Monday, January 23

Funny Pages

ITEM: Bring Back Bill Clinton to stop Newt Gingrich! says guy in newspaper which sluiced Ken Starr's flaccid and leaky member and batted 1.000 while doing so. If by "batted a thousand" you mean "whiffed on everything, but gave Congressional Republicans enough cover to keep the investigation going 36 months longer than it should have, legally."

By the way, I love how the same Press which has faux-balanced every crackpot Republican scheme for the last forty years into One Side of the Coin gets all nervous an' shit when Republican figures "reveal" themselves as babbling anchorites.

ITEM: Speaking of which, the race to be the next Dean Broder continues unabated; Dan Balz explores the subtle nuances between the Official Beltway Script
In some respects, the contest between Romney and Gingrich falls into a familiar construct of Establishment vs. Insurgents, and yet neither candidate is the ideal to play his assigned role

and the grudging sort-of facts (Romney is an Establishment figure, but a moderate; Gingrich is a loon; The "Insurgents" are, in point of fact, the actual Republican party minus its rich-guy corporate wing) which is the fiery forge where Beltway Vulcans temper the Conventional Wisdom and pronounce it Indestructible.

ITEM: Meanwhile, loc. cit., let's allow Catholic organizations to claim religious exemptions, provided they choose to make a stink about it. Meaning, of course, Conception in all its various pathologies; they'll still be withhold employee taxes aimed at enriching the Rich, frequently executing the frequently Poor, and the ongoing $ trillion/year plowshare-sword conversion operation.

The reader's, if not the Post's editorial staff's, attention is directed towards the state of Utah, and its banning of polygamy just in time for Statehood, or the strictures placed on the Native American church.

Okay, it's been a rough few decades for Catholicism, especially its Likudnik USA faction. By the way, it's interesting to note how closely the Papacy parallels US post-war politics. You've got the Don't Ask Questions about Franco, Dr. von Braun Is On Line One, era, during which (previous) Fascist sympathies were judged as slightly less abhorrent than Communism. Followed by the miraculous appearance of Mr. Charisma, who turned out to be something of a Pink, followed by Nixon, followed by Reagan, followed, now, by Dick Cheney. The Catholic church has spoken very clearly about the enormity of contraception, wanton killer of theoretical souls, vs. the in-house PR difficulty presented by an ecclesiastical hierarchy with the collective morals of a troop of baboons. I'd like to think it's time now to use your Vow of Silence voice. Reproductive freedom is every American's Constitutional right. I know you don't like it. If you feel aggrieved about your tax money being appropriated for things you don't approve of, kindly find your place in line with the rest of us taxpayers.

ITEM: If you union teachers would give up your unreasonable demands to belong to a union we'll get this education reform nonsense dreamt up by your sworn enemies in high gear.

Y'know, far be it from me to point out that D.C. fucking schools are the ones which were reformed by the brilliant Michelle Rhee, before she took her snake oil wagon off in search of greener pastures. When's the evidence start pouring in about the unmistakeable benefits of giving each and every child a wonderful, caring, nurturing teacher who'll be here any minute, just as soon as that Right to Work thing is settled?

Okay. I don't care. Same fucking bullshit, same disastrous results for poor students, same pocket-lining opportunities for the next Neil Bush. Really, I just wanted to add this:
In recent remarks commemorating the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Mr. Cuomo spoke of his increasing intolerance for a school system that regularly fails so many of its students. “Our schools are not an employment program,” he said, according to a report in the New York Times.

Right. They're an employment training program. For imaginary jobs. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by how well they did on some one-shot, high-pressure math questions in third grade!

I have a dream today. But, dammit, I keep waking up.

8 comments:

Deggjr said...

Dr. von Braun, the man who aimed for the stars but often hit London?

Sharon said...

"I Aim at the Stars" was the title of von Braun's autobiography. The "but sometimes I hit London" part I first heard in a Bob Hope (of all people) monologue. Long, long ago...definitely on a black & white TV.

At the time, it was quite a subversive remark and (I remember being startled -- and pleased -- by it.)

Anonymous said...

Not sure if it is poor form to repost a comment from "Making Teachers Accountable" (in response to a "I knew a bad teacher that the union protected" comment posted to the same article) but it is absolutely spot-on:

"LaborLawyer
8:48 AM PST
In my practice as a labor lawyer representing management in dealing with unionized while-collar/professional employees, it was pretty easy for us to identify/improve/discharge poorly-performing employees. If management is willing to manage (rather than whine) and is willing to make the emotionally-difficult discharge decisions, the just-cause standard in the union's collective-bargaining agreement (which is essentially the same standard applied to tenured teachers) does not prevent management from discharging poor performers.

And, again drawing from my experience as a labor lawyer representing management (not unions or employees), it is important that teachers have protection from arbitrary discharge (either through union contracts or civil service due process provisions). When managers came to me for advice re discharging an employee, the employee usually was a poorly-performing employee. However, in some cases the employee was an acceptable or even outstanding employee who, for some reason, had ticked off the manager. This danger -- of a manager discharging a good employee for invidious reasons -- is particularly acute in the public schools where there are few institutional checks on a principal's abuse of authority (i.e., no first-line supervisor to stick up for an unfairly-targeted teacher, the largely subjective nature of teacher evaluations, the principal's ability to set a teacher up for discharge via biased student or class assignment decisions, and the fact that the principal often has little personal stake in retaining a good teacher)."

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

Good work.

Exposing all the crap published in the War Criminal Post each day is a tougher job than cleaning out the Augean stables, but someone's got to try.
~

Anonymous said...

Just one theater in the all-out war against every segment of American society that votes Democratic.

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

O.K. I'm watching Obama's S.O.T.U.

Remember this?

Again I ask: Who is going to give the Democratic response to Obama's speech?
~

Anonymous said...

Hope Mitch is wearing his dark blue suit so nobody notices he's pissed his pants....at least it felt good for a moment, eh Mitch?

Kathy said...

Your Honorable Gov said in his speech last night that Steve Jobs had "created more jobs than Obama". Didn't mention the jobs were slave-level work in China.