A Principal is a Great Job for a Sociopath

Although Democratic Underground is a total shithole which I typically avoid, I did love this post by somebody who really spells out what the problem is in education:

I've worked for some wonderful principals, so I'm not looking to paint all of them with a broad brush, but think about it. Principals are minimally supervised and they control budgets, careers, their students, an entire community. The job itself inherently provides its holder with a good reputation - people just assume that anyone who has made it to being a principal is honest, intelligent, caring, etc. There really is a shortage of qualified individuals for the job, so candidates aren't vetted as thoroughly as you might think. The truth is that many principals (especially the bad ones) move around a lot from school to school and district to district. Another career path is for them to "fail up" into central office positions which is especially dangerous as it allows their poison to spread even more effectively.

As long as a principal can stay under their district's radar, usually by keeping parents happy, they can treat their employees pretty much however they wish, contract or no contract. That gives someone who craves the power to do everything their way regardless of how it effects anyone else a lot of freedom to be as abusive as they wanna be. You hear a lot about sociopathic CEOs, but they can be found in any organization, especially the ones with a strong top-down management style.

That is the problem in a nutshell, and there are few good principals now because the good ones bailed out when the "reforms" came down the pike.  Now school districts are stuck with dregs. 

By far the worst supervisors in the economy are school principals.  The last two I had included one who was a sociopath with moronic tendencies and one who was a moron with sociopathic tendencies.  Of course they both are doing better than ever at Washoe County School District.

Norway has the answer and that is for teachers to pick principals from their sites, and if the principals fail in their jobs, they are voted out by the teachers.

link

When You Are in Congress Sitting on Your Ass All Day Long,

and getting obscene pay and benefits in addition to (most likely) already being rich, you think that it is perfectly okay to raise the retirement age for full Social Security benefits for the masses.  Never mind many people cannot work until 66 or 67, and their benefits are already puny.  If you as a representative don't need SS, why should anybody else get it?

And then, if you are like me, you probably can never fully retire as Nevada public employees are shafted out of full SS because of WEP/GPO, and Congress has no intention of removing that law or limiting its scope.

It's totally disgusting, but this "fraud" about a crisis continues.  The neolibs are going to make sure there is a crisis if they have to tank the world economy to do it.

When You Export All Your Jobs,

of course the economy is going to tank when fewer people have the money to buy goods and services.  Why is that so hard for neoliberals to understand?

But with engineering, design, and research jobs offshored, and with many of the jobs that remain within the US filled by foreigners on HB-1 and L-1 visas, we now have the phenomenon of American university and college graduates, heavily indebted with student loans, jobless, and living with their parents, who support them.

Spence also acknowledges that the change in the structure of American employment from higher productivity to lower productivity jobs is the reason both for the stagnation in US consumer income and for the rising inequality of income. Sending middle class jobs abroad raised the earnings of capital. Spence understands that the lack of growth in consumer income has resulted in a shortfall in domestic demand, resulting in high unemployment. He could have added that jobs offshoring also gave us the Federal Reserve’s policy of pumping up consumer debt as a substitute for the missing growth in consumer income. There is an obvious limit to the ability to maintain the growth of consumer demand via the growth of indebtedness.

ALL economic prosperity is demand-driven, NOT supply-driven.  

 

It's That Time of Year...

Just because your friend "prevailed" it doesn't hold true for the vast majority of teachers who are targeted, often by HR, for removal. I have been there, and I KNOW what I am talking about when it comes to these bogus hearings.

In case you want to know, the reason you are hauled out of your school with only your purse and a coat is because the school district wants to ransack your room in order to find "evidence" to use against you in your sham hearing. My principal stole my plan book and notes I made at meetings in order to have one of her teachers commit perjury at my hearing saying I didn't have either one. And of course the district wants to confiscate the computer to find "incriminating" emails that are nothing of the kind but that they can twist the content in these sham hearings.

By the way, stealing of your materials by other teachers is okay, because, after all, if the district has it its way, you will NEVER have need for your materials again.

Any real lawyer will tell you the sham hearings aren't worth bothering with.  Even if you "win," you have a target on your back.

link

News, Etc.

The banksters are going to cram "austerity" measures on the Greeks whether they like it or not.

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Since Clark County School District

is now laying off personnel, there is obviously NO shortage of teachers or other staff, and therefore there is NO need whatsoever for the "double-dip" loophole to continue in Nevada or in other states.

There is NO teaching shortage, and in fact there never was a real one.  The only real "critical needs" area is in math; this loophole was just an excuse for people to be able to line their pockets once it was clear Clark County School District was no longer hiring thousands of new teachers a year.

I have written that here in the Rogue Valley, the same shit happens when retirees are allowed to take longterm sub jobs and take those jobs away from others who are desperate for work.  This is solely so the district or ESD doesn't have to pay benefits.  It's not right.

Etc.

This is another book I may take a look at, but it will be once it hits the used book circuit and I can get it for a dollar.  Of course, it is a book about a golddigger who made good.

This is as much a response to Tina Sinatra's memoir as anything else.  The daughter didn't have too much nice to say about the stepmother.
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The War on Everybody Not Rich Continues

Those who are forced out of work now face the bleak prospect of having their jobless benefits reduced.

Remember, these "bums" can always go out there and get a job--any job--even when there are not enough jobs for everyone who is unemployed.

And our "Democratic" president refuses to do anything about it.

The portion of working-age people who are employed is 58.5 percent, the lowest level since 1983. This means that the transformative effect of women entering the labor force over the past two-and-a-half decades has been fully counterbalanced by the disastrous rise in unemployment. The employment-population ratio for men is at its lowest level in records dating back 40 years, and no doubt longer.

In another period, such conditions would have been treated as a national scandal, and the political establishment would have felt some obligation to take government action. On January 11, 1944, as the United States was wrapping up the war in Europe, Franklin D. Roosevelt gave an address to Congress, in which he proclaimed that the political rights guaranteed in the American Constitution had proved inadequate, requiring an “economic bill of rights.”

Not now, this jobs crisis was deliberately created in order to create downward pressure on existing jobs and benefits.

And THEN, if you find yourself jobless, safety net programs are also being cut to the bone.

What a goddamned fucked up country this has turned out to be.

 

Damned Right

It doesn't help both political parties, taking bribes from know-nothing billionaires, are working overtime to destroy teaching as a profession.


If it isn't stopped, expect ALL education to be online, courtesy of ruthless and idiotic Bill Gates.

Teachers are the biggest obstacle in the way of the corporate educational coup, which is why the billionaires, eagerly assisted by their servants in the Obama administration, have made demonization and eventual destruction of teachers unions their top priority. Corporations hate collective bargaining, or working people’s power of any kind, but their vision goes way beyond simply neutralizing teachers unions. The billionaires, and the politicians they have purchased, want nothing less than to destroy teaching as a profession. Plutocrats like Bill Gates and politicians like Barack Obama may make noises about respecting teachers' life-long commitment to learning, but their actions prove the opposite. At every opportunity, whenever a real or manufactured educational crisis presents itself, the corporate gang champions charter schools and imports platoons of young, mostly white, inexperienced rookies from programs like Teach for America. Most of these neophytes have no intention of making teaching a career, so they accept low wages, turnover is high, and they have no long term interest in any particular school, or school system, or the profession in general. They aretemporary teachers – which is precisely the point.

Since public education is the foundation of a democracy, anybody who campaigns against it is anti-democracy.  Period.

