Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café
Update 513. Ending Indoctrination Special. #BeMorePorcupine
As we move into 2025 I will be featuring, to start with, and in alphabetical order, those Readers’ Choices for best film ever that did not make the top seven ( see Update 500 for the top seven).
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café is set in Alabama and weaves together the past and the present through the blossoming friendship between Evelyn Couch (Kathy Bates), a middle-aged housewife, and Ninny Threadgoode (Jessica Tandy), an elderly woman who lives in a nursing home. Every week Evelyn visits Ninny, who recounts stories of her youth in Whistle Stop, Alabama, where her sister-in-law, Idgie (Mary Stuart Masterson), and her friend, Ruth (Mary-Louise Parker), ran a café.
Another Masterson!!!
Thanks to two wonderful readers for suggested pieces.
Some of the linked pieces below may be behind a paywall.
Stop Press - Ending Indoctrination
Here is the latest amazing Executive Order just out:
Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling
EXECUTIVE ORDER
January 29, 2025
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered:
Section 1. Purpose and Policy. Parents trust America’s schools to provide their children with a rigorous education and to instill a patriotic admiration for our incredible Nation and the values for which we stand.
In recent years, however, parents have witnessed schools indoctrinate their children in radical, anti-American ideologies while deliberately blocking parental oversight. Such an environment operates as an echo chamber, in which students are forced to accept these ideologies without question or critical examination. In many cases, innocent children are compelled to adopt identities as either victims or oppressors solely based on their skin color and other immutable characteristics. In other instances, young men and women are made to question whether they were born in the wrong body and whether to view their parents and their reality as enemies to be blamed. These practices not only erode critical thinking but also sow division, confusion, and distrust, which undermine the very foundations of personal identity and family unity.
Imprinting anti-American, subversive, harmful, and false ideologies on our Nation’s children not only violates longstanding anti-discrimination civil rights law in many cases, but usurps basic parental authority. For example, steering students toward surgical and chemical mutilation without parental consent or involvement or allowing males access to private spaces designated for females may contravene Federal laws that protect parental rights, including the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA), and sex-based equality and opportunity, including Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (Title IX). Similarly, demanding acquiescence to “White Privilege” or “unconscious bias,” actually promotes racial discrimination and undermines national unity.
My Administration will enforce the law to ensure that recipients of Federal funds providing K-12 education comply with all applicable laws prohibiting discrimination in various contexts and protecting parental rights, including Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VI), 42 U.S.C. 2000d et seq.; Title IX, 20 U.S.C. 1681 et seq.; FERPA, 20 U.S.C. 1232g; and the PPRA, 20 U.S.C. 1232h.
Sec. 2. Definitions. As used herein:
(a) The definitions in the Executive Order “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” (January 20, 2025) shall apply to this order.
(b) “Discriminatory equity ideology” means an ideology that treats individuals as members of preferred or disfavored groups, rather than as individuals, and minimizes agency, merit, and capability in favor of immoral generalizations, including that:
(i) Members of one race, color, sex, or national origin are morally or inherently superior to members of another race, color, sex, or national origin;
(ii) An individual, by virtue of the individual’s race, color, sex, or national origin, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously;
(iii) An individual’s moral character or status as privileged, oppressing, or oppressed is primarily determined by the individual’s race, color, sex, or national origin;
(iv) Members of one race, color, sex, or national origin cannot and should not attempt to treat others without respect to their race, color, sex, or national origin;
(v) An individual, by virtue of the individual’s race, color, sex, or national origin, bears responsibility for, should feel guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress because of, should be discriminated against, blamed, or stereotyped for, or should receive adverse treatment because of actions committed in the past by other members of the same race, color, sex, or national origin, in which the individual played no part;
(vi) An individual, by virtue of the individual’s race, color, sex, or national origin, should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment to achieve diversity, equity, or inclusion;
(vii) Virtues such as merit, excellence, hard work, fairness, neutrality, objectivity, and racial colorblindness are racist or sexist or were created by members of a particular race, color, sex, or national origin to oppress members of another race, color, sex, or national origin; or
(viii) the United States is fundamentally racist, sexist, or otherwise discriminatory.
(c) “Educational service agency” (ESA) has the meaning given in 20 U.S.C. 1401(5), and the terms “elementary school,” “local educational agency” (LEA), “secondary school,” and “state educational agency” (SEA) have the meanings given in 34 C.F.R. 77.1(c).
