A view of the California State Capitol in Sacramento, Calif., Aug. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Juliana Yamada, File) A view of the California State Capitol in Sacramento, Calif., Aug. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Juliana Yamada, File) A controversial California bill designed to create content standards for mandatory high school ethnic studies courses and prevent antisemitism in classrooms was pulled by its authors Wednesday. The move marks the second time an attempt to restrict what can be taught in ethnic studies courses has failed to gain traction, despite support from more than two dozen Democrats in the state Assembly and Senate. Have $1M+? Try Our Calculator Ad Have $1M+? Try Our Calculator Fisher Investments Learn more call to action icon Ethnic studies has been a contentious topic in California classrooms for several years, but tensions have skyrocketed amid the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and sparked student protests, district lawsuits and community rifts. A state mandate passed in 2021 requires public high schools to offer a course in ethnic studies by the 2025-26 school year. By 2030, students won’t be able to graduate without it. But California teachers and school districts are mostly free to design their own courses, with a hard-fought state model curriculum established in 2021 as the only set of guidelines for educators. Several Bay Area schools have been caught in the crossfire amid claims their course content is antisemitic, igniting lawsuits, campaigns to recall school board members and retaliation against teachers. AB 1468, introduced by Democratic Assemblymembers Rick Chavez Zbur of Los Angeles and Dawn Addis of San Luis Obispo, would have required the state Board of Education to adopt content standards for ethnic studies by January 2028, restrict course topics to “domestic” experiences and conflicts and require the state Board of Education to monitor and post online the course materials being taught in classrooms throughout the state. Giving Makes a Difference Ad Giving Makes a Difference ifcj.org Learn more call to action icon Zbur and Addis had introduced a similar bill last year, but it faced heavy opposition from the California Teachers’ Association and the California Faculty Association and was pulled by the authors. This week, Zbur and Addis pulled AB 1468 and introduced a new bill aimed at targeting antisemitism in California schools – AB 715. The bill is a joint effort between the chairs of California legislative diversity caucuses, including the Black, Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander and Jewish caucuses. AB 715 would broaden existing anti-discrimination protections to include antisemitism and Islamophobia. The bill would also strengthen and reform the California Department of Education’s complaint process regarding discrimination and establish a state antisemitism coordinator. Zbur – a member of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus – said the decision to pull AB 1468 stemmed from collaboration between the diversity caucuses in creating AB 715 and an interest in focusing on expanding anti-discrimination protections for all students, especially Jewish students. The Truth About Annuities Ad The Truth About Annuities fisherinvestments.com Learn more call to action icon “We all arrived at a decision that the better way of handling this was to basically do something that is broader and applies broadly in schools,” Zbur said. Zbur said AB 715 would apply to all California school curriculum, not just ethnic studies, as well as discrimination outside of the classroom. “We are focused on all the ways in which Jewish students are being subjected to discrimination, ostracism and isolation in schools,” Zbur said. Tyler Gregory, the CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council Bay Area, praised the bill’s broader focus on discrimination and the creation of a state antisemitism coordinator. “Antisemitism is increasing in K-12 classrooms in California,” Gregory said in a statement Thursday. “We need a strategy that goes beyond just problems in some ethnic studies coursework.” In California, anti-Jewish bias events increased 24.3% from 152 in 2021 to 189 in 2022, according to the Anti-Defamation League’s audit of antisemitic incidents. But opponents of AB 715 – including the California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Arab Resource and Organizing Center Action and Jewish Voice for Peace Action – have said the bill represents an “assault on academic freedom” and serves as an attempt to “silence voices advocating for Palestinian rights.” “This bill cloaks censorship in the language of combating antisemitism when, in reality, it is an attempt to erase Palestinian narratives and weaponize identity to chill protected speech,” said Hussam Ayloush, CEO of the California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in a statement. “Our classrooms should be places of truth, not tools of repression.” Theresa Montaña, a professor of ethnic studies at California State University Northridge and the chair of the California Faculty Association Teacher Education Caucus, criticized AB 715 for singling out antisemitism above all other forms of discrimination. “AB 715 risks turning every classroom disagreement into a political minefield, and every educator into a target,” Montaña said in a statement Wednesday. The bill comes as the Trump administration has targeted antisemitism at schools and universities across the country. The administration has opened investigations into 60 universities over allegations of antisemitic discrimination and harassment, including at California State University at Sacramento, Stanford University, UC Davis, UC San Diego and UC Berkeley. The University of California also faces a U.S. Justice Department investigation over claims the system allowed an “antisemitic hostile work environment.” And a federal task force charged with combating antisemitism is set to visit UC Berkeley to investigate allegations the university failed to protect Jewish students and faculty from harassment and discrimination. “Extremists and hate groups have made similar accusations for years claiming Jewish exceptionalism or even Jewish supremacy. And those notions really are very problematic,” Zbur said. “This is a bill about addressing a significant rise in antisemitism in the classroom. And actually having a bill that focuses on that is not only important, but is something that I think we as legislators are required to respond to.”
