s not overlook the rituals. The rallies are indistinguishable from revival tents, complete with the chanting of slogans, mass displays of merchandise (all proceeds, of course, funneled to the leader’s coffers), and the ecstatic belief that Trump is simultaneously a persecuted martyr and an all-powerful savior. Logic doesn’t enter into it. A political movement would ask, “What policies make sense?” MAGA asks, “How can we better worship the man who can’t walk down a ramp without assistance but assures us he’s the most vigorous specimen of humanity alive?”

The paranoia also reeks of cult dynamics. MAGA devotees are convinced they alone see “the truth,” while the rest of the world is brainwashed. Never mind that their version of “truth” involves lizard-people Democrats drinking baby blood and Hugo Chávez hacking voting machines from beyond the grave. Cults thrive on paranoia. Political movements, in contrast, thrive on ideas. The MAGA idea is simply: if you don’t worship Trump, you’re a traitor.

Of course, every cult needs enemies. And oh, how the MAGA church loves its enemies: the media, the “deep state,” immigrants, anyone who uses pronouns other than what Fox & Friends approve of. Enemies justify the persecution complex that keeps the cult glued together. After all, what’s a messiah without the evil empire supposedly trying to destroy him?

And let’s not ignore the financial angle. Cults are always about money, and MAGA is no different. You can’t just show up and believe—you’ve got to buy the merch, donate to the PACs that cover legal bills, and, if possible, tithe your Social Security check directly into Trump’s defense fund. A political movement tries to raise money to win elections. A cult tries to drain every last penny from its members while assuring them that bankruptcy is simply a test of faith.

Ultimately, what makes MAGA a cult and not a political movement is that it requires the total suspension of reality. Gas is $3.50? Trump would have made it 25 cents. Hurricanes? Never happened before Biden. Indictments? Just proof of his holiness. Cult members don’t care if the predictions never come true, if the contradictions pile up, if the leader is a walking scandal factory. Their faith is impervious.

So let’s stop pretending. MAGA isn’t a movement to “make America great again.” It’s a cult dedicated to making one man feel great about himself, again and again, no matter the cost to democracy, decency, or basic human intelligence. The red hats aren’t symbols of patriotism; they’re membership badges in the Church of Trump, where questioning is heresy, loyalty is salvation, and reality is optional.

And the cruelest irony? Like all cults, MAGA will eventually burn out. The question is whether it takes the rest of us with it before the Kool-Aid runs dry.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

Oh, the toughness. The grit. The unflinching, ice-veined masculinity of Trump and his acolytes, embodied in the loyal stormtroopers of ICE. These men (and a handful of women, mostly for photo ops) like to remind us at every opportunity that they are the wall between “civilization” and the chaos of desperate families whose biggest crime is fleeing gang violence or famine. Clad head-to-toe in black tactical gear, Kevlar vests bulging at the seams, they strut like they’ve just parachuted into a war zone. Except the “war zone” usually turns out to be a church basement, a community clinic, or a Greyhound bus. And the “enemy combatants”? Women clutching toddlers, children carrying juice boxes, maybe a grandfather with a limp. The ICE commandos throw them down, cuff them, and parade their bravery, because obviously the most pressing threat to the Dear Leader’s empire is a six-year-old with a Pokémon backpack.

But wait—don’t be fooled. These guys are tough. Just ask them. They’ll tell you all about the dangers they face, about how every knock on a door could be their last, every detention center raid a brush with death. Except, of course, when there actually is violence at a detention center, the tough-guy narrative collapses faster than Trump trying to walk down a ramp. Case in point: a shooting erupts in one of their beloved cages. One detainee killed, two others injured. Blood spilled, lives shattered. And ICE? Well, not a single one of these Kevlar-clad warriors so much as grazed by a bullet. But still, they clutch their pearls, wipe their brows, and scream, “ICE is under attack!”

Let’s pause and admire the audacity of this victim cosplay. Three migrants—people locked up in conditions so inhumane that Amnesty International can’t write reports fast enough—are the ones who pay in flesh and blood. Yet somehow, ICE manages to spin it into a war story where they’re the heroes, and simultaneously, the victims. It’s a remarkable talent, really: turning human suffering into propaganda for more funding, more toys, more jackboots.

And Trump? Oh, he eats it up. For a man who nearly collapses when an escalator turns into stairs, ICE is the perfect extension of his mythology. They are his muscle, his black-clad avatars of “strength.” Never mind that their “strength” is deployed against terrified families who pose less threat than a malfunctioning handrail. Never mind that when real violence intrudes, ICE is nowhere near the line of fire. In Trump’s telling, they are warriors besieged, noble gladiators defending the republic from the invasion of—checks notes—mothers nursing babies.

