Miscellaneous News

A judge has denied a motion to dismiss in the Ben Roethlisberger case.

When a Rare Politician Tells the Truth

about the opposition, he or she can expect major blowback from both political parties.

The GOP couldn't care less if people die because they are uninsured or underinsured. They have theirs while everybody else can go to hell.

Here is the Grayson video with his remarks:



link

I Can Think

of many stories not widely reported by the news, such as the continued privatization of public education and the Obama administration's complicity in it, that are not on the so-called "censored" list.

I have written of how I don't take Project Censored all that seriously, especially in light of what happened during the witchhunt of the Clintons and the stolen elections of 2000 and 2004. This outfit ignored these 800-pound gorillas in the living room, just as the general media did.

Like a Lot of Obama Supporters,

writer Gore Vidal is disappointed in him, to say the least:

Last year he famously switched allegiance from Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama during the Democratic nomination process for president. Now, he reveals, he regrets his change of heart. How’s Obama doing? “Dreadfully. I was hopeful. He was the most intelligent person we’ve had in that position for a long time. But he’s inexperienced. He has a total inability to understand military matters. He’s acting as if Afghanistan is the magic talisman: solve that and you solve terrorism.” America should leave Afghanistan, he says. “We’ve failed in every other aspect of our effort of conquering the Middle East or whatever you want to call it.” The “War on Terror” was “made up”, Vidal says. “The whole thing was PR, just like ‘weapons of mass destruction’. It has wrecked the airline business, which my father founded in the 1930s. He’d be cutting his wrists. Now when you fly you’re both scared to death and bored to death, a most disagreeable combination.”

Where is Biden in all of this? He has extensive foreign policy if not military experience.

But yes, Obama IS inexperienced and shouldn't even have run for the job, but when everybody is telling you you are the second coming of JFK, Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King, Lincoln, and just about every other famous name of the past 2,000 years, it's pretty hard to resist going for it. And in my skeptical view Obama was "allowed" to win the White House to set it up for the GOP down the road. I hope I am wrong about that because the country can't take another one of those Friedmanites in office, despite Obama having some of those same tendencies.

Another notable Obama mis-step has been on healthcare reform. “He f***ed it up. I don’t know how because the country wanted it. We’ll never see it happen.” As for his wider vision: “Maybe he doesn’t have one, not to imply he is a fraud. He loves quoting Lincoln and there’s a great Lincoln quote from a letter he wrote to one of his generals in the South after the Civil War. ‘I am President of the United States. I have full overall power and never forget it, because I will exercise it’. That’s what Obama needs — a bit of Lincoln’s chill.” Has he met Obama? “No,” he says quietly, “I’ve had my time with presidents.” Vidal raises his fingers to signify a gun and mutters: “Bang bang.” He is referring to the possibility of Obama being assassinated. “Just a mysterious lone gunman lurking in the shadows of the capital,” he says in a wry, dreamy way.

Obama may or may not be a "fraud," but I think he is on the take just like all of the rest of them in Washington. We have GOT to get big money out of politics; it's wrecking this country to the point of no return.

Obama HAS fucked up health care reform, but he shouldn't have been even pushing it so early in his term. JOBS and job creation are far more important, but then there would be corporate opposition to any ideas to reverse the disastrous course this country has been on for thirty years with "outsourcing," the gutting of unions, and the erosion of the standard of living.

Vidal now believes, as he did originally, Clinton would be the better president. “Hillary knows more about the world and what to do with the generals. History has proven when the girls get involved, they’re good at it. Elizabeth I knew Raleigh would be a good man to give a ship to.”The Republicans will win the next election, Vidal believes; though for him there is little difference between the parties. “Remember the coup d’etat of 2000 when the Supreme Court fixed the selection, not election, of the stupidest man in the country, Mr Bush.”

I agree Clinton would have been a much better president, and I also fear the GOP will get back in and then we will REALLY be screwed.

The Education Wars

If you have the stomach for it, there is a video available of leading privatizers Eli Broad and Michelle Rhee gleefully talking about "reform." Rhee just loves the idea she can break tenure laws and fire teachers after only two years on the job. Teaching is a craft which requires YEARS to hone the skill, but hey, that means having to pay full vesting of retirement and the like.

The "competence" is all about standardized testing scores.

Nobody in his or her fucking mind would go into teaching now that it has been deliberately ruined.
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Ohanian and this writer are wrong: Reading IS a skill that has to be formally taught. Ohanian is one of these whole language types, a teaching philosophy which has wrecked havoc on public education and I argue is one of the reasons why schools are in the mess they are in now because it opened the way for all of the "reform" garbage.
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Miscellaneous Commentary

If a daughter of a man who has trafficked in the exploitation of women, albeit "legitimately," can call herself a feminist, why can't Sarah Palin?

The blog post makes a lot of good points about what litmus test, if any, qualifies somebody to be a "feminist."

I never had any problem with Palin identifying with feminism. After all, despite her abortion stance and a couple of other things, her life and career have closely paralleled the non-traditional family lifestyle. She has basically lived the feminist ideal of taking on a non-traditional career and doing it without having to rely on a man to achieve what she wants.

As for Christie Hefner, she wouldn't be where she is without her daddy and his money. By traditional feminist standards, she didn't get to where she is on merit. She is a classic nepotism hire, first and foremost. The only reason anybody even cares about her at all is because of who her daddy is. It isn't reasonable to expect her to have killed the golden goose of Playboy Enterprises by having ditched the t&a and turned it into some kind of feminist think tank. Of course she stepped down from the company early this year to devote herself to other causes.

Still More Outrageous News

Not a surprise that an appeals court has thrown newsman Dan Rather's lawsuit against CBS in its entirety.

I wonder who the judges are.

In any case, Rather plans to appeal.

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

It appears director Roman Polanski may be spending quite a bit of time in jail after all.

Naturally public reaction, especially in the United States, has been "mixed" when perhaps 90 percent of the population knows little or nothing about the case, let alone the machinations that went on behind closed doors with Judge Rittenband.

Again, what purpose does all of this serve besides helping the tabloid media with yet another sideshow story and wasting the taxpayers' money?

And Of Course

the public option failed in committee, just as it was going to do all the time.

As long as representatives in both political parties are on the take by the medical industrial complex, there will be NO public option in health care/health insurance "reform." It's just stupid posturing when there are more urgent problems facing this country.

Our Idiot Senators

are deciding they are going to fart around trying to get a "public option" on health care while millions and millions of people are unemployed and hundreds of thousands are about to run out of federal extended unemployment benefits. What in the HELL is the matter with these senators?

Do they have a clue how badly people are hurting? Sure, it would be nice to have a public option in health care, but this ISN'T--repeat ISN'T--the biggest problem facing this country now.

Obama is largely to blame for this mess of screwed up priorities. The first day he was in office, he and Congress should have been working together to create JOBS programs to jumpstart the economy instead of bailing out Wall Street crooks. They should have been working on ways to get manufacturing back in this country by penalizing the hell out of companies which "outsource" jobs to slave labor countries. Instead, he and Congress are listening to the progressive bloggers and others whose priorities are so out of whack with the reality of what is going on in this country that they are putting the unemployed on the backburner.

Well, let me tell you this: At the rate Obama is going, he will NOT be re-elected, and we will end up stuck with a really bad president from the other party whose political philosophy will guarantee the third worldization of the United States.

Miscellaneous Outrages

Here is a video report of the doctor who allegedly tried to steal a dying patient's Rolex:



I'd think twice about being hospitalized wearing my mother's diamond ring, which is worth more than a Rolex.

Any Book

titled It Takes a Pillage is probably worth checking into:

The Second Great Bank Depression has spawned so many lies, it's hard to keep track of which is the biggest. Possibly the most irksome class of lies, usually spouted by Wall Street hacks and conservative pundits, is that we're all victims to a bunch of poor people who bought McMansions, or at least homes they had no business living in. If that was really what this crisis was all about, we could have solved it much more cheaply in a couple of days in late 2008, by simply providing borrowers with additional capital to reduce their loan principals. It would have cost about 3 percent of what the entire bailout wound up costing, with comparatively similar risk.

