"I have decided to stop taking offense," Betsy DeVos wrote in a Roll Call column, "at the suggestion that we are buying influence. Now I simply concede the point."

Betsy DeVos, Trump's pick for Secretary of Education, knows plenty about buying influence and has plenty of money to do so. Dubbed "The New Kochs" by an article in Mother Jones, Betsy and her husband Richard earned multiple mentions in Dark Money, the authoritative book on the topic by Jane Mayer. True, among the über-rich who participate in the Koch brothers' seminars, Richard and Betsy rank a few notches below the top ten. Their almost $6 billion valuation isn't near the combined $86 billion of Charles and David Koch or the $31 billion of Sheldon Adelson. But $6 billion ain't chopped liver. It can buy you a whole lot of influence. And it has, in the pursuit of removing any restrictions from political donations and in promoting the spread of vouchers and charter schools.

Betsy DeVos, born Betsy Prince, came from a wealthy family, and she moved up a rung or two when she married into the Amway marketing empire fortune. Betsy and Richard have been part of the upper echelons of the state and national Republican Party. Richard ran for Michigan governor in 2006, unsuccessfully. In 1997, Betsy was a founding board member of the James Madison Center for Free Speech, a group whose only purpose was to wipe out legal restrictions on spending money in politics. (A school choice group she ran still owes a $5.2 million fine to the Ohio Elections Commission for making illegal political contributions in 2008. One of the lawyer's arguments against paying the fine is that the contribution would have been legal if the Citizens United decision had been in place at the time.)  In 2000, DeVos put $2 million into a state referendum pushing school vouchers, which was voted down by 68 percent of the voters. Vouchers lose when they're put to a popular vote every time, so she decided to devote her efforts to electing pro-voucher legislators who could enact the necessary legislation without needing voter support.

"I'm here because this feels like a very dark time for me, and I don't know what else to do." Those are the words Robert Yerachmiel Snyderman, program specialist at the Tucson Jewish History Museum, used to begin his presentation at Wednesday night's We Stand Together event organized by YWCA Southern Arizona.

I don't know how many people nodded "Yes" to Snyderman's words. I certainly did. "Give this a shot," I thought as I drove to the event. "Maybe the organizers have some ideas about how to bring together a community of people who will stand as a unified force to combat hatred addressed at individuals, and, if Trump makes good on his promise to deport immigrants and register Muslims, stand up to him in any way we can."

I left feeling more hopeful than I have in the past few weeks. It was a well organized event, the first of many which are in the works, and the YWCA has the necessary organizational heft and the historical commitment to human rights—the phrase at the top of the YWCA's national and local websites is "eliminating racism, empowering women"—to create a kind of umbrella organization which can unite local individuals and groups for a common purpose.

Was this event a beginning which will lead to greater unity and further action in Pima County? I'm encouraged by what I saw and heard, but there are no guarantees. Kelly Fryer, CEO of YWCA Southern Arizona, warned that too often, efforts like this fall into "the cycle of action, reaction and despair." But that doesn't have to be the case. "We're here tonight," she told the 250 people in attendance. "It's an urgent moment, but we can't let this be just another moment, not in Tucson, not in Arizona, not in the U.S."

More on the event in a moment. First, if you want to keep current with what the group is doing and become involved in any way, go to the Join We Stand Together page and register.

Tucson food fiends unite, a food party is only a few days away.

In a celebration of local food and with hopes of meeting a fundraising goal, Pivot Produce is teaming up with four local businesses to throw an hors d'oeuvres party with local produce on Dec. 4 from 4-8 p.m. at Pueblo Vide Brewing Co., 115 E. Broadway Blvd.

Pivot Produce is a for-profit company that work to supplying food-based businesses with local produce near the Tucson-metro area. The company is a distributor for Arizona farmers' produce in hopes to alleviate the worry of selling and to keep farmers doing what they do best.

Get ready for some finger foods from local businesses like 5 Points Market and Restaurant, EXO Roast Co., The Carriage House and Welcome Diner. Pueblo Brewing, the hosting location, will feature its special beet-infused PV Pale Ale—proceeds of this limited-times brew will benefit Pivot's cause.

