To understand Obama's hatred of public education, which way exceeds our dictator's or any other previous president, one has to understand the neoliberal underpinnings of his philosophy.
Or simply listen to the rhetoric of Arne Duncan, and you know teachers and teaching are being assaulted all over the country. Tenure will be done away with, not that it was ever worth a shit because of how much the deck is stacked in the arbitration hearings, but just think what would happen if tenure were eliminated. Parents could run roughshod over any wimpy principal, and those who aren't wimpy are corrupt and devious, and teachers would have no recourse whatsoever.
It's a tragedy that the public really doesn't know the truth about our dysfunctional schools to be able to really reform them. Instead, what we get is this privatization-corporate jargon horseshit from Eli Broad Academy superintendents or a push for worthless charter schools by the likes of Arne.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Dugard Case
As expected with people who have been kidnapped for a very long period of time, Jaycee Lee Dugard bonded with her captors.
After all, she lived with her kidnappers far longer than she had with her own family. She even worked at her abductor/molester's printing business. She was smart and very good at what she did.
Meanwhile, a bone fragment has been found on Garrido's property.
After all, she lived with her kidnappers far longer than she had with her own family. She even worked at her abductor/molester's printing business. She was smart and very good at what she did.
They knew the 29-year-old Dugard as "Allissa" and believed Garrido when he said she was his grown daughter. Mostly, they knew her as the courteous, professional young woman who, in telephone calls and e-mails, helped them order business cards, flyers and posters.
"He told us up front he works with his daughter. He said Allissa did all of the graphic design and he did all of the printing," said J.P. Miller, who hired Garrido this month to advertise his Orinda-based company, A&J Hauling.
Meanwhile, a bone fragment has been found on Garrido's property.
The Education Wars
Nobody should be shocked at all teachers in Chicago (and all over the country) are feeling pressure from their principals to change grades.
The public should not be shocked over this. Teachers are NOT professionals; they are NOT treated as professionals, despite the tons of propaganda spewed in teacher training programs and by college professors. Public schools (to say nothing of private schools) are run like the military, and teachers MUST follow orders or face retaliation. Once they are on a principal's shitlist, it is over for their careers. These principals who have no principles and higher-up administrators will target them for termination, and then teachers are forced to go through a stacked deck of a legal system.
But people think it is impossible to fire teachers except for gross misconduct involving children or for criminal offenses. Nothing can be further from the truth.
A snip:
As this passage notes, even if teachers don't change grades, the principals will do the dirty work.
You can thank the "accountability" movement for the wholesale destruction of public education.
By the way, some classroom teachers reported "pressure" from special education staff to change grades. Well, special education students have to be graded on a separate rubric from the regular student population; that has to do with federal law. When I taught life skills and had my kids pushed in for middle school science, for example, they were accommodated and graded on their own abilities and participation. The same was true for their elective classes. One could not expect them to take the regular tests that the general student population took--those kids would fail. Those kids, most of whom with some cognitive deficiencies, could not possibly be expected to be held to the identical standard. These students also can get high school diplomas--I don't remember what the term is whether it's an alternate diploma or adapted diploma or something.* That is NOT cheating or being unethical.
*--I believe they were called "adjusted" diplomas in my district.
The public should not be shocked over this. Teachers are NOT professionals; they are NOT treated as professionals, despite the tons of propaganda spewed in teacher training programs and by college professors. Public schools (to say nothing of private schools) are run like the military, and teachers MUST follow orders or face retaliation. Once they are on a principal's shitlist, it is over for their careers. These principals who have no principles and higher-up administrators will target them for termination, and then teachers are forced to go through a stacked deck of a legal system.
But people think it is impossible to fire teachers except for gross misconduct involving children or for criminal offenses. Nothing can be further from the truth.
A snip:
Teachers reported pressure from principals, "upset" parents and even other CPS employees who were parents of their students. They said the squeeze was put on them to pass failing students, to give ill students a break or to help athletes. Some felt prodded to goose up grades to help kids graduate, avoid summer school or get into an elite high school.
Such heat was twice as common among teachers in high schools, where the push is on to reduce failure rates. Several such teachers said they felt pressured to offer last-minute deals to kids so they wouldn't fail. Another said her school lowered its grading scale and "still we are pressured to change grades."
As this passage notes, even if teachers don't change grades, the principals will do the dirty work.
You can thank the "accountability" movement for the wholesale destruction of public education.
By the way, some classroom teachers reported "pressure" from special education staff to change grades. Well, special education students have to be graded on a separate rubric from the regular student population; that has to do with federal law. When I taught life skills and had my kids pushed in for middle school science, for example, they were accommodated and graded on their own abilities and participation. The same was true for their elective classes. One could not expect them to take the regular tests that the general student population took--those kids would fail. Those kids, most of whom with some cognitive deficiencies, could not possibly be expected to be held to the identical standard. These students also can get high school diplomas--I don't remember what the term is whether it's an alternate diploma or adapted diploma or something.* That is NOT cheating or being unethical.
*--I believe they were called "adjusted" diplomas in my district.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
The Education Wars III
I spent time listening to a conference call tonight about abuse in public schools including teacher abuse, which will actually done weekly. About 50 people were on the line to hear NAPTA president Karen Horwitz talk about her horror story at Avoca School District in Illinois, and a New York parent whose story is just unbelievably tragic. He has a website in memory of his son here.
Next week one of the scheduled speakers is Jo Blase, a college professor who with her husband, Joseph, has written a book about principal abuse of teachers, Breaking the Silence. Although published six years ago, the message has gone unheeded by school districts around the country, and the situation has gotten worse with the NCLB and privatization mantra.
Here is my email about the conference call:
Next week one of the scheduled speakers is Jo Blase, a college professor who with her husband, Joseph, has written a book about principal abuse of teachers, Breaking the Silence. Although published six years ago, the message has gone unheeded by school districts around the country, and the situation has gotten worse with the NCLB and privatization mantra.
Here is my email about the conference call:
On Sunday, August 30, 2009, at 7PM Eastern time, a coalition of activist parents, NAPTA educators (teachers and other educators who stood up so as not to harm children and were subsequently harassed or psychologically bludgeoned for having done so) as well as NAPTA members will be participating in a group conference call on education reform lasting approximately 1 - 1/2 hours. We will brainstorm how best to break through the tax subsidized propaganda, and force the truths about White Chalk Crime, the organized takeover of our schools, out of the darkness and into a place whereby the powers that be have to force change. This is the beginning of an effort to mobilize our grass roots movement into a formidable voice that can no longer be marginalized, dismissed, and most of all retaliated against into silence.
This will be the first conference call as we unite to counter the powerful forces that EducRAT$ use to keep the truth covered up. I will be one of the speakers who will help describe the plight of teachers and how this purposeful slaughter of good teachers along with the manipulative elevation of bad teachers ensures that nothing changes in education. As long as most parents believe it is impossible to fire bad teachers, most parents will blame teachers. NAPTA teachers must help teach them that this manipulation of truth helps focus anger at the wrong people. EducRAT$ can fire teachers. They can easily push teachers out. We KNOW this as ones who have been cleansed from the system despite our awards and accolades. But somehow we need to get this truth over the well entrenched lies so that parents can begin to direct their anger where it will effect change. We must counter the divide and conquer teachers and parents tactic that has held our schools hostage from parents for so long.
Unfortunately, although parents and teachers need to work together to build the kind of power needed to scale these overwhelming mountains of propaganda, the potentially good teachers trying to survive in our dysfunctional schools are unable to help parents. They are afraid to speak the truth in forums such as this and worse yet are afraid to speak the truth at conferences designed to help their own students! Because they know they must follow orders or suffer severe psychological assault, they follow orders that betray our children. (And we can vouch for the severity of this assault!) And the cycle goes on, with parents more convinced than ever that teachers are the problem.
We intend to start a parade of all who care about children with the hopes that in time those teachers who are following orders can stand up in unity and speak out so that the power will shift into the hands of those who care about children. We need educators or anyone who works in schools and knows the truth as well as citizens who are tired of seeing their taxes squandered to join with parents who are determined to shift the power from the hands of the greedy, self-serving administrators and school boards back into the hands of the public where it belongs. We deserve schools that exist for the sake of the children and are led by professionals who care about children, not schools that are focused on power and money. Much if not all that is bad about our society stems from our corrupt schools. So whether you are concerned about how our schools abuse children, abuse teachers, discriminate racially, squander funds, incur drop outs, or the fact that this nation is going down the tubes with the schools we have, participating in this is for you.
If you call in, no one will have access to your phone number or be able to identify you. (If you are really frightened about being part of this, you can *67 your number so it will not show up in any caller ID system.) However, some callers will be able to speak. Please let me know if you wish to speak as we will need to provide you with an additional number. I cannot guarantee there will be time for all who wish to speak to do so, however.
Also, if you do not have access to free long distance, consider contacting a friend and conferencing on their phone as most cell phones have free long distance on weekends. Please pass this onto other concerned friends as this is not limited to NAPTA members. All are welcome to participate in this call and of course all are welcome to join NAPTA and expand our voice.
The number to call at 7 PM Eastern time is: 212-990-8000 and the pin#, for which they will ask you is 1445# (pound).
Please contact me if you have any other questions or suggestions.
Miscellaneous News
I will leave it up to readers to determine whether patients were killed during the Katrina catastrophe.
It doesn't surprise me at all people were murdered by people who suppose to be in the practice of healing people. God damn them all. Pou and her ilk should be serving prison time.
_____
It doesn't surprise me at all people were murdered by people who suppose to be in the practice of healing people. God damn them all. Pou and her ilk should be serving prison time.
_____
More Kennedy
It appears that despite the big age difference between the two, Ted and Vicki Kennedy were a good match.
Lord knows he needed some stability after all of the tragedies in his life, a few of them self-inflicted.
I wonder if Vicki will eventually embark on a political career of her own though right now she appears uninterested. She's just slightly older than I am.
Lord knows he needed some stability after all of the tragedies in his life, a few of them self-inflicted.
I wonder if Vicki will eventually embark on a political career of her own though right now she appears uninterested. She's just slightly older than I am.
More Education Wars
The people who propose middle school students take algebra classes should be taken out and shot.
