We need to stop this nonsense and get these people home.
Jun 8, 2011
There's A Line?
Anthony Wiener is just the latest in a very long (and ever-lengthening) line of people who get into positions of power and prestige, and come to think of themselves as bulletproof.
Jun 6, 2011
Well, It's About Time
In keeping with the spirit of bi-partisanship, Congress and the White House have just announced a compromise aimed at resolving the main differences between The Ryan Plan and ObamaCare.
As usual, we're not sure the American public actually had a Senior Death Match in mind, but hey - at least we're making a little progress (?) Oy.
As usual, we're not sure the American public actually had a Senior Death Match in mind, but hey - at least we're making a little progress (?) Oy.
Jun 4, 2011
Jun 2, 2011
Hmmm
The population in the US grows at about 9 or 10 or 11% per year. (The rate of growth is starting to slow a bit, but the Census Bureau predicts we'll be at about 392 million people by 2050)
Some questions:
Why is it hard to find out what the actual numbers are when I ask, "how much is the Federal Gov't expanding? "
What's an appropriate rate for a government to expand relative to the expansion of population?
If government is supposed to operate more like a business, and our Debt-to-Revenue (using GDP) ratio is right around 1:1, and there are many many very large and profitable companies running much higher ratios, then what's the big fuckin' problem?
Some questions:
Why is it hard to find out what the actual numbers are when I ask, "how much is the Federal Gov't expanding? "
What's an appropriate rate for a government to expand relative to the expansion of population?
If government is supposed to operate more like a business, and our Debt-to-Revenue (using GDP) ratio is right around 1:1, and there are many many very large and profitable companies running much higher ratios, then what's the big fuckin' problem?
Yo, Rand Paul
Go fuck yourself.
Why do we keep handing real power to people who are all about abandoning the two mainstays of what makes the US such a great place?
1) Freedom of expression and association.
2) Presumption of innocence.
I don't know if there's anything else - what Hannity said in response eg - but I'd be very interested to find out what the rubes think about it.
And BTW, Democrats, ya gotta be able to make some hay outa this.
Why do we keep handing real power to people who are all about abandoning the two mainstays of what makes the US such a great place?
1) Freedom of expression and association.
2) Presumption of innocence.
I don't know if there's anything else - what Hannity said in response eg - but I'd be very interested to find out what the rubes think about it.
And BTW, Democrats, ya gotta be able to make some hay outa this.
The Point
Art is supposed to be about something.
And it can be about supporting the artist (which should follow naturally if the concept and the execution are good to begin with).
And it can be about supporting the artist (which should follow naturally if the concept and the execution are good to begin with).
Jun 1, 2011
If Palin Isn't Running
If she's really not running, then she's not running in a very 'yes she's running' kinda way.
I dearly loved hearing her say she's just out on a little vacation romp with the kids, and she's not trying to disrupt anybody's day or anything - while traveling in a quarter-million-dollar bus with 20 or 30 thousand dollars worth of Ad Graphics splashed all over it.
What if we're seeing a new kind of candidacy though? Given the power of Roger Ailes to run DumFux News as the GOP's PR Department, they could be thinking Palin doesn't have to make any concessions at all to any media they think might be "hostile" to her.
A couple of things: first, there's already a caravan following her around like a bunch of Konrad Lorenz's geese (hat tip).
And two, if she avoids all media outlets except Fox and a few others that get Uncle Roger's seal of approval, then if anybody wants to know anything about Sarah Palin, they'll have to go thru DumFux News to get it.
Obviously, I dunno. What we all have to have learned by now, though, is that we need to be pretty damned careful not to mis-underestimate another Empty-Vessel Candidate neatly packaged and sold by the GOP.
I dearly loved hearing her say she's just out on a little vacation romp with the kids, and she's not trying to disrupt anybody's day or anything - while traveling in a quarter-million-dollar bus with 20 or 30 thousand dollars worth of Ad Graphics splashed all over it.