The company is working toward a $20,000 fundraising goal to keep Arizona produce flowing into Tucson's kitchens. If the company reaches its goal, it will be eligible for the USDA's Local Food Promotion Grant. See their fundraising page here.

I'm taking a side trip to Iraq, 2004, to create a—Full disclosure: not entirely fair—linkage between events during the Iraq War and Betsy DeVos, Trump's pick for Secretary of Education.

I'm a few days late to the DeVos story, but there's still lots to be said. You can sum up her philosophy of education in three words: Privatize, Privatize, Privatize. ("Do you want to supersize monetize that order of privatization, Ms. DeVos?" "Oh, absolutely!") But first, the Iraq War, and Fallujah.

For a number of reasons, the U.S. turned the Iraq War into a highly privatized mission. We needed more boots on the ground than our armed forces could provide, and besides that, the Bush administration believed that anything a government worker or soldier can do, an employee of a for-profit private company can do better. The private forces totaled about a third of the military presence in Iraq.

In 2004, four private security contractors working for Blackwater USA were escorting a convoy of trucks near Fallujah when they were ambushed and killed. The four men's bodies were burned, mutilated and dragged through the streets. The outrage in the U.S. over the brutal killing was partly responsible for the first Battle of Fallujah, which was the largest military operation since the U.S. took control of Iraq. It did not go well. Civilians fled the city, the U.S. attacked from the air and from the ground with little success. The battle ended with the U.S. withdrawing from the city and turning the operation over to a Sunni security force, which soon turned its weapons over to the insurgency and faded away.

I opened my copy of the Star this morning and found this misleading headline:

Trump assails recount, cites illegal voting

Then I read the first paragraph of the Associated Press story:

President-elect Donald Trump claimed without evidence Sunday that “millions” voted illegally in the national election, scoffing at Hillary Clinton’s nearly 2 million edge in the popular vote and returning to his campaign mantra of a rigged race even as he prepares to enter the White House.

The AP got it right: Trump "claimed without evidence" that people voted illegally. The Star headline got it wrong by writing that Trump "cites illegal voting." "Cites" implies that Trump was referring to evidence or proof. In fact, he threw out a wild, unsubstantiated, debunked claim of voter fraud.

[Full disclosure: Since I've lived in Tucson, I've begun the morning with the Star spread on my lap and a cup of coffee in my hand. It's how I open my eyes. I support the Star. I read it cover to cover. I recommend everyone who can afford to subscribe should do so. We need our local dailies. That makes me a loyal critic of the paper who wants it to be as accurate and credible as possible.]

I looked at other paper's headlines for the same story. Most of them use the "claim without evidence" construction. The Star headline is the outlier. Another headline that includes the word "citing" uses it correctly: "Donald Trump, Citing No Evidence, Claims 'Millions' Of People Voted Illegally In The 2016 Election." [boldface added for emphasis] Interestingly, the headline is a revision of an earlier version which received heavy criticism, as you'll read below.

This isn't nit picking. It's about the role of the media to cover the news accurately and to be acutely aware of the fact that many readers don't read further than the headline and the first paragraph. Get either of those wrong in a news item and readers get it wrong.

Jay Rosen, an Associate Professor of Journalism at New York University, has a terrific Facebook post on this point. He believes the media is being tested by the Trump regime to see how it will respond to misstatements and outright lies. According to Rosen, the real news in this story is "the fact that [Trump] feels entitled to say this without a shred of evidence— THAT is the news, not the fact that he said it." Media outlets that normalize false statements from Trump help blur the line between fact and falsehood, a line Trump spent the campaign trying to erase.

Here is Rosen's post.

Spurred by reports of increased harassment of students who are members of ethic and religious minorities since the election, a number of education organizations have issued a call to action. Most of the organizations are as mainstream as they come: the National PTA, the National School Boards Association and so on.

From Education Week:

The organizations issuing the call to action are: the AASA, the School Superintendents Association; the American School Counselor Association; GLSEN, an LBGT student group; the National Association of Elementary School Principals; the National Association of Secondary School Principals; National PTA; the National School Boards Association; the National Association of School Psychologists; and the National Association of Independent Schools.

