A New One For Me

Schools Matter:

This space explores issues in public education policy, and it advocates for a commitment to and a re-examination of the democratic purposes of schools. If there is some urgency in the message, it is due to the current reform efforts that are based on a radical re-invention of education, now spearheaded by a psychometric blitzkrieg of "metastasizing testing" aimed at dismantling a public education system that took almost 200 years to build. JH August, 2005

I'll tell y'all up front that I don't know how to "fix the schools".  But we've been trying this melange of Charter Schools and Magnet Schools and For-Profit-Public-Private and Casino-Style-High-Stakes-Testing etc etc for something like the last 20 years or so, and I think it's time to admit that practically every attempt to shoehorn the operations of a Public School System into the Standard Business Model has failed.

I guess I should clarify what I think has failed - these attempts are not making for better students or for better teachers, and they're not making for a better work force, and they're sure as shit not making any given community better.  It is, however working beautifully when it comes to making some well-connected "entrepreneurs" quite comfortably wealthy.  Don't you have to wonder why Neil Bush suddenly discovered his long-dorment passion for Student Testing and Assessment right about the same time his brother was busily sliming No Child Left Behind thru congress?

See, it kinda works like this here:  When you make the endeavor about The Public Good, then you build in an incentive to do good things for The Public.  When you make the endeavor about Profit, then you build in the incentive for Rentiers to take profit.

(I can't believe anybody has to say it out loud like that, but fuck me, there it is)

Anyway, schools need a lot of help in a lot of ways, but a lot of the ways we've been "helping" them is straight up shameful.  Let's try something else.

hat tip = Democratic Underground

Please, Not Hillary

I'll have a really hard time supporting Hillary Clinton if when she runs in 2016.  I just have this thing against 'legacies'.  I don't think you should get special consideration for admission to any school just because you're the child of an alum.  You shouldn't have the professional skids greased for you in any way just because your parents were 'important' - or because your husband preceded you in office (even tho' having a famous/popular husband may be the only way you get the respect you've earned by your own worthy accomplishments).

There's no earthly reason Paris Hilton should command anything close to national attention for anything she does.  There's equally no reason to believe Meghan McCain would be some kind of leading light in the GOP Youth Brigade if it wasn't for her daddy's name and her mommy's money.  Luke Russert should be running the cash register at the Dollar Store while he works part time as an assistant to the deputy senior intern at some local AM station in Pokacuzzin West Virginia, where he gets to read the farm report whenever the regular guy is too hungover.

Here's my thing:  no more Kennedys and no more Rockefellers and no more Pauls and no more Bushes and no more Clintons.  No lagacies.

"Unfortunately", Hillary's credentials are nothing short of amazing.  Plus, I can't see anybody on the Repub side who could get thru the primaries and still have anything in his platform worth voting for.  So I may have to make an exception.

But then along comes Elizabeth Warren:

We’re three years from the next presidential election, and Hillary Clinton is, once again, the inevitable Democratic nominee. Congressional Republicans have spent months investigating her like she already resides in the White House. The New York Times has its own dedicated Clinton correspondent, whose job it is to chronicle everything from Hillary’s summer accommodations (“CLINTONS FIND A NEW PLACE TO VACATION IN THE HAMPTONS”) to her distinct style of buckraking (“IN CLINTON FUNDRAISING, EXPECT A FULL EMBRACE”). There is a feature-length Hillary biopic in the works, and a well-funded super PAC—“Ready for Hillary”—bent on easing her way into the race. And then there is Clinton herself, who sounds increasingly candidential. Since leaving the State Department, Clinton has already delivered meaty, headline-grabbing orations on voting rights and Syria.

Yet for all the astrophysical force of these developments, anyone who lived through 2008 knows that inevitable candidates have a way of becoming distinctly evitable. With the Clintons’ penchant for melodrama and their checkered cast of hangers-on—one shudders to consider the embarrassments that will attend the Terry McAuliffe administration in Virginia—Clinton-era nostalgia is always a news cycle away from curdling into Clinton fatigue. Sometimes, all it takes is a single issue and a fresh face to bring the bad memories flooding back.

I hope Warren stays right where she is tho'.  I want her to be a thorn in their sides for a very long time.