One of the biggest outrages I saw as a teacher was middle school students were being taught pre-algebra and algebra in middle school. Most students couldn't grasp it, and of course a lot of them were already special education students, students who were put in sped because of shitty curriculum taught in elementary schools.
It's totally inappropriate to teach algebra to students who for the most part don't have the abstract capability to learn it.
Many adults NEVER master it, and those who do usually find out they forget it and have to relearn it.
Practically speaking, you almost never use algebra anyway unless you are a math teacher.
One of the biggest outrages I saw as a teacher was middle school students were being taught pre-algebra and algebra in middle school. Most students couldn't grasp it, and of course a lot of them were already special education students, students who were put in sped because of shitty curriculum taught in elementary schools.
It's totally inappropriate to teach algebra to students who for the most part don't have the abstract capability to learn it.
Many adults NEVER master it, and those who do usually find out they forget it and have to relearn it.
Practically speaking, you almost never use algebra anyway unless you are a math teacher.
The Education Wars
With the movement towards allowing kids to read any books they please, including reading graphic novels, for reading classes in middle school, the standards keep a-tumblin' down.
Yes, many classic novels, especially the likes of Great Expectations and that godawful Heart of Darkness (the latter which I read in college over 30 years ago and singlehandedly killed my enjoyment of fiction) can bore the tears out of people being forced to read them, but teachers who let kids "pick" their books don't seem to understand the reason students have been required to read those books in the past. It has to do with understanding American and western culture, about students having a common base of knowledge in order to be considered educated, "cultured" human beings. Letting students pick whatever the hell they want in formal literature classes just further dumbs down education. So-called "sustained silent reading" or SSR is done routinely in elementary schools; the middle school where I taught also had a 20-minute of SSR each day. It's questionable whether this method is really effective, but it's popular. However, this should not be allowed in formal literature classes.
Reading Judy Blume and Danielle Steel just don't cut it. Knowing about a giant in literature and one of the great wits of all time, Mark Twain, does, whether you like him or not.
Don't forget, if kids are allowed to pick their books, that's much less work for teachers to have to teach units about a particular novel.
"Readers' workshop" is just another form of educational malpractice.
Yes, many classic novels, especially the likes of Great Expectations and that godawful Heart of Darkness (the latter which I read in college over 30 years ago and singlehandedly killed my enjoyment of fiction) can bore the tears out of people being forced to read them, but teachers who let kids "pick" their books don't seem to understand the reason students have been required to read those books in the past. It has to do with understanding American and western culture, about students having a common base of knowledge in order to be considered educated, "cultured" human beings. Letting students pick whatever the hell they want in formal literature classes just further dumbs down education. So-called "sustained silent reading" or SSR is done routinely in elementary schools; the middle school where I taught also had a 20-minute of SSR each day. It's questionable whether this method is really effective, but it's popular. However, this should not be allowed in formal literature classes.
Reading Judy Blume and Danielle Steel just don't cut it. Knowing about a giant in literature and one of the great wits of all time, Mark Twain, does, whether you like him or not.
Don't forget, if kids are allowed to pick their books, that's much less work for teachers to have to teach units about a particular novel.
"Readers' workshop" is just another form of educational malpractice.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Similar Cases to Jaycee Lee Dugard's
exist, but few captivities go on as long as hers.
The News of the World has lots of pictures purportedly of the backyard of "Creepy Phil."
The News of the World has lots of pictures purportedly of the backyard of "Creepy Phil."
More Kennedy
The president paid a tribute:
Part of Ted Kennedy, Jr.'s eulogy:
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Part of Ted Kennedy, Jr.'s eulogy:
The Education Wars
Asshole principals in NYC defy union orders and orders to fill vacancies with overaged or excessed teachers because they want to hire cheapo bimbos instead.
Time to fire these bastards.
I wouldn't want my name published either if I were defying orders. "Poor performing" schools is just another political excuse to get rid of more experienced teachers in favor of the bimbos.
This incident should illustrate to all the world what is going on in school districts throughout the country.
Time to fire these bastards.
With the teachers’ contract up for renewal this fall, Mr. Klein said he would push for a limit on how long teachers could stay in the reserve pool before they could be laid off. But an arbitration board has rejected such a limit.
Michael Mulgrew, the president of the teachers’ union, the United Federation of Teachers, said that the Education Department had not made a great enough effort to place teachers and that Mr. Klein had unfairly maligned them, making it even harder for them to find jobs. And, Mr. Mulgrew said, principals are reluctant to take on their higher salaries.
...
Several principals — who did not want their names published for fear of angering the administration or the teachers’ union — said they were circumventing the restrictions by offering new teachers jobs as long-term substitutes or hiring them as specialized teachers but placing them in regular classrooms. Some said they planned to eliminate open positions from their budgets rather than take on teachers they considered undesirable, and others said they were holding out in the hope that Mr. Klein would lift the restrictions.
I wouldn't want my name published either if I were defying orders. "Poor performing" schools is just another political excuse to get rid of more experienced teachers in favor of the bimbos.
This incident should illustrate to all the world what is going on in school districts throughout the country.
Ted Kennedy Funeral
One of many live streams can be found here:
I hope there will eventually be either a DVD or an iPod download of the services. After all, it's history.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
I hope there will eventually be either a DVD or an iPod download of the services. After all, it's history.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Here is a Live Stream
of the Kennedy service:
Also here:
Streaming Video by Ustream.TV
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Also here:
Streaming Video by Ustream.TV
Kennedy and Cancer
Although Ted Kennedy was involved in the war against cancer from way back, his fatal illness underscored just how little progress has been made.
His type of cancer, glioblastoma, is almost always fatal, and his 15 months of surviving the tumor is about average for a patient with this type of cancer and similar treatment.
His type of cancer, glioblastoma, is almost always fatal, and his 15 months of surviving the tumor is about average for a patient with this type of cancer and similar treatment.
In Some Good Economic News
the U.S. debt is now at $20 trillion dollars, a good enough red hole for our politicians to try and destroy Social Security, Medicare, and every other beneficial program in order to further enrich the crooks.
Miscellaneous News
Thursday, August 27, 2009
A Live Stream
of the Kennedy services is here:
The motorcade is in Boston.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
The motorcade is in Boston.
The Education Wars
The Gates Foundation is once again up to no good.
Not one word about "effective" administrators, too many of whom are sociopaths but are perfect foot soldiers in the war against public education.
Not one word about "effective" administrators, too many of whom are sociopaths but are perfect foot soldiers in the war against public education.
Miscellaneous News
I'll be surprised if Nancy Grace doesn't talk about this truly remarkable story of a Lake Tahoe girl who was abducted in 1991 and has been found to be alive and well and is 29 years old today.
The alleged abductors are in custody.
More ishere.
There were a bunch of sheds and tents where this woman, who had two children ages 15 and 11 by this s.o.b., lived for years with the kids. Disgusting.
The alleged abductors are in custody.
Jaycee Dugard, who would be 29 today, walked into the Concord Police Department on Wednesday, stunning police and family members who had all but lost hope that she was still alive.
Dugard's stepfather, Carl Probyn, 60, of Orange (Orange County) told The Chronicle today that his wife, Terry, called him at about 4 p.m. Wednesday with the news he never thought possible. "She basically said, 'Are you sitting down?' I said, 'Yes.' And she said, 'They found Jaycee - she's alive."
The two, who are separated, cried for about two minutes on the phone.
But that wasn't all. Citing information provided to her by the FBI, she also had another chilling bit of information: "They have the people she was with."
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/08/27/BA4N19EJ35.DTL#ixzz0PP0I18PB
More ishere.
There were a bunch of sheds and tents where this woman, who had two children ages 15 and 11 by this s.o.b., lived for years with the kids. Disgusting.
The End of Camelot
Only WSWS could write an obituary which looks at the larger picture. In writing about Ted Kennedy's life and career, the author ties in his and his family's lives in with the decay of liberalism and the Democratic Party as a whole:
_____
There will be three days of rites before Kennedy is buried at Arlington National Cemetery near brothers Jack and Bobby.
Details:
The American political establishment as a whole had shifted far to the right, as embodied in the free market nostrums of Reagan. These provided the political justification for a relentless assault on the living standards and social position of the working class, which continued under the Clinton and Bush administrations and continues today under Obama.
In death, Kennedy is being eulogized as the “Lion of the Senate” —a master legislator and advocate for the common man. While the personal tragedies of the Kennedys evoke in the public a certain sympathy for Ted Kennedy, the fact remains that his name is not associated with a single serious social reform. He spent his final decade sponsoring bipartisan measures of a right-wing character, such as George W. Bush’s “No Child Left Behind Act”—an attack on public education—and a punitive bill targeting undocumented immigrants that failed to win passage in Congress.
_____
There will be three days of rites before Kennedy is buried at Arlington National Cemetery near brothers Jack and Bobby.
Details:
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
More Obituaries
Ellie Greenwich, 68, who with one-time husband Jeff Barry wrote some of the most famous songs of the 1960s, has died. She passed away from a heart attack.
Barry and Greenwich also collaborated with one-time music producer and now convicted murderer Phil Spector on many of their most famous songs.
"Chapel of Love," "The Kind of Boy You Can't Forget," "Be My Baby," "Do Wah Diddy," "Leader of the Pack," "Da Doo Ron Ron," "River Deep, Mountain High" were just a few of the most famous songs Greenwich is associated with. A list of her work can be found here.
This is the New York Times obituary.
She was truly one of the all-time great songwriters. I've been a big fan of her music for decades.
Here is another obituary.
Snip:
An appreciation is here.
Manfred Mann performing "Do Wah Diddy" in 1964:
A recent configuration of the Crystals singing "Da Doo Ron Ron":
I can't get enough of that stuff.
_____
Writer and personality Dominick Dunne, 83, of bladder cancer.
I enjoyed his show on TruTV, Power, Privilege and Justice.
Barry and Greenwich also collaborated with one-time music producer and now convicted murderer Phil Spector on many of their most famous songs.
"Chapel of Love," "The Kind of Boy You Can't Forget," "Be My Baby," "Do Wah Diddy," "Leader of the Pack," "Da Doo Ron Ron," "River Deep, Mountain High" were just a few of the most famous songs Greenwich is associated with. A list of her work can be found here.