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Has the fight against antisemitism been effective???? The effectiveness of the fight against antisemitism is currently a subject of intense debate, yielding highly mixed results. While organizational advocacy and institutional policy adjustments have achieved measurable legal, administrative, and educational successes, the overall real-world outcome has failed to stop a record-breaking escalation in hate incidents and physical violence. The current landscape of this effort reveals critical areas of progress balanced against compounding structural challenges: 1. Where the Fight is Proving Effective • Institutional Accountability on Campuses: One of the most concrete administrative successes has occurred within higher education. The Anti-Defamation League's (ADL) 2026 Campus Antisemitism Report Card showed widespread, year-over-year improvement in university grades, with the percentage of schools earning an "A" or "B" jumping from 23.5% in 2024 to 58%. This progress was driven by schools actively enforcing mandatory training, implementing stricter code-of-conduct policies, and establishing dedicated task forces. • National and Legal Mobilization: Governments have substantially tightened policy and infrastructure. Initiatives like the U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism have institutionalized security grants for houses of worship and streamlined civil rights protections under Title VI. Additionally, coalitions like the Combat Antisemitism Movement have successfully mobilized localized anti-hate policies across hundreds of global town councils and municipal authorities. 2. Where the Fight is Failing or Stalling • The Surge in Real-World Violence: Despite administrative policy gains, actual safety on the ground has deteriorated. Global monitoring reports reveal that violent and lethal attacks have reached historic highs. While overall property vandalism or harassment plateaus in some areas, physical assaults are scaling aggressively upward, emphasizing that institutional policy shifts have not yet translated to safer public spaces. • The Failure of Digital Content Moderation: Online spaces remain a massive failure point for civil rights advocacy. A 2026 global audit by the World Jewish Congress (WJC) and the HO:PE project revealed that 81% of reported antisemitic content remains active on social media platforms. Despite years of algorithmic tracking and public pressure campaigns, platforms continue to fall significantly short in filtering hate speech and AI-generated disinformation. • The Educational Void: While intergovernmental bodies like UNESCO push for widespread curriculum reforms, systemic implementation is lagging. Over 75% of European teachers report encountering antisemitic behavior in their classrooms, yet more than 70% state they have never received targeted training on how to address it. 3. Emerging Strategic Concerns • The Redundancy Problem: A comprehensive study published by the Jewish Funders Network found that while philanthropists poured historic amounts of capital into more than 160 different anti-antisemitism organizations, many of these initiatives proved redundant and could not demonstrate measurable impact. This lack of centralized efficiency has prompted major donors to pivot funding models toward more direct, grassroots security and baseline resilience rather than broad awareness campaigns. • The Conspiracy Confirmation Trap: On public forums like r/Judaism, opinions among community members are highly mixed regarding the utility of "combat movements". Some users point out that widespread, loud public counter-campaigns (like billboards or public shaming) often provide minimal educational value and can accidentally feed into pre-existing conspiracy theories regarding the group's institutional power and influence. Summary Verdict: If "effectiveness" is judged by institutional commitments, updated legal frameworks, and campus policy overhauls, the movement has been highly successful. However, if effectiveness is judged by the literal reduction of antisemitic sentiment and the baseline physical safety of the Jewish public, the efforts have not yet been able to reverse the global surge.