Memorial Day 2011

Visited cemeteries in Medford, Oregon, and Hornbrook, California.

At Medford's Hillcrest Memorial Park:

My sister Sharon's birthplace in Hornbrook, California:

At my dad's grave in Hornbrook, California, in the background is his brother and sister-in-law's marker:

Niece Sheryl at the entrance of the cemetery:

News, Propaganda, Etc.

The spirit of Joseph Goebbels lives on in the form of Roger Ailes.
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The problem with this article lies in the very first sentence. In 2008, a liberal was NOT elected president. Only the blindly stupid or naive thought Obama was any kind of liberal. Those of us who did the research on him knew a whole lot better.

A neoliberal is NOT a liberal in the way we understand it. A neolib has far more in common with the crackpot libertarians than with any other political faction.

link

The REAL reason Democrats have sold working people down the river has to do with the idea that they need to be a kinder, more gentle version of the Republicans in order to receive campaign contributions. It is that simple, and that corrupt.

A Human Rights Violation

I have written many times about how the public has been so brainwashed into thinking prostitution is a "victimless crime," and attempts to try and legitimize a human rights violation by calling it "sex work" and other euphemisms, that it almost seems to be an uphill battle to persuade people that this is NOT a "victimless" crime.

It isn't about two "consenting adults," either, especially given the fact that the average age of women first going into this "life" is 13. and women usually have a very hard time getting out of it. Legalizing it, as I have written, makes the problem of illegal sex trafficking worse. From this very good article:

That, in fact, is exactly the theory behind the Sex Purchase Law in Sweden. As of 1999, johns are punished by up to six months’ imprisonment, traffickers are locked up for 2-to-10-year hits, and prostitutes are offered medical care, education, and housing. As a result, prostitution has been reduced by 50 percent in Sweden, and the purchase of sex, which is understood to be a human-rights abuse, has decreased by 75 percent. In contrast, Europol studies show, nations such as Holland and Australia, where prostitution has been legalized, have become lucrative, low-risk magnets for international sex-slave drivers and organized crime. On the subject of Sweden’s demand-side laws—which Finland and Norway have now adopted, and Denmark is currently considering—Sweden’s minister for justice, Beatrice Ask, notes, “If we could get rid of slavery, then I think this type of buying human beings is something that we have to fight too.”

Exactly. The "Happy Hooker" idea is simply bullshit.

More Shit

JRE may be a jerk, but this indictment is simply ridiculous and most likely politically motivated.

The powers that be definitely want to make sure he never entertains the thought of running for political office again.

Given the fact he chose to wreck his marriage to take up with a sociopath, I am not sure I would ever want him back in the limelight again. But this witchhunt is outrageous.

Obituaries

Time to get caught up on the latest:

Actor Jeff Conaway, 60, after being taken off of life support. He battled substance abuse for many years.
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Baseball great Harmon Killebrew, 74, of cancer.
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Actress Barbara Stewart, 81, probably best known for her role as Sgt. Carter's girlfriend in the 60s sitcom Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., of undisclosed causes.

Something I didn't know was she was once married to actor Dick Gautier, who is remembered by yours truly for his roles in Get Smart and the short-lived When Things Were Rotten.

link
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Composer Joseph Brooks of "You Light Up My Life" fame and sexual assault infamy, a suicide. He was 73.
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Author Dick Wimmer, best known for his persistence in trying to get his work published, 74:

Saying that agents and publishers had spurned him 162 times, Mr. Wimmer laid claim to being the most-rejected published novelist in history. Finally, in 1989, “Irish Wine” was published by Mercury House.

Political Rhetoric and Whatever

There are so many lies out there told by the right and neoliberals about Medicare, it's a wonder these cretins can sleep at night.

As we know or should, the facts don't matter. Instead, it's all about an ideology.

Never mind private insurance will NOT cover seniors because they need more medical resources; that is why Medicare was instituted in the first place.

And don't get me started about the morons arguing against MEDICAID, which the vast majority covered are the elderly, typically in nursing homes, and the disabled, who cannot work.

News, Etc.

Chalk one up for Wisconsin's workers.
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Chalk one up for squawking head Laura Ingraham after Ed Schultz stupidly shot off his mouth with a female slur.
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Interesting shit over at the WCSD site as three "executive cabinet" positions are open, including the HR chief officer's. The current occupant is the asshole who spearheaded my illegal dismissal and then rigged my hearing. Apparently the incumbents either voluntarily decided to retire or were forced to.
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School Privatization

Although it has been blogged to death elsewhere, including here, this is a good post in a series about the privatization of public education.

Actually, reading Lois Weiner's works is beneficial because she looks at the big picture of who and why privatization efforts are being pushed.

It's a worldwide phenomenon.

I Posted a Link a Couple of Weeks Ago

of the plight of teacher Sean Lanigan of Fairfax County, Virginia, who is trying to keep his job after being cleared of a phony sex abuse case. What galls me is the Washington Post, one of the biggest goddamned cheerleaders of former D.C. "chancellor" Michelle "Cheater" Rhee, who specialized in throwing out veteran teachers on bogus charges, has the nerve to wax piously about Lanigan's case.

The fact is Lanigan, an innocent man, is damaged goods, and he will be very lucky if he isn't railroaded out of his job, a job he spent years perfecting his craft and to which he was dedicated, by all accounts. It doesn't matter to administrators because THEY are "embarrassed" this guy was ever accused, so it is just an excuse to set him up for a fall. It WILL happen sooner or later.

School administrators really are the biggest assholes on the face of the earth, whether they are from LA Unified, Fairfax County, or Washoe County. It doesn't matter. These lowlifes are the same everywhere in the country, and our "reformers" don't deal with it because they are made of the same sociopathic cloth as our school "leaders."

Speaking of bogus legal proceedings, that "case" involving the SMS student who claimed he was "raped" twice by his friend in a school bathroom over four years ago and whose shyster lawyer claimed I and a school counselor "failed" to report the alleged "rapes" may well end up in the garbage can, God willing. The shyster had people lined up for depositions in March, including a "continued" deposition of my co-defendant, but then he canceled them all for some reason. Initially I thought the depositions would be delayed because March was the big month for testing, and that they would resume after March. Well, it's never happened, and I heard absolutely nothing from either this attorney or WCSD's law firm or the court until last week, when the Second Judicial Court sent me a copy of a notice that was sent to the plaintiff saying that unless there are further proceedings in this case, the clerk's office would move to have the case dismissed "for want of prosecution." That is because according to the local rules of the court, there must be action done within a period of 270 days. The plaintiff's side (or for that matter, the other side) has until June 15, 2011, to respond.

Since it was a bullshit case in the first place, it should be thrown out, but who knows with shysters who should have their law licenses taken from them for dragging innocent people through the mud in order to extort money from insurance companies? There's no conscience and no accountability for their actions. I have toyed with filing a complaint against this shyster to the Nevada Bar Association, and yes, I did email the guy shortly before he canceled all of the scheduled depositions telling him exactly what I thought of him while at the same time giving him the names of about a dozen people he could depose (as he was wanting more witnesses to try and impeach me and the counselor since we were "guilty" of violating Nevada state law in committing misdemeanors in failure to "report," a bullshit allegation because the kid never said anything of any rape and there was no concrete proof of the events ever occurring in terms of witnesses or even medical proof), but of course these people wouldn't know anything in any way beneficial to his side of the case. I'd like to think my email had something to do with his canceling the depositions, but lawyers are such bottom feeders, I doubt there is a smidgen of conscience there.