What if we're seeing a new kind of candidacy though? Given the power of Roger Ailes to run DumFux News as the GOP's PR Department, they could be thinking Palin doesn't have to make any concessions at all to any media they think might be "hostile" to her.
A couple of things: first, there's already a caravan following her around like a bunch of Konrad Lorenz's geese (hat tip).
Obviously, I dunno. What we all have to have learned by now, though, is that we need to be pretty damned careful not to mis-underestimate another Empty-Vessel Candidate neatly packaged and sold by the GOP.
May 31, 2011
As If Truth Even Existed
There is only Info-tainment in service of a political agenda. Wherever you think you wanna be on the standard spectrum, you can find a thousand "news" outlets to help you confirm your bias. There are still some places you can go to get fairly old-school, evenhanded reporting - Christian Science Monitor, McClatchey, AP (kinda), et al - but they're mostly pretty boring. And there's the problem as I see it. We've come to see straight up news as boring. We want spice; a little salsa. And a really smart guy like Roger Ailes knows exactly how to give it to us.
To watch even a day of Fox News – the anger, the bombast, the virulent paranoid streak, the unending appeals to white resentment, the reporting that’s held to the same standard of evidence as a late- October attack ad – is to see a refraction of its founder, one of the most skilled and fearsome operatives in the history of the Republican Party. As a political consultant, Ailes repackaged Richard Nixon for television in 1968, papered over Ronald Reagan’s budding Alzheimer’s in 1984, shamelessly stoked racial fears to elect George H.W. Bush in 1988, and waged a secret campaign on behalf of Big Tobacco to derail health care reform in 1993. "He was the premier guy in the business," says former Reagan campaign manager Ed Rollins. "He was our Michelangelo."Lots of great take-aways in this thing, but I think my favorite is the term "liberal bigots". It has a great ring to it, and captures the perfect combination of conservative self-loathing, white-bread aggrievement, and guilty projection.
Another one:
Dwell on this for a moment: A “news” network controlled by a GOP operative who had spent decades shaping just such political narratives – including those that helped elect the candidate’s father – declared George W. Bush the victor based on the analysis of a man who had proclaimed himself loyal to Bush over the facts. “Of everything that happened on election night, this was the most important in impact,” Rep. Henry Waxman said at the time. “It immeasurably helped George Bush maintain the idea in people’s minds that he was the man who won the election.”And the Big One: DumFux News has become the model, so it probably just gets weirder for a good long while.
May 30, 2011
Ya Can't Make This Shit Up
From Right Wing Watch.
Do these guys just not understand there's no difference (for most of us) between this shit and their abject horror at the prospect of somebody imposing Sharia Law? I think the answer is YES, they do understand it. They're just using that little charade to set up another false choice. The argument is simple: "Look, America - we'd better install a good Christianist Legal System before those dirty Mooslums get a chance to subjugate us all to the New Caliphate blah blah blah."
Do these guys just not understand there's no difference (for most of us) between this shit and their abject horror at the prospect of somebody imposing Sharia Law? I think the answer is YES, they do understand it. They're just using that little charade to set up another false choice. The argument is simple: "Look, America - we'd better install a good Christianist Legal System before those dirty Mooslums get a chance to subjugate us all to the New Caliphate blah blah blah."
On Darwin
In light of the bullshit that is the Conservative Movement/GOP these days, here's a bit of refreshment from The RSA (thersa.org):
Anyway, here's where the rush to the logical extreme leads: If your political affiliation requires a reflexive rejection of everything "socialistic", then that reflex is going to be triggered by a widening range of "socialistic ideas" - there're lots of Opinion Manipulators who are happy to point at whatever they need us to oppose and call it 'socialistic" - so this ever-widening definition will come to include anything that has to do with collaboration or cooperation or anything communally held - until eventually you find that you stand against all 4 principle objectives spelled out in the first sentence of the US Constitution - Justice, Domestic Tranquility, Common Defense and General Welfare. These are concepts that can't be dictated. They require mutual consent.
And here's the kicker: Guess what else requires cooperation and collaboration and things that are mutually held? Corporations. By current political definition, a corporation is a socialistic construct.