Just as great oaks from little acorns grow, so, too, can a Second Great Bank Depression from a tiny loan grow. But so you know, it wasn't the tiny loan's fault. It was everyone and everything that piled on top. That's how a small loan in Stockton, California, can be linked to a worldwide economic collapse all the way to Iceland, through a plethora of shady financial techniques and overzealous sales pitches.

The Teacher Wars II

Another post from Teachers.net's NY teachers' chatboard:

I was formerly a health care professional who changed careers
and went into teaching. I am also over 40. Statistics show
that adults over 40 fare better than younger ones, and my
professors always emphasized that fact. Adults pay for their
own education and are more serious about studying than their
younger counterparts. I went back to school and earned my
masters degree in education, later in life, when most people are
beginning their plans to retire. But I enjoy learning and
believe life is always about learning new things.

Student teaching was wonderful and there was no problem with my
age. Higher education is a the great leveler, and when you are
in school, you are treated as an equal and valued for what you
can do, and how hard you work, for the most part, not to say it
was at all easy, but a great challenge.

When you become a student teacher in the education system, you
are not a threat to anyone (supervisors), you are an asset,
regardless of your age. So as a student teacher, again I was
not a threat to anyone and did not encounter any hostility with
administration. I was hired as a probationary teacher shortly
after I graduated. Although I was on tenure track, I was
terminated in my last month before I was to be granted tenure.
It was then that I found out what “At Will” employment meant. I
found out that the school did not need a reason to terminate
you, but that they had this right as long as you were not
tenured. I found out that the union would do nothing to stand
up and speak for a teacher as long as they are untenured, even
though you paid dues.

After I was terminated, it was totally impossible to think of
being hired again as a real teacher, so I had to work as a
substitute. I met more and more new aspiring teachers, young
and old, who could not get hired, some who had been working as
substitutes for years. I met older teachers who had been
substitutes for years, yet the school would not hire them as a
legitimate teacher. And saw other things, that added much to
my “real education”, too dark and unsavory, and too numerous to
mention here. Many new teachers seemed much more qualified and
educated than the tenured teachers who were secure in their
jobs. As undergraduates, you are inundated with class
management techniques, so you can recognize when teachers do not
follow the most basic class management rules. You get a bird's
eye view of what is going on in the schools, because you are
always being shifted about in different schools and different
areas. As an educated teacher, you see that some of many of
the teachers in violate the most common sense class management
rules, yelling at their class, not implementing consequences,
rewarding negative behavior, etc., etc., etc.

When I met another substitute with a PHd who was working as a
substitute, who told me that she could not get hired in NY after
looking for 2 years, something clicked. That is when I
cancelled my plans to further my education to get a doctorate
degree, even though I had looked forward to doing this even
though I knew I could be successful in accomplishing this. I
needed a job, and was not at liberty to earn degrees in higher
education just for the sake of my own fulfillment.

The truth of the matter is, there is no practical use for higher
education in our present education system. Clearly, our
education system is not about education. We are more involved
in the systematic dumbing down of teachers and children in our
schools than we are interested in “education” in this country.
All for the financial benefits of those who are running the
system.

And yet people still ask what is wrong with our education
system?

There are real problems in public education, but those are being hidden from public view while everybody is talking about "standards" and other such nonsense.

The Education Wars

Beware of anyone who is an Eli Broad Academy graduate, even if his or her last name is Roosevelt.

They're up to no good. They are privatizers.

The notion non-educators should be superintendents is an outrageous concept and will only lead to even more corruption of public schools.

More Misc

Just when you think you have heard it all, something else comes along that floors you with its absolute awfulness:

The children of a former Manteca police lieutenant say a Stockton emergency room doctor allowed their father to die so the doctor could steal the man's expensive Rolex watch, according to a lawsuit filed last week.

Dr. Cleveland Enmon was indicted by a San Joaquin County grand jury for grand theft last month stemming from the June incident at St. Joseph's Medical Center in Stockton. Enmon, 32, of Hermosa Beach is also facing a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the adult children of Jerry Kubena, Sr.

Enmon is scheduled to be arraigned in San Joaquin County court Monday.

Kubena, a retired Manteca police lieutenant, was rushed by ambulance to St. Joseph's Medical Center in Stockton on June 1 with heart problems. According to a 15-page civil lawsuit, Kubena's family alleges Enmon noticed Kubena's expensive Presidential Rolex watch, then allowed Kubena to die from a heart attack so he could steal the watch.

The lawsuit states that two nurses at the hospital noticed the missing watch after Kubena died and saw a watch bulge in Enmon's pocket.

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Did Roman Polanski's lawyers contribute to the director's arrest in Switzerland?

Obituaries

The Rev. John "Bootsie" Wilson, the last surviving member of the doo-wop group The Silhouettes ("Get a Job"), has died at the age of 69.

Actually, he wasn't an original member, for in 1961 he replaced the lead singer in the group.
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The Education Wars

I liked this post from Teachers.net's New York teachers' board about "Rehabilitation Centers for Teachers" (typos are from the original post):

What needs to be initiated in 2009 are Rehabilitation
Centers for teachers who have been worked over by the
education system. These centers would be for teachers who
are still obligated to work within the present system
because of economic necessity. It would assist those
teachers who still must battle with administrative bullying
every day, because they lack of any other employable
skills. This is because of the excessive and unnecessary
amount of time and money they had to devote to prepare to
become a teacher has left them unprepared for any other
constructive work that might actually benefit society.

These new rehabilitation centers would also be for teachers
who have been ‘worked over’ by the system and who have been
severely damaged both psychologically and very often whose
physical health has been compromised as a result exposure
to the suppressive conditions of this career and routine
inhumane treatment. It would also assist displaced
teachers who have been removed from the classroom,
terminated, denied tenure, forced to retire, “reassigned”,
discriminated because of their age or whistle-blowing
and/or falsely accused of crimes and black-balled by school
administrators. Some of these teachers have been disabled
from ever working again, through years of persistent
hostility that exists in the public school classroom.
People must become aware that a sub-culture of disposed
teachers is growing every day in astounding numbers!

Once these teachers have received intensive therapy in
these Rehabilitation Centers, and begin to restore their
sense of worth and self esteem, they should be provided
assistance in finding meaningful work, outside the field of
education. To these teachers, the word "teaching" is a
storehouse of traumatic and tragic memories. A new outlook
on work must provide them with a livable wage, that is, a
living wage - one that is over the poverty level! There
should be assistance, both financially and physically that
would help to fill the void that is left when years of
their lives have been invalidated not by one person, but by
an entire culture of education hierarchy who all consider
themselves the teachers “superiors” and “supervisors”.

Many of these teachers have been wiped out financially by
their decision to go into education. Many have chosen
this as a noble mid-life career change, with disastrous
results, wiping out their former pensions. They should be
compensated for the careers that have been brutally robbed
from them. They should receive compensation for being
psychologically gang raped by school administrators, and by
the state judicial systems that have cooperated in their
disablement. It is not for upholding justice for teachers,
but for protecting school districts that these judicial
agencies exist.

But before any of this can be done, there has to be an end
to the denial that this is what is routinely happening to
our teachers today, and which, like it or not,
detrimentally effets your children! No problem in our
society can be solved unless there is recognition of that
there IS a problem. The system has to stop administrative
vultures that use teachers as a human resource to finance
their pretentious and useless positions, and their corrupt
and lavish life styles. The education industry must now
be recognized as a parallel universe that could match any
Madoff or multi-billion CEO scam.

If taxpayers had to pay for the rehabilitation and damage
that has been done to all the teachers that have been
worked over by all the profiteers, scammers, politicians
and school administrators of our public education system,
maybe our education system could start improve. Maybe we
don’t need more tests, more administrators, more
politicians, more programs, or more books, etc., which are
created by non-educators who don’t have a clue, in an
attempt to fix teachers.

Maybe if the real problem was recognized, perhaps teachers
could crawl out from the bottom of the oppressive food
chain, and maybe once again teachers could be treated like
viable human beings, and maybe we could begin to repair the
decrepit state of our education system.

I remarked in response there needs to be rehabilitation of administrators, but most of them can't be rehabilitated.

Don't expect Obama and Arne to even think of such an idea. Those two are cheerleading the destruction of public education.

Congress

needs to get off its ass--NOW--and extend UI benefits, which should be much longer than the House version.