This is the New York Times obituary.
She was truly one of the all-time great songwriters. I've been a big fan of her music for decades.
Here is another obituary.
Snip:
"She was the greatest melody writer of all time," Brian Wilson told The Times on Wednesday. The chief creative force of the Beach Boys, whose music was strongly influenced by many of the hits Greenwich and her husband Jeff Barry wrote with Spector, has often cited "Be My Baby" as his favorite record of all time.
"Those songs are part of the fabric of forever," said songwriter Diane Warren, whose compositions have been recorded by Aretha Franklin, Celine Dion, Barbra Streisand, Whitney Houston, Mary J. Blige and dozens of others. "Her songs were written in the '60s, and it's 2010 almost, but they are as relevant and meaningful today as the day when they were born. "
An appreciation is here.
Able to sing, arrange and produce as well as pen indelible hits, Greenwich found her artistic home within New York's Brill Building, where she, her husband and songwriting partner, Jeff Barry, and their peers transformed an art form without making a big deal of it. She was a natural collaborator who could match wits with control freaks like Phil Spector and totally relate to the kids in the groups who recorded her songs.
She could write silly and she could write serious. But Greenwich's key works -- such classics as "Leader of the Pack," "Chapel of Love" and "River Deep, Mountain High" as well as more obscure ones like "Out in the Streets" and "Girls Can Tell" -- have a particular resonance that goes beyond catchiness or nostalgia.
Their quality has to do with Greenwich's gift for capturing the frisson of a decision almost made, a change that hasn't quite come, and which could still go either way. The voices for which she wrote, young and nearly always female, had a natural waver. They belonged to the kids who would change everything: multicultural girls such as Barbara Alston and Dolores "La La" Brooks of the Crystals, Ronnie Spector of the Ronettes and Mary Weiss of the Shangri-Las, girls who aspired to certain feminine ideals but also wished for a certain freedom promised by the changing attitudes of their time.
Manfred Mann performing "Do Wah Diddy" in 1964:
A recent configuration of the Crystals singing "Da Doo Ron Ron":
I can't get enough of that stuff.
_____
Writer and personality Dominick Dunne, 83, of bladder cancer.
I enjoyed his show on TruTV, Power, Privilege and Justice.
The Mean Streak in American Thinking
explains why reforms like health care haven't come to pass.
Credit years of GOP propaganda for that mentality. The country won't reverse course overnight.
I don't see any meaningful reform coming out of Congress because our politicians are so much on the take from corporate interests.
Credit years of GOP propaganda for that mentality. The country won't reverse course overnight.
Some put the divergence down to the ideological rigidity that led Puritans and others to flee to America in the first place; others to the ruthless struggle for survival that marked the early settlement years and the conquest of the West. Still others see it as the price the US pays for its material success. What it means, though, is that if and when Obama gets some form of health reform through, it will reflect America's fears quite as much as its promise. And it is unlikely to be a national service that looks anything like ours.
I don't see any meaningful reform coming out of Congress because our politicians are so much on the take from corporate interests.
The Education Wars
Who would have ever thought it would be Democrats who would lead the way in the destruction of American public education?
That's what is so outrageous about Obama and Duncan in this matter. They are trying to foist neoliberal ideas on the country.
On a somewhat similar vein, teachers all over the country had better be fucking scared about New York's "rubber rooms," for propaganda like that spewed in the New Yorker article about only incompetent teachers are fired is very effective and very much inaccurate.
Teachers are being shitcanned all over the country and tenure laws and regulations are being subverted as a way to save money on budgets. Yes, there are a few who are whistleblowers and a tiny number who really deserve to be sacked, but the vast majority of teachers have their careers destroyed because of filthy, corrupt, downright evil administrators, those people who are almost impossible to get rid of.
Remember once fired, a teacher can almost never again teach because most states and almost all public school districts require teachers reveal terminations. Since there can be hundreds of applicants for a single public school teaching job, a terminated teacher has virtually no chance of being interviewed, much less hired.
In New York it is even worse. If you are denied tenure after three years, you can have your license revoked, and you don't have to do one goddamned thing to deserve being terminated. You are an "at-will" employee, and administrators can do whatever the hell they want.
Something MUST be done to prevent this widespread abuse of the system, but if nobody knows about it, nothing can be done. Kids' lives and well-being are at stake.
More on this outrage here, including the comments section:
These bastards found a way to get around the requirement "excessed," experienced, and tenured teachers must be placed in jobs in order to hire cheapo bimbos who will be sacked in three years and never be tenured, must less be vested in retirement. The "U" rating, which can cause a teacher to be fired, is being abused by the Klein clone sociopaths for the sole purpose of preserving the bottom line, regardless of the fact schools are NOT businesses.
The Stephen Brill article is here as well. Brill used to have a magazine devoted to journalism years ago, but it seems to me this lawyer-turned-journalist or whatever doesn't know anything about education and the absolute destruction of public education by these Enron-type clones.
That's what is so outrageous about Obama and Duncan in this matter. They are trying to foist neoliberal ideas on the country.
On a somewhat similar vein, teachers all over the country had better be fucking scared about New York's "rubber rooms," for propaganda like that spewed in the New Yorker article about only incompetent teachers are fired is very effective and very much inaccurate.
Teachers are being shitcanned all over the country and tenure laws and regulations are being subverted as a way to save money on budgets. Yes, there are a few who are whistleblowers and a tiny number who really deserve to be sacked, but the vast majority of teachers have their careers destroyed because of filthy, corrupt, downright evil administrators, those people who are almost impossible to get rid of.
Remember once fired, a teacher can almost never again teach because most states and almost all public school districts require teachers reveal terminations. Since there can be hundreds of applicants for a single public school teaching job, a terminated teacher has virtually no chance of being interviewed, much less hired.
In New York it is even worse. If you are denied tenure after three years, you can have your license revoked, and you don't have to do one goddamned thing to deserve being terminated. You are an "at-will" employee, and administrators can do whatever the hell they want.
Something MUST be done to prevent this widespread abuse of the system, but if nobody knows about it, nothing can be done. Kids' lives and well-being are at stake.
More on this outrage here, including the comments section:
When Joel Klein changed how teacher salaries are paid, it made economical and administrative sense for principals to hire people with low seniority. Not only are new teachers cheaper, but without tenure they're more manipulatable and easier to terminate. What is not being reported is that higher paid veteran teachers who apply for jobs rarely get even a single interview, even when they've been rated Satisfactory their entire career and frequently enough been considered excellent educators. I have spoken to many secretaries who say their principals do not even want to see these applications, just discard them (two for the price of one, and all).
Moreover, there is no way, as Brill claims, that any ATR offered a job can "refuse" to take it. If a principal wants to hire one of these people, that person must take the job or resign. In the past couple of years, the DoE has been avoiding its contractual duty to work towards placing excessed teachers, for they rarely send people out to interview at another school as they had done in the past. Many think their passivity on this issue is a strategic maneuver, for if you want to trim the top salaries off the budget, let the ATR group grow. The PR team can then easily convince the public that it's somehow the teachers' fault they've not been placed.
These bastards found a way to get around the requirement "excessed," experienced, and tenured teachers must be placed in jobs in order to hire cheapo bimbos who will be sacked in three years and never be tenured, must less be vested in retirement. The "U" rating, which can cause a teacher to be fired, is being abused by the Klein clone sociopaths for the sole purpose of preserving the bottom line, regardless of the fact schools are NOT businesses.
The Stephen Brill article is here as well. Brill used to have a magazine devoted to journalism years ago, but it seems to me this lawyer-turned-journalist or whatever doesn't know anything about education and the absolute destruction of public education by these Enron-type clones.
More Kennedy
Here are some links from the Washington Post to read at one's leisure:
Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy Dies at 77 After Cancer Battle
A Legislator Like No Other
Colleagues, Friends Mourn Senate Patriarch
Video of the scene at Hyannisport:
Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy Dies at 77 After Cancer Battle
A Legislator Like No Other
Colleagues, Friends Mourn Senate Patriarch
Video of the scene at Hyannisport:
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Ted Kennedy 1932-2009
A major figure of American political and popular culture died last night: Ted Kennedy, 77, who had been U.S. senator from Massachusetts since 1962.
I literally grew up during his years in public life. I think one can say the final chapter of so-called "Camelot" is olosed.
Only his sister Jean is left of the nine children of Joseph P. and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy.
Given the fact he had brain cancer, it was remarkable he lived as long as he did.
After his two brothers were murdered, it was thought by many it would be inevitable Ted Kennedy to be president himself, but the infamous Chappaquiddick incident of 1969 put an effective end to it becoming reality. Kennedy tried to run for president in 1980 in the primaries against then-president Jimmy Carter, but all he accomplished was dividing the Democrats and helping them to defeat in the hands of Ronald Reagan and his Friedmanite supporters and pissing off Carter. Carter and Kennedy never got along.
But there was the Senate, and Kennedy enjoyed a long and distinguished career there. One could argue he accomplished more politically than either of his brothers ever did.
Rest in peace, Ted.
From the New York Times obituary of Kennedy:
He was the third longest-serving senator in U.S. history. Only Robert Byrd and Strom Thurmond served longer.
Despite Kennedy's many flaws which were the staple of the tabloids for many years, the real reason the right hated him and his family was because they actually gave a shit about the less fortunate. They believed in and actually acted on the ideas they espoused. They didn't look down on other people just because others didn't have as much money; in short, like the Roosevelts the Kennedys were traitors to their class.
And that is a deadly sin in the eyes of the Friedmanite rightists.
I literally grew up during his years in public life. I think one can say the final chapter of so-called "Camelot" is olosed.
Only his sister Jean is left of the nine children of Joseph P. and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy.
“We’ve lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives, but the inspiration of his faith, optimism, and perseverance will live on in our hearts forever,’’ his family said in a statement. “We thank everyone who gave him care and support over this last year, and everyone who stood with him for so many years in his tireless march for progress toward justice, fairness, and opportunity for all. He loved this country and devoted his life to serving it. He always believed that our best days were still ahead, but it’s hard to imagine any of them without him.’’
