Barb Wire-Offence

[XLFD]

Nobody can generally accuse the managing editor of the Ludington Daily News, David Bossick, of writing articles about somebody getting butthurt over somebody else's social media posts.  Until Friday when he wrote a front page article on just that.  Bossick received Barb Cressy's concerns about the new superintendent, Peg Mathis, where she included three of her Tweets that Peg placed during the time of her Newaygo superintendent tenure.  Bossick's article follows:

"Members of the community are raising concerns over the Twitter account of Peg Mathis, Ludington Area Schools’ interim superintendent, taking issue with comments and sharing of content that is construed as anti-mask, anti-vaccine and anti-LGBTQ.

Barb Cressy, a special education paraprofessional with the West Shore Educational Services District, shared three screenshots of Mathis’ feed with the Daily News, all from when Mathis was the superintendent at Newaygo Public Schools.

“We tell our students that you need to be careful what you put on social media because when someone is going to interview you for a job, they’ll see it,” Cressy said Monday. “It’s rather frightening. Yes, people can have different views. If you’re in a position (with power), overseeing many people, and diverse people, and you’re posting some of the stuff she posted, that is unconscionable.”

One tweet Cressy shared was a retweet of a link to a Reuters story titled, “King toppled from throne by gender-neutral card deck,” where Mathis commented, “Another new level of ridiculousness,” on Jan. 20.

“To me, I didn’t see that as offensive at all. I saw that as … in my mind, we’re going a little too far with all of this gender stuff and ‘gender is fluid’ and all of that,” Mathis said. “I’m OK if you believe that. I was in a situation where I was like, how far is this going to go? So, that was the crux of that.”

A second was from Feb. 23 where Mathis shared a tweet from U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-N.C., stating, “Imagine any Republican claiming that ‘Hispanics and African Americans’ don’t know how to access the internet to get a COVID vaccine. The outrage that would ensue. But because Joe Biden said it, there’s silence.”

The third was from Oct. 25, 2020, where Mathis shared a tweet from Candace Owens, an author and the founder of BLEXIT. Politifact describes Owens as a conservative commentator and a spokeswoman for Turning Point USA.

The tweet stated, “Nothing screams progressive quite like having morning sickness in an all-gendered restroom. Men (urinating) in urinals outside of my stall while I heave into a toilet seven months pregnant is true equality. Thanks feminism. Keep up the fight for change that 99.9% of women don’t want.”

“I think the whole idea of gender being fluid is something I am not comfortable with right now,” Mathis said. “But I always have an open mind.”

Mathis said Wednesday afternoon that she has not been contacted by members of the public about the posts she shared on Twitter.

“No one reached out to me directly,” she said. “However, I realize in this day and age, people sometimes don’t because for whatever reason. I would be more than happy to talk to anybody. You know, I am not one of these people that’s ever going to put this district at risk or in a bad situation.

“Do I have views? Absolutely, I have views. … We all have views. That’s part of being human, and I express those views. None of this prompted me to take posts down or anything. Ultimately, I’m about kids and teaching and learning and supporting our staff, and I said that in my interview, too.”

Cressy helped to start West Shore Pride and is an active member of PFLAG in Manistee. She, along with Beth McGill-Rizer, contacted the Daily News about the tweets. Cressy said as she continued to scroll through Mathis’ feed, she became angry and upset.

“We fought hard to get some things going (at the school district). We tried to get (LGBTQ+ awareness) posters put up in school,” Cressy said Monday. “I’m mad about all of (the viewpoints). I don’t think that person in that much power should behave that way.”

Mathis, though, said she has treated everyone equally in her past.

“I would say that my character, my beliefs, my way of doing things, I’ve always been above-board and honored people. I’ve always supported people of all orientations, kinds, everything. (I) don’t always agree with certain things or choices or whatever people make, but I always honor people. Anyone who has worked with me would say that.

“I realize when you tweet or retweet something, you don’t always get the accurate picture (of someone). I realize that, but that’s part of our society.”