What’s most grotesque is how eagerly the cult laps it up. They cheer the images of ICE agents dragging children away at dawn, but then demand sympathy and tax dollars when their “heroes” cry danger after not even being scratched in an actual shooting. These are the “tough guys” America is supposed to admire: soldiers in an imaginary war, cosplaying courage while avoiding any real risk. They puff out their chests, pose for campaign ads, and remind us of their bravery—all while their Dear Leader trembles at the sight of a staircase.

If this is toughness, then maybe toughness has gone the way of Trump’s escalator: broken, ridiculous, and leading nowhere.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

Donald J. Trump, the Mango Mussolini himself, once again found the perfect stage to showcase his world-class grievance collection: the United Nations. And this time, it wasn’t a speech, a summit, or some grand geopolitical maneuver that sent him into an apoplectic fit. No, dear reader, it was the escalator. Yes, the UN’s escalator. That humble moving staircase, designed to keep diplomats and staffers from breaking a sweat while ferrying themselves between floors, had the audacity—the gall!—to malfunction in the presence of Trump. Suddenly, the escalator became… stairs. Temporary stairs. And for Trump, this was nothing less than an international incident.

Now, for most people, an out-of-service escalator is a minor annoyance, perhaps even an opportunity to burn off the croissant from breakfast. But for Trump, whose entire mythology was literally born on a golden escalator ride down to the 2015 campaign announcement, this was a direct assault on his person, his ego, and his God-given right to be transported smoothly, effortlessly, downward. To have his big moment at the UN reduced to—oh, the horror—walking? Unthinkable. A calculated man with a very calculated ass, Trump couldn’t stomach such indignity. After all, how can you project supreme authority if your thighs are forced into the vulgar, proletarian act of climbing?

Naturally, his syncope-prone minions rallied to his defense, treating this as though the Secretary-General himself had ordered the mechanical sabotage. On MAGA airwaves, this was spun as an “extreme affront” to the man they insist is still the rightful Commander-in-Chief. One pundit gravely declared it “escalator-gate,” while another whispered about “deep state stair tactics.” The narrative is clear: an out-of-order escalator isn’t just maintenance—it’s a conspiracy.

The absurdity, of course, writes itself. Trump once whined about having to walk down a ramp at West Point, terrified the cameras would catch his delicate gait. That clip haunted him for weeks. Now, the UN escalator betrayal has reawakened his greatest insecurity: being seen as anything less than the golden god who descended effortlessly into America’s political nightmare a decade ago. The image of him trudging, red-faced, step by step, like a mortal—oh, it’s intolerable. His followers have practically canonized the escalator itself, and now it’s as though a sacred relic has been desecrated.

It’s telling, though, isn’t it? The man who claims to command armies, economies, and divine providence can be undone by the failure of a moving staircase. His cult, meanwhile, nods along, as though this minor inconvenience were proof of the world’s grand plot against their dear leader. And so, Trump rages, his entourage faints on cue, and the rest of us are left watching the spectacle of a man reduced, once again, to a parody of himself—all thanks to the cruel tyranny of gravity.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

The Republican Party, the self-anointed guardians of “fiscal responsibility,” have once again demonstrated their unparalleled mastery of the art of doing absolutely nothing — except, of course, threatening to shut down the government while pointing fingers at the Democrats for not cleaning up their mess. Bravo, GOP. Really, give yourselves a round of applause. If governing were a performance, you’d be headlining the world’s longest-running farce.

Let’s start with the basics: Congress has one job it absolutely must do every year. Just one. Pass a budget. That’s it. That’s the bare minimum requirement of stewardship over the world’s largest economy. And yet, Republicans — those tireless warriors against “wasteful spending” — haven’t managed to pass an actual budget since Nancy Pelosi’s last one. Instead, they’ve been limping along on continuing resolutions like a college kid living on expired ramen noodles and dollar store energy drinks. The government only keeps its lights on because Democrats, yes Democrats, keep extending these temporary Band-Aids over the gaping wound of Republican incompetence.

But here comes the twist: the GOP, in its infinite wisdom, has decided that since they can’t govern, they’ll just shut it all down. Because nothing says “we care about the American people” like furloughing federal workers, closing national parks, stalling veterans’ benefits, and putting paychecks for military families on the chopping block. Of course, they won’t call it what it is — hostage-taking by legislative toddlers. No, no. They’ll spin it as “Democrat obstruction.” The party that has spent years throwing wrenches into the machinery of government now cries crocodile tears about how Democrats won’t compromise. Compromise on what? On funding bills they haven’t even written? On policies they can’t agree on within their own caucus?