It's just too sweet. Alan Sherman's elegant imagery of "flying in tighter and tighter circles until it disappears up its own ass" comes pleasantly to mind.
The term Darwinism has, in recent times, come to suggest that savage, unbridled competition is the ruling principle of life in nature and must therefore rule in human society, too. Darwin’s views have, as neurobiology professor Steven Rose remarks, been seen as “justifying imperialism, racism, capitalism and patriarchy”. Today, he adds, “journalists refer to boardroom struggles and takeover battles for companies as Darwinian”.
All this is actually the opposite of what Darwin wrote when he discussed human and animal societies in The Descent of Man. There, he traced the origins of sociability in animals and pointed out how many kinds of creature show a direct concern for one another.It's kinda interesting that the GOP's Dead Jesus Wing takes every opportunity to trash Darwin, while all the swells in the Lizard King Wing practically cum in their pants if anybody even hints at the Dog-Eat-Dog Speech in Atlas Shrugged.
Anyway, here's where the rush to the logical extreme leads: If your political affiliation requires a reflexive rejection of everything "socialistic", then that reflex is going to be triggered by a widening range of "socialistic ideas" - there're lots of Opinion Manipulators who are happy to point at whatever they need us to oppose and call it 'socialistic" - so this ever-widening definition will come to include anything that has to do with collaboration or cooperation or anything communally held - until eventually you find that you stand against all 4 principle objectives spelled out in the first sentence of the US Constitution - Justice, Domestic Tranquility, Common Defense and General Welfare. These are concepts that can't be dictated. They require mutual consent.
And here's the kicker: Guess what else requires cooperation and collaboration and things that are mutually held? Corporations. By current political definition, a corporation is a socialistic construct.
It's just too sweet. Alan Sherman's elegant imagery of "flying in tighter and tighter circles until it disappears up its own ass" comes pleasantly to mind.
May 29, 2011
May 28, 2011
May 27, 2011
We Gotta Fix This Shit
Here's the letter Arne Duncan sent out for Teacher Appreciation Week in early May.
I scanned thru the comments and found that they were almost universally negative.
And here's a reply posted on Democratic Underground today (from David Reber, who teaches high school biology in Lawrence KS):
May 25, 2011
Mr. Duncan,
I read your Teacher Appreciation Week letter to teachers, and had at first decided not to respond. Upon further thought, I realized I do have a few things to say.
I'll begin with a small sample of relevant adjectives just to get them out of the way: condescending, arrogant, insulting, misleading, patronizing, egotistic, supercilious, haughty, insolent, peremptory, cavalier, imperious, conceited, contemptuous, pompous, audacious, brazen, insincere, superficial, contrived, garish, hollow, pedantic, shallow, swindling, boorish, predictable, duplicitous, pitchy, obtuse, banal, scheming, hackneyed, and quotidian. Again, it's just a small sample; but since your attention to teacher input is minimal, I wanted to put a lot into the first paragraph.
Your lead sentence, "I have worked in education for much of my life", immediately establishes your tone of condescension; for your 20-year "education" career lacks even one day as a classroom teacher. You, Mr. Duncan, are the poster-child for the prevailing attitude in corporate-style education reform: that the number one prerequisite for educational expertise is never having been a teacher.
Your stated goal is that teachers be "...treated with the dignity we award to other professionals n society."
Really?
How many other professionals are the last ones consulted about their own profession; and are then summarily ignored when policy decisions are made? How many other professionals are so distrusted that sweeping federal legislation is passed to "force" them to do their jobs? And what dignities did you award teachers when you publicly praised the mass firing of teachers in Rhode Island?
You acknowledge teacher's concerns about No Child Left Behind, yet you continue touting the same old rhetoric: "In today’s economy, there is no acceptable dropout rate, and we rightly expect all children -- English-language learners, students with disabilities, and children of poverty -- to learn and succeed."
What other professions are held to impossible standards of perfection? Do we demand that police officers eliminate all crime, or that doctors cure all patients? Of course we don't.