I mean, people are hurting out here in Realityland, and Congress fiddles around with dumb things like health care "reform," which is totally useless if millions of people aren't working and can't pay for medical care.

McDermott told his colleagues his office is getting calls from "decent, hardworking Americans from North Carolina to California," who still cannot find work a year after losing their jobs, and need help keeping their heads above water.

The National Employment Law Project reports a record 50.7 percent of the unemployed cannot find work six months after receiving benefits.

Reconciling what the Senate may or may not do with what has passed the House will consume time as families try to reconcile their budgets with grocery and medical bills. Get a move on.

Opponents of UI are morons, pure and simple. UI hardly makes a dent in anything; the money is spent as fast as it comes in. These idiots repeat the mantra of the late and not great Milton Friedman, who thought desperate people shouldn't have any help at all and thus it would drive pay and benefits into third world status.

A few years ago in Reno, the local paper would have page upon page of "help wanted" ads; now there might be a single page or two, and single ads take up a lot of space to cover up for the fact there are few jobs to be had. Even Craigslist doesn't have much, and many of those ads are fakes.

Miscellaneous News

The WSWS has commentary about Roman Polanski's arrest on ancient charges.

Commenters from around the country and world are wanting to lynch Polanski, and never mind the pesky facts surrounding his fleeing the United States. From this link is a rare comment of sanity:

Many of the details of this case are frequently overlooked, ignored or lost in the mists of time. At the time of the original case, BOTH Polanski's defense attorney, the prosecuting district attorney, Roger Gunson, the probation office report and the victim's family argued for a plea bargain. At the time of the case, no one initially wanted prison time for Polanski except publicity-crazy and often unpredictable Judge Laurence J. Rittenband. Rittenband changed his mind at the last minute with regard to Polanski's punishment. All sides had agreed that Polanski would serve only 90 days in Chino during a psychiatric evaluation. After 42 days and a psychiatric evaluation of "normal," prison authorities released Polanski fearing for his life and safety. Infuriated and fearing he would be accused for being "soft on crime," Rittenband announced to the lawyers that he planned to put Polanski back in prison contradicting what had been previously agreed upon. Polanski fled to France in 1978 while awaiting sentencing when it became apparent that Rittenband was going to ignore the terms of Polanski's original plea agreement . Subsequent to Polanski's fleeing the US there have been numerous allegations of serious prosecutorial violations including serious violations by Rittenband. The victim received an undiclosed settlement from Polanski and wants the case dismissed. This case will sadly become an international mess, will cost thousands and will ultimately be dismissed. In the meantime it serves as a catnip for a celebrity starved culture.

For those idiots who think it is not Samantha Geimer's case but the state's, how the fuck is the state going to prosecute an ancient case where the victim is not going to be of help in their case, as she wants it dropped? It ain't gonna happen, folks, no matter how much fake outrage there is over this "child molester" getting off the hook.

Not to mention a total waste of taxpayers' money in a state which is damned near broke:

Meanwhile, Polanski's victim, Samantha Geimer, long ago announced that she had forgiven the filmmaker for his transgressions and supported various efforts to have the case against him dismissed. I don't think that you'd find many people who would approve of Polanski's behavior, which was disgusting -- he drugged his victim with Champagne and Quaaludes before raping her during a 1977 photo session at Jack Nicholson's house.

But at a time when California is shredding the safety net that protects the poor and the unemployed, not to mention the budget of the public school system, you'd hope that L.A. County prosecutors had better things to do than cause an international furor by hounding a film director for a 32-year-old sex crime, especially one that Polanski's victim wants to put behind her. As Marina Zenovich's 2008 documentary, "Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired," ably chronicled, the original prosecution of Polanski was marred by all sorts of embarrassing missteps and strange behavior, largely by Laurence Rittenband, the original presiding judge.

This damned thing needs to be dropped.
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In case you care to read the From the Wilderness editor Michael Ruppert's sexual harassment case, in which a former employee was awarded damages, it is here.

The meat of the decision is on page 32, with the facts, etc.
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For a Limited Time,

you can watch online the PBS documentary series by Ken Burns about the National Park system. The episodes will also be available on DVD and on iTunes.

link

I am glad the narrator, a Henry Fonda soundalike (Peter Coyote), pronounced Tuolumne Meadows. It is "two-all-um-ee." The "n" is silent. I would never have known how to say that thing. I didn't when I visited Yosemite three years ago.

One goal I have in life, but at this point seems remote, is to visit each and every national park in the United States. So far I have visited nine of them: Redwoods, Crater Lake, Yosemite, Lassen, Grand Canyon, Petrified Forest, Zion, Bryce Canyon, and Great Basin.

The national parks and monuments are so great.

Don't Think for One Minute

that because the anti-abortion crowd has met defeat after defeat in its attempt to outlaw abortion that they've given up. The next scheme on their agenda to reduce women to second-class status is to change state laws to declare a fertilized egg a "person" in need of legal protections.

Can you even fathom what would happen to our tax laws, Social Security eligibility (since one would typically be nine months old at birth given the redefinition), criminal liability of pregnant women, just to name a few?

These people want to outlaw abortion, and they figure pulling such mischief as this will achieve their ends, but what they are proposing is even more crackpot than the simple outlawing of abortion.

What is Wrong

with the current unemployment compensation system?

Shifts in employment patterns and a tightening of eligibility requirements are behind the nationwide reduction in effective unemployment insurance coverage. Today almost 30% of the U.S. work force is employed in nonstandard work arrangements, including part-time, temporary, contract or on-call work, and self-employment. Most of these jobs are subject to the payroll tax that funds unemployment benefits—yet these workers often find they are ineligible. For instance, persons who are seeking only part-time employment do not qualify for unemployment benefits in many states. This affects women in particular, including heads of households, who often work part time due to dependent care responsibilities. People who work full time but only for part of the year may also find it difficult to qualify for unemployment benefits.

Many workers who are not eligible for benefits provide income that is critical to their families. In 2007, 41% of workers worked only part-time or part-year. Among heads of households, this figure, though lower, was still sizeable: in 2007, it was 32% overall and 42% for female family heads. Besides child care, elder care can also mean part-time or part-year work for many. Nearly one-third of working adults with older parents report missing some work to care for them.

Obituaries

The nattering nabob of negativism himself, William Safire, has died at the age of 79.

Safire was a former Nixon speechwriter but later became a columnist for the New York Times. He especially liked to write about language:

hen, from 1973 to 2005, Mr. Safire wrote his twice weekly “Essay” for the Op-Ed Page of The Times, a forceful conservative voice in the liberal chorus. Unlike most Washington columnists who offer judgments with Olympian detachment, Mr. Safire was a pugnacious contrarian who did much of his own reporting, called people liars in print and laced his opinions with outrageous wordplay.

Critics initially dismissed him as an apologist for the disgraced Nixon coterie. But he won the 1978 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, and for 32 years tenaciously attacked and defended foreign and domestic policies, and the foibles, of seven administrations. Along the way, he incurred enmity and admiration, and made a lot of powerful people squirm.

Mr. Safire also wrote four novels, including “Full Disclosure,” (Doubleday, 1977), a best-seller about succession issues after a president is blinded in a freak accident, and nonfiction that included “The New Language of Politics,” (Random House, 1968), and “Before the Fall,” (Doubleday, 1975,) a memoir of his White House years.

And from 1979 until earlier this month, he wrote “On Language,” a New York Times Magazine column that explored written and oral trends, plumbed the origins and meanings of words and phrases, and drew a devoted following, including a stable of correspondents he called his Lexicographic Irregulars.

Unfortunately, he had pancreatic cancer, which we know is almost always lethal.

Most Shit [Updated]

There is probably no chance the Polanski arrest will take the media's mind off of the longrunning soap opera of John and Elizabeth Edwards.

Are the blog comments from the New York Daily News or elsewhere? I am assuming it is the paper.

Well, thanks to a blog comment following the report, here is one site.

Comments supposedly by Elizabeth:

By definition: Gold digger:
a woman who associates with or marries a man chiefly for material or monetary gain.

A gold digger by any other name would be Lisa Druke [sic] the Rielle (Real) Hunter.

Has the miner struck Gold ?

But, for Bill Clinton everything is just find.
Eh, Right.