"We come together as national education organizations in the wake of the troubling rash of reports of bias incidents and violence occurring in schools across the nation in recent days," the groups said in a statement. "As learning communities, schools and school systems are responsible for providing all students with a physically and emotionally safe learning environment. This principle is the foundation of academic achievement, healthy individual development, and civic engagement. Violence, intimidation, and purposefully harmful expressions of bias undercut the core mission of schools and have no place in our school communities."

The statement applauded the schools and districts "that have already taken meaningful steps to develop and support positive school climate in their communities." It did not list any examples. In recent weeks, districts like Los Angeles Unified have approved resolutions following repeated school walkouts by thousands of students. Those resolutions call for safe and supportive learning environments, and some have made special mention of a refusal to cooperate with possible future federal immigration enforcement.

Vice President-elect Mike Pence was booed and cheered when he entered the theater to watch the musical, Hamilton. At the end of the show, a member of the cast read a short statement directed at Pence. That's what actually happened. Trump tweeted that Pence was "harassed last night at the theater by the cast of Hamilton." That didn't happen. The cast didn't "harass" Pence. In another tweet, Trump wrote, "The cast of Hamilton was very rude last night to a very good man, Mike Pence. Apologize!" That also didn't happen. The cast wasn't "rude" to Pence. It doesn't owe him, or Trump, an apology.

What we have here is another post-election shot across the bow of the First Amendment. Trump is once again putting people on notice that criticizing him is dangerous business. For now he'll respond verbally. Later, well, we don't know what will happen later. His response as president could be more than words. The country could become a Trump rally writ large, with dissenters treated like protesters were treated during the campaign, with Trump's consent and assistance. "Get 'em out! Get 'em the hell out of here!"

Let's go through the Hamilton incident piece by piece.

The cast didn't "harass" Pence.
Here is the full statement read by Brandon Victor Dixon, a cast member, while the rest of the cast stood behind him, holding hands.

“Vice President-elect Pence, we welcome you, and we truly thank you for joining us here at Hamilton, an American Musical, we truly do. We, sir — we — are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights, sir. But we truly hope that this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us.”

That is a pointed, eloquent statement. There isn't a word of harassment, no threatening tone of voice. It is polite dissent, spoken with theatrical diction by a man wearing a formal, American Independence-era suit.

Dixon prefaced his written statement by noting that Pence was in the audience and that he was leaving, and he hoped Pence would stay to listen to the statement. When some audience members booed, Dixon said, "There's nothing to boo here, ladies and gentlemen, we're all here telling a story of love." You can watch a video of the statement here.

Trump criticized the cast, not the audience.
If anyone could be accused of harassing Pence, it's the audience, some of whom booed him when he walked in, then booed the mention of his name by Dixon after the show. Why did Trump go after the cast and not include the audience in his condemnation? Well, the audience is a well-heeled, predominantly white crowd who could afford to pay anywhere from $300 to thousands of dollars for a ticket. They're Trump's class of people, one percenters to five percenters, even though many of them are of the liberal persuasion. The cast, but for their costumes, could have been a Black Lives Matter demonstration, predominantly people of color with some white faces thrown in. They're among Trump's prime targets.

Trump didn't talk a whole lot about education during the campaign, but he said enough to give us a sense of the direction he wants to head. More vouchers, more charters and a modification or elimination of Common Core. "Choice," not Common Core. That pretty much sums it up.

If you want a model for the educational direction Trump plans to take us, look at Indiana, Mike Pence's state. As governor, Pence expanded vouchers and pushed aggressively for more charter schools. On the campaign trail, Trump proposed $20 billion in federal dollars for "choice." And though Trump used the "widows and orphans" appeal for charters and vouchers—helping out all those poor children trapped in "failing government schools"—it looks like the Trump/Pence approach will embrace vouchers for billionaires as well as paupers. According to Pence in September:

“Donald Trump and I both believe that every parent in America should be able to choose where their children go to school, regardless of their income and regardless of their area code, and public, private and parochial and faith-based schools on the list."

Close to 60 percent of Indiana children are eligible for vouchers. The number is only that low because that's as far as Pence has been able to expand it.

