I would call them Academically Modified Organizers except that doesn't relate their haunting similarity to agricultural GMOs. University-incubated community organizers are designed to share a tragic characteristic of killer crops: the terminator gene. And it self-selects for stupid. OF COURSE establishment-perpetuating education is going to adulterate what it's selling as liberatory ideology! For example: anti-oppression, to innoculate against leadership; safe spaces to subvert direct communication; inclusion to preempt focus; consensus to thwart decision. These are genetic modifications to the social impulse, confounding political activism with self crit therapy. The newest social studies grads have resurrected a hopeful rejoinder to repression that reeks of their generations's ubiquitous consolation prize. It goes THEY TRIED TO BURY US. THEY DIDN"T KNOW WE WERE SEEDS. Sorry, no you are not viable seeds. Poor hobbled Millennials, your miseducators and anti-social conditioners have as good as irradiated your seeds. Your enfeebled strain of resistance may be crazy infectious to systemically modified uncritical thinkers, but it's not fertile.
Tag: Education
So-called liberal UC Berkley relaxes its academic standards to admit idiots.
Next science departments are going to invite clerics to speak, to open the dialog, as UC Berkley wants to explain, between the educated and un. Climate scientists should dialog with deniers apparently. Imagine math departments sponsoring conversations with preschoolers. What a crock to think universities need entertain a diversity of IQs. Worse than ignorant, imbecile, or batshit crazy are political ideologues already championed by the conservative establishment. I don't think free speech rights protect Ann Coulter's access to an amplification system at Sproul Plaza. Let the free market determine if what she's got to say should be licensed by the campus population. It doesn't have to be hate speech to merit shutting down. Ignorant bigoted sociopathic blather can be shouted down, tarred, feathered, and run out of town without anyone feeling pangs of concern for the First Amendment. The corporate media and publishing houses prop her up. The grassroots have no more obligation than to make sure Coulter's feet are burned wherever she lands her broom. The Berkley students who invited Ann Coulter to speak need to be counseled their prospects are better with vocational school.
Pikes Peak Community College teaches climate denial to meteorology students
COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO.- Overheard on FM 89.9, PPCC's radio station: a spot for the General Meteorology Course MET-150, where students can learn about the earth's cyclic temperature rises, how after this year warming is expected to level off, and how 99% of world scientists are dissatified with the way Climate Change is being reported in the media. Here the statistic is reinterpreted to mean: scientists agree with PPCC students and Springs radio listeners, and think our worries are overblown.
It turns out the Pittsburgh Sophomore who stabbed classmates was an adult
Yes the crime was horific, highschoolers being stabbed from behind, their assailant without character enough to face his random victims, without motive, armed with such a weapon as any amateur can pick up in their parent's kitchen. Though signs migh point to medication or mental illness, the troubled 16-year-old is being charged as an adult, because schools have been failing Americans for generations before Alex Hribal.
Student power triumphs in Quebec
Canadian students took the streets to oppose tuition increases. They confronted police and braved violent repression day and night until their demands were meet. What do proponents of traditional non-confrontational social-justice tactics have to teach new activists? Fuck-all. Fuck them and the nonviolence riding-horse they rode in on.
We all hate bad teachers, and so do teachers. Chicago Teachers Strike is about improving education
No one hates bad teachers more than fellow teachers. What a vile media construct to assert the Chicago Teachers Strike wants to force bad teachers on the public school system. The strike is a bid to strengthen the union and public education. Who better to fight privatization, standardized testing and the deliberate mis-education of common students than teachers? Unions are regularly maligned as parasites bent on destroying their host, but it's an obvious falsehood which ironically depends on an audience being unschooled in critical thinking, or being unemployed. If you have a job, you know that wishing against the interest of your communal enterprise is not human nature, and also that your job is made more difficult and unpleasant by workers who don't pull their weight. A strong union fights for the interests of its members, and what do teachers, the most altruist among us, want? Not just a better work environment, a better education system.
