Thursday, May 28, 2026

-ug and -ig Word Story

(TESOL Materials--CVC Words)

Google: slides, pub
Based on this storybook, from this chat here.  (I used Gemini Storybooks to create this.)

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Vampire's Kiss: Movie Review


Links to stuff mentioned:
Best Scenes from "Vampire's Kiss": https://youtu.be/kfcJUl39iiA?si=ugwIKAtlE5rat9E0

This is part of my so-called "Scripted Review" series, in which I make a Youtube video based on an old blogpost.  For more information on what this is and why I'm doing it, see HERE:
In this case, the old blog post is here: https://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2014/03/vampires-kiss.html


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*Sigh* I really didn't want to write this post, but I feel like I have to now.
In my (admittedly long and rambling) review of the Oldest Stories Podcast, I at one point briefly mentioned that I was uncomfortable with some of the views expressed on the Oldest Stories Podcast Twitter account, but since these views mostly tended to stay separate from the content of the podcast, I wasn't going to hold the politics of the podcaster against him.
At the time I said that, the Oldest Stories Podcast wasn't actively tweeting.  (He had gone on a Twitter hiatus since mid-January).  But in the past few days, he's been active on Twitter again, and some of what he has been tweeting is objectionable.  And (unless my memory is playing me false) what he is currently tweeting is more blatant and more objectionable than anything he had previously tweeted--at least within the last year.

Since I published my review back in February, I have continued to promote new episodes of the podcast on this blog (here, here, here, here, here, here and here).  But I'm now going to stop doing this, for fear that my promotion of the podcast could be taken as agreement with the views expressed on the Twitter account.

Now, I need to make a couple of important caveats here:
1). This guy is not a celebrity or public figure.  He's an ordinary Joe who is podcasting in his free time.  So for that reason, I am going to do my best to avoid putting him on blast.  I'm not going to link to the offensive tweets.  I'm not going to describe them. In fact, I wouldn't be writing this blog post at all, except for the fact that I have been recommending and promoting the Oldest Stories podcast on this blog, and I feel I need to make clear that I am not promoting the views expressed on the Oldest Stories Twitter account.  (For reasons that are mysterious to me, he is using the Oldest Stories Twitter account to post these views, which make it difficult to separate his personal views from his podcast.)

2). I believe that we can and should separate the art from the artist, and that we should also expose ourselves to people who have a variety of viewpoints.  So I'm not going to stop listening to the podcast myself.  I'm just no longer going to be promoting that podcast.  (I'm going to continue listening to it quietly, without linking to it from this blog.)
And again, the fact that he's using the Oldest Stories Twitter account to promote his personal political views makes it hard to promote one without feeling like you're endorsing the other.

I'm also not calling for him to be cancelled, or anything like that.  I'm just trying to put some distance between his views and my own endorsements.

(I had thought about continuing to link to his new episodes, but also including a disclaimer with each new blog post saying, "I don't approve of the views on his Twitter feed," but I decided against it.  I don't want to have to say that every single time, and he's not going to appreciate that kind of qualified support anyway.)

One last thing: I had mentioned in my original review of the Oldest Stories Podcast that I was seriously considering buying his books (based on the podcast) and reviewing those as well.  But I no longer have any plans to purchase or review his books.
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Wednesday, May 27, 2026

Birds Vocabulary

(TESOL Materials--Animals)

* Slideshow: slides, pub (I used this slideshow to present the vocabulary, and also to do a board race.  I also print them out and use them as materials for quiz quiz trade.)

[Note: This vocabulary is based on the vocabulary from pages 124 and 125 of Oxford Picture Dictionary for the Content Areas.  But I believe this material could also be used independently for any lesson on animal vocabulary, so I'm posting it here.]