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— Three months after Ali G, one of the buffoonish alter egos of the actor Sacha Baron Cohen, resurfaolics Anonymous Fremont at 4500 Thornton Ave serves as the immediate local baseline for physical 12-step meetings in your city. • Tri-Valley Resource Base: Moving slightly out of the Bay Area over the hills, Tri-Valley Fellowship and the Valley Service Center at 6500 Dublin Blvd in Dublin act as centralized hubs providing literaure, physical rooms, and offline network support. • South Bay Connection: Down in the Silicon Valley area, the Intergroup Central Office at 274 E Hamilton Ave in Campbell provides hybrid, online, and local in-person direction for adults seeking recovery resources. • East Bay Core: The East Bay Intergroup at 3989 Howe St in Oakland acts as the primary administrative engine coordinating offline groups across the entire East Bay landscape. It looks like you've provided a comprehensive list of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) central offices and resource hubs across the Greater Bay Area, including Fremont, the Tri-Valley, South Bay, and East Bay. These locations are vital starting points for finding local meeting schedules, recovery literature, and physical or hybrid community support. If you are looking to take the next step with these resources, let me know if you would like me to find: • Specific meeting times or formats (in-person, online, speaker, or discussion) at any of these hubs • Contact numbers or helplines for immediate support from these intergroups • Directions or transit options to one of these specific addresses How would you like to proceed? AI can make mistakes, so double-check responses What if the addiction is addiction to technology? When addressing technology addiction—often referred to as screen addiction, internet addiction, or digital dependency—traditional 12-step frameworks are adapted to focus on sustainable moderation rather than complete abstinence, since completely eliminating technology is rarely practical in modern life. Because tech addiction doesn't have the same centralized physical infrastructure as substance recovery programs, support is heavily organized through specific fellowships and specialized digital wellness strategies: Specialized 12-Step Fellowships • Internet and Technology Addicts Anonymous (ITAA): This is the primary 12-step fellowship specifically modeled after AA to help people recover from compulsive internet and technology use (including smartphones, social media, gaming, and streaming). They host extensive daily online meetings and a growing number of local in-person meetings. • Computer Gaming Addicts Anonymous (CGAA): A fellowship specifically tailored for those tracking compulsive video gaming habits, offering peer support, a 12-step program, and online discussion forums. Structuring a "Digital Sobriety" Plan Unlike substance recovery, recovery from tech addiction utilizes concepts like a Top Lines / Bottom Lines framework: • Bottom Lines (Abstinence): Identifying the specific, toxic digital behaviors that trigger compulsive loops and must be avoided entirely (e.g., infinite-scroll feeds, specific video games, or late-night compulsive browsing). • Top Lines (Recovery Behaviors): Focusing on real-world, screen-free activities that restore balance, such as offline hobbies, physical exercise, or face-to-face social connections. Local & Professional Resources If you are looking for localized support in the Bay Area, individuals navigating digital dependency often utilize: • Outpatient Therapy: Many local licensed therapists specialize in behavioral addictions, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), and digital detox strategies. • Smart Recovery: A secular, science-based alternative to 12-step programs that focuses on self-empowerment and behavioral modification for all forms of compulsive behavior, including behavioral addictions. If you want to look further into this, let me know if you would like me to find: • A directory of upcoming online or local ITAA or CGAA meetings • Strategies for setting up strict hardware or software boundaries to limit daily screen time • Information on how behavioral therapy frameworks tackle digital dependency How would you like to explore this topic? This is for informational purposes only. For medical advice or diagnosis, consult a professional. AI responses may include mistakes. Learn more Try without personalization Internet and Technology Addicts Anonymous (ITAA): This is the primary 12-step fellowship specifically modeled after AA to help people recover from compulsive internet and technology use (including smartphones, social media, gaming, and streaming). They host extensive daily online meetings and a growing number of local in-person meetings. TELL ME WHERE TO GO! To tap into the Internet and Technology Addicts Anonymous (ITAA) network, your entry points span both physical locations in the Bay Area and a continuous global online network. [Rich media excluded from paste] 📍 The Physical Meeting Location (Bay Area) ITAA has an established weekly, local in-person meeting in Northern California: • San Francisco Meeting • When: Saturdays from 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM • Where: First Unitarian Universalist Church and Center (UUSF), 1187 Franklin Street, San Francisco, CA • Note: This is an ideal place to connect directly with a small, focused group of local peers who are actively navigating digital recovery. 