The GOP has become the political equivalent of a drunk driver careening down the highway, swerving all over the road, and then blaming the cops for pulling them over. They scream about “fiscal responsibility” while their favored leader racked up trillions in debt with tax cuts for billionaires. They clutch their pearls about deficits while refusing to touch the bloated Pentagon budget, which eats more cash than the next ten countries’ militaries combined. They cry that Democrats “spend too much” — and yet, when given the gavel, they can’t even cobble together a coherent plan to balance the checkbook.

And here’s the kicker: they don’t actually want a budget. Passing a real budget would mean putting their priorities in black and white for the world to see. It would mean admitting that their promises don’t add up, that you can’t slash taxes, increase military spending, gut social programs, and still pretend to be deficit hawks. Continuing resolutions are their perfect cover: they can huff and puff about “waste” without ever being forced to make hard choices or reveal just how hollow their platform really is.

So instead, they choose dysfunction as a political weapon. They want chaos, because chaos gives them talking points. If the government shuts down, Republicans get to trot out their favorite scapegoat: “The Democrats made us do it.” Yes, of course. The Democrats forced Republicans not to pass a budget. The Democrats forced them into their endless infighting, their refusal to compromise, their obsession with appeasing the most unhinged voices in their caucus. It’s all Nancy Pelosi’s fault, somehow, even though she left the Speaker’s chair ages ago. By GOP logic, she must still be lurking in the shadows, pulling the strings like some liberal puppet master, single-handedly stopping Republicans from lifting their pens and writing an actual budget.

This is not governance. It’s sabotage. And it’s sabotage carried out by people who swear they love America but treat its institutions like chew toys. Republicans like to style themselves as patriots, defenders of the republic, heirs to the Founding Fathers. But the Founders, for all their flaws, at least understood the concept of responsibility. Today’s GOP is more like a toddler who drops an ice cream cone, then screams that someone else should pay for a new one.

The truth is painfully clear: the GOP doesn’t want to govern because governing requires competence, accountability, and yes, compromise. What they want is permanent grievance theater, where the government lurches from one self-inflicted crisis to another, while Fox News runs the highlight reel. They thrive on dysfunction because dysfunction lets them play the victim. And when the lights go out, when the paychecks stop, when the country stumbles? Well, they’ll just point at the Democrats again and hope the voters don’t notice who actually lit the match.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

The so-called “three R’s” of education—reading, writing, and arithmetic—have always been a bit of a farce. Only one of them actually starts with R, but we accepted the slogan as if it were some sacred truth. That linguistic sloppiness foreshadowed a much deeper flaw in our schools: a system obsessed with appearances and shortcuts rather than actual learning.

The greatest failure came with the rise of standardized testing. What was once intended as a tool to measure progress quickly became the point of education. Entire school years are now organized around bubble sheets and benchmarks. Students don’t learn to think; they learn to perform. They don’t practice analysis, debate, or synthesis; they practice regurgitation. Education has been reduced to a performance of obedience rather than an exercise in discovery.

This wasn’t some natural drift—it was engineered. No Child Left Behind in the early 2000s shackled schools to testing, punishing those who didn’t “make the grade.” Race to the Top in the Obama years doubled down, tying teacher evaluations and school funding to test scores. What was once a diagnostic became the entire definition of success. And so, under pressure from state boards and administrators, teachers were forced to “teach the test,” trimming away art, civics, and critical inquiry in favor of test prep drills.

The fallout is obvious. We’ve raised generations of students who can answer what but not why. They can plug formulas but cannot apply them to real-world problems. They can memorize facts, but not evaluate sources. And in an era of conspiracy theories and information warfare, that’s not just an academic weakness—it’s a threat to democracy itself.

Teachers, meanwhile, have been stripped of autonomy and creativity. They are judged by their students’ test scores, not by their ability to foster curiosity or ignite a love of learning. Many of the best leave the profession out of frustration, while those who remain are trapped in a system that treats them as test administrators rather than mentors.

So how do we fix it? First, we need to rethink assessment entirely. Testing has its place, but it should measure growth and understanding, not dictate the curriculum. Project-based learning, essays, debates, and real-world problem-solving give a far clearer picture of student ability than multiple-choice guessing games ever could.

Second, we must restore teacher autonomy. Teachers are professionals, not robots. Trusting them to craft lessons that spark curiosity and adapt to their students’ needs is the surest path to genuine learning.

Third, we need to emphasize civic and critical education. In an age of misinformation, the most important skill isn’t memorizing a formula—it’s learning to ask, Is this true? Who benefits if I believe it? How do I know what I know?

Finally, we must broaden our definition of success. Education isn’t about producing test scores—it’s about producing citizens capable of reason, creativity, and empathy. If we want a healthy democracy, we have to nurture those qualities, not measure them away.

The irony is that the “three R’s” left out the one that matters most: reason. Until we restore it, we’ll keep producing graduates who can take a test but can’t think their way out of a con. And history has already shown us how dangerous that is.