As you all continue to discuss Lisa Druke's lastest pay day story from
the National Enquirer. I think you all should remember these important
facts:
John and Elizabeth Edwardsa have been married for 31 years.
They had four children together, three are living, and one, recently, died.
Elizabeth Edwards has stage 4 cancer.
Any decent human being would not have inserted herself
into their lives, and then sold stories about them to the National Enquierer
for monetary gain.
Lisa Druke, a.k.a. the Rielle (Real) Hunter fills me with disgust.
I hope someday to never hear anything about her again.

Think about the meaning of this quote, myview, and answer all your own questions:

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. "

William Shakespeare, "Hamlet", Act 1 scene 5

Sounds like an English major, which Elizabeth was before going to law school.

So Lisa Druke, a.k.a. the Rielle (Real) Hunter does not
know who the father of her child is.
Whose fault is that?

I pray that Elizabeth Edwards lives long and prospers.

And there is this blog:

Cherubim said,
in December 17th, 2008 at 9:53 am

If this story is true, then one can only conclude that Senator John Edwards is not the father of her child. This makes me happy for John and Elizabeth Edwards, their children,and the American people whom John Edwards has, and I hope will continue to serve.

President-Elect Barack Obama has chosen, mostly, Wall Street promoters and corporate lawyers to be in his cabinet. He hasn’t included anyone who knows how to interact and relate with everyday American citizens, and then report back to him concerning: (1) what the people need, and (2) whether his administration’s new initiatives are working. During the Great Depression, Eleanor Roosevelt fulfilled this role for President Franklin D. Roosevelt. I nominate Senator John Edwards for this role. John Edwards would be a refreshing change. Is not change what Obama s supposed to be about? As a rival of Barack Obama, for the Democratic Party Presidential nomination, John Edwards, consistently spoke up for average Americans, i.e. Main Street, not Wall Street. During his “Road to One America Poverty Tour” John Edwards demonstrated that he is uniquely qualified for this role.
The video evidence follows:
He has walked with and comforted people whose homes were being foreclosed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9i_GWrYkcCI
Defined the “Great Moral Test of Our Generation”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS1×88ZmohM
He has visited workers employed in the new renewal energy economy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50yOR5bvMV0
John Edwards is, also, the only candidate for President that actually went down to New Orleans on several occasions and worked along side those striving to try to bring back the areas that remain so devastated from the effects of Hurricane Katrina:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAqktFnA4nk&feature=PlayList&p=EB1EC8919DC5DC52&index=0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DaofQCkbA8

Cherubim said,
in December 18th, 2008 at 12:04 am

Both Rielle Hunter and the National Enquirer are desperate for money and near bankruptcy.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/12102008/business/peckers_bonds_bind_143435.htm

AMERICAN Media moved a half step closer to being the next major media company to file for bankruptcy.

On Dec. 1, the publisher of Star magazine and the National Enquirer missed the final deadline to make a $21.2 million interest payment, and is feverishly negotiating with bondholders of $1.1 billion of its debt.On Dec. 1, the publisher of Star magazine and the National Enquirer missed the final deadline to make a $21.2 million interest payment, and is feverishly negotiating with bondholders of $1.1 billion of its debt.

Two industry sources told Media Ink that the company has retained bankruptcy lawyers…

Moody’s reported that on Dec. 1, American Media entered into a “forbearance agreement” with its lenders and bondholders under which if it fails to pay interest on its 10.25 percent debt, it “would not constitute an immediate event of default under the terms of the notes.”

If the restructuring deal is approved, it would effectively wipe out stakeholders Evercore Partners and Thomas H. Lee & Partners, and turn over 95 percent of the stock to those holding the debt. The old shareholders would retain just 5 percent of the company under the new transaction

Cherubim said,
in December 18th, 2008 at 12:06 am

So, the National Enquirer is hoping to make a lot of money out of this new Rielle Hunter like it did the last time.

Cherubim said,
in December 19th, 2008 at 2:13 am

When, Rielle Hunter refused to get a DNA paternity test, it became clear to everyone that Senator John Edwards was not the father of her child. A sex partner is not necessarily a mistress, sometimes the partner is just a whore.

Considering that she was being kept so lavishly by another guy and the National Enquirer, she still should have some money.
But if she needs child support,
she can take the real father to court and get it.

Everybody has been so quick to vilify John Edwards and
suggest that his marriage isn’t solid. Sex isn’t always indicative of the solidity of a marriage.
Mrs. Edwards has cancer, and, maybe, sometimes, when she is on various medications, sexual intercorse is not always possible.
I think Mrs. Edwards “whom John obviously adores” is wise
enough to distinguish true love from a sexual dalliance.

Cherubim said,
in December 20th, 2008 at 9:57 pm

Some things like marriage relationships are private to be discussed between the persons involved. People need to stop pretending they are outraged. The only person with a right to be outraged is Elizabeth Edwards, and she has decided to spend much of her time working for universal health care for Americans. She has also said she and her husband want to dedicate their lives to fighting poverty. Let’s not hinder them.

Other things like jobs, labor rights, the collapse of our economy, and government bailouts are public matters to be discussed by all Americans. I don’t want to see working Americans treated like the workers in “third world countries”. John and Elizabeth Edwards are well aware of their short comings, but they also know how to fight and work for the American people.
Watch the video of John, Elizabeth and their two youngest children at work restoring a home in New Orleans:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itn6xVOmR94&NR=1

I leave you with this quote from Senator John Edwards:
“It’s not in how many times you fall down, what matters is how many times you
get back up.”

Cherubim said,
in April 2nd, 2009 at 12:40 pm

Steph what you wrote is so very true.
To day is Ampril 2, 2009 very soon it will be
tax time again. However, I am sure the IRS is already investigated whether she paid taxes on
the money she has already extorted.

Rielle may be about to find out:
“What goes around, comes around.”
I hope Rielle Hunter gets what she deserves.

Steph said,in December 21st, 2008 at 10:15 am

“Hunter has an important date coming . . . April 15th. That is the day she has to report all the financial support she has received this year as income and pay taxes on it. The IRS shows no mercy and they are certainly aware of the huge amount of money she has been given. So having blown through all that cash is going to come back to bite her big time. The IRS has enormous power against which people have little recourse. If she thought she is playing hardball, she’s going to find out what hardball really is!”

The Education Wars

The president proves once again he doesn't know shit from shinola what he is talking about when it comes to education.

First of all, both teachers AND kids need a break; education is that labor intensive. Second of all, teachers would have to be paid a hell of a lot more in order to see that happen, and there is no evidence this is going to happen.

Finally, huge sectors of the economy DEPEND on the traditional summer vacation such as the travel industry.

Obama just needs to shut up. He has no clue what he is talking about.

Miscellaneous Whatever

The media have something else than Michael Jackson's death to obsess over:

Director Roman Polanski was arrested by Swiss police for possible extradition to the United States for having sex in 1977 with a 13-year-old girl, authorities said Sunday.

Polanski was flying in to receive an honorary award at the Zurich Film Festival when he was apprehended Saturday at the airport, the Swiss Justice Ministry said in a statement. It said U.S. authorities have sought the arrest of the 76-year-old around the world since 2005.

"There was a valid arrest request and we knew when he was coming," ministry spokesman Guido Balmer told The Associated Press. "That's why he was taken into custody."

Balmer said the U.S. would now be given time to make a formal extradition request.

Given the fact there was clear judicial misconduct (Polanski served his 42-day sentence but the judge reneged on the agreement--clearly wrong) and the fact victim Samantha Geimer wants the case dropped, the whole circus should be ended with a dismissal of the ancient charges.
_____

Former president Bill Clinton mentions President Obama is going through the same crap he went through from the radical right.

While Congress Worries

about things that really aren't dire, millions of the unemployed are scared to death because there are NO jobs to be had, and the more menial the work, the more fierce the competition.

Even in fields like health care and education (the latter especially a crappy endeavor as districts all over the country are throwing unwanted teachers out in order to exploit the worsening economy of having hundreds of applicants for one or two jobs--with those jobs more often than not filled with nepotisms), it is very difficult for people to be hired.

And what about temporary work? There's none of that, since employers aren't hiring anybody, whether permanent, temporary, or using temp services. And they aren't hiring because many of the jobs have been outsourced to cheapo third world countries or else they aren't hiring because nobody is buying anything. And when nobody is buying anything, there can't be any jobs created.