Mathis said she wants to meet with members of the community about any concerns they may have, whether the concerns are about tweets or something else.

“I would love to meet with anyone. Ultimately, it’s about honoring our differences,” she said. “We want diversity. Let’s honor that and move forward and not try to disparage anyone. I’d like to think, and I’ve been at this 31 years, any student or adult that I’ve worked with would echo those sentiments about my behavior, and I would hate for some people to take some tweets and ascribe that to my entire being.

“I also know, ‘Don’t be stupid, Peg. Play the middle.’ Even though I don’t think I should or have to.”

Cressy said she didn’t know if Mathis would seek the superintendent’s position full-time, and Mathis told the Daily News that she intends to only be in Ludington on an interim basis. She retired in June from Newaygo, and she was hired by Ludington earlier this month.

“I don’t have aspirations to continue,” Mathis said. “I think Ludington will be served by somebody else better, but I want to do what’s best for the district. If they need help, I want to help. If it’s longer, sure. I wouldn’t say no to it. It wouldn’t be my goal.”

Members of the Ludington Area Schools’ Board of Education were made aware of Mathis’ Twitter posts, too. Board President Steve Carlson told the Daily News Tuesday that another board member mentioned the posts to him, but he did not review them himself at that point.

Cressy said she reached out to Stephanie Reed, a member of the board.

“We are aware of the concern,” Reed said Tuesday night. “While not every board member or community member may agree with her personal views on certain subjects, what I do believe we can agree on, is that she is a seasoned and well-respected educational leader who has led successful districts and who, I believe, can guide our district in the short term while we search for our next permanent superintendent.”"

Barb Cressy is in the field of education and she maintains that she couldn't sleep because the new interim superintendent is a cancer in the community.  She also emphatically maintains that Peg Mathis is many things:  anti-mask, anti-vaccine and anti-LGBTQ (from the article).  In Barb's own post she also claims Mathis is a racist, anti-media, anti-Whitmer and a couple of other epithets, but coward that she is, Barb has removed her ignorant post from Facebook that contained the original vignette saying that she can't sleep because someone, Heaven forbid, has different opinions than hers.  

I looked further at Peg Mathis' Twitter feed, primarily bypassing retweets made without comment, for one cannot readily gauge why she shared the opinion or if she agreed with it (she does explain the one retweet in the LDN article).  Let's take a look at recent ones where she shared her opinion, usually along with an article to see whether the barbs are justified.  The one above indicates that she believes the same way that 71% of Americans do, that the media isn't trustworthy, noting the large amount of propaganda therein.  Does Barb trust everything the media tells her?

Barb notes this comment as being anti-mask in her vanished post, but it's more looking for scientific justification as to why folks were still wearing masks in June 2021 when there were no mandates around and there were few cases.  Can't a person inquire as to why something happens?  Isn't that what we want in our science, our educators, and our children?

 

Barb would point to this and say Peg Mathis is definitely anti-mask, but once again she's asking for research that justifies outdoor mask wearing.  You would see that she got nobody to answer her question, because there is no quality research that says masks wore outdoors helps stop the spread.

A June 2019 poll by ESPN found that 74% of sports fans did not want politics thrown in with their favorite sports.  That figure rose to 85% of 'rabid' sports fans.  In the two years since, filled with athletes being woke and doing a fair share of virtue signaling, that percentage has surely grown.  Barb likely prefers having woke athletes expressing views she agrees with, but that puts her in a very small minority.

The link provided takes you to a 2020 Medium article that equates outrage in society to an addictive drug, and that mainstream media is the pusher.  Medium isn't known as being a conservative forum, quite the reverse, featuring two co-founders of Twitter and Colin Kaepernick as a quorum of their board.  Anybody who objectively looks at mainstream media quickly learn that their objective is far from promoting unity or tolerance, and more often along the lines of sowing division, aka outrage.  Barb would undoubtedly call Peg's post as anti-media, but it just reflects objective reality.  As noted previously, only 29% of the people trust the media, the other 71% realize they bypass the truth at times to promote an agenda.