Anyway, I will find out by mid-June if the case will proceed or if this case will be tossed out. It has to rank as the biggest steaming pile of shit ever filed in a federal court anywhere in the United States, it is that bogus.

This Inteview Says It All

News, Etc.

In some good news for Nevada Republicans, Sharron Angle says she will not run for the House seat vacated by Dean Heller, who was appointed to the U.S. Senate when John Ensign bailed.
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In more shit, "sources" say John Edwards "could" be indicted in a few days.

Or not.
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A school librarian goes through the LAUSD meat grinder of "due process hearings" and ends up chopped to pieces.

Teachers have NO rights at all in this country, but school districts, seeking to save even more money, want to get rid of these kangaroo hearings altogether.

News

Because legislators know nothing about the politics of public education, don't expect any action is ever done to discipline administrators, who ARE the problem in public schools, including NYC.

What I would like to know is if principals are considered management, why are they allowed to be unionized?

Unions are supposed to be there to even the playing field between management and the rank and file. The ONLY reason for unions for managers like principals supposedly are is to guarantee they can never be removed.
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What are the social conditions behind the tragedy in Joplin, Missouri?
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Another propaganda outfit to watch is something called the National Inflation Association, which of course is a "libertarian" outfit.

More

News

Horrible, just horrible, is about the only way to describe the tragedy resulting from a devastating tornado that hit Joplin, Missouri.

It may end up being the most costly tornado of all time.

Video:



A report from yesterday:

Teachers Already Know

these things are myths, especially the part about billionaires knowing "best" when they don't, but it is still nice to know somebody has the nerve to put them in a teacher-trashing publication.

Bill Gates, of course, has ulterior motives. His ultimate goal is to make education all distance learning (to hell with child development and the ability of children to get along with peers) so that he can personally profit from the software.

Boiling the Lance

The cycling great is going down in infamy along with the likes of Shoeless Joe Jackson and Pete Rose. The now-infamous 60 Minutes interview of one-time USPS teammate Tyler Hamilton, who, like seemingly 99.999 percent of pro cyclists, was a doper:







Of course this is serious shit because the USPS is a federal agency and this case is about defrauding the government.

Hamilton is telling the truth here--he HAS to be telling the truth or HE could be in deep shit himself.

Cartoon of the Day

This is the ONLY way I will EVER be able to make my college degrees pay off now that my teaching career was derailed:

If I Have Nothing to Say, Then Why Say It?

I just can't think of anything to blog about or to link to today. I am pretty wiped out this weekend for some reason or other.

I really think Duffy is "just what the doctor ordered" for Sam and me. It's been great to have him around. He is still very puppylike in his behavior, and he and Sam the Chihuahua haven't had a single fight. Sam hasn't even growled at him once during Duffy's three weeks here.

Apparently somebody had adopted him right before I did, but he had to be returned to rescue because he was afraid of the woman's husband for some reason or other. But as long as I can have him, I will keep him.

My brother took these pictures since Duffy refuses to let me take a picture of him except if I catch him completely offguard:

And the Winner Is...

Shackleford, who edged out favorite Animal Kingdom to win the 136th running of the Preakness Stakes. Third was Astrology, and Dailed In finished fourth.

Once again there will be NO Triple Crown winner.

The time was 1:56.27 for the race.

Blood Horse also has a story and video of the race.

Video:

The End...

Apparently Harold Camping and company have been raptured because people who were looking for him and his outfit were unable to find them today:

A large compound, the radio station was locked up tight Saturday. Razor wire encircled a rear parking lot, adjacent to the radio's warehouse. Through barred windows, it was possible to see boxes stacked up inside. On each box a label had been glued, saying "I hope God will save me -- Harold Camping."

Outside, a poster on the warehouse wall read, "The end of the world is almost here. Holy God will bring judgment day on May 21, 2011."

Yet, considering all the New Zealanders who persisted in remaining alive and unraptured, David Richardson, another visitor, observed, "We're in partial failure mode."

To say the least.

Is the LA Teachers Union

actually trying to help teachers or will it fold, like teacher associations are known to do, over the stupid "reforms" being forced on them?

Who the hell knows? I don't trust teachers unions to do right by their members.

The Los Angeles teachers union is seeking a court order to halt key initiatives favored by the new L.A. schools superintendent, the Board of Education and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

If successful, the legal action would suspend pilot testing of a new evaluation system that would use students' scores on standardized tests as one measure of teacher effectiveness.

Obama is So Full of Shit,

that despite his education policies being far worse than his predecessor's and in fact can be given the blame for the wholesale destruction of public education, he has the goddamned gall to criticize NCLB.

link

I am NOT voting for him no matter who is his opponent. At least if the GOP takes the WH and not all of Congress, Democrats can act like an opposition party again.

Party Like There is No Tomorrow

Tonight is supposed to be Rapture night according to a "minister" named Harold Camping, whose predictions are causing a lot of talk in the world, much of it ridicule.

In a way, I wish it would happen because things aren't going to get better on earth anytime in the near future.

As for me, I am trying to enjoy the good weather with my two dogs, perhaps watch today's Preakness, and read.

I scaled down posting a bit because I don't really find anything worth commenting on at length. I mean, I have run out of obscenities to describe Obama and the rest of the elites regardless of political party who seem hellbent on running this country into a ditch.

Preakness 2011

Both Derby winner Animal Kingdom and Derby favorite Dialed In are co-favorites in today's race.

Etc., Etc.

Nevada's unemployment rate may now be "only" 12.5 percent, but that's mostly because some 44,000 people, including yours truly, have left the state.
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Arnold Schwarzenegger could look at starring in his own reality television series, given how mesy his personal life has been of late.

The "other woman," at least the one currently in the eye of the storm, is one Mildred Patricia Baena, a rather nondescript type of woman.

Apparently wife Maria Shriver confronted her.

I am sure there will be a lot more. Stay tuned.
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Arne Duncan sticks his nose in local matters. Of course the person tapped to be superintendent is another loser of the Eli Broad type.

Worldwide Speaking,

women haven't come very far at all, or why else would an abomination like child marriage still exist in many parts of the earth.

Where women aren't valued, are still regarded as chattel, or as burdensome to parents, such customs stubbornly remain.

Because the wedding was illegal and a secret, except to the invited guests, and because marriage rites in Rajasthan are often conducted late at night, it was well into the afternoon before the three girl brides in this dry farm settlement in the north of India began to prepare themselves for their sacred vows. They squatted side by side on the dirt, a crowd of village women holding sari cloth around them as a makeshift curtain, and poured soapy water from a metal pan over their heads. Two of the brides, the sisters Radha and Gora, were 15 and 13, old enough to understand what was happening. The third, their niece Rajani, was 5. She wore a pink T-shirt with a butterfly design on the shoulder. A grownup helped her pull it off to bathe.

I Wrote a Lot About How "Whole Language" Reading Programs

in elementary school, which basically force a high school-style literacy program on students who really need to know the basics in how to read in order to enjoy reading, helped to contribute to the explosion of students in special education programs.

"Balanced literacy" and all of the other "whole language" programs are total junk. Children really need to have basal anthologies in school which also tie in with phonics (REAL phonics, not Marie Clay-style pseudophonics which is NO phonics at all), grammar, and spelling and are done in a sequential manner.