Democratic Party and Obama force strike onto Chicago teachers and the corporate run press begins badmouthing the teacher’s union
Rahm Imanuel, the former Obama Chief of Staff who is now Chicago's mayor, Arnie Duncan, and President Barack Obama himself have all teamed together and forced the Chicago teachers into a defensive strike against the Democratic Party's plan to push privatization off against yet more public schools while implementing more cutbacks to public schools themselves. Their plan is to make the teachers pay for this educational cutback and then to blame them afterwards for the bad results that will continue to accrue due to corporate and religious Right demands for yet more and more privatization of the country's educational system. The corporate media has already started to badmouth the teacher's union and blame the union for this strike they pushed the teachers into! Unfortunately, another union, the SEIU signed a contract separate from the teachers union, and therefore will now use that as their excuse ("it is illegal to not cross the picket lines due to our SEIU contract") and to not honor the teachers' picket lines even as they mouth verbal support for the teachers. This strategy is very typical of the scabby pro Democratic Party SEIU nationally. Shame on them! Their crass support for the corproate Democratic Party misrepresnets their own union members and destroys multi union solidarity. And the Republican Party and Mitt Romney have already begun to spout their lies and nonsense, too, blaming the Democratic Party for supposedly being pro union. Of course, no absurdity is too big for the Republican Party crazies to use in their sectarian quest to grab the White House away from their twin brother political party, The Democrats. Never mind that both corporate run parties support further privatization of the educational system, while trashing the public schools to make it look like a necessity if the public wants any education for our kids at all. The Republican Party will blame the Democrats even when it is the Republican Party program the DP leadership hacks are forcing off onto America! The Chicago unions are fighting for our kids across the country. Support them, please. See also the Teacher X blog on Why I'm striking which states the issues in a simpler way still for those who haven't thought much about this 'strike' issue yet.
Down the Merry Dead End path of crappy credentialling for hire
'Well, What would you do with a brain if you had one?' ...said Dorothy to the Scarecrow. Thus began the Scarecrow's quest for proper credentialing///! They were off and headed down the merry dead end path of the yellow brick road in search of crappy credentialing for hire so that the scarecrow man would then be able to feel that he had a brain. But did he actually have one? If only Dorothy and the Scarecrow had read the new book, Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses ...they might not have run up such a bad student debt for the Scarecrow! Now the Scarecrow is still working at Walmart and owes $98,000 for a degree he got in 'Marketing'. What do you think he learned from this experience? That 'education' costs a lot and really is a lot of crap when it is measured strictly by the buying and selling of credentials? Perhaps...? But most people receiving crappy credentials in the US seem to think that they, in fact, do have an education even when, in fact, they really don't.
Ayn Rand SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Let me first begin with how I was exposed to Ayn Rand. I am in high school and awhile back my teacher was doing a course on homelessness. In a 'prompt' that she gave me as to what are the causes of homelessness, I answered CAPITALISM. A week later I was astonished to get back my paper with a Zero. I showed this to many people all of whom agreed that it was in no way deserving of a zero. My dad and I took this question as to why I had gotten a zero on my paper to the teacher. I wasn't expecting much but even after one hour of asking my English teacher why I had gotten a zero on my paper she had no reasonable answer other than that I had not followed the 'format' correctly, even though I had a previous organizational sheet on which I based my writing on following her format. she ended by saying I was a horrible writer; we gave up trying to get to through to such a numbskull. I didn't quite understand why she had given me a zero until a couple months later, and so began my experience with Ayn Rand. My teacher took us to get the book. As I read the summary I knew it would be some sort of method for her and d-11 to push their politics on students; however I had no previous knowledge of who Ayn Rand was. The next day in class she gave us a powerpoint on the background of Ayn Rand and what the book Anthem was about. It was filled with negative comments on communism including that communism supposedly takes away knowledge, individuality and free expression. As I was assigned to read more and more of Ayn Rand I realized how horrible of a writer she was. I started to listen to Ayn Rand's interviews. I then understood that they were forcing me to read a writer who didn't believe in helping anyone, because she was a racist, a nationalist and a pure evil witch. These interviews can be found on <youtube> and <bluecorncomics> among many other articles revealing Ayn Rand to be a racist. The more and more I read into the book the more i was infuriated at the pure ridiculousness and hypocrisy of it. In the ending chapters it is written by Ayn Rand that "The word WE is the lime poured over me, which sets and hardens to stone, crushes all beneath it, and that which is white and that which is black are lost equally in the grey of it. It is the word by which the depraved steal the virtue of the good, by which the weak steal the might of the strong, by which the fools steal the wisdom of the sages. What is my joy if all hands, even the unclean, can reach into it? What is my wisdom if even the fools can dictate to me? What is my freedom, if all
Pennies For Peace, Stones For Schools, but Dollars For Greg Mortenson Fictions
Yeah, we miss NMT being the lone internet destination for criticism of the TCOT auto-hagiography of Greg Mortenson. Jon Krakauer's expose validates our suspicions, although it fails to explore the likely role the CIA played lubricating the works. Yet even today Mortenson's acolytes still defend his million little fictions as serving a good cause, and his non-school building expenditures as whims due their imperfect savior. So let's be clear about Mortenson's dishonest finances. With the Pennies For Peace raised by schoolchildren, Mortenson buys copies of his own books, at retail price, to boost their rankings, and to ensure his author royalties, which do not flow back to his charity CAI, while it pays the expenses to promote his books.