How should teachers deal with the Trump presidency in their classrooms? Tough question. Genuinely tough question. The campaign was a hard enough call in the classroom, what with its graphic accusations of Trump's history of sexual predation and the allegation that Hillary should be spending time in jail, not in the White House. But now the election is over. Trump is president. How should teachers discuss the president elect in class?

Before delving into the present, I want to take a look at a classroom controversy during Obama's first year. It came in September, 2009, when Obama planned to give a back-to-school talk to the nation's children. The first President Bush delivered a similar talk in 1991. Before him, in 1988, Reagan did the same. No major fuss was raised about either event, accusing those presidents of trying to brainwash impressionable children with partisan speechifying. But the anti-Obama scream machine cranked its outrage up to eleven, calling the speech part of Obama's agenda to corrupt the youth of America, as if classrooms across the country were giving the Grand Wizard of the KKK an hour to poison innocent minds. The topic dominated the news for days. The result was, some schools refused to air the speech, others gave teachers the option, and many said students could only watch if they had a permission slip from their parents, like a speech from Obama was the equivalent of an R-rated movie.

So anyone who says teachers and everyone else should simply say Trump is our president and he represents all of us needs to remember Obama's back-to-school speech and the never-ending Tea Party outrage directed at our current president. To tell people to cool it about Trump is to say, "We all need to respect the president, starting . . . NOW."

Some teachers believe, as I do, that Trump and what he represents has the potential for being the worst thing that's happened to this country in our lifetime. Others are overjoyed with the election results. I don't think teachers should walk into the classroom and launch into diatribes about their opinions on the election. But the Trump presidency and its ramifications is a fit subject for spirited, even controversial classroom discussion.

If there are instances of bullying at school related to the agenda Trump pushed during his campaign, those issues deserve a complete, open airing. If some students seeing Hispanic students start chanting, "Build a wall. Build a wall," if some students seeing students of Middle Eastern dissent shout, "Terrorist, get out of my country!" those are direct results of the campaign. Schools should condemn those students' actions and punish them for their behavior, but schools are also justified, I would say almost duty bound educationally, to relate the incidents back to Trump's rallies which encouraged that kind of behavior. To do anything less would be to pretend our president elect never said what, in fact, he said over and over.

I'm a day late writing about the rally against Trump on the UA Mall Monday night, and four decades too old to be an age-appropriate witness to the student-organized, student-led and student-centered gathering, but that won't stop me from saying a few words about the event which, for me, ranged from positive to inspiring.

I arrived around 4:30pm when there were a few dozen people milling around on the grass and a handful of organizers setting up the stage. By the time the rally began at 5, the numbers had grown to a few hundred. I was near the front, so I couldn't get an accurate read on the size of the crowd, except that I saw the arc of bodies surrounding the front of the stage swelling as the event progressed. The Star, which isn't known for exaggerating numbers at events, wrote that there were thousands of people. I'd say that's about right.

The vast majority of the crowd was college-aged. There was nothing "professional" about the organizers or the crowd, contrary to the accusation from Trump that the people on the streets since he was elected have been "professional" protesters. Seven UA students planned the event and got all the necessary permissions from the university, and the crowd was dominated by young-adult faces with younger and older folks mixed in. I'm guessing many of the participants haven't attended a whole lot of protests before this rally.

The rally on the Mall lasted two hours before the crowd headed to Catalina Park. Mostly, people took turns talking onstage. That's a long time to listen to speaker after speaker, time enough for people to get bored and drift away. But the crowd stayed, and grew. I was surprised to feel its energy increase with each speaker.

The early speakers embodied the youthful idealism of Love, Peace and Righteous Pain and Anger. I enjoyed being in the midst of all that energy—it took me back to my college protest days—but I have to admit I'm too old and jaded to feel like I was a part of it. But as more people came to center stage and spoke, something gripped me which was more important and visceral than a condemnation of Trump and a celebration of the speakers' values. The people who came to center stage one by one or in twos and threes represented a rich tapestry of races, ethnic groups, religions and sexual orientations. If I remember correctly, most of them were female, with straight, white females in the minority. Many spoke of their fears. They felt targeted directly or indirectly by Trump and his followers. They felt unsafe. A country that seemed to be leaning in the direction of tolerance and acceptance over the past eight years was threatening to turn angry and vicious, with Trump and his allies who will soon run the country leading the way.