In her original post, now gone, Barb was livid that the new superintendent was anti-Whitmer, as if that put her in the same realm of the unruly mob that rushed the capitol on January 6th.  Around the time Peg posted this, Whitmer had a favorability rating at 45% in her demographic, kids were wearing masks outside while playing non-contact sports, and a respected newspaper citing the CDC found scant spread in schools.  Whitmer had made herself irrelevant at this point-- except through her friendly allies in the State health department passing the orders she used to pass, always with minimal scientific justification.  

Whitmer had shut down school sports in November, she indicated later on that they would resume in mid-January, she pushed that forward a month.  The 'let them play' argument was widespread since school sports weren't known as spreader events.  Peg's sentiment was by no means a fringe one, but more likely one shared by a majority of Michiganders frustrated by their kids not able to play sports safely.

When this was posted, widespread banning of political figures, groups, and media on social media (including the president and the Washington Post, among others) was happening while Antifa was given a pass, along with other violent groups who belonged to a protected class of media scrutiny.  Perhaps Barb could explain to Peg why this inconsistency was there, instead Barb and her like-minded friends wonder aloud why Peg is obsessed with Antifa.  They cannot comprehend why the majority of Americans would take issue with Antifa and their methods, even back in 2019, in the only 'Antifa approval poll' I could find, only 22% looked at the group favorably. 

This post and commentary seems to make Peg anti-science in Barb's opinion, but clearly science has been co-opted by politics in the last two years.  Top epidemiologists have been universally ignored and their science has been diminished by the media, social media, and policy makers who put forth Tony Fauci as their mouthpiece, a bureaucrat whose often-unsupported scientific opinion is accepted as fact by many news outlets and gullible people who refuse to acknowledge that his science and facts keep changing without nary an acknowledgment on their parts that the 'new' science contradicts the old-- but still fits their narrative.  

Barb never directly accuses Peg of being anti-RBG, but is likely to oppose her favorable views on ACB.  Peg likely observed Cory Booker mansplaining during ACB's confirmation hearings, a term used against Mike Pence when debating Kamala Harris, whose behavior was less pronounced.

Barb looks at this as anti-science, but it's just the opposite.  A doctor's unsupported opinion is what passes for science when it does support the favored political point.  Wearing masks affects the oxygen and carbon dioxide percentages that you breathe in, effectively making a person exercising with a mask at sea level feel like they are exercising at a higher altitude depending on the mask.  This would negatively affect the performance of in-shape athletes, but would be of minimal health risk. 

The bigger health risk in schools would be for out-of-shape students who would be more at risk than before from heavy exercise.  That's why Peg is concerned here, since a school is comprised of deathly thin students all the way up to morbidly obese students, the fringes who would be at risk for exertions made while wearing a mask.

David Bossick provided a fair article in the LDN, allowing Peg Mathis to explain herself when confronted by her own words from the past.  He also allowed Barb Cressy to make her case as to why the past words were somehow outrageous or disqualifying.  It appears that Barb shrunk from actually debating Peg with the points she brought to the forefront in her complaint to the paper, much like she shrunk from the field of debate when she erased her own post.

A review of the various 'political' tweets made by Superintendent Mathis shows that her views are reasoned and within the general consensus of the public, especially the center-right public that makes up the local LASD area.  Peg believes science is more than the dominant political opinion of the moment; she seems to believe that students should be able to play sports and does not accept mandatory masking just for the sake of virtue signaling.  She believes the media is less than trustworthy and not doing their jobs.  She shows an incredible amount of tolerance and wisdom in her own words in the local paper.

Is this an extremist, a cancer introduced into our community?  Far from it, she appears to be an extremely good fit, and has the additional quality of being outspoken about her beliefs, which appears to reflect the community and America's values in general.

A review of Barb Cressy isn't that flattering.  Barb doesn't seem to respect views that conflict with her own.  She has a habit of labeling others as being anti-this and anti-that without much justification. She argues for tolerance while expressing herself in a most intolerant manner towards other viewpoints.  A deep dive of her social media, recently purged of the worst elements, reflects that her views appear to be a lot more fringe, alarming, and disordered than the interim superintendent's.  