(d) “Patriotic education” means a presentation of the history of America grounded in:
(i) an accurate, honest, unifying, inspiring, and ennobling characterization of America’s founding and foundational principles;
(ii) a clear examination of how the United States has admirably grown closer to its noble principles throughout its history;
(iii) the concept that commitment to America’s aspirations is beneficial and justified; and
(iv) the concept that celebration of America’s greatness and history is proper.
(e) “Social transition” means the process of adopting a “gender identity” or “gender marker” that differs from a person’s sex. This process can include psychological or psychiatric counseling or treatment by a school counselor or other provider; modifying a person’s name (e.g., “Jane” to “James”) or pronouns (e.g., “him” to “her”); calling a child “nonbinary”; use of intimate facilities and accommodations such as bathrooms or locker rooms specifically designated for persons of the opposite sex; and participating in school athletic competitions or other extracurricular activities specifically designated for persons of the opposite sex. “Social transition” does not include chemical or surgical mutilation.
Sec. 3. Ending Indoctrination Strategy. (a) Within 90 days of the date of this order, to advise the President in formulating future policy, the Secretary of Education, the Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of Health and Human Services, in consultation with the Attorney General, shall provide an Ending Indoctrination Strategy to the President, through the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, containing recommendations and a plan for:
(i) eliminating Federal funding or support for illegal and discriminatory treatment and indoctrination in K-12 schools, including based on gender ideology and discriminatory equity ideology; and
(ii) protecting parental rights, pursuant to FERPA, 20 U.S.C. 1232g, and the PPRA, 20 U.S.C. 1232h, with respect to any K-12 policies or conduct implicated by the purpose and policy of this order.
(b) The Ending Indoctrination Strategy submitted under subsection (a) of this section shall contain a summary and analysis of the following:
(i) All Federal funding sources and streams, including grants or contracts, that directly or indirectly support or subsidize the instruction, advancement, or promotion of gender ideology or discriminatory equity ideology:
(A) in K-12 curriculum, instruction, programs, or activities; or
(B) in K-12 teacher education, certification, licensing, employment, or training;
(ii) Each agency’s process to prevent or rescind Federal funds, to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law, from being used by an ESA, SEA, LEA, elementary school, or secondary school to directly or indirectly support or subsidize the instruction, advancement, or promotion of gender ideology or discriminatory equity ideology in:
(A) K-12 curriculum, instruction, programs, or activities; or
(B) K-12 teacher certification, licensing, employment, or training;
(iii) Each agency’s process to prevent or rescind Federal funds, to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law, from being used by an ESA, SEA, LEA, elementary school, or secondary school to directly or indirectly support or subsidize the social transition of a minor student, including through school staff or teachers or through deliberately concealing the minor’s social transition from the minor’s parents.
(iv) Each agency’s process to prevent or rescind Federal funds, to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law, from being used by an ESA, SEA, LEA, elementary school, or secondary school to directly or indirectly support or subsidize:
(A) interference with a parent’s Federal statutory right to information regarding school curriculum, records, physical examinations, surveys, and other matters under the PPRA or FERPA; or
(B) a violation of Title VI or Title IX; and
(v) A summary and analysis of all relevant agency enforcement tools to advance the policies of this order.
(c) The Attorney General shall coordinate with State attorneys general and local district attorneys in their efforts to enforce the law and file appropriate actions against K-12 teachers and school officials who violate the law by:
(i) sexually exploiting minors;
(ii) unlawfully practicing medicine by offering diagnoses and treatment without the requisite license; or
(iii) otherwise unlawfully facilitating the social transition of a minor student.
(d) The Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy shall regularly convene the heads of the agencies tasked with submitting the Ending Indoctrination Strategy under subsection (a) of this section to confer regarding their findings, areas for additional investigation, the modification or implementation of their respective recommendations, and such other policy initiatives or matters as the President may direct.
Sec. 4. Reestablishing the President’s Advisory 1776 Commission and Promoting Patriotic Education. (a) The President’s Advisory 1776 Commission (“1776 Commission”), which was created by Executive Order 13958 of November 2, 2020, to promote patriotic education, but was terminated by President Biden in Executive Order 13985 of January 20, 2021, is hereby reestablished. The purpose of the 1776 Commission is to promote patriotic education and advance the purposes stated in section 1 of Executive Order 13958, as well as to advise and promote the work of the White House Task Force on Celebrating America’s 250th Birthday (“Task Force 250”) and the United States Semiquincentennial Commission in their efforts to provide a grand celebration worthy of the momentous occasion of the 250th anniversary of American Independence on July 4, 2026.
(b) Within 120 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Education shall establish the 1776 Commission in the Department of Education.
(c) The 1776 Commission shall be composed of not more than 20 members, who shall be appointed by the President for a term of 2 years. The 1776 Commission shall be made up of individuals from outside the Federal Government with relevant experience or subject-matter expertise.