Ken Goodman, the "guru" of "whole language," has done more damage to public education than almost anybody in the past fifty years, including even the privatizers.

More

Actually, it isn't so much a plot to get rid of veteran teachers as it is some naive belief by crackpots who think reading and writing are as "natural" as speaking and listening, when in fact both of the former MUST be explicitly taught.

My old school district was infested with this kind of rot until the other rot, NCLB, came along.

Etc., Etc.

There is NO doubt in my mind whatsoever IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn was set up, given the fact he was critical of the neoliberal direction the IMF was in and felt it needed to be reversed.

He pissed off somebody in the economic elite, so he was set up:

To understand how powerful forces are using the current scandal, one need only refer to a front-page story in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal headlined “Pressure Is Building on Jailed IMF Chief.” The piece states that the Obama administration has “strongly signaled it was time for the International Monetary Fund to replace Dominique Strauss-Kahn as its chief, indicating that he can no longer be effective in his job.” Clearly, the arrest of Strauss-Kahn is seen by the US government as a political opportunity.

In his first public comments on the case, the Journal reports, US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner “called for more formal board recognition that the IMF's No. 2 official, American John Lipsky, who has filled in since Mr. Strauss-Kahn's arrest, will continue in the role for an interim period.”

Strauss-Kahn was set up for political reasons. Case closed.
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Thanks to there being a weasel in the White House, the GOP is going to continue its assault on Medicare.
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Etc, Etc.

Doncha just love it when the poor are mocked as lazy and shiftless, yet people make all kinds of excuses for filthy rich people who don't pay shit in taxes?

And for more to get your blood pressure up, Robert Reich notes the "switch" by the parasitical class of paying taxes to lending the government money.

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Etc. and News

When you've bed your maid, you lie with her.

I am sure all those rumors about him harassing women are true.

What gets me is the incident happened over a decade ago:

Shriver's statement Tuesday was noteworthy in tone. Although the couple announced their separation last week in a joint missive that made no mention of a cause for the split, this statement came from Shriver alone and pointedly set her and her children apart from Schwarzenegger.

The staff member worked for the family for 20 years, retiring in January. To protect their privacy, the Los Angeles Times is not publishing the former staffer's name or that of her child.

Schwarzenegger's acknowledgement came as the former governor, who left office in January, has been trying to rebuild his movie career and craft a new public-policy role. In recent months, he has maintained a high public profile, meeting with world dignitaries, attending a White House summit on immigration and working on assorted entertainment deals.

That's the end of those ambitions, unless Newt gets elected president.
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A dictatorship in Idaho? It couldn't happen there, could it?

The state superintendent of instruction is making threats against any educator who dares to work against him politically. The threats include license suspension and revocation.

"Luna" is short for lunatic.
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Rank Has Its Privileges, That's Why

I fully agree with this person posting on the Teachers.net Nevada board:

It is amazing that teachers are let go in the scale of
thousands while there is not ONE principal or assistance
principal or dean that is being cut?

So let's see. If a principal used to oversee 30 teachers,
and now she oversees 22. Yet those teachers use to see 25
students in class, now they will see 35, if they are lucky
enough to keep their jobs.

Why wouldn't the principals like to get rid of teachers?
Less complaints, less to manage, same salary, as if a
raise, in this economy. And they are lumped together as
part of the education system that suffers tremendously from
the budget cut.

What is wrong with this picture? Those administrators are
enjoying raises in this economy. Teachers get more students
in order to keep their jobs. Principlas get less teachers,
and principals still have the same everything else. That
means, in this economy, some people benefitted.

You see teachers holding signs before school to cry for
help? A typical sign says SOS (save our schools), did you
see any principals participating? Did you see them bringing
donuts or coffee for those teachers? Why are these
TEACHERS' schools but not the administrators' schools? Is
that because so far the administrators have not suffered a
tiny bit, but enjoyed a tremendous power trip to get rid
people they dislike?

When are the administrators going to share the sacrifice?

Administrators never will. They will protect themselves first and foremost.

THAT is the dirty secret in public education.

Etc., Etc.

Yet another Broadie, this one out of New Orleans, wants to dump veteran teachers in favor of bimbos by basing layoffs at least in part by evaluations from principals, who, as we know are the least professional, most vindictive, and least capable people in schools.
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Those Moron Republicans

As we know, any time they title a piece of legislation something that is supposed to benefit people, the actual intent of the legislation is precisely the opposite.

Many have noted the House Republicans' latest attempt to fuck over the American people, this time screwing around with the unemployment insurance system. Of course this pile of shit will never pass, and the requirement claiming those without a high school diploma or GED would be ineligible for benefits is absolutely illegal and unconstitutional.

Read this shit. It is unbelievable:

. PARTICIPATION IN REEMPLOYMENT SERVICES
16 MADE A CONDITION OF BENEFIT RECEIPT.
17 (a) SOCIAL SECURITY ACT.—Paragraph (10) of sec-
18 tion 303(a) of the Social Security Act is amended to read
19 as follows:
20 ‘‘(10)(A) A requirement that, as a condition of
21 eligibility for regular compensation for any week—
22 ‘‘(i) a claimant shall meet the minimum
23 educational requirements set forth in subpara-
24 graph (B); and


‘‘(ii) any claimant who has been referred to
2 reemployment services shall participate in such
3 services.
4 ‘‘(B) For purposes of this paragraph, an indi-
5 vidual shall not be considered to have met the min-
6 imum educational requirements of this subparagraph
7 unless such individual—
8 ‘‘(i) has earned a high school diploma;
9 ‘‘(ii) has earned the General Educational
10 Development (GED) credential or other State-
11 recognized equivalent (including by meeting rec-
12 ognized alternative standards for individuals
13 with disabilities); or
14 ‘‘(iii) is enrolled and making satisfactory
15 progress in classes leading to satisfaction of
16 clause (ii).
17 ‘‘(C) The requirements of subparagraph (B)
18 may be waived for an individual to the extent that
19 the State agency charged with the administration of
20 the State law deems such requirements to be unduly
21 burdensome in the case of such individual.’’.

There is no way this will ever pass the House or the Senate, even with the neolibs running things. It's too goddamned outrageous.

If You're a Teacher,

one false accusation can ruin your life. And, as yours truly can attest, it doesn't have to be a criminal accusation.

And why are newspapers and other media allowed to print names of "accused" teachers especially in civil cases, when in fact these are little more than insurance scams perpetrated by unscrupulous attorneys?

It shouldn't be allowed because of how easily reputations are trashed and ruined.

This case is appalling, and worse still is how the district handled it:

Despite the acquittal, the district began an internal reprimand process. And in December, as Lanigan pushed to have his legal fees reimbursed, the district presented him with two pages of specially tailored “guidelines and expectations.”

“Do not touch FCPS students as a means of greeting, playing with, showing approval of, or otherwise interacting with them,” the guidelines state. “Avoid placing yourself in close physical proximity to any student, particularly in a manner that could be interpreted as sexual. . . . Do not be alone in your office or other rooms with a student unless the door is open and you and the student are visible from outside the room.”

Bill Cummings, a longtime friend and supporter of Lanigan, said: “They are so fixated on him being guilty that they’re pushing to put the set of expectations in his file, so he could inadvertently trip on one of them and cause them to dismiss him. They can’t see that everyone knows him as an honest and decent man.”