There are no parallel claims of "in today's society, there is no acceptable crime rate", or "we rightly expect all patients -- those with end-stage cancers, heart failure, and multiple gunshot wounds -- to thrive into old age." When it comes to other professions, respect and common sense prevail.
Your condescension continues with "developing better assessments so you will have useful information to guide instruction..." Excuse me, but I am a skilled, experienced, and licensed professional. I don't need an outsourced standardized test -- marketed by people who haven't set foot in my school -- to tell me how my students are doing.
I know how my students are doing because I work directly with them. I learn their strengths and weaknesses through first-hand experience, and I know how to tailor instruction to meet each student's needs. To suggest otherwise insults both me and my profession.
You want to "...restore the status of the teaching profession..." Mr. Duncan, you built your career defiling the teaching profession. Your signature effort, Race to the Top, is the largest de-professionalizing, demoralizing, sweeter-carrot-and-sharper-stick public education policy in U.S. history. You literally bribed cash-starved states to enshrine in statute the very reforms teachers have spoken against.
You imply that teachers are the bottom-feeders among academics. You want more of "America's top college students" to enter the profession. If by "top college students" you mean those with high GPA's from prestigious, pricey schools then the answer is simple: a five-fold increase in teaching salaries.
You see, Mr. Duncan, those "top" college students come largely from our nation's wealthiest families. They simply will not spend a fortune on an elite college education to pursue a 500% drop in socioeconomic status relative to their parents.
You assume that "top" college students automatically make better teachers. How, exactly, will a 21-year-old, silver-spoon-fed ivy-league graduate establish rapport with inner-city kids? You think they’d be better at it than an experienced teacher from a working-class family, with their own rough edges or checkered past, who can actually relate to those kids? Your ignorance of human nature is astounding.
As to your concluding sentence, "I hear you, I value you, and I respect you"; no, you don't, and you don't, and you don't. In fact, I don't believe you even wrote this letter for teachers.
I think you sense a shift in public opinion. Parents are starting to see through the façade; and recognize the privatization and for-profit education reform movement for what it is. And they've begun to organize --Parents Across America, is one example.
. . . No doubt some will dismiss what I've said as paranoid delusion. What they call paranoia I call paying attention. Mr. Duncan, teachers hear what you say. We also watch what you do, and we are paying attention.
Working with kids every day, our baloney-detectors are in fine form. We've heard the double-speak before; and we don't believe the dog ate your homework. Coming from children, double-speak is expected and it provides important teachable moments. Coming from adults, it's just sad.
Despite our best efforts, some folks never outgrow their disingenuous, manipulative, self- serving approach to life. Of that, Mr. Duncan, you are a shining example.
I scanned thru the comments and found that they were almost universally negative.
And here's a reply posted on Democratic Underground today (from David Reber, who teaches high school biology in Lawrence KS):
May 25, 2011
Mr. Duncan,
I read your Teacher Appreciation Week letter to teachers, and had at first decided not to respond. Upon further thought, I realized I do have a few things to say.
I'll begin with a small sample of relevant adjectives just to get them out of the way: condescending, arrogant, insulting, misleading, patronizing, egotistic, supercilious, haughty, insolent, peremptory, cavalier, imperious, conceited, contemptuous, pompous, audacious, brazen, insincere, superficial, contrived, garish, hollow, pedantic, shallow, swindling, boorish, predictable, duplicitous, pitchy, obtuse, banal, scheming, hackneyed, and quotidian. Again, it's just a small sample; but since your attention to teacher input is minimal, I wanted to put a lot into the first paragraph.
Your lead sentence, "I have worked in education for much of my life", immediately establishes your tone of condescension; for your 20-year "education" career lacks even one day as a classroom teacher. You, Mr. Duncan, are the poster-child for the prevailing attitude in corporate-style education reform: that the number one prerequisite for educational expertise is never having been a teacher.
Your stated goal is that teachers be "...treated with the dignity we award to other professionals n society."
Really?