And I think it sucks that the political firmament has become so dull that practically any bright spot at all looks like a fucking supernova to us.

This Point Of Pale Light

Some Things Don't Get Better

Just a tasty tidbit - a little reminder that we still have to figure out what to do about the political and economic disasters heading our way, now that we've pissed away practically every chance we had at being able to do anything about the actual causes of the coming disasters.

And in case you've been wondering about "the cooling period" or the "warming pause" over the last several years?   Well, it appears the ocean's been doing its job; soaking up the kajillions of calories or BTUs or whatever you like to call all that "missing" heat, only to deliver it right back to us in the form of a typhoon that pushes a 20-foot tidal surge with winds gusting 170 mph.

Isn't it the least bit puzzling that we have a "once-in-a-lifetime storm" every few years now?

Nature bats last, dumbass.

TACLOBAN, Philippines (AP) -- As many as 10,000 people are believed dead in one Philippine city alone after one of the worst storms ever recorded unleashed ferocious winds and giant waves that washed away homes and schools. Corpses hung from tree branches and were scattered along sidewalks and among flattened buildings, while looters raided grocery stores and gas stations in search of food, fuel and water.

Officials projected the death toll could climb even higher when emergency crews reach areas cut off by flooding and landslides. Even in the disaster-prone Philippines, which regularly contends with earthquakes, volcanoes and tropical cyclones, Typhoon Haiyan appears to be the deadliest natural disaster on record.

Today's PSA

Sauce For the Gander

Don't know much about Ms Miller, but it sounds like she'd have been a good one to talk to about a lot things.

And just to be clear - I don't think I can be a "feminist" any more than a woman can be a "masculinist", but all of us could at least try to see things from a perspective other than our own once in a while.

hat tip = Tennessee Guerilla Women

Uhm...'Scuse Me

...but you said my premiums would be going thru the roof(?)

This is just a quick and dirty look, and I should tell you right now that I haven't checked this out at all. (Democratic Underground posted the link)

So there's a whole big pile of caveats and yeah-buts left to sort thru, but still - WTF, Bubba?

Today's Quote

"This is the question 'the right' has to answer:  Do you want smaller government with less handouts, or do you want a minimum wage?  Because you can't have both.  If Colonel Sanders isn't going to pay the lady behind the counter enough to live on, then Uncle Sam has to, and I for one am getting a little tired of helping highly profitable companies pay their workers."  --Bill Maher

Piercing The Veil

In all the huffing and puffing about the significance of a few off-year elections, there's one or two little items that got lost in the shuffle.

Here's Charlie Pierce, on trying to see beyond the trees, and into the forest - or something.

This was a raid, plain and simple. These pensions are not retirement plans. They are deferred compensation. They are money that workers are owed because they and their unions were willing to compromise on salaries in exchange for moe money after the workers retired. This is the kind of thing that has been going on all over the country for quite some time under the guise of "unfunded liabilities," which, in most cases, are "unfunded" because the people who were supposed to fund these plans reneged over decades to do so. (It is also a scam beloved of new brotastic centrist Governor Chris Christie, among others.) It is generally sold by the grifters promoting it as a rank appeal to worker jealousy. (That garbageman has a pension and you don't? No fair! And everybody forgets to ask why private-sector workers don't have pensions any more.) As such, it has worked extremely well. It certainly should have sold itself in Cincinnati. Instead, mirabile dictu, the voters saw through the charade and shredded it at the polls.

--and--

This was an assault on money owed to city workers, money that got itself squandered by, among other people, the vulpine bastards on Wall Street. The vote in Cincinnati was a carefully selected test case for ripping off workers for the benefit of large financial services institutions. That it failed was one reason to cheer last night. The next time someone tells you the Tea Party is a vehicle of protest for ordinary Joes and Janes, feel free to laugh in that person's face.

We Aim To Please

Pick a Bias Confirmation; any Bias Confirmation.

In case you were wondering just how squishy and soft the late great WaPo has gotten.

The Day After

So yesterday here in Ol' Viginny, we got us a few Democrats elected Governor, Lt Governor; and possibly Attorney General (the Dem is leading by a coupla hundred votes in that one).