In March, the school district offered to pay $60,000 of Lanigan’s fees, less than half, if he would waive any future legal claims. And last month, he was “de-staffed” from South Lakes, meaning that he must apply for a job at other schools in the district.

“I just hope that one day I can put this whole mess behind me,” Lanigan said, “and outlive the dark cloud over my name and reputation from this false allegation.”

These assholes in school districts are no goddamned good. No matter if you're cleared in a criminal trial and the "victim" admits to being a goddamned liar, you're "guilty" in the world of public education.

Lanigan is clearly being set up to be fired.

Outrageous.

Hypocrite for President

Now that we have Republicans running for president who have had marital problems, even one who is a two-timing, two-time loser, Newt Gingrich, it is now acceptable.

Think of how John Edwards was completely ruined over getting involved with a sociopath, yet these guys are allowed to engage in all kinds of piety while screwing around on their spouses.

Newt didn't just cheat on his second wife Marianne Ginther with his third wife Callista Bisek, he cheated on his first wife Jackie Battley WITH Marianne.

But Newt has converted to Catholicism, so supposedly he's forgiven for all of his indiscretions.

I won't mention the rumor of the prostitutes and credit cards which allegedly contributed to his resigning his Speaker of the House job.

Classroom Wars

Because teachers are not allowed to touch students, this teacher will no doubt be forced to retire.

It's too bad because of lawsuits, teachers are not ever allowed to defend themselves physically against students.
_____

Wingnut Duncan Hunter naturally hates all federal aid to education and wants to gut 43 "wasteful" programs, which of course are anything but wasteful.

Meanwhile the rich get more and more goodies.
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When Nick Kristof

is good, he is very good, but when he is bad, as when he spouts off about education, he is dumber than a goddamned box of rocks.

Kristof, as I think I noted elsewhere, is from Oregon, for God's sake, and should know better.

However, his most recent column was another in a series of columns talking about the plight of women in other countries. He goes into graphic detail about so-called "female circumcision," still practiced on millions upon millions of girls, mostly in Africa and in the Middle East.

Naturally, some people in the comments try to conflate male circumcision with the female variety when in fact they are not similar at all.

What these people do who argue it is downplay just how horrible female mutilation is.

column

It is a human rights violation.

Not That It Makes Any Difference

to the privatizers hellbent on destroying public education, but Detroit school staff and students make their views known on proposed closures and charter school conversions.

Video is at the link.

Lucky Friday

It appears I have lost the last two days' of posts from Blogger, but I guess "they" are working on the problem.

Meanwhile, the world continues to go to hell in a handbasket.

Scandal Corner

Although I live in Oregon and have for over a year now, I still like to post things about Nevada politics for the simple reason the state is more politically dysfunctional.

Case in point, of course is John Ensign, whose ethics case is now being turned over to the Justice Department.

The U.S. Senate Ethics Committee is referring the John Ensign case to the Justice Department, alleging that Ensign aided and abetted violations of the one-year post-employment contract restriction by helping Doug Hampton get a job as a lobbyist.

They also said he lied to the Federal Election Commission, violated campaign finance laws, and obstructed the committee's preliminary inquiry.

The Temps for America

need to get it through their bimbo skulls they aren't the "best and the brightest" teachers, and they were picked solely because they are the cheapest and the most malleable.

Most of them don't last more than a couple of years in the system anyway, as it chews up and spits out as many teachers as possible.

By the way, these bimbos need to realize that some day THEY will be older, more experienced, and more expensive, and do they really want to be kicked to the curb to make way for still younger, cheaper bimbos?

I don't think so.

There is no such thing as "merit" or "performance" in terms of keeping or getting rid of employees such as teachers. Seniority is the only fair way to do it, especially given the fact most principals in the United States are a bunch of clueless individuals or sociopathic assholes.

In the end, it's all about the money.

Etc.

I can just about expect "disaster capitalism" at its finest as the South appears to be on the verge of ruination thanks to horrible weather conditions in the past month.

Over the past four decades, Democratic and Republican administrations alike have overseen a systematic dismantling of governmental oversight. In January, President Barack Obama issued an executive order for the review of all federal regulations to eliminate all those that are determined not to justify the costs for “affected stakeholders in the private sector.”

The 2011 floods once again reveal the incompatibility of a modern society and the protection of its people with an economic order that subordinates every aspect of life to the demands of private profit. The most elementary social measures are ruled out in advance because they are seen as impinging on the wealth and profits of the aristocracy that rules America.

Those who have seen their homes and livelihoods destroyed by the flooding in the South must be made whole through emergency aid relief. A public works program is urgently needed to undertake the reconstruction of the levee system. Tens of thousands in the region who are out of work could be given immediate employment. Safe housing, public shelters, warning systems and evacuation programs must be built. The rebuilding of the devastated areas has to be planned rationally, with a scientific appreciation for the complexities of the environment and based on the needs of society for safe, healthy, and stable environmental conditions.

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A state superintendent of instruction gives the feds the middle finger and refuses to raise the bar for her state's schools.

The "reformers," of course, always change the goal posts, for their ultimate goal is to get rid of public education altogether by labeling all schools "failures."
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Obituary: Lawrence Welk Show regular Norma Zimmer, 87, dubbed "The Champaigne Lady" by the maestro, has died. She died May 10.

Zimmer was married for 64 years with her husband having died in 2008. She was soloist for Welk during the years 1960-1982.
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Education "Reform"

Perhaps dimwit Duncan realizes those "value-added" ratings of teachers aren't very reliable at all in measuring teacher "performance."

In fact it isn't measurable at all because kids are individuals and learn at different rates. And when it comes to special education, many kids never progress that much and occasionally even regress.

"What bothers me most about the LA situation is that teachers were denied access to this information at a local level," Duncan said. "That is untenable to me. For them not to have access to it is absolutely nonsensical."

True, but what is worse is the fact Duncan, in bed with the billionaires, is pushing for business-style "reforms" in an institution that is NOT a business.

Etc.

A battle of the sellouts continues as Republicans and Democrats try to find ways to screw the American people even more.
_____

Detroit Schools bids "good riddance" to Bob Bobb, but his replacement promises to be even worse.
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Once one of the great magazines, The Atlantic has officially gone into the shitter thanks to an ignorant puff piece about former NYC "chancellor" Joel Klein, who by any measure was a complete failure in the job.
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Obituaries

Some recent ones of note:

Actress Dana Wynter, 79, best known as the love interest of Kevin McCarthy before turning into a "pod" in the classic sci-fi movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers, of congestive heart failure:

Although Ms. Wynter appeared with some of the most powerful leading men in Hollywood, she was most often asked about “Body Snatchers.” In 2001, she put to rest a widely reported rumor that director Siegel had broken into her house during filming and put a large pod under her bed to frighten her.

She said the mischievous Siegel left the pod on her doorstep one night on the way to visit a girlfriend who lived nearby. Ms. Wynter encountered it — “I nearly broke my neck!” — while leaving her cottage early the next morning.

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Songwriter and actress Dolores Fuller, probably best known as the girlfriend of cult director Edward D. Wood, Jr., died Monday. She was 88 years old and had died after a long illness.

In addition to her songwriting career, which she wrote songs for the likes of Elvis Presley and Nat King Cole, she founded a record company, Dee Dee Records:

"Ed always said he'd make me a star," Fuller told the Kansas City Star in 1994. "I just didn't realize it would take 42 years."