But Obama has more important things to do than worry about job creation, which requires federal help to jumpstart the economy.

This person is one of millions:

In Milwaukee, Debbie Kransky has been without work since February, when she was laid off from a medical billing position — her second job loss in two years. She has exhausted her unemployment benefits, because her last job lasted for only a month.

Indeed, in a perverse quirk of the unemployment system, she would have qualified for continued benefits had she stayed jobless the whole two years, rather than taking a new position this year. But since her latest unemployment claim stemmed from a job that lasted mere weeks, she recently drew her final check of $340.

Ms. Kransky, 51, has run through her life savings of roughly $10,000. Her job search has garnered little besides anxiety.

“I’ve worked my entire life,” said Ms. Kransky, who lives alone in a one-bedroom apartment. “I’ve got October rent. After that, I don’t know. I’ve never lived month to month my entire life. I’m just so scared, I can’t even put it into words.”

I can. It's the shits, and I blame our elected officials for selling our country down the river.

Miscellaneous News

Just what was Susan Atkins' real role in the Manson killings?
_____

My nephew's independent film, Unremembered, is getting a little bit more media notice.

As I have mentioned before, it's a pretty good film, and not just because I am biased towards Greg.

It's Time

for Congress to get on the goddamned stick and extend UI, even if for a few weeks.

Given how shitty the economy is, they need to extend it for at least another year.

The Education Wars II

Besides the fact she is completely unqualified to be a school administrator and thus is one of the worst in the entire United States of America, who in the hell is Michelle Rhee, and why do we want to know what is really inside her head?

Some of the comments illustrate how brainwashed the public is about a brazen incompetent such as Rhee.

The Education Wars

Gerald Bracey has come up with nine of the most common myths about public education.

I'd add a tenth one and the most pernicious one of all: It is almost impossible to fire a teacher because of "tenure." If anything, "tenured" teachers have no due process rights but only the "right" to go through a kangaroo hearing which school districts almost NEVER lose.

Obituaries

Susan Atkins, 61, killer of actress Sharon Tate back in 1969, has died after being incarcerated for 38 years.

Despite pleas for having her released from prison on humanitarian grounds, she never left.

Like most of the so-called "Manson family," Atkins had a rather directionless life, so it was no surprise she would be taken in by some charismatic ex-con:

Born Susan Denise Atkins in San Gabriel on May 7, 1948, she grew up in San Jose, the middle child of three. When she was 15, her mother died of cancer. Her father sold the family home and all their furnishings to pay the hospital bills. Atkins began failing school and her father became an alcoholic who frequently left Susan and her younger brother, Steven, to fend for themselves.

Her father eventually abandoned them for good. Susan and her brother moved to Los Banos, where their grandparents lived. Susan enrolled in high school and got a job as a waitress but was overwhelmed by the stress of trying to care for her brother, work and go to class. At one point, she and Steven were in foster care. Susan dropped out of school in the 11th grade and started drifting.

Years later, she would describe her frame of mind during this period as "extremely angry, extremely vulnerable and directionless."

Of all the Manson family killers, except for Manson, Atkins "had the most unfortunate background," Bugliosi said.

_____

Obituaries

Actor John Hart, 91, who played the title character on the television series The Lone Ranger for 52 episodes when regular star Clayton Moore walked out over a pay dispute, died Sunday. He suffered from dementia in recent years.

A Los Angeles native who launched his Hollywood career as a bit player in Cecil B. DeMille's 1938 film "The Buccaneer," Hart played small roles in a string of films before he was drafted into the Army in 1941.

Relaunching his career after the war, he played the title role in the 1947 Columbia serial "Jack Armstrong: The All-American Boy," which was based on the popular radio show.

Hart already had appeared in a couple of episodes of "The Lone Ranger" as a guest actor when Moore left the series, reportedly over a pay dispute.

"I don't know how many other actors they looked at, but I got the part," Hart said in an interview for the book "The Story of the Lone Ranger" by James Van Hise. "They didn't pay me much, either. It was unbelievable. But being an out-of-work actor, to have a steady job for a while is great."

Hart said each half-hour episode was filmed in two days.

More Education Wars

Oh, to have been a fly on the wall during this temper tantrum:

Dear Mr. President… Chilmonik letter sparks walkout

Superintendent James Browder stormed out of Tuesday’s school board meeting after a heated exchange with member Bob Chilmonik, who sent a letter to President Obama apologizing for Lee County not airing his back-to-school address.

In the letter, Chilmonik blasts Browder’s decision as “a disservice to our children and community” while calling Lee’s academic performance “lackluster.” None of the other four board members commented, but Browder spoke up to defend teachers and principals.

It was just another episode in a board member-superintendent dynamic that’s been on a downward cycle for several years. Read on to see Chilmonik’s letter (in blue) to Obama, and the fallout.



September 21, 2009

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

My name is Robert Chilmonik, one of five elected School Board members in Lee County, Florida. Our School District, at the direction of the Superintendent, made a decision not to air your motivational school speech which, I believe, was a disservice to our children and community. Our School District suffers academically with some of the lowest SAT/ACT scores in the State and Nation, along with a lackluster performance on the Florida FCAT test. Students from all ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds are performing below our peer Districts and the State of Florida.

Our teachers and support personnel are working hard to improve our reading, math, and science scores. If ever any District in the Nation needed a strong motivational message, it was right here in Lee County. I would like to apologize to you for our disrespectful treatment in response to your message of hope to all students across our great country. In your speech you stated that everyone makes mistakes and how one handles those mistakes is the most important lesson. The majority of the Board and the Superintendent made a decision for the wrong reasons and affected 80,000 students who were the real losers along with staff and parents whose hope and dreams depend on a good education.

Lee County is a wonderful community with an open heart and unbounded generosity. The unfortunate decision made by the Superintendent and the majority of School Board is not reflective of the community as a whole. God bless you and God Bless America.

Sincerely yours,
Robert Chilmonik
School Board District One

None of the other four board members commented about the letter, but Browder spoke up.

“I can’t let Mr. Chilmonik’s letter pass because, again, it is filled with inaccurate statements. It’s filled with things that make him look like he’s done something. On Fox4, he said the superintendent made the right decision, until the Democrats in town stood up, so now he’s going to err on that side. Mr. Chilmonik has again demonstrated his ability to say that our lackluster performance on the FCAT… he’s not looking at the same data any of the rest of us are looking at. This is a cheap political trick, and he has every right to do it, but I’ll tell you, I’m not going to sit here and allow him to continue to berate the Lee County school system and the teachers in it, and have folks come to the podium any time he gets a chance to berate us. The teachers in this system, the principals in this system, do an excellent job. And for us to week in and week out have to listen to that kind of foolishness, you should be ashamed of yourself.”

Chilmonik then attempted to say that 65 percent of 10th graders don’t meet reading standards, but Browder cut him off.

“Don’t even talk to me,” Browder shouted as he packed up his belongings.

“Don’t you talk to me, sir,” Chilmonik replied as board chairwoman Jane Kuckel shouted for a recess. “It was the wrong decision to make and I will not take a personal attack. You made the wrong decision.”

After a short break, board members voted — with the microphones no longer on — to adjourn the meeting. Browder was long gone by that point.

The next school board meeting is set for Oct. 6.

Damned few school board members have this kind of integrity; they are typically hacks.

Proposition 13's Revenge

Thanks to California being too broke to help its once-celebrated University of California system, budget cuts will be enacted. But faculty, staff and students aren't taking the news lying down.

The taxpayers in the state are too ignorant to realize the state's problems are a direct result of the hideous Proposition 13, passed 31 years ago.

While Congress Dotters Around

and not treating the unemployed with the urgency they should, here is an explanation of what extended unemployment benefits entails.

Miscellaneous

Paul Kirk will be interim senator to fill Ted Kennedy's Senate seat.

Kirk, 71, is a longtime Kennedy friend and former staff member, a man so close to the family he was chosen as master of ceremonies at Kennedy’s memorial service the night before the funeral last month. An attorney who now lives on Cape Cod, Kirk worked as a special assistant to Senator Kennedy from 1969 to 1977, and is currently the chairman of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation. He is familiar with many on Kennedy’s former staff and could help smooth the transition.