How many other professionals are the last ones consulted about their own profession; and are then summarily ignored when policy decisions are made? How many other professionals are so distrusted that sweeping federal legislation is passed to "force" them to do their jobs? And what dignities did you award teachers when you publicly praised the mass firing of teachers in Rhode Island?
You acknowledge teacher's concerns about No Child Left Behind, yet you continue touting the same old rhetoric: "In today’s economy, there is no acceptable dropout rate, and we rightly expect all children -- English-language learners, students with disabilities, and children of poverty -- to learn and succeed."
What other professions are held to impossible standards of perfection? Do we demand that police officers eliminate all crime, or that doctors cure all patients? Of course we don't.
There are no parallel claims of "in today's society, there is no acceptable crime rate", or "we rightly expect all patients -- those with end-stage cancers, heart failure, and multiple gunshot wounds -- to thrive into old age." When it comes to other professions, respect and common sense prevail.
Your condescension continues with "developing better assessments so you will have useful information to guide instruction..." Excuse me, but I am a skilled, experienced, and licensed professional. I don't need an outsourced standardized test -- marketed by people who haven't set foot in my school -- to tell me how my students are doing.
I know how my students are doing because I work directly with them. I learn their strengths and weaknesses through first-hand experience, and I know how to tailor instruction to meet each student's needs. To suggest otherwise insults both me and my profession.
You want to "...restore the status of the teaching profession..." Mr. Duncan, you built your career defiling the teaching profession. Your signature effort, Race to the Top, is the largest de-professionalizing, demoralizing, sweeter-carrot-and-sharper-stick public education policy in U.S. history. You literally bribed cash-starved states to enshrine in statute the very reforms teachers have spoken against.
You imply that teachers are the bottom-feeders among academics. You want more of "America's top college students" to enter the profession. If by "top college students" you mean those with high GPA's from prestigious, pricey schools then the answer is simple: a five-fold increase in teaching salaries.
You see, Mr. Duncan, those "top" college students come largely from our nation's wealthiest families. They simply will not spend a fortune on an elite college education to pursue a 500% drop in socioeconomic status relative to their parents.
You assume that "top" college students automatically make better teachers. How, exactly, will a 21-year-old, silver-spoon-fed ivy-league graduate establish rapport with inner-city kids? You think they’d be better at it than an experienced teacher from a working-class family, with their own rough edges or checkered past, who can actually relate to those kids? Your ignorance of human nature is astounding.
As to your concluding sentence, "I hear you, I value you, and I respect you"; no, you don't, and you don't, and you don't. In fact, I don't believe you even wrote this letter for teachers.
I think you sense a shift in public opinion. Parents are starting to see through the façade; and recognize the privatization and for-profit education reform movement for what it is. And they've begun to organize --Parents Across America, is one example.
. . . No doubt some will dismiss what I've said as paranoid delusion. What they call paranoia I call paying attention. Mr. Duncan, teachers hear what you say. We also watch what you do, and we are paying attention.
Working with kids every day, our baloney-detectors are in fine form. We've heard the double-speak before; and we don't believe the dog ate your homework. Coming from children, double-speak is expected and it provides important teachable moments. Coming from adults, it's just sad.
Despite our best efforts, some folks never outgrow their disingenuous, manipulative, self- serving approach to life. Of that, Mr. Duncan, you are a shining example.
There's a lot that needs to be worked out, but the first thing we have to do is to understand that public education can't be included in this manic obsession with privatization. There are things that simply must be held communally; among them are Healthcare, Law Enforcement, National Defense and (at minimum) K-12 Education.
Second, you can't fix the schools if you don't fix the communities those schools are trying to serve.
Third, there are problems with Unions and with Tenure that have to be addressed, but those are problems of ego and power structures. The original point of tenure was to protect faculty from undue pressures from donors, clergy and politicians. You don't abandon the solid principles of collective bargaining and academic freedom when things get outa whack. You tend to the needs; you tweak; you remodel and rebuild; you get the system back into balance and go on from there.
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