At the time, Fuller was caught up in the flurry of publicity surrounding the release of director Tim Burton's biopic "Ed Wood," starring Johnny Depp as the eccentric D-movie director and Sarah Jessica Parker as Fuller.

"Not in my wildest nightmares did I ever think I'd see the day when Eddie's movies would be popular," said Fuller, who was in Kansas City to appear at an Ed Wood Film Festival.

News, Etc.

A set of conjoined twins has been born in China, with this pair being similar to the Hensel twins of Minnesota.

That pair, now adults, have been leading normal lives.

I can't believe there are people who believe these twins should be allowed to die because they aren't "normal."
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It looks like the Schwarzeneggers have split.

They have been married 25 years.
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Something is (more) rotten in the state of Florida.

This undermines the very purpose of a college education:

A foundation bankrolled by Libertarian businessman Charles G. Koch has pledged $1.5 million for positions in Florida State University's economics department. In return, his representatives get to screen and sign off on any hires for a new program promoting "political economy and free enterprise."

Traditionally, university donors have little official input into choosing the person who fills a chair they've funded. The power of university faculty and officials to choose professors without outside interference is considered a hallmark of academic freedom.

Under the agreement with the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, however, faculty only retain the illusion of control. The contract specifies that an advisory committee appointed by Koch decides which candidates should be considered. The foundation can also withdraw its funding if it's not happy with the faculty's choice or if the hires don't meet "objectives" set by Koch during annual evaluations.

Time for FSU to cut off the Koch spigot.
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As if more evidence is needed Bill Gates has his filthy hands all over public education "reform" in this country.

Sickening.

The Class Wars

Instead of politicians daring to tax the rich and corporations more, they are going after impoverished groups like the unemployed.

Despicable, especially when there are NOT enough jobs for all of the unemployed.

This growing assault on the jobless comes as the latest jobs report saw the national unemployment rate rise from 8.8 percent in March to 9.0 percent in April. If “discouraged” workers are taken into account, the rate rises to 15.9 percent. More than 40 percent of the unemployed have been out of work for six months or more. In April, the US government slashed an estimated 24,000 jobs, and local governments cut 14,000 workers from their payrolls.

While Republican legislators have been the most aggressive in slashing jobless benefits, the attack on the unemployed is bipartisan. The Obama administration has rejected any jobs or public works program, exploiting high unemployment in an effort to force workers to accept cuts in wages and benefits throughout the economy. The White House is currently engaged in horse-trading with congressional Republicans over a deficit reduction plan that will slash from $4 trillion to $6 trillion over the next 10-12 years from Medicare, Medicaid and other social programs that benefit workers.

Teacher Character Assassination Continues

Despite widespread condemnation of "teacher ratings" because "value-added" "measures" of "teacher performance" simply aren't reliable measures of anything, the Los Angeles Times continues on its campaign to trash and defame individual teachers.

Of course this gives principals more reasons to target and destroy teachers they don't want.

When the Elites and Their Political Hacks Screw Up,

they have the unmitigated gall to come crawling to the average American taxpayer for a handout to bail them out of the mess they created.

It's called "austerity measures," and they apply only to the peons, not the filthy rich who created the mess we are in.

But those elites are smarter than we are; that's how they became rich in the first place, don't you know?

Etc. and News

The vile U.S. Chamber of Horrors proceeds to tell school districts how to do their jobs, since private businesses obviously don't.

Ignorance and arrogance are no excuses for this crap.
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Archarcharch, injured in the Kentucky Derby, has been retired from racing after the veterinarian discovered he suffered a fractured leg.

It is believed he hurt himself when he came out of the starting gate.
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Campaign 2012

A vicious rumor is circulating that wife cheater and disgraced politician Newt Gingrich is going to announce his plans to run for president and challenge Barack Obama for the Republican presidential nomination.
_____

Etc.

A custody fight is brewing over who will get Patrick, the horribly abused pit bull who has been nursed back to health.
_____

Guess who really is calling the shots at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District?

The Broad Foundation, of course.

The picture of ol' Eli DOES make him look like a vulture philanthropist.

Controversy over Broad, Gates and other high-powered education donors raises a chicken-and-egg question: Is the lure of big bucks driving public-policy decisions, such as CMS' pursuit of performance pay? Or are the philanthropists following the best thinking on reform, including ideas from local leaders?

Gorman insists there's no "Broad blueprint." He says he'd be working toward performance pay without grants, but he acknowledges that outside money has kept the project powering ahead through the recession.

The federal government and the Gates Foundation are the big spenders on CMS performance pay, according to a CMS tally. Broad's money is going toward "performance management," a data-focused project that includes performance pay and test development.

Broad's pervasive ties to educational leaders - from CMS to U.S. Education Secretary and former Chicago superintendent Arne Duncan - raise questions among skeptics.

Neal Thornburg, who calls himself a concerned Mecklenburg taxpayer, said he started delving into Broad's connections to CMS and other education groups, such as Teach For America, and found it "kind of frightening."

He wonders what kind of favors are being traded, and whether "a core of administrators with so much invested in Broad's educational philosophy" can objectively report results.

These "reformers" have been a collective disaster:

Has this big money made the big impact that they—as well as teachers, administrators, parents, and students—hoped for? In the first-of-its-kind analysis of the billionaires’ efforts, NEWSWEEK and the Center for Public Integrity crunched the numbers on graduation rates and test scores in 10 major urban districts—from New York City to Oakland—which got windfalls from these four top philanthropists.

The results, though mixed, are dispiriting proof that money alone can’t repair the desperate state of urban education. For all the millions spent on reforms, nine of the 10 school districts studied substantially trailed their state’s proficiency and graduation rates—often by 10 points or more. That’s not to say that the urban districts didn’t make gains.

The good news is many did improve and at a rate faster than their states 60 percent of the time—proof that the billionaires made some solid bets. But those spikes up weren’t enough to erase the deep gulf between poor, inner-city schools, where the big givers focused, and their suburban and rural counterparts.

That's because poverty is at the bottom of it. And thanks to these billionaires and other filthy rich getting more and more handouts courtesy of the average American taxpayer, the economic situation overall is getting worse.

Is the IMF Backtracking on Supporting Neoliberal Ideas

because it found they have been ruinous?

Miracles never cease:

The annual spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund was notable in marking the fund's effort to distance itself from its own long-standing tenets on capital controls and labor-market flexibility. It appears that a new IMF has gradually, and cautiously, emerged under the leadership of Dominique Strauss-Kahn.


Slightly more than 13 years ago, at the IMF's 1997 Hong Kong meeting, the fund had attempted to amend its charter in order to gain more leeway to push countries toward capital-market liberalization. The timing could not have been worse: The East Asia crisis was just brewing—a crisis that was largely the result of capital-market liberalization in a region that, given its high savings rate, had no need for it.

Of course if these fools had cracked open a history book in the first place, they'd have known pursuing a Friedmanite agenda was a recipe for disaster and complete failure.

Mixed economies work best. We know this, and it's high time to return to it.

The End of the U.S.

is near if we don't recognize this country has been hijacked by a group of neoliberals hellbent on destroying everything we hold dear.

If Milton Friedman hadn't been cremated and scattered, I would have pissed on his grave.

Kentucky Derby 2011

In his fifth career start, Animal Kingdom won the 137th running of the Kentucky Derby. His time was 2:02.04, way off Secretariat's 1973 record.