(d) The 1776 Commission shall have a Chair or Co-Chairs, at the President’s discretion, and a Vice Chair, who shall be designated by the President from among the Commission’s members. An Executive Director, designated by the Secretary of Education in consultation with the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, shall coordinate the work of the 1776 Commission. The Chair (or Co-Chairs) and Vice Chair shall work with the Executive Director to convene regular meetings of the 1776 Commission, determine its agenda, and direct its work, consistent with this order.
(e) The 1776 Commission shall:
(i) facilitate the development and implementation of a “Presidential 1776 Award” to recognize student knowledge of the American founding, including knowledge about the Founders, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitutional Convention, and the great soldiers and battles of the American Revolutionary War;
(ii) in coordination with the White House Office of Public Liaison, coordinate bi-weekly lectures regarding the 250th anniversary of American Independence that are grounded in patriotic education principles, which shall be broadcast to the Nation throughout calendar year 2026;
(iii) upon request, advise executive departments and agencies regarding their efforts to ensure patriotic education is appropriately provided to the public at national parks, battlefields, monuments, museums, installations, landmarks, cemeteries, and other places important to the American founding and American history, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law;
(iv) upon request, offer advice and recommendations to, and support the work of Task Force 250 and the United States Semiquincentennial Commission regarding their plans to celebrate the 250th anniversary of American Independence; and
(v) facilitate, advise upon, and promote private and civic activities nationwide to increase public knowledge of and support patriotic education surrounding the 250th anniversary of American Independence, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law.
(f) The Department of Education shall provide funding and administrative support for the 1776 Commission, to the extent permitted by law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
(g) Members of the 1776 Commission shall serve without compensation but, as approved by the Department of Education, shall be reimbursed for travel expenses, including per diem in lieu of subsistence, as authorized by law for persons serving intermittently in the Government service (5 U.S.C. 5701-5707).
(h) Insofar as chapter 10 of title 5, United States Code (commonly known as the Federal Advisory Committee Act), may apply to the 1776 Commission, any functions of the President under that Act, except that of reporting to the Congress, shall be performed by the Secretary of Education, in accordance with the guidelines issued by the Administrator of General Services.
(i) The 1776 Commission shall terminate 2 years from the date of this order, unless extended by the President.
Sec. 5. Additional Patriotic Education Measures. (a) All relevant agencies shall monitor compliance with section 111(b) of title I of Division J of Public Law 108-447, which provides that “[e]ach educational institution that receives Federal funds for a fiscal year shall hold an educational program on the United States Constitution on September 17 of such year for the students served by the educational institution,” including by verifying compliance with each educational institution that receives Federal funds. All relevant agencies shall take action, as appropriate, to enhance compliance with that law.
(b) All relevant agencies shall prioritize Federal resources, consistent with applicable law, to promote patriotic education, including through the following programs:
(i) the Department of Education’s American History and Civics Academies and American History and Civics Education-National Activities programs;
(ii) the Department of Defense’s National Defense Education Program and Pilot Program on Enhanced Civics Education; and
(iii) the Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and Fulbright, U.S. Speaker, and International Visitor Leadership programs, as well as the American Spaces network.
Sec. 6. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or
(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
The States - The Fake Science Executive Order
I reported on this, of course, in the last update:
https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/protecting-children
EDI Jester woke up the next morning and read my substack. He was quite happy 🤣
Andrew Doyle covered the great news on his substack and explains just why the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) ( who are mentioned in the Order) are dangerous charlatans:
The chemical and surgical mutilation of children is almost over
Many children’s lives have been ruined by gender ideology, but Donald Trump’s latest executive order is an important step towards restoring sanity.
Jan 29, 2025
A society that harms its children cannot be said to be civilised. For all that we in the west pride ourselves on our liberal consensus, we have nonetheless enabled the rise of an ideology that has been responsible for the sterilisation and mutilation of children on the basis of a pseudoscientific and cultish faith in ‘gender identity’. Young people who desperately required therapeutic support were instead fast-tracked into medicalisation. Countless lives have been ruined, and all because the so-called ‘adults in the room’ allowed themselves to be cowed by the demands of the high priests of a dangerous new religion.
Donald Trump has now signed an executive order – ‘Protecting children from chemical and surgical mutilation’ – which seeks to halt this barbaric state-sanctioned practice. It bans federal agencies from promoting ‘gender-affirming healthcare’ for minors. This is long overdue, and it should be celebrated irrespective of one’s political affiliation. After years of word games and euphemism, the phrasing of this executive order is refreshingly frank.