American caesars who want to cross the Rubicon with a Rubicon need a map
I just came across one of these in a parking lot yesterday, apparently the Jeep Rubicon has been out for a few years. This uber-alles thrillcraft sort of defines America's sorry state of cultural illiteracy, wouldn't you say? Julius Caesar didn't violate Rome's Posse Comitatus prohibition riding IN A Rubicon. Bad-ass as you wanna be, if your Rubicon is like the average off-road vehicle, it will never leave the pavement. Your Rubicon logo is just to remind one and all that you could cross it, if you knew where it was. The sorrier irony is that Caesar's defiant act militarized the empire's civil society and curtailed its democracy.
The War, on illiteracy. High School Seniors unable to pass ASVAB tests.
So the predicted backlash of BushCoNomics War on Education is coming out. "Throwing money at" education was deemed inefficient and ineffective. Making sure that schools which were struggling to educate the next generation of Coolies and Cannon Fodder for the Corporate machine, not performing well enough, were to be cut off from federal funding, leaving the Corporate Compassion of the local business, be it Massey Energy or GM or Martin-Marietta, or Tidewater Oil, Or The Army... to pick up the slack.It was to be a National Implementation of "The Texas Model" pushed by George, Jeb and Neil Bush. Twelve years of this Noble Experiment by (first) two states which have a standardized statewide curriculum, set by the governor of each state, the governors happened to be sons of a bi.. err Ex-President, yeah, that's the ticket, and have another brother who sells textbooks. It's just a coincidence that the "Educational Resources" provider McGraw-Hill publishing, for whom Neil works as a salesFreak poured millions of dollars into the state campaigns of George and Jeb, and George's Anointed Successor Rick Goodhair, who in turn used their positions to buy school textbooks for EVERY FREAKIN' SCHOOL DISTRICT in their two very large states. No conspiracy there, no sir! And poured more millions into the National "no child left behind" campaign, which also (just a coincidence, mind you, nothing to see here citizens, keep moving, nothing to see) purchased, with the even larger Federal budget, even more of their products. Products designed not to make children more educated in "elitist" disciplines like arts, music, THINKING LOGICALLY but to better prepare them for McWalMart Jobs and of course being infantrymen, to serve the Rich and kill other soldiers and other workers who don't cooperate with the Agenda of the Very Rich. Like having enough non-Rich people able to pass the ASVAB tests and join the Army and spill their own blood for the Rich so the Rich don't have to spill THEIR own blood. Nothing that would prepare them to take what very slim chance for social and economic advancement was (allegedly) available through diligence, hard work and Educational Achievement. Accusations of this policy being remarkably similar to the Old South Slave Codes which forbade the Slaves from learning to read, and provided Capital Punishment for any person who TAUGHT a slave to read, or the Post-Civil War terrorist actions of the Ku Klux Klan and similar groups to suppress education, (teachers and schools were the largest groups attacked by Klan terrorists) is of course Silly Liberal Elitist "conspiracy theory" and in itself Racist. (the Klan and their related groups like The Heritage Foundation, Tea Party, and Minutemen are of course not racist... just ask one, he'll tell you "We're not racists, that's a damn Commie Pinko Propaganda statement spread by them Liberal Nigger lovin' queer Jew-boys, and we all know how much THEY lie!") So the magic is, the wonderful gift they gave themselves and by extension, the rest of the world, that after 12 years of NCLB being the law of
Does Israel’s STAND WITH US stand against humanitarian aid to Gaza?