He had a six-week layoff before running today's race, the first Derby winner to do so since Needles in 1956.

Nehro was second, and Mucho Macho Man was third.

Archarcharch's saddle slipped during the race and he pulled up lame after he crossed the finish line. He went into the ambulance and appeared to be in no distress. He is being examined off the track to determine what the trouble is.

Video:




More

"Live" Stream of the 137th Kentucky Derby

is here.

It's actually about three minutes behind the television coverage.

Obituaries

Golfing great Seve Ballesteros, 54, of complications of a brain tumor.
_____

Playwright Arthur Laurents, 93, of complications of pneumonia.
_____

The last known combat veteran of World War I, Claude Stanley Choules, has died in Australia. He was 110.

In his 80s, he took a creative writing course at the urging of his children and decided to record his memoirs for his family. The memoirs formed the basis of his autobiography, which was finally published three decades later in 2009. He would cite the book as one of his greatest achievements.

He usually told the curious that the secret to a long life was simply to "keep breathing." Sometimes, he chalked up his longevity to cod liver oil. But his children say in his heart, he believed it was the love of his family that kept him going for so many years.

"His family was the most important thing in his life," Pow told the AP in a March 2010 interview. "It was a good way to grow up, you know. Very reassuring."

Even as he passed the century milestone, he remained remarkably healthy and active, and continued to dance until a few years ago. He liked to start each day with a bowl of porridge and occasionally indulged in his favorite treats: mango juice and chocolate.

His wife lived to be 98.
_____

Kentucky Derby 2011

With the scratching of heavy favorite juvenile champion Uncle Mo from this year's race, it is anybody's guess who is going to pull off the victory.

The Courier-Journal is probably the best place to read the latest happenings of this year's race.

I have watched every single Kentucky Derby live since 1961, with the sole exception of 1974, won by Cannonade, which the local station put on delayed broadcast.

_____

Etc.

Don't be fooled by the jobs report, for the situation is still dire out there in the job market.

Because of the perception of an "improved" economy, more of the jobless were out applying for work, including those who had given up, so the unemployment rate actually went up this past month.
_____

Thanks to years of ruinous trade policies, the United States of America is now on the ropes, and there seems to be no desire to reverse course.

Since we have a completely ineffective and ultimately destructive national government of, by, and for the rich, it may be time to dissolve the country.
_____

Etc. and News

I didn't bother to watch the travesty on Fox "News" last night.

I had better things to do with my time.
_____

For the first time in decades, NYC is going through with mass layoffs of teachers.
_____

An idiot "economist" tries to compare schools with so-called "free market" institutions when in fact they are two completely different things.

Education is not a business and cannot be run on business models, as I have written time and time again.

This writer, of course is coming from an ideological point of view, not a realistic one.
_____

Etc. and News

I don't think we have seen anything yet when it comes to the war against workers.

Our politicians don't even hide their contempt for people who work for a living, let alone the poor.
_____

Quiz of the Day

Just in case you are interested, here is a quiz to indicate where you are on the political spectrum.

I tested out as a solid liberal.

Obituaries

Famous child actor Jackie Cooper has died at the age of 88, much older than I thought he was, for reasons I really don't know.

Cooper died Tuesday after a brief illness, according to his son. He lived in a nursing facility.

Skippy (1931) was one of his most famous roles:

When young Cooper was unable to summon tears for a big crying scene, Taurog threatened to remove the boy's small dog from the set and take it to the pound. The incident ended with Cooper believing his dog had been shot by an armed security guard.

"I could visualize my dog, bloody from that one awful shot," Cooper wrote. "I began sobbing, so hysterically that it was almost too much for the scene. [Taurog] had to quiet me down by saying perhaps my dog had survived the shot, that if I hurried and calmed down a little and did the scene the way he wanted, we would go see if my dog was still alive."

Cooper later became a director and a television executive.
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I Have Written About NAPTA Site

which discusses the prevalent problem of abuse of teachers by administrators. I check the site every now and again for new teacher stories. The latest one is from a Nevada teacher who had a long and successful career but a chickenshit principal decided she wasn't worth standing up for when middle school students were abusive.

In fact, students are often a tool these assholes employ to get rid of older, more expensive teachers, which this one was.

She tried the attorney route, an ACLU one, and he said it wasn't worth suing Clark County School District because it drags cases out for years and years, just like Washoe County, and that was the reason I could get no lawyer to take my very good case against the latter school district. This retired teacher didn't get one to take her case, either, and I don't think her case was as good as mine was.

Anyway, here is the link, which will take you to a PDF of Valerie Robles story.

Obituary Followup

The body found in Yvette Vickers' home last week is believed to be that of the former actress. Apparently it is very difficult to identify mummified remains. She was around 82 when she passed away.

In her later years, she was a cross between her youthful self and Norma Desmond, and yes, she did have a bit part in the 1950 classic Sunset Boulevard:

Those closest to former actress and Playboy playmate Yvette Vickers say she led a dual life: one as a private recluse hidden away in her Los Angeles neighborhood, and another as a vivid storyteller who charmed audiences at film festivals and kept in touch with her fans years after her star had faded.

Now police believe the badly decomposing body found in Vickers' Los Angeles home, although not yet identified, is indeed the 82-year-old woman best known for her role in "Attack of the 50 Foot Woman."

The coroner's office has yet to determine how long the body lay in the Vickers home.

From the article, it appears she was alive as recently as December or January of this year, when someone in the article mentioned having seen her water her plants.

You can see Vickers in her heyday as the "other woman" in the grade Z classic Attack of the 50-Foot Woman. This is Part 1:



I LOVE this film.

Teacher "Appreciation" Week

Florida really appreciates its teachers.
_____

A Nevada "teacher of the year" says policymakers should include teachers in education policy, but of course that will never happen.

After all, only stupid people become teachers--don't you remember how low their SAT scores are--while these Ivy League types know everything, including Duncan and Obama.
_____

Etc. and News

I really didn't believe anybody could be worse than Jim Gibbons as Nevada governor, but Brian Sandoval is exceeding my already low expectations.

He's sounding like all of the other rightwingers in both political parties when it comes to "shared sacrifice."

Of course, the rich won't be involved in it.
_____

Obama continues being a worthless piece of shit pushing for "austerity" measures promoted by the likes of the World Bank and IMF.

Both the Obama administration and Congressional leaders seek to portray their drive to curb the deficit as a response to a groundswell of popular support for slashing social spending. Commenting on Geithner’s warning against delay on increasing the debt ceiling, a spokesman for House Speaker Boehner said, “This does not change the fact that the American people won’t tolerate an increase in the debt limit without meaningful cuts and spending reforms.”

In fact, there is growing popular opposition to the plans to cut spending, particularly to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Late Monday, Capitol Police arrested 89 disability rights protesters for occupying a federal office building in a protest against the Medicaid plan proposed by Paul Ryan.

Members of the ADAPT group say the plan would prevent people with disabilities from living independently, forcing them into nursing homes. Some protesters held signs reading, “Block grants kill,” a reference to the proposal to transform Medicaid funding into state block grants.

Morons like Ryan seek to portray people on Medicaid as a bunch of welfare bums, but in fact the vast majority of people on this program are the disabled and elderly in nursing homes. I don't think the dumb shit Ryan even understands Medicare does NOT pay for nursing home coverage.

Almost anyone who is not disabled or elderly finds it impossible to qualify for Medicaid. They go without health insurance or health care access of any kind or if winding up in emergency care, can't pay the bill.