Overcoming a history of family tragedy, including the assassinations of a brother who was president and another who sought the presidency, Senator Kennedy seized the role of being a “Senate man.’’ He became a Democratic titan of Washington who fought for the less fortunate, who crafted unlikely deals with conservative Republicans, and who ceaselessly sought support for universal health coverage.
Given the fact he had brain cancer, it was remarkable he lived as long as he did.
After his two brothers were murdered, it was thought by many it would be inevitable Ted Kennedy to be president himself, but the infamous Chappaquiddick incident of 1969 put an effective end to it becoming reality. Kennedy tried to run for president in 1980 in the primaries against then-president Jimmy Carter, but all he accomplished was dividing the Democrats and helping them to defeat in the hands of Ronald Reagan and his Friedmanite supporters and pissing off Carter. Carter and Kennedy never got along.
But there was the Senate, and Kennedy enjoyed a long and distinguished career there. One could argue he accomplished more politically than either of his brothers ever did.
Rest in peace, Ted.
From the New York Times obituary of Kennedy:
Senator Kennedy was at or near the center of much of American history in the latter part of the 20th century and the early years of the 21st. For much of his adult life, he veered from victory to catastrophe, winning every Senate election he entered but failing in his only try for the presidency; living through the sudden deaths of his brothers and three of his nephews; being responsible for the drowning death on Chappaquiddick Island of a young woman, Mary Jo Kopechne, a former aide to his brother Robert. One of the nephews, John F. Kennedy Jr., who the family hoped would one day seek political office and keep the Kennedy tradition alive, died in a plane crash in 1999 at age 38.
Mr. Kennedy himself was almost killed in 1964, in a plane crash that left him with permanent back and neck problems.
He was a Rabelaisian figure in the Senate and in life, instantly recognizable by his shock of white hair, his florid, oversize face, his booming Boston brogue, his powerful but pained stride. He was a celebrity, sometimes a self-parody, a hearty friend, an implacable foe, a man of large faith and large flaws, a melancholy character who persevered, drank deeply and sang loudly. He was a Kennedy.
He was the third longest-serving senator in U.S. history. Only Robert Byrd and Strom Thurmond served longer.
Despite Kennedy's many flaws which were the staple of the tabloids for many years, the real reason the right hated him and his family was because they actually gave a shit about the less fortunate. They believed in and actually acted on the ideas they espoused. They didn't look down on other people just because others didn't have as much money; in short, like the Roosevelts the Kennedys were traitors to their class.
And that is a deadly sin in the eyes of the Friedmanite rightists.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Calling Nancy Grace
James Auchincloss, half-brother of the late Jackie O., has been indicted on child porn charges along with another man.
Details:
Still more:
That should get the Kennedy haters' blood boiling, even as Auchincloss doesn't have much to do with the rest of the family.
Details:
Mr. Auchincloss, 62, was known for offering observations, recollections and opinions – sometimes pointed – about the Kennedy family, which has struggled to keep a privacy curtain around its members’ very public lives. Mr. Auchincloss served on the board of Oregon Stage Works, a theater program for children, prior to stepping down when news of the investigation broke in June. David Hoppe, the deputy district attorney assigned to the case, said Mr. Auchincloss is not likely to be held until the trial. “Hopefully though, due to his lack of criminal history he would be eligible for probation,” he said.
Still more:
Deputy District Attorney David Hoppe said a plea bargain is typical for the charges against Auchincloss and that he likely would remain free pending resolution of the case. Hoppe noted that Auchincloss is not charged with any production, sale or distribution of child pornography — only possession and duplication — meaning that he may not have to serve any jail time if convicted.
That should get the Kennedy haters' blood boiling, even as Auchincloss doesn't have much to do with the rest of the family.
The Education Wars
Get ready for the wholesale privatization of schools, with LAUSD being a pioneer in the total destruction of what once made this country great:
The scene today outside the downtown headquarters of the Los Angeles Unified School District is a bit chaotic, with hundreds of competing activists and traffic jams. At issue is today's vote on a plan that would allow outside groups to take control of 50 new campuses scheduled to open over the next four years. The proposal has been expanded to include more than 200 existing schools that have persistently failed to meet state and federal improvement targets. These schools could be shut down and converted to charter schools or turned over to outside groups.
The strategy sessions for today’s theater began before dawn. By 5 a.m., about 50 supporters of the proposal, wearing light-blue T-shirts emblazoned with “My Child, My Choice,” began lining up to be the first into the auditorium, where the school board is scheduled to deliberate over the measure at 2 p.m.
Right behind this contingent came a larger one, distinctive for its red T-shirts. The group is spearheaded by United Teachers Los Angeles, the district's teachers union, which is leading opposition to the proposal, authored by school board member Yolie Flores Aguilar.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Thanks to Far Too Many People
having gotten drunk with Reaganism and the false Friedmanite religion of the 1980s, this country and the world are suffering from a horrendous economic hangover.
And far too many people, including some so-called Democrats in Congress, they still haven't dried out.
And far too many people, including some so-called Democrats in Congress, they still haven't dried out.
Misc
Police are wondering whether Ryan Jenkins had help in disposing of his ex-wife's body.
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The Michael Jackson saga will never end: Drugs were involved in the singer's death:
Here is a copy of the search warrant.
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The Michael Jackson saga will never end: Drugs were involved in the singer's death:
Michael Jackson died of "lethal levels" of the powerful anesthetic propofol, according to a search warrant affidavit unsealed today in Houston.
The court documents quote the L.A. County coroner's office as reaching that conclusion after an autopsy of the pop star.
The documents address one of the major unanswered questions surrounding Jackson's death. But they also raise new questions about how Jackson was treated, particularly in the hours before his death.
Conrad Murray, Jackson's personal doctor, told detectives with the Los Angeles Police Department that he had been treating Jackson for insomnia for about six weeks. He had been giving Jackson 50 milligrams of propofol every night using an intravenous line, according to the court records.
Here is a copy of the search warrant.
The Assholery of Arne
In case anybody has the stomach to actually read the Secretary of Education's remarks to a symposium run by America's Choice, I've provided a link.
I have concluded the Obama administration is the most anti-public education administration in U.S. history.
And yes, his and Arne's policies are little more than Friedmanite horseshit.
I have concluded the Obama administration is the most anti-public education administration in U.S. history.
And yes, his and Arne's policies are little more than Friedmanite horseshit.
The Health Care Mess
Yes, scaling back health care reform is a stupid idea, but when you're on the take as Congress is, it's inevitable there will be NO meaningful reform at all.
The people in Congress don't represent the voters who elected them.
The people in Congress don't represent the voters who elected them.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Miscellaneous News
Hell, I thought she had already died, let alone was already retired: famed stripper Carol Doda decides to pack it in once and for all.
_____
Reality television contestant and murder suspect Ryan Jenkins has been found dead in a British Columbia motel:
He was 32.
Details:
_____
Reality television contestant and murder suspect Ryan Jenkins has been found dead in a British Columbia motel:
Canadian police say fugitive murder suspect Ryan Jenkins has been found dead of an apparent suicide in a motel in British Columbia. Sgt. Duncan Pound of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police border integrity unit says police responded to a call about a dead person in Hope, east of Vancouver, and then called investigators who were part of the massive manhunt for Jenkins.
He was 32.
Details:
Meanwhile, sources told CTV's Alberta Bureau Chief Janet Dirks that the former real estate developer hanged himself.
Investigators on both sides of the border had asked for assistance from the public in their search for Jenkins, who is suspected of strangling Fiore and reporting her missing the evening of Aug. 15, then fleeing.
Police suspected that Jenkins had likely snuck back into his home country by car, boat and on foot.
Police didn't say how long Jenkins' body had been in the motel room. There had also been a $25,000 reward for information leading to his arrest.
The Health Care Mess
The senator from Aetna, as Ralph Nader once lovingly called Joe Lieberman, says any health care reform must occur in teeny-tiny steps so as to not offend the big donors from the medical industrial complex. The uninsured can wait until they die or the recession ends, whichever comes first, before Lieberman and the Blue Dogs will give them crumbs.
Or, more likely, the GOP takes control of Congress again, and there will never again be health care reform except to destroy Medicare and Medicaid.
Or, more likely, the GOP takes control of Congress again, and there will never again be health care reform except to destroy Medicare and Medicaid.
The Education Wars
D.C. School Chancellor Michelle Rhee, one of the worst administrators in the country, has a 200-page guideline for her beleaguered teachers to follow.
A Reader's Digest-type version of this insanity can be found here.
Rhee is only 39 years old, with very little in the way of teaching experience, which appears to be par for the course with this new crop of administrators being forced upon teachers and taxpayers. From Wikipedia:
Not long ago administrators were teachers who taught for many, many years before going into administration, got into it just prior to retiring, and actually were very empathetic towards teachers because they had been there. Now we have nothing but fuckwads from principals on up who are way too young for the responsibility or were basically unfit to be in a classroom and thus promoted to oversee teachers and other administrators. It won't be long before all administrators will have MBAs, totally inappropriate when it's supposed to be about children and not the bottom line.
Make no mistake: school districts all over the country are full of these fuckwads, and as a result public schools are going into the shitter--on purpose.
_____
Washoe County School District will find that whites will be in the minority by 2015.
Or perhaps they won't, with all of the Hispanics moving out of the region because of the shitty economy.
Now remember, this new superintendent, Heath Morrison, is basically a privatizer with little teaching experience prior to going into administration. I don't think he is there for the long haul, anyway; WCSD is just a stepping stone to the big leagues.
This made me laugh out loud because of the obvious naivete or bullshit being spewed:
Well, if you want good teachers, quit hiring nepotisms. It is unconscionable for a principal to hire a mother and her two daughters as teachers in the same building. Nepotism invariably breeds corruption. If you want good principals, quit promoting the weakest teachers into these jobs and quit hiring careerists who don't give a shit about the kids but see their jobs as public relations managers. And quit hiring people under the age of 50 or 55 for these jobs.
By the way, you can't do "year-round high schools" anyway given the way higher education operates. Besides, the argument that going to school "year round" helps kids learn better is a crock of shit; there is no evidence of that. The reason there continues to be year-round schooling is because many teachers somehow like the frequent breaks.