_____

A "reformer" of note I guess has to cough up money to pay somebody for having sexually harassed her.

He denies the allegatons.
_____

It's long overdue for former (1969-1974) Rolling Stones guitarist Mick Taylor to write a tell-all book. He worked all those years in the music business and has virtually nothing to show for it. He's living not just in obscurity but also in squalor, at least compared to his former bandmates:

Mick Taylor is Ronnie Wood’s direct predecessor and the musical virtuoso behind the Rolling Stones’ golden age.

When the band announced six weeks ago that it was switching record labels from EMI to Universal, much was made of the continuing selling power of classic albums such as Exile On Main Street, Let It Bleed and Sticky Fingers – all made in an astonishingly productive five-year period between 1969 and 1974, when Taylor was the Stones’ lead guitarist.

Naturally Taylor has been shafted out of the royalties of those great albums of which he was such a huge part.

Now, 61-year-old Taylor has broken his silence in an extraordinary interview with The Mail on Sunday.

It is clear that the scruffy, two-bedroom semi where he has lived for the past 20 years hardly fits the image of a former Rolling Stone. The tiny house in a Suffolk country lane is in serious need of repair and redecoration.

‘Yeah, I know it needs doing,’ he said dismissively. ‘I just don’t feel up for it right now.’

Even less edifying is the unopened stack of bills and threats to cut off the water, electricity and gas. The uncut grass, empty cans in the kitchen sink and the ancient car parked in the driveway with weeds growing through its wheels also tell a tale.

The thick-set Taylor has none of the dandyish elegance of Jagger or the outlaw chic of Keith Richards. His once-golden mane of hair is streaked with grey. He is jowly and far heavier than in his prime – the legacy, he admits, of years of drug abuse.

‘People are always asking me whether I regret leaving the Rolling Stones,’ he said. ‘I make no bones about it – had I remained with the band, I would probably be dead.

It's time for some major payback, Mick.

The Education Wars

Another waste of money is this attempt to force teachers to become social workers by having them make "house calls" to "at-risk" households.

Considering the background of a few of these households with crime and drugs, forget it.

Naturally teachers will have to make these calls on their own time.
_____

The president and chief hack Duncan are showing remarkable "success" in "reforming" public education, which continues to go down the shitter.
_____

If the GOP's Followers

are following the bullshit rhetoric about health care reform, why in the hell are Democrats kowtowing to them?

Why is anybody taking the mandatory insurance proposal seriously when people can't afford health insurance in the first place if they are not covered by their employers or are not working?

Any bill without a public plan will fail big time.

It's the Economy, Stupid,

but of course our elected officials haven't a goddamned clue what to do about it, even though I believe it is relatively easy to fix.

Just because Bernanke says there is a "recovery," it doesn't matter if huge numbers of people are unemployed, perhaps as many as twenty percent:

If measured according to the methodology used when I was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, the unemployment rate today in the US is above 20%. Moreover, there is no obvious way of reducing it. There are no factories, with work forces temporarily laid off by high interest rates, waiting for a lower interest rate policy to call their workforces back into production.

The work has been moved abroad. In the bygone days of American prosperity, CEOs were inculcated with the view that they had equal responsibilities to customers, employees, and shareholders. This view has been exterminated. Pushed by Wall Street and the threat of takeovers promising “enhanced shareholder value,” and incentivized by “performance pay,” CEOs use every means to substitute cheaper foreign employees for Americans. Despite 20% unemployment and cum laude engineering graduates who cannot find jobs or even job interviews, Congress continues to support 65,000 annual H-1B work visas for foreigners.

In the midst of the highest unemployment since the Great Depression what kind of a fool do you need to be to think that there is a shortage of qualified US workers?

Congress really is the enemy. They are on the take, every last one of these people.

MIscellaneous

All in the family.

Real chickenshit for her to make these claims long after her dad is dead and can't defend himself.

This tells me more about her than it ever did about him.
_____

Some knuckleheads still can't get it in their heads why the disability community is opposed to "assisted suicide."

I don't think these people will EVER "get it."

The Educaton Wars

When corporate entities start yammering about "teacher quality," then you know the public schools have been taken over big time by privatization interests.
_____

Don't expect know-nothings like Stephen Brill to dare talk about the REAL problem in public education and that is with its administrators, which include principals:

Under the Bloomberg/Klein tenure things have changed drastically. As the old Principals retired, or were forced out. New "Leadership Academy principals" took their place. Many of these "Leadership Academy principals" had limited classroom experience, some never even set foot into a classroom as a teacher! Further, these principals didn't know how to collaborate with heir staffs on what was best for the schools. Some of these "Leadership Academy principals" are in their 20's & early 30's and are not mature or experienced enough to handle the Principal's position but were given the position anyway. However, worst of all is that these "Leadership Academy principals" are taught that "it is your school and do whatever it takes to run it the way you see fit". The result has been a disaster to the parents, students, and teachers alike. No collaboration only domination when it comes to the school staff.

Joel Klein and his non-educators have given the principals complete control over the schools and that means that principals are allowed to remove teachers they do not want. These principals know that the DOE, despite the July 2, 2008 Rubber Room Agreement signed with the UFT, will not interfere with the Principal's decision to remove a teacher from the school. Furthermore, Tweed made it even easier by allowing the Principal to remove the teacher's salary from the school budget sixty days after the Principal removed the teacher. Finally, Tweed's use of the "fair student funding" formula encouraged principals to remove senior and highly paid teachers from the school's budget on trumped-up charges of misconduct or incompetence so that they can hire a "newbie teacher" to replace the reassigned teacher and still have enough money to use for other school functions. The result was an explosion of "rubber room" teachers (750) and the rise of the ATR population of 1,600 teachers.

Principal quality isn't just an issue in NYC; the problem is all over the country.

Why in the Hell

83 "representatives" voted against extending UI is a mystery to me. It appears the unemployment rate won't peak for months, if not for a couple of years.

Dog Pictures for Today

A Few Words of Caution

for those foolish enough to aspire being public school teachers:

Not only on DOE/NYC in WestLaw data base. Also check out the decisions
of the NYS Commissioner of Education Website if you would like to find
a plethora of cases where teachers lose. Districts always WIN. It
makes things very simple for the commissioner to rule on cases using
this simple formula. Of course the Department of Education also has a
plethora of precedents they can use to support the decisions in favor
of the districts. Everyday they have more and more precedents to
support the cases because every day the teachers lose and districts
win. So everyday they have more and more cases to reference as
precedents. It probably takes the Commissioner’s secretary less than
half an hour to plug in the precedents with her legal software to
support the dismissal of a teacher’s case.

Favorite quote found at the end of the Commissioner of Education
decisions is “DISMISS”, also “APPLICATION DENIED”. Favorite stock
quote of the commissioner is:

“In light of this disposition, I need not address the parties’
remaining contentions.”

Translated, this means he is not going any further to examine all the
evidence that you have submitted to him to support the legitimacy of
your case. He doesn’t have to bother with any points that you have
raised beyond the first page. No need to address violation of laws.
No need to address violation of teachers rights, or denial of due
process of law. No need. Not when you are the commissioner.

So he dismisses your case and you are out + or - $40,000 of your life
savings for attorney’s fees that you have thrown away in an attempt to
salvage your teaching career. Not to mention the 2-10 years of your
life that you have wasted in the “waiting game” which is also part of
the "litigation process” for teachers. If the commissioner is somehow
compelled to act, and he will act only if pressure is put on, since
more than a few times no decision will be made at all. Good chance
your case could also land in legal “netherworld”. However, if he is
compelled to make a decision on your case say after 2-10 years, he will
again dismiss the teacher’s case because too much time has elapsed and
your case is no longer “timely."

Many teachers are starting to get it. We are just trying to warn
aspiring teachers to consider this before they make an investment into
public education.

This is from a NY teachers discussion board, but this is true everywhere in the United States. Reporters, of course, swallow the swill put out by school districts that it is "difficult" or "next to impossible" to fire teachers.

If districts don't "win" on the merits, they merely cheat in order to "win" as happened in my case.

Miscellaneous News

James Auchincloss has pleaded not guilty to child porn charges.