I find his proposal a form of legalized murder.
_____

The Morons in the Department of Education

simply do not understand the REASON students are considered "special education" students is PRECISELY because they CANNOT do grade-level work, so taking tests at grade level is utterly pointless and destructive.

Don't think for a minute the federal Department of Education won't make the qualifications for students to be allowed to take "alternate" tests even stricter.

Just think of autistic and Down syndrome students, to say nothing of shake baby syndrome and cerebral palsy students, being forced to take tests they can't even BEGIN to understand.

But of course the whole point of NCLB is to guarantee EVERY public school in the United States is failing to make way for privatized education.

Pressure from the U.S. Department of Education has led some states to curb a testing exemption that applies to only the 1 percent of students with the most severe disabilities, but districts that have long used that flexibility to win some breathing room in their accountability systems are bristling.

Under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, states are allowed to administer exams based on alternate standards to students with severe cognitive impairments and then count those scores toward their adequate yearly progress, or AYP, ratings—provided the number of scores counted as passing doesn’t exceed 1 percent of the total number of students tested. When more than 1 percent of students take the alternate tests, states or districts must count the scores from exams that exceed the cap as failing. But, for years, the Education Department allowed a handful of states to overstep the 1 percent cap.

A cap was used—rather than a strict definition of who should qualify for alternate tests—so that school districts could use their own judgment in determining which students should take the tests, which are not intended for children with moderate disabilities, said Ricki Sabia, the associate director of the policy center for the National Down Syndrome Society, based in New York City. When originally proposed, the cap was one-half of a percent, a proportion she said some research shows is much closer to the actual share of students who might be in need of tests that may hardly resemble current standardized exams.

There really should be a class-action lawsuit filed in federal court on behalf of disabled students.

Talk is Cheap When It Comes to Teachers

It is supposedly National Teacher Appreciation Week, but all teachers have gotten for the past couple of years especially is relentless trashing by people who haven't a clue about what teachers go through but arrogantly think they know more:

Respect? Value? Support? Not seeing much.

More fundamentally, your very presence in the role of Education Secretary reflects a level of disrespect for our profession not found in others. Our Surgeon General is a career physician, who earned a full MD before going into family practice. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is a career naval officer, who studied at the Naval Academy before participating in combat operations aboard a destroyer. Yet despite “working in education” for a while, you never studied education, and you’ve never taught in a public school classroom. Working in non-profits, playing basketball, and being a political appointee are not substitutes for classroom experience.

This "letter" could go to Eli Broad as well, since he is one of the culprits who is hellbent on putting unqualified people in charge of school districts around the country. He erroneously believes schools are businesses rather than public services.
_____

I have written on this blog about how Michigan is no longer a state run by the consent of the governed but instead has turned into a full-blown dictatorship thanks to the creation of "emergency managers" who are not held accountable to anybody and receive kickbacks from corporations, things public officials used to go to jail for.

I missed Rachel Maddow's interview of the other day:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

We are so in danger of losing every single thing we hold dear in this country.

Etc. and News

Good news for Reno, Nevada, indeed as the Hot August Nights celebration in Long Beach, California, has been canceled because of lack of interest and sponsorship.

It always was a northern Nevada event, and believe me, northern Nevada needs all of the financial help it can get during these lean times.
_____

So much for the value of a college education.
_____

Somebody is certainly benefiting from the attack on workers, and it isn't the workers.
_____

The oldest couple to be married did so last month.

The bride is 90, while the groom is 100. She said she would marry when he turned 100.
_____

A dog engaged in self-preservation when he hid in the bathtub while the house was on fire.
_____

Obituaries

This one is extremely sad, but such things are not unheard of: B-actress Yvette Vickers, 82 apparently (though I have seen her age as much younger than this), was found dead last week in her home, but it is believed she had been dead for perhaps as long as a year.

Vickers had also been an early Playboy playmate, but I best remember her in the part of the "other woman" in the 50s grade-Z classic Attack of the 50-Foot Woman.

Susan Savage, an actress, went to check on Vickers after noticing old letters and cobwebs in her elderly neighbor's mailbox.

"The letters seemed untouched and were starting to yellow," Savage said. "I just had a bad feeling."

After pushing open a barricaded front gate and scaling a hillside, Savage peered through a broken window with another piece of glass taped over the hole. She decided to enter the house after seeing a shock of blond hair, which turned out to be a wig.
The inside of the home was in disrepair and it was hard to move through the rooms because boxes containing what appeared to be clothes, junk mail and letters formed barriers, Savage said. Eventually, she made her way upstairs and found a room with a small space heater still on.

She was looking at a cordless phone that appeared to have been knocked off its cradle when she first saw the body on the floor, she said. Savage had known Vickers but the remains were unrecognizable, she said.

There are certainly a lot of legitimate questions that need to be raised about this. Nobody even noticed for over a year something was amiss? I could understand the utilities still being on, as I have read Vickers was not at all destitute but did well in real estate investments. But it is just unbelievable.

She's not the first Hollywood performer to have been neglected. I recall the famous silent movie star, Vilma Banky, who with her husband Rod La Rocque were the toasts of the town. Her husband died in 1969, but Banky remained active until her last decade, when she suffered from ill health. THEN she, like big lottery winners, found out who her true friends were, at least those who were still alive by the time she died in 1991:

Falling ill in her 80s, she became embittered that none of her friends visited her, and she decreed that no notice be made of her death.

Only now has a spokesman revealed the actress died in a Los Angeles nursing home on March 18, 1991, at the age of about 90.

Word of Banky's death began appearing in publications this fall. Yet her passing went largely unnoticed until this week, when her attorney confirmed the death following an inquiry from The Associated Press. "Banky was ill at home for five years and for another five years at the St. John of God Convalescent Hospital," attorney Robert Vossler said Thursday.

"During all that time, not a single soul came to visit her. She was so upset that she wanted no notice and no service when she died," he said. "I followed her wishes."

The obituaries were published a year after she died.

link
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Let's See That Death Certificate

I was as shocked as anybody the report bin Laden was "buried at sea." What the HELL?

And yes, I am cynical about Obama doing this in order to shore up his shitty poll numbers and help his chances for him.

Unfortunately for Obama, the election is a year-and-a-half away, a political eternity, and this latest news doesn't change the fact he is a crappy president who does NOT deserve re-election.

So how did they find him, Osama, I mean, IF they found him?



Reports have it officials are conducting DNA tests on him, and there is even talk of releasing photographs of the body.

There are questions to be asked about this death, going beyond identity.

Obituaries?

From "I thought he was already dead" department: Osama bin Laden or one of his many doubles is apparently dead.

Will we see proof of it? Maybe:

The founder and spiritual figurehead for al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, is dead.
Several officials confirmed the report to CBS News, and say that his body is currently in U.S. hands.

Etc. and News

Obama, you are no FDR.
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Just because a woman has liposuction doesn't mean the fat never comes back.
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Surprise!!! Most teachers have to work second jobs, and I would suspect the majority of the rest have working spouses to cushion the blow the lousy teacher salaries provide.

And it's getting worse because politicians and school districts are finding ways to get rid of the more expensive and better teachers, leaving a revolving door workforce of twenty-something bimbos.
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My new dog, Duffy, is actually a casualty of the foreclosure crisis. This link is the article about the woman who surrendered the 43 dogs to animal control last August.