Hey! Let's seize this opportunity to get around the usual US media blackout on sympathy-for- Palestine activism. American members of Stand With Us, the Israeli outreach group on American college campuses, do YOU stand against the relief convoy defying Israel's naval blockade to bring humanitarian aid to the besieged Palestinians of Gaza? StandWithUs is forming an IDF-booster fleet to protest the Gaza Freedom Flotilla as it seeks passage between the Israeli navy ships. Stand With Us accuses the convoy organizers of trying to make Israel look bad. By holding Gaza under siege, who exactly is pretending not to look bad? If Israel's navy indeed raids the convoy ships and arrests all on board, Israel's image will be degraded further. Now add yahoos in the water, egging on their soldiers, or more probably, protesting that they're not beating the activists severely enough. Won't that mirror the settler behavior in the West Bank, where they torment the Palestinians under the protection of the IDF? And when prevented by the soldiers, the settlers take their anger out on the Palestinians again. It appears Israel's Stand With Us club intends to make all their members look bad. Why would anyone block humanitarian relief? If indeed the peace activists are trying to give Israel a black eye, let them pass. What can you do? Contact a local chapter of Stand With Us and as them if they are lobbying for solidarity with such an activity as their counter-flotilla. Here's an excerpt from the Jerusalem Post in which StandWithUs leaders deny there's a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Enjoy: “What the other anti-Israel flotilla is doing is ignoring human rights abuses and focusing on a fake situation,” Michael Dickson, StandWithUs Israel Director, told The Jerusalem Post Thursday. Dickson believes the European flotilla cares more about hurting Israel than helping the Palestinians in Gaza. Lior Meyer, a StandWithUs Project Manager planning the counter flotilla, hopes their demonstration will show that Gaza is under Hamas siege, rather than Israeli occupation. “I hope they’re not expecting anything. When someone’s surprised by the truth it’s only a good thing,” Meyer said, claiming that few people know the nature of Hamas’s control. Dickson said that the European activists’ aid could have reached Gaza in one day instead of one week if they weren’t interested in making a publicity statement. “I think that the key thing is that this is not some fare minded mission coming in that cares for peace. Their flotilla is driven by hate rather than peace. They don’t really care about the victims who live under Hamas in Gaza and the south of Israel,”
Bananas, coconuts, Oreos and apples.
COLORADO SPRINGS- Jim Tucker's got some 'splainin' to do. While reiterating the accusation that the Harrison school board is "racist," the local NAACP champion called the Asian-American superintendent a "Banana" and thinks school children should be taught what it means. "It's not really a racial slur. Those are terms that kids should learn in school and understand what those terms mean in the real world," he told KKTV, who are running with the headline Rally Leader Uses Racial Slur. Tucker's other school lunch pejoratives are coconut, oreo and apple.
Yeee-Haww! Gun Totin’ Elmer Fudd students to plan next Columbine at CU
Of course, they don't want to actually shoot PEOPLE, mind you, just the faceless (to them) threats like Liberals, Blacks, "meskins" Indians, Ay-Rabs, and anybody smarter than themselves. --Dudes, I'll put this to you bluntly... carrying a Gun is not going to turn you into a Bad-ass. Rambo was a movie. A work of Fiction. John Wayne was an Actor and to the best of anybody's knowledge never shot anybody. Every single one of his movies, including the "historical dramas" was a work of Fiction. I know, he didn't star in Rambo, but the same logic applies to Sylvester Stallone. Your fears about whichever of Your Fellow Americans you intend to shoot or try to intimidate into submission with your Big Bad Gun won't go away, and neither will the people you think will be intimidated by Your Big Bad Gun. Add in the FACT that if you fire into a crowd, such as the SU building, your classroom, the drunken frat-rat party you're attending (and you attempt to impress your fellow Big Little Boys with your gun) the odds are much greater that you'll kill or maim people who you didn't want to kill or maim, rather than the Liberals, Blacks, Hispanics, Ay-Rabs, Indians, gays, or Real Bad-asses of whom you are so very afraid. Some of you actually got into college on Merit, meaning you know a little bit about Mathematics. Math is very important to such studies as Physics, including the Newtonian Laws governing the study of Ballistics. For those of you who didn't actually study to get into college, that's the study of the behavior of projectiles, applies to everything from a slingshot to a Nuclear Armed Intercontinental BALLISTIC Missile, but the most common usage is for firearms. Because firearms are so cheap, easy to purchase, and just any person regardless of (lack of) intelligence can purchase or steal one, it takes ZERO amount of courage, smarts or Toughness in any form to carry one, to load one or to fire one. One element of ballistics is that the rapidly travelling (around the speed of sound for just about any pistol or revolver, and there is a distinction between the two) will be travelling about 100 to 200 feet per second slower after it goes through the person you intended to shoot, assuming that you hit your target. Most shots fired even by trained individuals don't actually strike their intended targets. As hideous as the body count for either of the World Wars was, it's dwarfed by the number of shots fired. So you have a far greater "shot" at killing people you didn't intend to shoot. But the truly Delusional method of getting really Stupid People to stock up on guns is to convince them that the Gun will, in (lack of supporting) fact, make them less cowardly than they actually are. So they sell a whole bunch of Guns to emotionally crippled In-DUH-viduals who believe that kind of crap. And, trust me, or don't trust me, it won't
Tea-Potty successfully test-fire Dumb Bomb, counters “Smart Bombs” nicely.