‘Across the country today, medical professionals are maiming and sterilizing a growing number of impressionable children under the radical and false claim that adults can change a child’s sex through a series of irreversible medical interventions. This dangerous trend will be a stain on our Nation’s history, and it must end.
‘Countless children soon regret that they have been mutilated and begin to grasp the horrifying tragedy that they will never be able to conceive children of their own or nurture their children through breastfeeding. Moreover, these vulnerable youths’ medical bills may rise throughout their lifetimes, as they are often trapped with lifelong medical complications, a losing war with their own bodies, and, tragically, sterilization.
‘Accordingly, it is the policy of the United States that it will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called “transition” of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures.’
In a section entitled ‘Ending Reliance on Junk Science’ – again, the candour is wonderful to read – the government specifically blames the influence of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH). It orders agencies to ‘rescind or amend all policies that rely on WPATH guidance, including WPATH’s “Standards of Care Version 8”’.
The full piece is here:
On Meghan Murphy’s channel she discusses with Kara Dansky the first Gender Ideology Smashing Order ( as I have called it) which I discussed here (it’s been a bit of a week!!):
https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/welcome-to-the-party-pal
Kara explains how this Order (and the same will apply to the Fake Science Order) does not stop red states ( Democrat states) from having or bringing in fake science and woo woo laws. Both orders apply to Federal institutions and to Federal funding ( most healthcare in the States, for example, is private or insurance based). Nevertheless, the psychological and political power of these wonderfully drafted orders cannot be underestimated. Any thoughts from American readers?
https://www.meghanmurphy.ca/p/what-does-trumps-executive-order
UK — Free Speech
Lord Justice Sedley in Redmond-Bate v Director of Public Prosecutions [1999] EWHC Admin 733:
'Free speech includes not only the inoffensive but the irritating, the contentious, the eccentric, the heretical, the unwelcome and the provocative provided it does not tend to provoke violence. Freedom only to speak inoffensively is not worth having. What Speakers' Corner (where the law applies as fully as anywhere else) demonstrates is the tolerance which is both extended by the law to opinion of every kind and expected by the law in the conduct of those who disagree, even strongly, with what they hear.
From the condemnation of Socrates to the persecution of modern writers and journalists, our world has seen too many examples of state control of unofficial ideas.'
Matt Goodwin on his substack discusses an alarming missive from the Home Office:
We're all 'extremists' now
How the British state wants to use Southport and the Rape Gangs to squash free speech and define millions of ordinary people as "right-wing extremist"
Jan 28, 2025
Much like we saw in the aftermath of the immigration protests last summer, the report demands an increase in the recording of the deeply Orwellian “non-crime hate incidents”, whereby citizens have black marks put on their record merely for voicing or expressing alternative views and based on how others perceive those views, including what they might say or write in the privacy of their own homes.
Worryingly, the report demands that a code of conduct that was introduced by the previous Tory government, which orders police to only record these totalitarian non-crime hate incidents if there is a “serious risk of harm”, is removed.
In other words, woke bureaucrats at the heart of the British state want to make it even easier to chill if not stamp out free speech in modern Britain, leaving everybody fearful of what they say in case somebody else perceives it to be in any way “offensive”.
I look forward to hearing from the Free Speech Union on this.
The full piece is here:
UK - Stonewall
EDI Jester celebrates all main government departments in the UK having left the Stonewall Diversity Champions Scam…sorry Scheme…🤣
Australia - Puberty Blockers
Concerned over reports that puberty blockers are harmful and don’t work ( you don’t say!), the Queensland Government have halted any new prescriptions to children.
Australia - The Lesbian Action Group
Mr Menno discusses with Carol from Lesbian Action Group the appalling tribunal decision that means that they cannot exclude men. FFS!!!!!
Menno is doing another piece tonight but I am not yet sure what time that will be so look out for it.
The Myth Of Gender
Good piece on the substack of Parents with Inconvenient Truths About Trans:
The Aftermath of Gender Identity Ideology
What a mom misses most after the wake of destruction of gender confusion and medicalization
Jan 28, 2025
I sense a slow awakening is occurring about gender identity ideology. An awareness is reaching people who somehow missed most of the ideology’s progression through and into all sectors of society. Some people are starting to question the concept of “changing sexes” and whether it is really all okay. Many people have thrown their hands in the air in exasperation at keeping up with all the letters in the ever-growing LGBTQ+ alphabet.