More:

As he walked out of the courtroom, Auchincloss, who has lived in Ashland since 1995, told the Daily Tidings that he had no comment on the proceedings.
Hoppe appeared to be satisfied with the outcome of the arraignment hearing.
“Things proceeded as I expected,” he said.

A pre-trial hearing for the case has been scheduled for 1:30 p.m. on Oct. 26.
It's possible that the Jackson County District Attorney's Office and Kaplan will strike a plea deal before the pre-trial conference, in which case the case would not go to trial, Deputy District Attorney David Hoppe said.

Hoppe said it's unclear whether an agreement will be reached, or whether either party will seek one out.

“I don't know what's going to happen,” he said.

_____

John Ensign

proves himself to be a politician of distinction as he is ranked as one of the 15 most corrupt members of Congress.

Here are some details as to why he received the honor.

The Education Wars

Bill and Melinda Gates are out to screw teachers over, and the unions aren't doing one damned thing to stop this trend towards privatization.

Not one fucking word about administrators. It's all the teachers' fault.
_____

As if teachers don't already know test scores are lousy tools in judging teacher "effectiveness." After all, kids don't even take the tests seriously to begin with, so it's nothing but a load of crap and excuses for throwing teachers out so as not to pay higher salaries and benefits such as retirement.

Miscellaneous

Celebrity deaths are supposed to come in threes, not in dozens, as has been the case this past summer.
_____

CBS was out of luck today in the Dan Rather lawsuit.
_____

Looking for young pussy, a cat is being blamed for downloading kitty porn, in a case which has created a boatload of bad jokes, including from yours truly.
_____

The Education Wars

Teachers are quickly finding out Obama is the most anti-public school president in American history thanks to his appointment of Arne Duncan as secretary of education.

Arne Duncan is pushing his bullshit around the country.

The House

is slowly moving to pass a 13-week extension of UI benefits to 26 states which still have high unemployment rates. California's, for example, are the highest in 70 years.

Naturally morons who think it is hunky dory there are so many people out of work hate the idea.

BS-ola

If people aren't working, there is no "end" to a "recession" no matter what Bernanke or whatever the idiot's name is.

The Audacity of Arne

Once again a writer is taken in by the snake oil salesmanship of the secretary of education.

Most Shit

Just when you think the longrunning soap opera of John Edwards and the "paternity question" couldn't get lower, it does. Rumor has it he is about to admit paternity of the baby of the infamous Lisa Jo Druck aka Rielle Hunter.

While John and Elizabeth continue to remain married, they don't much act like it anymore:

Shortly after he withdrew from the race in January 2008, Mr. Edwards and his wife were given a huge ovation when they attended a basketball game at the University of North Carolina. But a few months ago, when the couple showed up for dinner at a Chapel Hill restaurant, diners averted their eyes and stared at their plates, according to a person who was there.

At the recent Boston funeral of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Mrs. Edwards walked several steps ahead of her husband, greeting people exuberantly. Far fewer people approached Mr. Edwards, who appeared ill at ease.

Obituary Bits

While "neoconservative" guru Irving Kristol, 89, has died, unfortunately his twisted political philosophy hasn't. Strike one.

An almost equally dubious legacy is he fathered yet another neocon and squawking head William Kristol. Strike two.

More dubious are some choice quotes from the guru, swiped from Democratic Underground:

"Senator McGovern is very sincere when he says that he will try to cut the military budget by 30%. And this is to drive a knife in the heart of Israel... Jews don't like big military budgets. But it is now an interest of the Jews to have a large and powerful military establishment in the United States... American Jews who care about the survival of the state of Israel have to say, no, we don't want to cut the military budget, it is important to keep that military budget big, so that we can defend Israel."

"It is ironic to watch the churches, including large sections of my own religion, surrendering to the spirit of modernity at the very moment when modernity itself is undergoing a kind of spiritual collapse...."

"The danger facing American Jews today is not that Christians want to persecute them but that Christians want to marry them."

"There are different kinds of truths for different kinds of people. There are truths appropriate for children; truths that are appropriate for students; truths that are appropriate for educated adults; and truths that are appropriate for highly educated adults, and the notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn't work."

"The liberal paradigm of regulation and license has led to a society where an 18-year-old girl has the right to public fornication in a pornographic movie -- but only if she is paid the minimum wage."

This little vignette is also from DU:

"I remember back in the late 1990s, when Ira Katznelson, an eminent political scientist at Columbia, came to deliver a guest lecture. Prof. Katznelson described a lunch he had with Irving Kristol during the first Bush administration.

"The talk turned to William Kristol, then Dan Quayle's chief of staff, and how he got his start in politics. Irving recalled how he talked to his friend Harvey Mansfield at Harvard, who secured William a place there as both an undergrad and graduate student; how he talked to Pat Moynihan, then Nixon's domestic policy adviser, and got William an internship at the White House; how he talked to friends at the RNC and secured a job for William after he got his Harvard Ph.D.; and how he arranged with still more friends for William to teach at Penn and the Kennedy School of Government.

"With that, Prof. Katznelson recalled, he then asked Irving what he thought of affirmative action. 'I oppose it,' Irving replied. 'It subverts meritocracy.' "

Strike three.
_____

Obituaries--End of a Television Era

Guiding Light, 72, counting radio episodes, completed its run today.

An earlier article about the show's cancellation is here.

You can view the complete final episode, number 15,762, right here with other recent episodes.

I watched the show off and on since 1975, but not in recent years. The best years were when the late, great Michael Zaslow, as Roger Thorpe, held court, especially in the late 1970s. He was so good in that part, truly irreplaceable.

The biggest difference between recent episodes and those even from a few years ago is the producers decided to provide real outdoor and indoor scenes in recent years.

I hope there will be "best of DVDs" of the show if it isn't possible to have season sets (probably not possible given the number of episodes).

Congress Should Extend

UI compensation to the end of next year at the very least since there are few or no jobs to be had.

As I have said, the more menial the work, the more applicants for the job. In my case it is ridiculous to retrain at nearly 55 years of age, though I am looking at the possibility of online courses, but I don't want a goddamned degree after having gone to college 15 years and having attained a master's.

Extending unemployment benefits is critical because the jobless can't find new positions in this recession, experts said. A record 50.7% of the unemployed fail to find work within six months of receiving benefits, according to the National Employment Law Project. There are now more than six potential workers for each opening, up from 1.7 in December 2007.

In most states, the unemployed receive 26 weeks of state-funded benefits. Depending on where they live, they could get federally funded extensions for a total of 79 weeks.

Governors of 22 states appealed to Congressional leaders this week to quickly pass extended benefits.

"Employment lags behind economic recovery, and we cannot forget that help for unemployed workers and their families remains a critical need," said Gov. Jennifer Granholm of Michigan, which has the highest jobless rate in the country.

Any Republican who would vote against it is a cruel, selfish s.o.b., pure and simple.

Because Obama is a Democrat,

and we can debate how much of a Democrat he really is, he is getting the identical treatment Bill Clinton (or for that matter, Jimmy Carter) got. It is no surprise at all. The Republicans are worried that because Obama got huge chunks of red state votes and even carried red states like Indiana, Virginia, and North Carolina, the party will be marginalized for years to come.

When backed into a corner, the Republicans do what they do best, and that's smear, smear, smear until something sticks. Apparently it is working to some extent according to recent opinion polls.

Lyons:

But unease runs deeper. In my hometown paper today, there's word of a factory manufacturing stainless-steel sinks shutting down, a sawmill cutting production to one day a week and Eli Lilly & Co. announcing the elimination of 5,500 jobs.

Meanwhile, Obama's on Wall Street, talking about financial reforms, which mainly reminds people that these jokers damn near gambled the economy away, took billions in taxpayer bailouts, then kept awarding each other obscene bonuses as if nothing had happened. Fear and anger won't diminish until sawmills and factories start hiring again.

Alas, it appears to be considered bad form in the Obama White House to keep reminding voters that it was President George W. Bush's economic and tax policies -- the very miracle cures now championed by Fox News celebrities, politicians like Rep. Joe Wilson and "Teabaggers" alike -- that caused this economic Katrina to happen.

It's the economy, stupid.

Obama needs to focus on the economy, not wasting his time so much on the health care reform sideshow or especially giving handouts to the crooks who created this disaster.