I despised it totally. Summers off are very short anyway, and one has to be able to decompress from the previous year because teaching is very labor intensive. Year-round doesn't even allow that; I felt like I was on a goddamned treadmill.
A Reader's Digest-type version of this insanity can be found here.
Rhee is only 39 years old, with very little in the way of teaching experience, which appears to be par for the course with this new crop of administrators being forced upon teachers and taxpayers. From Wikipedia:
Rhee taught in Baltimore, Maryland as a recruit of Teach For America for three years. In 1997 she founded the New Teacher Project, a non-profit organization which works with needy school districts to recruit and train new teachers. In ten years, the New Teacher Project has expanded to forty programs in twenty states and recruited more than 10,000 teachers.
Through the DC Teaching Fellows program, Washington, D.C. participated in the New Teacher Project, and was successful in recruiting highly qualified applicants. On June 12, 2007, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty announced that he had chosen Rhee to replace superintendent of D.C. public schools Clifford Janey and become the schools' new chancellor. Rhee initially rebuffed Fenty's offer, but relented when promised wide latitude and significant authority in decision-making as well as strong mayoral support for her proposed initiatives. New York City Public Schools Chancellor Joel Klein highly recommended her to Mayor Fenty.
Rhee has served on the advisory boards for the National Council on Teacher Quality, National Center for Alternative Certification, and Project REACH.[citation needed] She was a special guest of First Lady Laura Bush at President George W. Bush's 2008 State of the Union address.
Not long ago administrators were teachers who taught for many, many years before going into administration, got into it just prior to retiring, and actually were very empathetic towards teachers because they had been there. Now we have nothing but fuckwads from principals on up who are way too young for the responsibility or were basically unfit to be in a classroom and thus promoted to oversee teachers and other administrators. It won't be long before all administrators will have MBAs, totally inappropriate when it's supposed to be about children and not the bottom line.
Make no mistake: school districts all over the country are full of these fuckwads, and as a result public schools are going into the shitter--on purpose.
_____
Washoe County School District will find that whites will be in the minority by 2015.
Or perhaps they won't, with all of the Hispanics moving out of the region because of the shitty economy.
Now remember, this new superintendent, Heath Morrison, is basically a privatizer with little teaching experience prior to going into administration. I don't think he is there for the long haul, anyway; WCSD is just a stepping stone to the big leagues.
This made me laugh out loud because of the obvious naivete or bullshit being spewed:
Get the best teachers to teach the students who need them the most
“In public education in general, we tend to give the kids who come to school with less, less school,” Morrison said. “So they get the most inexperienced teachers, they get the largest class sizes and they get the most disengaging classes. And then we wonder why they continue to struggle. Most people would say, ‘Why aren’t you trying to find ways to encourage the best principals and the best teachers to work with the students who have the highest needs.”
Well, if you want good teachers, quit hiring nepotisms. It is unconscionable for a principal to hire a mother and her two daughters as teachers in the same building. Nepotism invariably breeds corruption. If you want good principals, quit promoting the weakest teachers into these jobs and quit hiring careerists who don't give a shit about the kids but see their jobs as public relations managers. And quit hiring people under the age of 50 or 55 for these jobs.
By the way, you can't do "year-round high schools" anyway given the way higher education operates. Besides, the argument that going to school "year round" helps kids learn better is a crock of shit; there is no evidence of that. The reason there continues to be year-round schooling is because many teachers somehow like the frequent breaks.
I despised it totally. Summers off are very short anyway, and one has to be able to decompress from the previous year because teaching is very labor intensive. Year-round doesn't even allow that; I felt like I was on a goddamned treadmill.
Although He is Very Sorry He Got Caught,
John Ensign is working very hard to restore his tattered career.
It's a long time before this bimbo runs for re-election, so voters may forget all about the Hamptons and the Family by then.
It's a long time before this bimbo runs for re-election, so voters may forget all about the Hamptons and the Family by then.
Teacher "Quality"
This poster hits the nail on the head about the cluelessness of non-educators pontificating about education, and the author is also correct it takes 3-5 years minimum for new teachers to really know their craft. All too often school districts, including the infamously horrible NYC district, aren't even letting new teachers, whether they be young teachers or older career-changers, get a chance at being quality teachers.
But with all of this bitchery about "tenure" and general workplace abuse of teachers for the sole reason of either denying them tenure and thus retirement benefits and saving money on budgets, children increasingly have NO "quality" teachers who are teaching them.
The public school system is turning into a revolving-door system of temporary and throwaway teachers, with none getting tenure, much less lifetime careers, unless they are related to somebody already in the system. Disgusting.
This is deliberate. It's NOT about the kids at all.
But with all of this bitchery about "tenure" and general workplace abuse of teachers for the sole reason of either denying them tenure and thus retirement benefits and saving money on budgets, children increasingly have NO "quality" teachers who are teaching them.
The public school system is turning into a revolving-door system of temporary and throwaway teachers, with none getting tenure, much less lifetime careers, unless they are related to somebody already in the system. Disgusting.
The characteristics for a "quality teacher" is quite simple. First, the teacher must have small class sizes, Second, the teacher must know the curriculum like the back of their hand. Third, let the teacher be the master of his or her classroom, not the administrators. Finally, the teacher must demonstrate skills in classroom management and punish misbehaving students with reasonable penalties. For a teacher to be a quality teacher, the above skills must be mastered and that takes a minimum of 3 to 5 years and in many cases longer. Is it any wonder that in New York City 50% of the new teachers quit within the first five years?
This is deliberate. It's NOT about the kids at all.
The GOP
has gotten more strident and more "radical" since Obama took office, and one should find the instances of wackos carrying guns a bit disturbing.
However, because the Democrats are all too often appeasing corporations and are too accommodating to the congressional Republicans, they have unwittingly fueled this strident opposition by a few in public.
Obama's reaching across the aisle nonsense will wreck his career. But it isn't just this nonsense that will hurt him. His inexperience is a real detriment in getting things done.
Yeah, the right fears losing its position, but don't forget the followers are not the REAL right. It's the very wealthy who are the ones spearheading this class warfare by trying using social issues propaganda to inflame their less well-heeled supporters all the while screwing over these same people with their tax breaks, etc. worsening the already bad economy.
(Sorry about the truncated post; Firefox went on the fritz a couple of hours ago.)
However, because the Democrats are all too often appeasing corporations and are too accommodating to the congressional Republicans, they have unwittingly fueled this strident opposition by a few in public.
The G.O.P., whose ranks have now dwindled largely to whites in Dixie and the less-populated West, is not even a paper tiger — it’s a paper muskrat. James Carville is correct when he says that if Republicans actually carried out their filibuster threats on health care, it would be a political bonanza for the Democrats.
In last year’s campaign debates, Obama liked to cite his unlikely Senate friendship with Tom Coburn, of all people, as proof that he could work with his adversaries. If the president insists that enemies like this are his friends — and that the nuts they represent can be placated by reason — he will waste his opportunity to effect real change and have no one to blame but himself.
Obama's reaching across the aisle nonsense will wreck his career. But it isn't just this nonsense that will hurt him. His inexperience is a real detriment in getting things done.
Yeah, the right fears losing its position, but don't forget the followers are not the REAL right. It's the very wealthy who are the ones spearheading this class warfare by trying using social issues propaganda to inflame their less well-heeled supporters all the while screwing over these same people with their tax breaks, etc. worsening the already bad economy.
(Sorry about the truncated post; Firefox went on the fritz a couple of hours ago.)
The Health Care Mess
Saturday, August 22, 2009
The Rights of Women Worldwide
will become the next great crusade, according to this piece.
Women are still regarded as little more than chattel in a great part of the world. It's just disgusting.
The horrible treatment of women all over the world is because of men's jealousy of women's ability to have children while they can't. Worse yet, women not only have the power to give birth, but they have the power not to. There are a lot of insecure men out there raised on cultures based on male insecurity.
Women are still regarded as little more than chattel in a great part of the world. It's just disgusting.
A similar pattern emerged in other countries. In India, a “bride burning” takes place approximately once every two hours, to punish a woman for an inadequate dowry or to eliminate her so a man can remarry — but these rarely constitute news. When a prominent dissident was arrested in China, we would write a front-page article; when 100,000 girls were kidnapped and trafficked into brothels, we didn’t even consider it news.
Amartya Sen, the ebullient Nobel Prize-winning economist, developed a gauge of gender inequality that is a striking reminder of the stakes involved. “More than 100 million women are missing,” Sen wrote in a classic essay in 1990 in The New York Review of Books, spurring a new field of research. Sen noted that in normal circumstances, women live longer than men, and so there are more females than males in much of the world. Yet in places where girls have a deeply unequal status, they vanish. China has 107 males for every 100 females in its overall population (and an even greater disproportion among newborns), and India has 108. The implication of the sex ratios, Sen later found, is that about 107 million females are missing from the globe today. Follow-up studies have calculated the number slightly differently, deriving alternative figures for “missing women” of between 60 million and 107 million.
Girls vanish partly because they don’t get the same health care and food as boys. In India, for example, girls are less likely to be vaccinated than boys and are taken to the hospital only when they are sicker. A result is that girls in India from 1 to 5 years of age are 50 percent more likely to die than boys their age. In addition, ultrasound machines have allowed a pregnant woman to find out the sex of her fetus — and then get an abortion if it is female.
The global statistics on the abuse of girls are numbing. It appears that more girls and women are now missing from the planet, precisely because they are female, than men were killed on the battlefield in all the wars of the 20th century. The number of victims of this routine “gendercide” far exceeds the number of people who were slaughtered in all the genocides of the 20th century.
The horrible treatment of women all over the world is because of men's jealousy of women's ability to have children while they can't. Worse yet, women not only have the power to give birth, but they have the power not to. There are a lot of insecure men out there raised on cultures based on male insecurity.
Obituaries
R&B singer John Carter, who performed with the groups the Dells and the Flamingos, has died at the age of 75. He had lung cancer.
He's co-lead singer in this clip when he was with the Dells circa 1975:
_____
Rose Friedman, co-conspirator with her late husband Uncle Miltie Friedman in helping to destroy economies around the world, died the other day of heart failure. Nobody knows exactly how old she was since her birth records were long gone, but she was said to have been probably 98.
