Alex Freidus

Hello from Minnesota

Three years ago, my father suddenly needed all kinds of health support. Figuring that out was bad enough. What I wasn't ready for is the way the ads for supportive devices, elder care services, etc aggressively followed me for the next year. That was just from buying a few products online.

I honestly wondered if this was an Onion headline when I first read it.

NYC educators, join us! Open across grades, disciplines, job categories

Join us! tinyurl.com/HEALSI2026

#sschat #socialstudies #nycschools #edusky #teachered

The money but also... my partner has a job? And it's location-based. And maybe other people's kids are more flexible (actually, I know for sure many of them are), but if I put them in a new school for a year, the amount of time I'd have to spend on IEP enforcement alone...

I have never been able to understand how residential fellowships work financially, logistically, or personally for anybody other than an independently wealthy single person.

10/10 take. no notes

Imagine being mad that your daughter is a genius

It's got Carol Burnett! What could be more important?

I mean, sometimes people don't respect things precisely because their parents embrace them. Even supposed grown-ups who should be past that stage.

Example #3 million for my students on avoding the passive voice.

My school district is being forced to lay off several educators and a librarian because of a $500,000 budget gap, or roughly the amount spent on the war while I was typing this post.

Side note. When I was 22, I took a friend to look at an Oakland studio to sublet. The person who lived there mentioned that she was one of Butler's doc students, I said something about having read their work, my friend got the summer sublet. I still feel like I owe Butler (many things, actually).

I continue to be gobsmacked at 1) how common this formulation is 2) how antisemitic and generally bigoted it is 3) and how for all the talk of anti-semitism this is never cited as an example even though it’s quite literally the original incarnation.

An original Nashville sit-in member, along with Diane Nash, James Bevel, and John Lewis. Trained in non-violence by James Lawson. At age 21, he signed a will before the Freedom Rides, knowing he could die.

May his soul be at peace, and may we all have such courage in the face of oppression.

Tish James is a hero. She’s done so much to defy MAGA & protect vulnerable NYers. Surely this paragon went to the finest Ivies for her training.

What’s that? She went to CUNY & then Howard Law?

But Ted Cruz, Pete Hesgeth & Tom Cotton are all double Ivy?

Huh.

Excuse me, Jon, I carefully commented on the pet expenses post...

A. All of this is wild
B. My HSA account just won't let me buy items that aren't sufficiently healthcare related. Card won't go through, receipts don't get reimbursed, etc. How is there no similar mechanism for ESA?

Those three downed jets run around $90 million each.

It cost $20 million a year to operate the food kitchens serving 816,000 people in Sudan.

I lived a few streets down from the site where the Philadelphia Police Department firebombed an entire city block in 1985, and when I mention it in lecture most of my students seem absolutely incredulous

My partner manages a public space, including snow removal. They pay for hotel rooms for all workers who need to stay overnight. In midtown Manhattan.

Would love to require that any/all of these "disciplinary actions" come with resource allocations so the department can cover the academic's teaching, mentoring, and service duties.

I have said this before, but eliminating programs that teach a lot of students but don’t have many majors is like a restaurant not buying flour in its grocery delivery because people aren’t ordering flour on the menu.

OMG the past two weeks have involved juggling multiple competing deadlines while kids were first home on mid-winter break, then for a snow day, and then for a couple sick days. 10 year old has gone to school ONCE since Feb 13. Thank goodness new Bridgerton just dropped.

Good martial arts teachers are really amazing. I encourage student teachers to watch how they hold kids to high standards while genuinely encouraging them.

The Trump Administration Can’t Kill Black History Month We don’t need permission from the government to commemorate a complex past.

Last week, my mother took me and my kids to see the school where, 60 years ago, she was among the first wave of Black students to integrate a previously all-White school. We wanted to remind my kids that Black history is not just famous people in textbooks, it is often the people right next to you.

They beat a blind refugee who speaks no English for failing to obey police commands he could not understand. Then instead of apologizing, they charged him with possession of a “weapon”—HIS WALKING STICK. Then they dumped him miles from home without notifying anyone, after which he was found dead.

It's the Overton Window of reality TV

Explaining things "as a parent."

Sometimes I wonder what my motivation is at this stage in my career. And it's this. Making sure small-minded men die mad about my inclusion. And propping the door open for as many smart and kind people as I can.