Arne Strikes Again

In this longwinded piece, the secretary of education praises the notion of mayoral "partnership" in public education. Of course if mayors can't fix their cities, they sure as hell can't fix school districts.

NYC is the classic case of WHY mayoral control or partnership is a failure. Schools become even more politicized and crooked than they already are.

Another likely flop is mayoral control of Milwaukee Public Schools. More than a few citizens hate the idea, since the mayor can't seem to do much about all of the social ills of that city. Take that, Arne, you idiot.

The Economy

Nevada's unemployment rate is at a record 13.2 percent, with no relief in sight.

Only Michigan has a higher unemployment rate. It is at 15.2 percent.

Miscellaneous

I wish these people luck in trying to get a grand jury into looking at alleged malfeasance at the University of Nevada, Reno, but I know good and well this is like David against Goliath.

My belief is the judge will disregard their claims. In Nevada, everybody is on the same team; there are no objective judges, hearing officers, or anybody else.

Nobody wants to take on a bureaucracy.

It Won't Be Long

and Justice Sotomayor will be the target of a right-wing impeachment effort after asking the obvious question regarding corporate "personhood."

Campaign finance law is a joke. Right now we have nothing but legalized bribery.

The Education Wars II

Stephen Brill, who wrote a hit piece on public education teachers for the New Yorker regarding NYC's infamous "rubber rooms," doesn't know what in the hell he is talking about.

No reporter has a clue what REALLY goes on with teachers who go through these kangaroo hearings since they are usually conducted in secret.

However, being re-assigned to a “rubber room” is often as simple as the Principal doesn’t want you, and doesn't want to train you or assign you to a class that is appropriate for you. The Principal can pick up the telephone or open his/her email, and let someone know at the NYC BOE that teacher X stole something, scrubbed test scores or harmed a child, and need not have any evidence or proof. The teacher is not informed of the allegation until the Gotcha Squad has “proven” the allegation, and he/she is on the subway, in a bus, or is driving to a TRC. Often, the employee does not know even then why he/she is going away from the students who are waiting in the school. The NYC BOE would like to get rid of the Union protection and fire the individual on the spot, but the UFT stops the firing of any tenured employee, and gives the employee a chance to gather evidence and prove his or her innocence. The UFT also provides, as I wrote above, some of the best lawyers in town, free of charge to its members for 3020-a hearings.

But the NYC BOE is not interested in finding the “right” classroom for an employee, and does not want people who have a conscience, are courageous, are too experienced, lose a loved one and must attend funerals, gets sick or has operations, or in any way impedes the business of education. Notice I did not say “educating.”

But even this blogger doesn't have it right:

A tenured teacher accused of incompetence or misconduct not only has Union protection from being fired until the charges against him or her are "proven" by a preponderance of evidence, but the teacher also gets free legal representation from NYS United Teachers, or NYSUT, based in Latham New York. Most of these Attorneys are the best in the business, they know the rather unusual procedures followed at the arbitration hearings, they know the arbitrators, they care about their teacher-clients, and do thorough jobs.

The charges by school districts, my friend, are usually made up. Evidently she hasn't heard how unions collude with administration, and how the school districts commit all kinds of criminal acts, including perjury, fraud, bribery, witness tampering, and all kinds of other acts, which if committed by you or me would be grounds to throw us in prison. She evidently hasn't heard the hearing officers are typically in the tank for districts. She makes lots of good points, but she hasn't actually been THROUGH these jokes of "due process." She has observed, but she hasn't been a target. In the next paragraph, however, she alludes to the core problem in public education and why there needs to be huge reform of the system.

The problem with public education in a nutshell is because of the way school districts are set up, principals, unlike managers in private sector jobs, are NOT closely supervised. Their "supervisors" are typically clear across town and are usually clueless as to what is going on. The principals, drunk with power with the knowledge they will NEVER be held accountable for their actions, for they have the school district's vast legal apparatus and oodles of taxpayer money from which to feed in case they DO get into trouble, abuse teachers who get in their way, such as yours truly. Then it's over for the teacher--ALWAYS--even if the teacher "wins" a kangaroo hearing. The administrators, unless caught in bed with students, go on to bigger and better things. No wonder the public education system has been fucked up for years.

Jimbo Eruptions

Did former judge Brian Sandoval walk a very fine ethical line?

The Education Wars

Those schools Arne Duncan loves so much, charter schools, are seeing more attrition.

It May Be True

that there have been no more celebrity deaths this summer, let alone year, than previous ones, but it's the prominence of the celebrities that makes it striking.

It was the same case in 1977 as well, when a huge number of major celebrities died.

But this explanation has been offered as to why a perception of there being more celebrity deaths this summer exists:

Consider that along with the death of Mr. Jackson, there were two other profound, if less sensational, losses in the music world: Les Paul, the inventor of the electric guitar, who is credited with transforming 20th-century pop music; and Ellie Greenwich, less known by her own name than by songs she wrote with Phil Spector and Jeff Barry — some of the biggest hits of the 1960s, including “Leader of the Pack,” “Da Doo Ron Ron” and “Be My Baby.”

This summer could come to be known as the summer when baby boomers began to turn to the obituary pages first, to face not merely their own mortality or ponder their legacies, but to witness the passing of legends who defined them as a tribe, bequeathing through music, culture, news and politics a kind of generational badge that has begun to fray.

“This is a historical development in cultural history,” said Todd Gitlin, 66, the sociologist and author of “The Sixties,” who teaches at the Columbia University School of Journalism. “It’s the ebbing of figures who have a wide enough span of appreciation and admiration so they appeal to significant numbers of people, like incarnations of virtue. So people take a new measure of themselves when they ask, ‘Will there ever be anybody else like X’ ”?

In short, through these celebrities' deaths, baby boomers especially become aware of their own mortality. After all, they are now the "older generation."

The Health Insurance Mess

really IS a war, and it's a war waged upon those who cannot afford the outrageous costs of health insurance.

It's certainly time to fight back; unfortunately, our politicians are bought off lock, stock, and barrel, so no real reform is going to happen.

Obituaries

Actor Henry Gibson, 73, best known for starring in Laugh-In, died of cancer on Monday.
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Mary Travers, member of the folk trio Peter, Paul & Mary, has died. Travers was 72, though initial reports had a typo of 62, which is too young considering how long she had been in show business. She had suffered from leukemia for several years.

A more complete obituary is here. Snip:

Mary Allin Travers was born on Nov. 9, 1936 in Louisville, Ky., the daughter of journalists who moved the family to Manhattan's bohemian Greenwich Village. She quickly became enamored with folk performers like the Weavers, and was soon performing with Seeger, a founding member of the Weavers who lived in the same building as the Travers family.

With a group called the Song Swappers, Travers backed Seeger on one album and two shows at Carnegie Hall. She also appeared (as one of a group of folk singers) in a short-lived 1958 Broadway show called "The Next President," starring comedian Mort Sahl.

It wasn't until she met up with Yarrow and Stookey that Travers would taste success on her own. Yarrow was managed by Grossman, who later worked in the same capacity for Dylan.

"If I Had a Hammer" with Noah Paul Stookey and Peter Yarrow:


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Real-life "Norma Rae" Crystal Lee Sutton, 68, of brain cancer.
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Miscellaneous Trivia

I mentioned the death of actor Paul Burke yesterday, but the New York Times has a interesting bit of trivia I didn't know about him:

In 1990, Mr. Burke, the New Orleans District Attorney Harry F. Connick and several others were tried on racketeering charges in federal district court there. Mr. Burke was accused of having interceded with Mr. Connick, a childhood friend, on behalf of a Louisiana bookmaker, Walton Aucoin.

The indictment charged that Mr. Burke, an acquaintance of Mr. Aucoin, had helped persuade Mr. Connick to return gambling records seized from Mr. Aucoin in a 1988 police raid. Mr. Burke was also charged with having lied to a grand jury investigating the case.

After a six-week trial, a jury acquitted Mr. Burke, Mr. Connick and two co-defendants while convicting three others, including Mr. Aucoin. Mr. Connick is the father of the jazz singer Harry Connick Jr.

Burke tried to resume his career in Hollywood following his acquittal, but when he discovered he couldn't get a job, he said the hell with it.