Remember the infamous Speech boycotted by whole School Districts including D-11 locally? The Hoam Skule parents, aided and abetted by the Tea-Party, in turn organized and funded by Fox News, combined to convince themselves that Education Is Satanic. Frightened Tea-Baggers kept their kids from hearing the Zombie-Brainwashing message that educational excellence is a good thing. In doing so, they set up a series of events that has led to among other school districts the Kansas City MO ISD closing half their schools, school closings are the Drug of Choice for the "conservatives" because quite simply, the only way they can hold any kind of political power is to Keep the People Ignorant. They remind me of the "Gone Tertiary" mobs in the movie "Omega Man", led by a former (until they burned down every radio and TV station as "evil") Rush Limbaugh think-alike named Matthias. With their torches and robes, burning down schools, libraries, museums, any form of culture and education, chanting "Evil! Evil! Evil! Evil!" BUT... there is a bright side to this. As painful as it seems, they're tearing their own Empire down. Already, after 8 years of Bush junior and 12 years of the Reagan/Bush Regime breaking down American Public Education into a 12 year Political Indoctrination session for each kiddo, the Pentagoons report that American kids who they wanted to recruit into the Murder Machine, aren't qualified for it anymore. They're too fat, too lazy and too damn dumb. The Fox OUTRAGE! Nation has dumbed itself into a corner. They want world-wide power, but the people they were counting on doing their fighting for them, (Because let's face it, the NeoCons ain't ever going to fight for their own gain, they have always counted on Other People to be stupid enough to do it for them and always will) got the necessary Political Indoctrination, where they're Stupid Enough to believe that they'd be "fighting for Freedom"... But it came at a price, they're also too stupid to operate advanced weaponry. And fat and lazy. This according to the Pentagon. It's a major OOPSIE!! moment for the Right WingNuts. And that damage was accomplished BEFORE the mass hysteria inflamed by the Fox Propagandists. "Evil! Evil! Evil! Evil! Evil! Evil! Evil! Evil! " They'll drag American War Technology so low that they'll never again be beaten down by Small Third World Nations like North Korea, VietNam, and Somalia. Because they'll be too stupid to find their way over there and wouldn't have enough High-Tech weaponry to make them feel safe enough to start the wars in the first place. No more being humiliated by Barefoot Armies.