She met Milton in 1932, married him six years later, and they stayed together for 68 years until he died in 2006.
The global economy may not last that long thanks to their crackpot theories being implemented.
_____
He was a founding member of the Flamingos, who were inducted into the Rock 'n Roll Hall in 2000. The group recorded for Chicago-based Chess Records and was best known for the hits "Golden Teardrops" and a soulful rendition of the standard "I Only Have Eyes for You."
Carter moved in 1960 to the Dells, who had formed in 1952 as a doo-wop group at Thornton Township High School, in Harvey. He replaced lead tenor Johnny Funches and led the R&B group for the next 49 years.
He's co-lead singer in this clip when he was with the Dells circa 1975:
_____
Rose Friedman, co-conspirator with her late husband Uncle Miltie Friedman in helping to destroy economies around the world, died the other day of heart failure. Nobody knows exactly how old she was since her birth records were long gone, but she was said to have been probably 98.
She met Milton in 1932, married him six years later, and they stayed together for 68 years until he died in 2006.
The global economy may not last that long thanks to their crackpot theories being implemented.
_____
I Hate to Say "I Told You So"
It appears Peter Daou is saying something that is becoming more and more of a consensus among observers, and that is Obama is frittering away his political capital for a variety of reasons and his cluelessness is being most prominently displayed in the health care mess.
What should concern everybody is the possibility the GOP will get back in and then the road to total economic ruin will be complete.
What should concern everybody is the possibility the GOP will get back in and then the road to total economic ruin will be complete.
On a Positive Note,
workplace suicides have gone up in this country thanks to the booming economy:
The US suicide rate rose by 5 percent from 1999 to 2005, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. There were 33,185 total suicides in the United States in 2007, according the the Centers for Disease control, but figures for 2008 are not yet available.
“There is a correlation between suicide and unemployment rates,” Dr. Paula Clayton, medical director at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, told Bloomberg.com. She said that the number of calls to suicide hotlines have increased in the recent period.
These figures make clear the devastating impact of the economic crisis on workers. While the unemployment rate fell slightly last month for the first time since the recession began, it is expected to reach 10 percent by the end of the year, and remain much higher than its previous rate for years to come. Credit card defaults and foreclosures are near record rates, while workers’ incomes are falling and social services are being cut back.
The Education Wars
California's Arnold Schwarzenegger decides to declare war on his state's public schools by using the big, bad unions as easy targets.
Naturally, there is the usual hogwash about "merit pay" and nothing about the assholes who run the individual schools and school districts.
Already hopelessly politicized and corrupt districts will be even more so.
I looked over at the WCSD site, although I just cringe at the thought I ever tried to work for such a crooked outfit, and noticed the district is hiring for a few teachers, but I note the influence of the new superintendent on how they are hiring teachers, especially in subverting post-probationary/tenure regulations and finding a way to make sure people never get vested in PERS:
This is all Superintendent Morrison's idea, someone with only four years' experience as a classroom teacher and an Eli Broad "Academy" graduate to boot; this per-diem shit was rarely if ever used previously, and one-year-only contracts were used only in cases of a regular teacher's leave of absence or grant-funded positions. I suppose the dipshit union went along with this atrocity.
The state budget problem is being used as an excuse for mistreating teachers, putting new hires on temporary contracts, or tossing them out of the system altogether, just as I was thrown out on my ass because the district's crooks didn't want to pay my full retirement benefits. Never mind kids need classroom stability because they don't have much stability at home. But public schools are no longer about the kids; it's about protecting power and perks and the bottom line.
Get ready for the revolving-door teacher syndrome to hit every single school district in the United States.
Naturally, there is the usual hogwash about "merit pay" and nothing about the assholes who run the individual schools and school districts.
Already hopelessly politicized and corrupt districts will be even more so.
I looked over at the WCSD site, although I just cringe at the thought I ever tried to work for such a crooked outfit, and noticed the district is hiring for a few teachers, but I note the influence of the new superintendent on how they are hiring teachers, especially in subverting post-probationary/tenure regulations and finding a way to make sure people never get vested in PERS:
All individuals not currently on a standard contract with Washoe County School District, will be hired as day-to-day teachers until it is determined on or around count day in late September that the allocation can continue. If it is determined that the allocation can continue, the teacher will then be placed in a One Year Only contract, if eligible. Current standard-contracted half-time teachers may be hired at another school as a transfer, however, they will be considered half-time standard/half-time day-to-day until after count day as described above.
Individual selected into this position must be Highly Qualified for this assignment or complete a plan of action to achieve ASAP Highly Qualified status.
This is all Superintendent Morrison's idea, someone with only four years' experience as a classroom teacher and an Eli Broad "Academy" graduate to boot; this per-diem shit was rarely if ever used previously, and one-year-only contracts were used only in cases of a regular teacher's leave of absence or grant-funded positions. I suppose the dipshit union went along with this atrocity.
The state budget problem is being used as an excuse for mistreating teachers, putting new hires on temporary contracts, or tossing them out of the system altogether, just as I was thrown out on my ass because the district's crooks didn't want to pay my full retirement benefits. Never mind kids need classroom stability because they don't have much stability at home. But public schools are no longer about the kids; it's about protecting power and perks and the bottom line.
Get ready for the revolving-door teacher syndrome to hit every single school district in the United States.
Friday, August 21, 2009
The NEA
finally pulls itself out of its coma and decides to criticize the administration's education "reforms," which simply aren't based on any kind of reality and would worsen the already dismal situation in public schools.
The major problem in education, besides funding, is the abuse of power by administrators who have the ability to do whatever the hell they want; in other words, the main problem in education is the fact it is a political institution no less corrupt and wasteful than other institutions. Scapegoating teachers while letting administrators off the hook only makes the problem worse.
The major problem in education, besides funding, is the abuse of power by administrators who have the ability to do whatever the hell they want; in other words, the main problem in education is the fact it is a political institution no less corrupt and wasteful than other institutions. Scapegoating teachers while letting administrators off the hook only makes the problem worse.
Obama,
backed by "progressives" who didn't look at the fine print that he was little more than a neoliberal but took them for granted for their support, now seems shocked these same people are upset about his apparent backtracking on health care reform, among other things.
Krugman is right about Obama wasting precious time trying to bend over backwards to those who have no desire to work with him, i.e., Republicans.
Krugman is right about Obama wasting precious time trying to bend over backwards to those who have no desire to work with him, i.e., Republicans.
Miscellaneous News
According to everybody who knows her and according to her birth certificate, Caster Semenya is female.
Evidently she's been teased all her life for looking like a boy.
She must have almost no body fat to look like she does. She could be easily mistaken for a guy.
On a somewhat similar note, I was surfing the net looking for articles about infamous sports cheats, and I found a couple of them worth linking on this blog. The people holding this dubious distinction deserve every bit of their infamy, most especially the despicable Panama Lewis:
The 15 Greatest Sports Cheats of All Time
25 Great Hoaxes, Cheats and Frauds in Sport
10 Greatest Cheats in Sporting History
_____
More legal gamesmanship in the Ben Roethlisberger case.
_____
When Michael Jackson is finally interred on September 3, he will reside in good company: the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn--Glendale, is the final resting place of some of the most famous stars in the history of show business. Big names include Jean Harlow, Red Skelton, Carole Lombard, and Clark Gable.
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Almost as disturbing as the hideous murder and mutilation of former model Jasmine Fiore are the sexist remarks about her looks.
I mean, what the hell has that got to do with her horrible death?
Her ex-husband (or husband or whatever since there is a question about whether the marriage in an annulment) and reality TV contestant Ryan Alexander Jenkins is a "person of interest" in the case and remains at large.
_____
Evidently she's been teased all her life for looking like a boy.
She must have almost no body fat to look like she does. She could be easily mistaken for a guy.
On a somewhat similar note, I was surfing the net looking for articles about infamous sports cheats, and I found a couple of them worth linking on this blog. The people holding this dubious distinction deserve every bit of their infamy, most especially the despicable Panama Lewis:
The 15 Greatest Sports Cheats of All Time
25 Great Hoaxes, Cheats and Frauds in Sport
10 Greatest Cheats in Sporting History
_____
More legal gamesmanship in the Ben Roethlisberger case.
_____
When Michael Jackson is finally interred on September 3, he will reside in good company: the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn--Glendale, is the final resting place of some of the most famous stars in the history of show business. Big names include Jean Harlow, Red Skelton, Carole Lombard, and Clark Gable.
_____
Almost as disturbing as the hideous murder and mutilation of former model Jasmine Fiore are the sexist remarks about her looks.
I mean, what the hell has that got to do with her horrible death?
Her ex-husband (or husband or whatever since there is a question about whether the marriage in an annulment) and reality TV contestant Ryan Alexander Jenkins is a "person of interest" in the case and remains at large.
_____
I Must Ask
given the fact so many policies have favored Wall Street, for WHOM is the economy is expect to grow?
Gene Lyons
I agree Democrats are going to have to come up with a better counteroffensive against the GOP noice machine. Right now the GOP is getting the upper hand over health care and other issues, and Democrats are frittering away their majority if they allow this to continue.
Such tactics won't be effective overnight, but the GOP didn't "win" over suckers overnight, either, with their lies.
Such tactics won't be effective overnight, but the GOP didn't "win" over suckers overnight, either, with their lies.
Not Surprisingly,
the 2008 Census Bureau survey shows poverty has dramatically increased in this country:
For these Friedmanites, high unemployment is the way it's "supposed" to be.
There is also a list of recent layoffs in this article.
But unemployment continues to mount. Initial jobless claims rose unexpectedly this week to 576,000 as employers continued to pare down their workforces, the Labor Department reported. Economists had expected a decline from last week’s number of 561,000. Meanwhile, those collecting long-term unemployment benefits for the week ending August 8 rose to 6.24 million.
Kurt Karl, the chief US economist for re-insurer Swiss Re, commented on the figures. “These numbers are definitely not going in the right direction,” he said. “It’s not good at all.... For a real recovery we need the consumer to be in the game but with rising unemployment the consumer is not going to be out there spending.”