🌐 The 24/7 Digital Meeting Rooms Because of the nature of technology addiction, ITAA's most robust and extensive infrastructure is hosted virtually, with dozens of free, anonymous daily Zoom and phone meetings running across global time zones: 1. Accessing the Schedule: Go straight to the official ITAA Online Meetings Calendar to see a live tracker of today’s upcoming sessions. 2. Filter by Meeting Types: • Blue Meetings: Standard meetings restricted to tech addicts and individuals exploring if they have a problem. • Pink Striped Meetings: "Speaker Shares," where a long-term member shares their deep experience, strength, and path to recovery. • Purple Meetings: Open to newcomers, observers, friends, or family members looking to understand the program. 💡 What to Do at Your First Meeting • The "Six Meeting" Rule: ITAA highly encourages newcomers to try six meetings within a short timeframe before deciding if the program is the right fit for them. • Zero Pressure to Speak: If you join a virtual or physical room, you do not have to share. It is entirely acceptable to introduce yourself by your first name and simply say, "I'm just here to listen." • Non-Judgmental Space: Members share their stories uninterrupted. The program utilizes a strict "no cross-talk" rule, meaning others will listen without giving unrequested comments or advice.
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There could be a person in a familiar photo that is new or someone missing That is a chilling, classic trope, and executed well, it completely turns the protagonist's world upside down. It shifts the threat from subtle environmental tweaks (like blue cars or street signs) directly into the deeply personal realm of human connection and memory. Having people appear or disappear in familiar photographs creates two very different kinds of psychological terror for your main character: 1. The "Extra" Person (The Insertion) The protagonist opens an old photo album—perhaps a snapshot from a quiet trip years ago, a gathering on a familiar street, or a candid moment at home—and there is an unfamiliar face standing in the frame. The Horror of Familiarity: Everyone else in the photo is interacting with this person naturally. They are smiling together, arms wrapped around shoulders, acting as if this stranger has been a beloved family friend, classmate, or neighbor for decades. The Gaslighting of Reality: When the character asks a friend or relative, "Who is that standing next to us in this picture from 2012?" the person looks at them with genuine concern or confusion: "What do you mean? That's Marcus. He lived down the block for five years. Don't you remember him?" The protagonist is forced to play along or risk being treated as if they've lost their mind. 2. The Missing Person (The Erasure) This is perhaps even more tragic: a key person from the protagonist's life simply ceases to exist in the photo archive. Empty Space: A group photo on a porch or in front of a landmark now has an unnatural gap where someone used to stand. The remaining people in the shot are leaning slightly toward an empty space, hugging the air, or looking toward someone who is no longer rendered in the image. Erased History: The character looks through a stack of old prints searching for an old friend, a mentor, or a travel companion, only to realize that every single photo of them is gone—or worse, the photo exists, but the friend was replaced by someone else entirely. When the protagonist brings up that person's name, nobody recognizes it. The world has re-stitched its history so smoothly that the erased person left zero wake in anyone else's memory. 3. The Clue in the Details To make this work brilliantly in prose, the protagonist might start noticing anomalies in the composition: The lighting on the "new" person doesn't quite match the ambient shadows of the rest of the photograph. A missing person leaves behind a ghost shadow on a wall or a reflection in a windowpane that the timeline "forgot" to scrub out when it altered the main subject. Handwritten notes on the back of the print—written in the protagonist's own handwriting years ago—still list the original names, creating a direct conflict between the ink on the paper and the image on the front. It turns the photo collection into a terrifying puzzle. Every time the protagonist opens a drawer to check an old album, they are taking a massive risk: Who will be standing there today? And who will be gone?