We’ll all be neo-know-sumpin’ Texans
The conservative majority of the Texas Board of Education thinks school textbooks are "skewed" too much toward education. They want social studies to smile more favorably on Neoclassical Economics, America's Christian heritage, and the legacy of today's Neocons. Does it matter if Texas children are being taught dillwad propaganda? Well, the Texas school system is such a quantity buyer, scholastic publishers tailor national texts to conform to Texas know-nothing standards. If your glass is half full, you might think the Tex-idiots have finally pushed illiteracy so far that American parents and teachers will simply laugh it off and adopt supplementary reading. On the other hand, this conservative surge compounds the devastation of No Child Left Behind. American schoolchildren are being made into absolute idiots, in the image of these 10 Republicans who voted along party lines to teach a history that challenges the separation of church and state. If your kid doesn't learn anything from the past, you have these folk to thank: Don McLeroy- TA&M, dentist, veteran, sunday-school teacher Gail Lowe- LSU, Lampasas County Conservative Club "Conservative of the Year" Terri Leo- TA&M, Republican op Barbara Cargill- Baylor, Methodist Wonders of the Woodlands Science Camp, Ken Mercer- Texas Homeland Security Council Geraldine "Tincy" Miller- SMU, TA&M, realtor David Bradley- TA&M, insurance agent, Beaumont's Citizens on Patrol Cynthia Noland Dunbar- Spirit of Freedom Republican Women's Club Bob Craig- Texas Tech, SMU Patricia Hardy- Howard Payne University
Close the schools to fund the Drones.. Kansas City Schools face massive cuts
Public Education? We don need no steenkeeng public Education! Hitler said that Universal Public Education was the most corrosive poison that Liberalism could inflict on itself, that the youth need only be "sufficiently educated to be efficient coolies in our industries" and that the Military Service should be the primary focus of Education. While looking up the precise quote (from a book written by one of Hitler's spiritual advisers, never spoken publicly but a private conversation with him) I ran into Google Page after Google Page of Right Wing Freaks who want to dismantle access to Education for the poor, just like their Confederate ancestors hanged people for teaching Black people to read and write, and even had Slave Code laws forbidding Blacks from learning to read. After all, why would anybody need a quality education in order to succeed as a soldier? And, as Herr Schicklgrueber pointed out (for non-students, that's Hitler's paternal grandfathers name, his daddy was born out of wedlock, unlike the Self Made bastards who worship his philosophy.) Meanwhile, the Rogue State is deploying more Drones. Drones where the only skill you need to operate them is playing video games. And of course the Human drones who are "just following orders" and for whom an education that stresses logic would not only be superfluous, but counter to the whole mission. "You will kill these people because you're told to do so". SAY WHUT? "We say there are WMDs in Iraq, therefore you will go and slaughter anybody in Iraq who does not bow before the emperor". (The babies are just "bonus") You see, if the "troops" were educated in things that relate to decision making, like, for instance, questioning assertions, using logic, employing Empirical Logic (which counters Imperial Dogma) they would have asked a few questions, such as: According to the Penta-Goons, the Iraqi Army was composed of mostly poorly educated, fed, trained, paid Teenage Conscripts who were in really bad physical shape and had really low morale. That's logical, many Puppet Dictatorships who were either overtly or covertly supported by the Reagan Crime Cartel actually have exactly those issues. Next according to Bush, the nerve gas, a million pounds of it in 55 gallon containers, was moved at an hours notice ahead of the U.N. inspectors. Nerve gas which is volatile, or would be if it even existed and requires special training to handle, special storage facilities, and even with those conditions met, has a nasty habit of leaking and causing civilian casualties even in the United States Armories, which are usually miles away from towns. 55 gallon drums which would weigh 450 pounds apiece. 2400 of them. Moved quickly by skinny, underfed teenage boys who did not and could not POSSIBLY have the level of training necessary to handle Nerve Gas. With a HUGE LIE like that as the very basis for every other statement, a person trained in logic and the Scientific Method of analysis (Empirical) would then judge each consecutive statement and any concurrent statements as being very likely untrue. So
For the Climate Deniers…
Bill O'Lie-ly said this January was the coldest on record. Perhaps he could learn a little science, specifically mathematics. If not then he could learn how to ask people whose business it is to provide scientifically sound information to for instance the Shipping Industry, farmers and the U.S. Military, none of whom are much noted for Radical Left Wing thought processes. Like NOAA, who reported that the average global ground temperature Increased by very nearly a full degree C. The IBM corporate model is founded in a mission statement they made back in 1945. When they got the funding to build the first "supercomputers" (Analog Calculators, actually, the "AC" part of their names) ENIAC and UNIVAC. That they would be able to predict major weather events a year in advance. This on "computers" which had less calculating power than this "dinosaur" 10 year