Most of us local parents would likely be comfortable with allowing the new superintendent around our kids and teaching them what she's learned over the years, can the same be said for Barb Cressy, who is also in the educational field, who literally can't sleep because the new superintendent doesn't toe her extreme line explicitly?

[Willy]

Right on the money Lake Lady. Your comment "Then we will hear steel wool gray hair heads popping all over Ludington" is priceless.

[Willy]

This is what you do best, X. You take a subject and explain it in understandable detail and depth. Much better than any local news by far. After reading over your post several times and wholeheartedly agreeing with Peg Mathis I couldn't help but ask myself why in the World would the LDN create an article about this. Peg Mathis just stated the truth and asked thoughtful questions while Barb Cressy threw around false accusations and untruths. What is there here for the LDN to create an article about. Most people I'm sure would ask the same thing. This reminds me of a day in school, where the adult, Mathis, is trying to teach the children, Cressy, about what is really going on. Because the children are clueless they rant and rave how bad they think the teacher is while not understanding how ignorant they truly are. School systems all over the Country would benefit from educators like  Peg Mathis but unfortunately there are a lot of leftists like Cressy standing in the school doorway blocking them from doing their jobs.

[XLFD]

Thanks for your support, Willy and LL.  This is one of those cases where somebody living in a glass house is throwing a lot of barbed stones.   You can tell by doing the same deep dive into Barb's social media as she did to Peg Mathis, that she is a far-from-tolerant person who musters up a host of names (most beginning with 'anti-' and/or ending with -'ist') for those who express different beliefs or do not accept her 'facts'.  Extreme rightists often have similar failings in certain subjects, but extreme leftists have perfected the art for all subjects-- and are typically tolerated by MSM and social media to a degree that is unwarranted.  

One might infer that Editor Bossick may have decided to report on this so as to boost Barb's narrative that the new superintendent of LASD is too conservative in thought and policy to be in her position.  If that was his goal, I think it failed because the full article is likely to make most non-progressive readers come to the conclusion that Barb's intolerance  is the underlying problem, not Peg's moderate tweets.  Does anybody honestly believe that if former progressive COLDNews editors Steve Begnoche and Patti Klevorn did an article on this, that they would have solicited input from Peg and then put it out there without spinning it negatively?

My guess is that Bossick tried to be fair in the article, even though this seems about as likely to some as Jim Acosta writing a fair article on anything regarding the Trump Administration.

[stump]

Cressy said QUOTE: We fought hard to get some things going at school. We tried to get LGBT+ posters put up in school. What the hell is that about ?    Whats next?    How about the Natzi Swatika posters, Confederate flag or better yet now that were supporting the Taliban we surely should put up their banner to show support for them. Their all different groups of people right?  Why is the LGBT people think their so special?  How about just the United States OF AMERICA FLAG   I sure as hell hope someone has a brain in our school district.

[Sidney Johnson]

If Peg Mathis is in opposition to LGBTQ, mask mandates, gender fluidity etc. Then I am in 100% support her.

So Barb Cressy you have only succeeded in helping me sleep better because she is our superintendent.

[stump]

I just want to make one thing clear. I don't have anything against the LGBTQ +  people or any other that group as long as they don't impose on my rights or others.  Back when I was in the work force I personally worked with gay and lesbian employee's . Everyone treated them as equal workers and over the years never heard a comment about their sexual orientation. School is not a place to be promoting LGBTQ+.

[Willy]

You nailed it Lake Lady. Excellent post. Your list should be on every parents electronic device to remind them of the threat that hangs over our kids and the need  to confront this wave of communist propaganda and eliminate it. If this continues, the minds of our children will be lost to the evil that is trying to consume America. Your right Lake Lady  this is happening all over America and even in Canada. The United States CDC is heavily involved with SOGI {sexual orientation / gender identification} as is Canada. 

[Sidney Johnson]

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

May I copy and use this on my page, Voice in the Wilderness?