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Superman: The Triangle Era Omnibus Vol. 1: Book Review






Links to things mentioned:
Steve Donoghue's video on these books: https://youtu.be/ClLDHvXGeQg?si=zDJD0EyWMkQWJPjA
Michael K. Vaughan's video on these books: https://youtu.be/gcJGoVMk6B4?si=jSiC2mqmgBeAVEHG


Related Playlists:





Superman: The Triangle Era Omnibus Vol. 1: Book Review Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOY-0V_l_9x50ri5b1i2DdFuAamyfrgt5&si=m_hyZJ4eEMFK4hDg
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Superman Index

Comic Books
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Tuesday, May 26, 2026

Started: The Newsboy Legion by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby: Volume One
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Contrasting -ug and -ig words

(TESOL Worksheets--CVC words)

Google: docs, pub

[Notes: These are matching cards that I use to practice the difference between the -ug words and -ig words.  It is based on the words and images from -ug cards and -ig cards activities.]

bug

big

dug

dig

jug

jig

pug

pig

rug

rig


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Orwell never stopped being a socialist.  Even after Spain.


I probably bungled by framing this as a response to some randos writing Youtube comments.  What I really wanted to respond to was the widespread perception that Orwell abandoned socialism after Spain.  This was something that I was even taught in high school, and I think it's commonly taught in American high schools.  That's why I want to clear this up.  The comments were just what set me off.

Links to everything mentioned:

The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius by George Orwell: https://www.telelib.com/authors/O/OrwellGeorge/essay/lionunicorn.html



Toward European Unity by George Orwell:  https://orwell.ru/library/articles/European_Unity/english/e_teu


Related Playlist:


I posted this exchange previously, but I should post it here as well: 

Addendum:  The Youtube comments I complain about in this video are actually part of the same comment thread I mentioned in this post.  In reply to my comment that great books are not necessarily apolitical, someone wrote:
Yes the new animated children's movie Orwell's "Animal Farm" suggests that Socialism will work just fine if we can only get the right people in office.  To add insult to injury, the Angel Studios production also suggests that Capitalism is bad and perverts Orwell's intent and warning about totalitarianism.
I should have let this go, but the assertion that Orwell's message was perverted by the suggestion that capitalism is bad just was so wrong that I couldn't resist correcting it.  So I wrote:
But you know George Orwell was a socialist, right?
And he replied: 
Right. Who better to warn of the dangers therein?
I wasn't so sure he got it, but I decided to let it go.
Only until he went and fought in the Spanish Civil War and realised what a false economy (pun intended) socialism is. 
That's when he wrote Animal Farm. In other words, he lived in the world, then started to critique and severely moderate his ideology in response to reality. You know, like an intelligent adult does.
Okay, well at least now we have pinpointed the exact nature of the error in need of correcting.  So I attempted to do some correcting:
That's a popular misconception.  I encourage you to do a bit more research on Orwell's politics.  Possibly start with a collection of his essays. Maybe reread Animal Farm again.  You can also google what were Orwell's politics, or read the wikipedia entry.   Orwell was disillusioned in Spain not with the economics of Socialism, but with the way many socialists supported totalitarianism.  He wrote about this in Homage to Catalonia, which is a book  well worth reading.  
But the best place to start is "Why I Write", an essay in which Orwelll discusses among other things why he wrote Animal Farm.  You can find this essay online.  Orwell states in the essay "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism"
She never replied to this, but the original guy returned to write:
Yes remember the same people who said Biden was sharp as a tack are the same ones who now try to tell us that Animal Farm has been misread and misinterpreted.  They also say that political violence and assassination are better than voting.  Remember, all literary criticism is equal, but some is more equal than others.
No one in this comment thread had previously mentioned Joe Biden or voting or political violence, etc.  So his brain has obviously been fried by rightwing memes on social media, and whenever he gets into any sort of political debate, he can't help but just shout out the memes he's absorbed.  That he should be doing this in a discussion about Orwell is an irony that is apparently beyond him.  (Orwell despised the type of person who could only dialogue by repeating slogans.  He complained about this frequently throughout his writing, and also lampooned this with the sheep in Animal Farm.)
I decided there was no value in continuing this discussion, but as you can see from the fact that I'm writing about it here, it did get under my skin somewhat.
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Monday, May 25, 2026

Animal Farm (1999): Movie Review



This is part of my so-called "Scripted Review" series, in which I make a Youtube video based on an old blogpost.  For more information on what this is and why I'm doing it, see HERE:


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