It's seen as a semi-bigtime repudiation of the Radical Right, but the change is confined to the top spots - important and pretty satisfying in itself, but not exactly the "transformational phenomenon" a lot of people were looking for; not when the House of Delegates appears not to have changed one little bit.

A quick look at the Delegate races, and we still have 65 Repubs and 33 Dems with 2 races still too close to call as of about 5:00 this morning - and both of those were shaded in favor of the GOP candidate.

So we'll see if McCauliffe has the chops to get anything done, and/or the balls to jam thru some agenda items using just the Governor's letterhead.

Bringing it way down to a tight focus, we did manage to piss off the local Repubs somethin' awful by handing the incumbent a pretty sound thumpin' (12 or 13 points).  Brad Sheffield is our brand new representative for the Rio District, Albemarle County Board of Supervisors - way to go, Brad.

But maybe we should be talking more about why there were 45 seats in the House of Delegates that went uncontested this time around. 29 Repubs and 16 Dems had no opponents at all.  It seems almost half of our "representatives" can reasonably be considered Delegates-For-Life(?)  In a state that advertises itself as the nursery of American democracy and the birthplace of presidents; in a country that's constantly thumping its chest and crowing about bringing out the greatness in everybody by going toe-to-toe with the best possible competition; blahblahfuckin'blah - that's kinda fucked up right there, guys.

But hey - we're all happy cuz...you know - Hillary, right?

Local Precinct Pic

This is a picture of the Republican tent outside my precinct  (Earlysville Volunteer Fire Company).  I hadn't notice until one of "our" Dem voters pointed it out, but there's no electioneering signs for either Ken (Kenny The Kooch) Cuccinelli or for Mark (The Dark Legacy) Obenshain.

I have to wonder if there's any kind of statement being made here when 2 out of your 3 top guys aren't represented(?)  And how is it that you leave out Cuccinelli and Obenshain, but you're OK with a freak like Jackson?

Politics is weird, man.

Today's Entrepreneurial Inspiration

Cuz we need to wake up and recognize that with a little hard work and American know-how (and a coupla billion tax dollars), an elementary school can be just as safe as any other combat zone.



They piss on our heads; they tell us it's raining; and then they sell us umbrellas.

No soul and no honor.

hat tip = Addicting Info

Shattering Quietly

I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry (cover) --Jimmie Spheeris

Boiled Down Floyd

Wish You Were Here --David Gilmour



(can't find a link an Amazon)

Fallball, Anyone?

SDSU playing the game the way it oughta be played:

Cloudy Tonight

Brighter Days --Loggins & Messina



I've seen brighter
I've known brighter days
Lying alone in the shade
(Of a manzanita)

It's been sweeter
Bitter sweeter days
I know it's not for always
But all I can say is
I've seen better days

Is summer gone
Has it been that long
I guess that's what seasons will bring
I'm caught again
in the Autumn wind
But I remember spring

For I've seen brighter days
Seen lighter places to stay
along my way
Oh, I've seen brighter days

I've seen warmer
soft and warmer nights
Lying with love by my side
(in the Sycamores)
There've been finer, yeah
I've seen mighty finer nights
Knowing what's wrong or what's right
It just don't matter
when you're in warmer nights

But here I am
Like a sea blown wind
under my thunder and rain
I'll ride the waves
'Til the sunny day
comes to me again

Oh, I've seen brighter days
Seen lighter places to stay
along my way
Oh, I've seen brighter days

Wild Horses

Wild Horses --Stones



Childhood living is easy to do
The things you wanted I bought them for you
Graceless lady you know who I am
You know I can't let you slide through my hands
Wild horses, couldn't drag me away
Wild wild horses couldn't drag me away

I watched you suffer a dull aching pain
Now you decided to show me the same
No sweeping exits or off stage lines
Could make me feel bitter or treat you unkind
Wild horses, couldn't drag me away
Wild wild horses couldn't drag me away

I know I've dreamed you a sin and a lie
I have my freedom but I don't have much time
Faith has been broken tears must be cried
Let's do some living after we die
Wild horses, couldn't drag me away
Wild wild horses we'll ride them someday
Wild horses, couldn't drag me away
Wild wild horses we'll ride them someday

Friday Tune

I'm A Man - (cover) Chicago:

Cuttlefish Are Awesome