Underscoring the socially destructive nature of the post-March gains in share values on the major US stock exchanges, the markets “shrugged off” the latest unemployment report, as one account put it.
For these Friedmanites, high unemployment is the way it's "supposed" to be.
There is also a list of recent layoffs in this article.
Nevada's Unemployment
is getting higher and higher and in July hit a record 12.5 percent.
I don't think any relief is in sight.
I don't think any relief is in sight.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Joe Conason
says what I have been saying about Obama all along. I maintained Obama's idea of "postpartisanship" and "reaching across the aisle" simply would not work with Republicans; they want him to fail, and the cynic in me said the GOP threw the election last fall in the hopes Obama would fail to turn around the mess the GOP created.
Conason:
These people don't care; they HATE this country because they are in thrall with a twisted ideology.
If Obama had just studied what was done to Bill Clinton when he was president, he might have had a clue of what the opposition is all about. But he didn't.
Conason:
But if seeking consensus is still his strategy, as he and his advisors insist, it may be time for a rethink. All the months of bipartisanship in talk and tactics from the White House have neither brought congressional Republicans closer to supporting Obama's objectives nor preserved Obama's early support among moderate voters. What they have done is encourage the most outrageous conduct by his opponents – including those who themselves claim the bipartisan mantle – and make the president look weak.
The simple truth is that there is nobody on the Republican side who wants to negotiate with Obama. They are no longer afraid of him, and they unanimously want to ruin his presidency, regardless of the consequences. They are in thrall to the stupid extremism that questions the president's citizenship and suspects that he is driving the country toward a socialist dictatorship – while simultaneously demanding angrily that the government be stopped from interfering with Medicare.
These people don't care; they HATE this country because they are in thrall with a twisted ideology.
If Obama had just studied what was done to Bill Clinton when he was president, he might have had a clue of what the opposition is all about. But he didn't.
In Some Good Economic News
one in nine Americans has to resort to using food stamps, that bane of rightwingers who think people who are unemployed and poor should simply starve.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
The Health Care Mess
and the intraparty "warfare" between Democrats and those who pretend to be Democrats aka "Blue Dogs" caught Obama by surprise.
Naturally the Republicans have seized on the rift and they are busily conning people into keeping the disastrous system as it is by crying "socialism" and all of that other crap.
But if this writer had actually gotten himself detoxed from the Kool Aid, he would have known Obama was never the "progressive" his most addled supporters thought he was. If Obama retreats on the public option, then he's probably as good as done for as president.
Naturally the Republicans have seized on the rift and they are busily conning people into keeping the disastrous system as it is by crying "socialism" and all of that other crap.
But if this writer had actually gotten himself detoxed from the Kool Aid, he would have known Obama was never the "progressive" his most addled supporters thought he was. If Obama retreats on the public option, then he's probably as good as done for as president.
Just When Will People
wake the hell up and realize they aren't the ones who are running the country?
Probably never.
A brief snip:
Probably never.
A brief snip:
Have a look at economic policy. It is being run for the benefit of large financial concerns, such as Goldman Sachs.
It was the banks, not the millions of Americans who have lost homes, jobs, health insurance, and pensions, that received $700 billion in TARP funds. The banks used this gift of capital to make more profits. In the middle of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, Goldman Sachs announced record second quarter profits and large six-figure bonuses for every employee.
Dumbass Politicians
It's okay to cheat on your spouse just as long as you don't fib about it to a grand jury.
Stick a fork in Ensign.
Stick a fork in Ensign.
Dear Arne,
For somebody who promotes accountability for teachers and high expectations for students, you have reading comprehension problems.
Love,
Herb
Love,
Herb
Although Ted Olson
has a hell of a lot to answer for in his taking on a legal case which changed the course of American history and not in a good way and for his activities with the so-called "Arkansas Project," it may not be that surprising he has backed gay rights in his legal attempts to overturn California's Proposition 8.
Apparently Olson hasn't been kneejerk right-wing about gay rights for years. Of course his rabidly reactionary wife Barbara is no longer around, and his current wife, Lady Booth Olson, is very low-key to the point of invisibility.
Apparently Olson hasn't been kneejerk right-wing about gay rights for years. Of course his rabidly reactionary wife Barbara is no longer around, and his current wife, Lady Booth Olson, is very low-key to the point of invisibility.
Obituaries
Famed television news producer and creator of 60 Minutes Don Hewitt has reportedly died. He was 86 and died of pancreatic cancer.
link
This is a long obituary and probably the best on the internet.
link
Hewitt's remarkable career in journalism spanned over 60 years, virtually all of it at CBS. As a young producer/director assisting at the birth of television news, it was usually Hewitt behind the scenes directing legendary CBS News reporters like Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite, using a playbook he had to write himself. He played an integral role in all of CBS News' coverage of major news events from the late 1940s through the 1960s, putting him in the middle of some of history's biggest events, including one of politics’ seminal moments: the first televised presidential debate in 1960.
Hewitt produced and directed coverage for the three networks of the debate between Richard Nixon and John Kennedy, an event that instantly transferred the political king-making powers print news once held to a new and more powerful medium where appearances mattered. Critics have long maintained that Kennedy won the debate because he looked better.
As Hewitt recalled in many interviews, he offered makeup to Kennedy first, who refused. Nixon, following Kennedy's cue, also refused. But the suntanned Kennedy was a vigorous contrast to Nixon, whose pasty complexion put his five o'clock shadow in high relief. Hewitt later rued the day as the first step in the dangerous dance between politicians and the special interests that provide the big money to buy the now crucial television advertising.
Hewitt also directed the first network television newscast, featuring Douglas Edwards, on May 3, 1948. He was the executive producer of the first half-hour network newscast when the "CBS Evening News With Walter Cronkite" became the first to go to a 30-minute format on Sept. 2, 1963. Among Hewitt's innovations was the use of cue cards for newsreaders, the electronic version of which, the TelePrompTer, is still used today. He was the first to use "supers" - putting type in the lower third of the television screen. Another invention of Hewitt's was the film "double" - cutting back and forth between two projectors - an editing breakthrough that re-shaped television news. Hewitt also helped develop the positioning of cameras and reporters still used to cover news events, especially political conventions.
This is a long obituary and probably the best on the internet.
Since the Banks, Along With Insurance Companies
pretty much run our country, of course not enough is being done to help people from predatory lending practices.
Miscellaneous News
Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird underwent surgery to correct a breathing problem, and he is doing well.
_____
I think northern California should have another National Monument--why not?
The proposed national monument also is in southern Oregon.
_____
Someday I'd like to try this.
_____
The ghost of Stella Walsh returns.
_____
Is the report of a 12-baby pregnancy a hoax?
_____
I think northern California should have another National Monument--why not?
The proposed national monument also is in southern Oregon.
_____
Someday I'd like to try this.
_____
The ghost of Stella Walsh returns.
_____
Is the report of a 12-baby pregnancy a hoax?
The Education Wars
Teach for America sounds like a good idea in theory, but cynical school districts are using the program to subvert tenure laws and to engage in age discrimination, which is rampant.
Districts like the infamous New York City school system are throwing out senior teachers by having their principals create bogus charges against them and throwing them into "rubber rooms," thus stealing their careers and their retirement benefits as few teachers prevail in kangaroo hearings, while other school districts like on Long Island flat out deny tenure (after three years) so as to not only save money on hearing costs, but also to deny any chance for these teachers to reach vesting in retirement (which is after five years).
Never underestimate how much money it costs school districts and the various state governments in retirement--it is huge. It takes a good five years or more for teachers to get really good at their jobs, but tens of thousands of eager new teachers, younger ones and older ones in career changes, are being denied the chance of being master teachers.
Meanwhile, the children are screwed over because they don't have skilled teachers to work with them.
Schools should be about the children, but they are not in this mess of a public school system. Blame "accountability" and privatization hogwash for the mess.
Districts like the infamous New York City school system are throwing out senior teachers by having their principals create bogus charges against them and throwing them into "rubber rooms," thus stealing their careers and their retirement benefits as few teachers prevail in kangaroo hearings, while other school districts like on Long Island flat out deny tenure (after three years) so as to not only save money on hearing costs, but also to deny any chance for these teachers to reach vesting in retirement (which is after five years).
Never underestimate how much money it costs school districts and the various state governments in retirement--it is huge. It takes a good five years or more for teachers to get really good at their jobs, but tens of thousands of eager new teachers, younger ones and older ones in career changes, are being denied the chance of being master teachers.
Meanwhile, the children are screwed over because they don't have skilled teachers to work with them.
Schools should be about the children, but they are not in this mess of a public school system. Blame "accountability" and privatization hogwash for the mess.
It is No Shock at All
the U.S. income gap is the widest since 1917, during the middle of the so-called Gilded Age:
It's all by design, put into place by people who believe this is the way things "should" be.
The report is here:
Our politicians, bought and paid for by the elites, are largely responsible for creating policies which have resulted in this mess.
Saez’s report, entitled “Striking it Richer: The Evolution of Top Incomes in the United States,” shows that the real increase in the concentration of wealth has taken place at the pinnacle of the social pyramid—the top 1 percent, with annual incomes of $400,000 and above.
The figures released by the IRS are from 2007. They indicate that for most of the top 10 percent (families with incomes of $110,000 or more), there was little change in terms of income growth and share, but the top 1 percent increased their share of the national income to 23.5 percent, compared with 22.8 percent in 2006.
It's all by design, put into place by people who believe this is the way things "should" be.
The report is here:
The labor market has been creating much more inequality over the
last thirty years, with the very top earners capturing a large fraction of
macroeconomic productivity gains. A number of factors may help explain this
increase in inequality, not only underlying technological changes but also the
retreat of institutions developed during the New Deal and World War II - such
as progressive tax policies, powerful unions, corporate provision of health and
retirement benefits, and changing social norms regarding pay inequality. We
need to decide as a society whether this increase in income inequality is
efficient and acceptable and, if not, what mix of institutional reforms should be
developed to counter it.
Our politicians, bought and paid for by the elites, are largely responsible for creating policies which have resulted in this mess.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Bob Herbert
certainly has it right about this joke called health care or health insurance "reform." Since both of our political parties are on the take from corporate interests and don't really represent voters, whatever "reform" comes about will reflect the interests of the corporations and not of the people and thus there will be NO reform at all.