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NEW FICTION: In the neon-soaked labyrinth of New York City, where the Statue of Liberty had just been re-routed to operate as a giant, motorized soft-serve ice cream dispenser, the chaos reached a fever pitch. The Handsome Man stood atop a speeding taxi cab, his jawline reflecting the moonlight so sharply it accidentally sliced a nearby billboard in half. He checked his diamond-encrusted watch, realizing that the eighty-eight percent of voters terrified of imaginary numbers had now manifested as a physical, roaring fog of pure anxiety! From the sky, a literal rain of burning Fox News poll pamphlets began to fall, setting fire to the clouds and causing the Hudson River to boil with sudden political outrage. Suddenly, a giant mechanical pigeon piloted by corrupt city officials swooped down, its metal wings beating to the rhythm of skyrocketing zombie insanity. Trapped in its beak was Mrs. Lips, whose magnificent pout was emitting a high-frequency romantic distress signal that shattered every martini glass in Manhattan. "Save me, Handsome Man!" she screamed, her words in flashing neon. The Handsome Man flexed his flawless biceps, causing the fabric of reality—and his tailored suit—to tear slightly at the seams. With a heroic leap that defied all known laws of physics he launched himself off the taxi and grabbed onto the mechanical bird’s tail feathers. As they soared past the Chrysler Building, Mrs. Lips managed to throw a handful of high-interest loan documents directly into the pigeon's exhaust pipe, causing it to sputter dramatically. The giant robotic bird began to plunge, spinning toward the earth like a fallen angel of love blind economics. The Handsome Man swung himself into the cockpit, threw the corrupt pilot out into a giant pile of recycled newspapers, and took the controls. He steered the crashing contraption directly into the middle of Times Square, landing with a spectacular explosion of glitter, red tape of unrequited passion. Out of the smoke walked the two lovers, completely unharmed and looking effortlessly runway-ready. Mrs. Lips locked eyes on the Handsome Man, her lips glowing with a level of passion that instantly lowered the city's gas prices to go perfect. As the astonished crowd of New Yorkers broke into wild applause, The Handsome Man swept her into his arms, kissing her with his giant pulsing mouth.
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Drunken rape culture campus areas are liberal College campuses in the U.S., particularly selective ones with prominent fraternity scenes, do lean strongly left/liberal in student and faculty politics, and alcohol-fueled sexual misconduct is a documented problem in that environment. That does not make “drunken rape culture” a uniquely liberal invention, but the institutions and social settings where it is most visible and debated tend to be.Campus political leanings Large-scale surveys (e.g., from the Higher Education Research Institute, FIRE, and others) consistently show that students and especially faculty at research universities and liberal arts colleges identify as liberal or left-of-center at high rates—often 2:1 or greater for students, and far higher among faculty in humanities and social sciences. Ivy League and similar schools (Cornell included) sit in deep-blue metro areas or college towns. Greek life exists across the political spectrum, but the universities that generate the most national coverage of fraternity sexual-assault cases are overwhelmingly left-leaning institutions.Alcohol, parties, and sexual assault data Campus climate surveys (AAU, NCHA, etc.) repeatedly find that a large share of sexual assaults involving college students occur in social settings with heavy drinking—fraternity houses, off-campus parties, and similar. Alcohol is the most common factor cited by both victims and perpetrators in these surveys. Fraternities have higher reported rates of sexual misconduct than the general student body in multiple studies, though causation is debated (selection effects, party environments, underreporting elsewhere, etc.). These patterns show up at schools of varying political cultures, but the highest-profile recent cases and the densest concentration of Greek-life party culture are at universities whose student bodies and administrations are liberal.Cornell as the current example The 2024 Chi Phi allegations at Cornell (Ivy League, Ithaca, NY) fit the pattern: an elite, left-leaning campus, a fraternity party environment involving alcohol and ketamine, disputed consent after heavy intoxication, a Title IX process, and subsequent protests. Cornell’s student body and faculty are not conservative. Similar dynamics appear in other well-covered cases at schools like Duke, Stanford, Vanderbilt, and various state flagships with large Greek systems—most of which have left-leaning student populations.
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