Perhaps the images of “drag queen reading hour” for kindergarten kids didn’t sit right with you. Maybe seeing boys and men on podiums receiving winning medals in girls’ and women’s sporting events seemed off. Perhaps it felt awkward to interact with the coffee shop’s male barista with lipstick, eye shadow, and breasts, and you sensed his smirk was possibly from deriving pleasure at your discomfort. Maybe it was confusing to go to dinner at your neighbor’s house and see what was once a cute teenage girl being introduced as a boy with a new name and a bewildering appearance. Perhaps you scratched your head when you heard that states like California passed a law that does not allow teachers or schools to notify parents when a kid declares that they have a new identity and name, and the school can socially transition the student without the parents’ permission. Possibly you were concerned when you heard about kids being removed from their parents’ homes by social services when the parents didn’t affirm a cross-sex identification. Maybe it seemed wrong when you heard that men placed in women’s prisons had raped and impregnated women there.
You may have considered that activists are pushing all this gender identity stuff on people and it has gone too far. If you have not been directly affected by gender ideology but are sensing that something is amiss, perhaps you are ready to hear from a parent who is directly affected.
It is challenging to sum up years of heartache and loss and catch people up who don’t know what is going on. So, to spotlight just a few of the many ways in which the gender identity movement can upend a family, here are a few things I miss the most as a mother and woman…
The full piece is here:
https://www.pittparents.com/p/the-aftermath-of-gender-identity?r=7ogxh&triedRedirect=true
See also the poem by Siobhan Spencer in this update:
https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/the-fifth-element
Queer Theory and Transgenderism
Very interesting discussion on these issues by Lucy Leader on her substack, Bodies get in the way… ‘Truth is what anyone says it is.’ Agghhhhhh!
Misinformation, Disinformation and Malinformation Are the Cornerstones of Queer Theory and its Bastard Child, Transgenderism
Hunting for the truth is a fruitless exercise when you are exploring cult beliefs
Jan 29, 2025
In my very first post for Bodies get in the way…, I talked about the philosophical origins of how we got to a position where we are telling children they can choose their sex and encouraging them to engage in self-harming practices in a vain attempt to follow through.
I named the two founding principles of applied postmodernism (which is the label that academics have imposed on us for this harmful ideology), which are:
The belief that objective knowledge or truth is not possible; no facts exist, and
That society is formed of systems of power and hierarchies, which decide what can be known and how things can be known; truth is what anyone says it is.
The four themes of this philosophy are:
1) The blurring of boundaries (messily mixing the experiential with the evidenced in a way that elevates one’s interpretation of lived experience to the status of evidence). An example of blurring of boundaries would be if you take your own birth and breastfeeding experience and promote this as universal (i.e. confusing anecdote with data). Another example of boundary blurring is the ongoing debate about “what is a woman?”. That modern politicians refuse to answer or make up excuses for not answering is also blurring formerly very clear boundaries.
2) The power of language (the idea that words are powerful and dangerous and must be scrutinized according to theoretical frameworks). This is where queer theory, critical race theory, postcolonial theory, intersectionality, gender studies, disability and fat studies, trans rights and environmentalism are weaponized as either woke or not. NB: you know all those Women’s Studies departments that used to be in universities around the world? Well, they are gone - converted to gender studies instead. If you can’t talk about women and our sexed bodies, they disappear.
3) Cultural relativism (Western thoughts and ideas are the pinnacle of an oppressive power structure). Cultural relativism posits that anything that comes from the WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic) countries is automatically faulty and oppressive.
4) The loss of the individual and the universal (the intense focus on identity categories and politics means that both the individual and the universal are largely devalued). People are not as important as ideas and identities. This leads to a loss of safeguarding for women and children because there are no ways to separate (predatory) men from invading women’s private spaces.
The full piece is here:
Endpiece by Liz
Some great dancing to celebrate the latest Executive Order
#BeMorePorcupine
#EndGenderAffirmingCare
#AdultHumanFemale
#LetWomenSpeak
#GrassrootsArmy
#FightForFreeSpeech
#KeepOnTerfing
#GenderEnders
#NeverSurrender
Hi, dear readers. Hope you enjoyed this update and are still on a high from the Executive Orders! I certainly am!!
A heads up that Menno is doing a live chat this evening on his channel at 21.00 (GMT) with James Roberts following a gay men's conference last weekend.
Hope to see some of you there😁
Get involved in the live chat, Terven😃
Dusty
“People are not as important as ideas and gender identities” is a good summary of gender ideology. A fixation on minorities - e.g. the TQ+ - has been manufactured to the detriment of what works for most people most of the time in order to keep society ticking over in the best way it can. I don’t mean for this to sound like we should disregard all minorities, but, as the saying goes, we should prepare children for the road, not try and prepare the road for the child.