Herbert:
Herbert:
Insurance companies are delighted with the way “reform” is unfolding. Think of it: The government is planning to require most uninsured Americans to buy health coverage. Millions of young and healthy individuals will be herded into the industry’s welcoming arms. This is the population the insurers drool over.
This additional business — a gold mine — will more than offset the cost of important new regulations that, among other things, will prevent insurers from denying coverage to applicants with pre-existing conditions or imposing lifetime limits on benefits. Poor people will either be funneled into Medicaid, which will have its eligibility ceiling raised, or will receive a government subsidy to help with the purchase of private insurance.
If the oldest and sickest are on Medicare, and the poorest are on Medicaid, and the young and the healthy are required to purchase private insurance without the option of a competing government-run plan — well, that’s reform the insurance companies can believe in.
Miscellaneous News
My feeling is Ben Roethlisberger's accuser, Andrea McNulty, can't possibly being "lieing" because there is no such word.
Whatever:
Edit: Somebody corrected the misspelling.
Whatever:
In another e-mail, Andrea McNulty threatened to “date Ben Roethlisberger” if the boyfriend ended their relationship, and said she was “dead serious” about the threat, claiming Roethlisberger was “still in the cards” for her.
“We believe that Ms. McNulty’s own words directly refute the scurrilous allegations made in her complaint,” said David Cornwell, in a statement attached to the e-mails. “Ms. McNulty should abandon her lawsuit immediately and admit that Ben Roethlisberger did not rape her.”
McNulty’s lawyer, Cal Dunlap, could not immediately be reached.
Edit: Somebody corrected the misspelling.
The Health Care Mess
The WSWS doesn't think much of what the Obama administration is doing, or not doing, regarding the public option.
I keep hearing conflicting stories about this.
Meanwhile, the WSWS interviewed some attendees at the recent free health care event in Los Angeles.
I keep hearing conflicting stories about this.
Meanwhile, the WSWS interviewed some attendees at the recent free health care event in Los Angeles.
Obituaries
Longtime pundit and Chicago Sun-Times columnist Robert Novak, 78, has died after battling brain cancer.
He wasn't the smartest guy that ever lived, but he was certainly one of the most nattily dressed.
Unlike most pundits out there, Novak actually had a career as a reporter:
The Sun-Times has reposted an column Novak wrote last September about living with his disease:
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Former South Korean president Kim Dae-jung, 83, of heart failure.
He wasn't the smartest guy that ever lived, but he was certainly one of the most nattily dressed.
Unlike most pundits out there, Novak actually had a career as a reporter:
Robert David Sanders Novak, 78, was born and raised in Joliet and his first newspaper jobs were with the Joliet Herald-News and, while a student at the University of Illinois, the Champaign-Urbana Courier. Novak maintained a lifelong tie to the University of Illinois with the school creating the Robert D. Novak chair of Western Civilization and Culture in 2001.
Mrs. Novak said that her husband passed away at 4:30 a.m., returning home after being hospitalized between July 10 and July 24. Novak’s malignant brain tumor was discovered July 27, 2008.
The Sun-Times has reposted an column Novak wrote last September about living with his disease:
The first sign that I was in trouble came on Wednesday, July 23, when my 2004 black Corvette struck a pedestrian on 18th Street in downtown Washington while I was on my way to my office.
I did not realize I had hit anyone until a shirt-sleeved young man on a bicycle, whom I incorrectly thought to be a bicycle messenger, jumped in front of my car to block the way. In fact, he was David A. Bono, a partner in the high-end law firm Harkins Cunningham. The bicyclist was shouting at me that I could not just hit people and then drive away. That was the first I knew about the accident. Bono called the police, and a patrolman soon arrived.
After I said I had no idea I had hit anyone until they flagged me down and informed me, Bono told the Washington Post, "I would not believe that."
Fortunately, the investigating officer, P. Garcia, was a policeman who listened and apparently believed me. While Bono and other bystanders were taking on aspects of a mob, shouting "hit-and-run," Garcia issued a right-of-way infraction against me, costing me $50, instead of a hit-and-run violation that would have been a felony. Following Garcia's instructions, I promptly paid the $50 fine at Third District Police Headquarters in Northwest Washington, in cash and in person.
Garcia's justification in believing me was soon confirmed by the diagnosis of my brain cancer, in which I have lost not only left peripheral vision but nearly all my left vision, probably permanently. Several people have asked me whether the person I hit was crossing in front of me on my left. I answer, "I never saw him."
_____
Former South Korean president Kim Dae-jung, 83, of heart failure.
Monday, August 17, 2009
More About the Heatlh Care Mess
If there is no public option in any of the health care reform proposals in Congress, there will be no real reform at all.
Congress is bought and paid for. Our representatives don't represent us at all.
Private health insurance needs to go. Period.
Congress is bought and paid for. Our representatives don't represent us at all.
I have grown dismayed this morning by the myriad reports throughout the entire press (irrespective of actual media, whether broadcast or print) regarding the Obama administration backing off a "public option" being a part of any health care reform. In fact, I am quite upset about it, yelling like a right-wing bozo does at a town hall meeting, in the general direction of my television, and even at my wife, about the stupidity of this, in between grimacing while grinding my teeth into dust in anger.
If the insurance companies pull this off it will be the final demonstration that any meaningful democracy in America is dead. We are no longer "governed." Instead, we are being ruled over by people we cannot identify by name or face. We don't know who they are, but they make the decisions about what they will or will not allow us, "We the People," to see and to hear, and what rights we have, no matter what we might vote for or against. At least in a monarchy or a dictatorship the subjects know who to blame for the decisions that affect their lives. Here we have no clue who the heck the people actually are who are pulling all the strings, but they seem to be pulling them quite effectively whether Democrats or Republicans are in power. The only difference is that, if the Democrats actually did control Congress, with maybe 75 Senate votes rather than a mere 60 that requires the opposition to peel away only a single vote to defeat any progressive initiative, then "We the People" might have some say. But not today, evidently. And I harbor growing doubts that we would have any say even then.
That bit of paranoia (is it paranoia when they really ARE out to get you?) aside, I would like to give you my take on where health care reform stands today, with the "public option" hanging by a very tenuous thread. If the "public option" is jettisoned, health care reform will have the following features and really nothing more.
1. A mandate that insurance companies cease some of their more despicable practices, like denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions and scouring patient records for any inadvertent omission a policyholder might have made in his or her initial application for insurance in order to cancel a policy as soon as the policyholder becomes sick or injured.
2. A series of "health insurance cooperatives" organized at the state or regional level that would permit individuals to purchase health insurance at group rates.
3. Ensuring universal coverage through a legal mandate requiring all businesses to cover their employees and that all Americans purchase health insurance, either through their employers or privately.
4. Federal subsidies to help small businesses and economically disadvantaged individuals purchase the mandated coverage.
As far as I can see (and if any of you out there see it differently, please let me and the rest of our readership know), that's it. And this is a recipe for absolute and total disaster.
The health insurance companies will use feature #1 above as justification to significantly raise the already exorbitant premiums they charge. This will place a huge burden on employers who still provide health coverage for their employees, who will either have to carry this additional expense, increase paycheck withholding, and/or change their plan offerings to policies that offer less coverage combined with massively increased co-pays. The Obama administration will be blamed for this.
Regarding provision #2, the health insurance cooperatives (A.K.A. "Hillarycare"), the only thing this accomplishes is to allow people to join health insurance groups, similar to those that cover employees of corporations, and thus obtain care at rates lower than would be charged for individual coverage. Most people, however, don't understand how that really works. Where an employee might only have a couple hundred dollars withheld from his or her paycheck, this is only a small percentage of the actual health insurance premium that is paid for his or her coverage. The employer pays for at least half, and more commonly 3/4ths or 5/6ths, of the cost.
But the ENTIRE cost has to be borne by the policyholder when purchasing from one of these cooperatives. For a family policy, this would come to somewhere between $500 and $600 (and in some places more) out of EVERY BI-WEEKLY PAYCHECK. And for those that are not covered by their employers, this will be the least expensive option available. And cost of this coverage will surely rise, and rise HUGELY, because of the inability of insurance companies to so dishonestly limit their "medical losses" by denial of care for pre-existing conditions and canceling policies once policyholders actually get hurt or sick.
But consider this little hand-grenade: Because there is no provision (at least of which I am aware) to control costs, either of health insurance premiums or the actual cost of the medical care itself, in any way, the Federal subsidies mentioned in #4 will skyrocket very rapidly, putting an unsustainable burden on our Federal budget. What is in this bill to stop insurance companies from continuing their patient gouging? Indeed, this bill seems to ENCOURAGE it, as if any such encouragement is necessary when it comes to the insurance companies' need to overcome their reluctance to take our money. The private insurors will have a totally captive customer base and access to the U.S. Treasury. It would be a very tasty outcome for them.
But note that, aside from denial of coverage for those of us with pre-existing conditions, there is nothing in this bill that might leave us individuals with more money in our pockets or any increased availability of health care itself. It would not just be a disaster for American health care, or for the Federal budget, but also for the Obama administration and congressional Democrats. Remember, Barack Obama will need to stand for re-election in 2012, and House members and a third of Senators in 2010. If the currently likely bill passes, WE DEMOCRATS will LEGITIMATELY take the justifiable blame for it.
(There is a sliver of hope, however, that the House will pass a measure WITH the public option, the Senate will pass a different plan without one, the public option will be retained in the reconciliation bill, and then the reconciliation bill will pass with the necessary fifty votes plus Biden. If this is the strategy, it is a very clever one and I hope it succeeds.)
I will, however, STRIDENTLY oppose any plan without the public option. Such a plan will be WORSE than nothing. I hope that Barack Obama, despite his rhetorical vacillating and his spokespeople's evasiveness, will veto any such measure, and then beat the Republicans (AND "Blue Dogs" during the primaries) about the head and body with the resulting failure. I am quite certain that the vast majority of Americans support genuine health care reform and will vote on that single issue alone on election day.
Private health insurance needs to go. Period.
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