old desktop I'm typing on right now. It's a spectacular example of Corporate Welfare gone terribly wrong. Bill-ionaire O'Reilly knows quite a bit about Corporate Welfare, but as it's his beneficiary on the Gilded Road to Hell, he's not going to squeak about it very loudly. Or, at all. So they extended the accurate predictions for major weather events from 5 days to 7. Big Hairy Deal, yes? Well, in a way. The failures of that business model, (for which they're still drawing royalties, an interesting economic term in what's supposed to be a "free" market) led to some pretty remarkable mathematic theories and applications of Chaos Theory. One is that not only the Earth but the Universe is a closed mathematic system. Finite. Iterations of what are supposed to be infinite variations, repetitions and patterns where the Patterns would have fallen apart if the system were infinte. So, how does an established pattern in a finite system develop such a major rift? But all that is above the heads of Bill-do and his demented fans. They're instead pushing the provincial notion that a small portion of the small system (relative to the universe) that hits us with snow in winter? The notion that snowstorms in winter would actually have become so anomalous that it's newsworthy should be a clue. But the Dumbass Patrol can't get a clue if somebody rubs their noses in it. I've got relatives. Of course. Some of them live in an almost Medieval Backward Poverty Zone called Cleburne, Texas. There's a joke in Cleburne on the lines of the maps you get in Johnson County only show Johnson County, and at the county line the world drops off. On the mythical maps the edges around the county line are filled with notations like "Terra Incognito" (Thet thar's where them Terrists live, boy) and "Here Be Dragons!!" There are people in Johnson County who have never made the arduous journey to Ft Worth. Ft Worth city limits are like two miles from the county line. Dallas is a myth they use to frighten their kids (Eat your vegetables and go on to bed. You know what happens to kids
White Flight from football to assault rifle
Ryan dons the rest of his gear in the car. Pads, armor, helmet, even mouth guard. I adjust the rearview mirror downward until I see his small frame in the backseat. We're only halfway to practice and he's already biting down, breathing through his nose, focused straight ahead. It's the same routine for football, except today he's got a lacrosse stick across his knees. In his grip, I should say. When we pull the car to the edge of the parking lot, he jumps and literally hits the ground running. From my height he gives me the sense I'm a helicopter pilot who's dropped soldier reinforcements to join the team on the pitch. There's a steep hillock between Ryan and the field, but his charge never slows, he ascends like a Cavalry of One, his stick brandished like an assault rifle. Would an M16 be held any different? The difference between football and lacrosse is that your little assault squad is armed. In 1763 a band of Chippewa Indians seized Fort Michilimackinac by feigning a game of baggataway, the Native American origin of lacrosse. The Indians pretended that an over-spirited drive led players over the fortifications and within minutes they'd stormed the ramparts. In a spirit of honoring American Indian tradition, like the harvest celebration of Thanksgiving, American dads are pushing a new sport unto the youth athletic season. Because the first early adopters where also the first white men to hit the New World, the sport now has a Mayflower WASP identity too. Lacrosse has an exotic appeal in spite of its New England tradition. It's sort of field hockey gone aerial, full court jai alai with armor, East Coast blue blood rooted with the authentic red bloods, the original old money land owners. Is that what's behind the lacrosse resurgence? As Ryan's team wrapped up the other day, they passed baseball diamonds and could not hold back from chanting "lacrosse, lacrosse" toward the children playing baseball, as if to instigate a cross-sport rivalry. Lacrosse teams are still relatively scarce. On weekends they have to cross neighboring metropolitan regions to play each other. How many sports programs do you need to round out your kids? Boys have baseball, football and basketball, among the big team sports. Neither of which are the biggest sports internationally. Soccer and handball. Curiously both those require little equipment. They are perfect for the Third World, but imperfect for consumer cultures which have wheels of commerce to drive, especially in recreational pursuits. Which could explain why Lacrosse teams have to traverse great distances to encounter adversaries. The usual cross town rivals can't pony up the money for this game. Lacrosse is White Flight from football. Most schools have barely enough money to keep their athletes in football gear, let alone a completely redundant lacrosse kit. And so the only kids playing lacrosse are from families who can afford the hundreds extra for the specialized equipment. Added bonus, there are no players bringing a black athletic advantage to the game. Like the
Hugo Chavez has message for Obama
Hugo Chavez met Barack Obama at the Summit of the Americas, and presented this gift to the American president: "The Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent" by Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano. At the United Nations General Assembly in 2006, Chavez held aloft Noam Chomsky's "Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance," encouraging everyone to read it. Is there a common theme to the dark-skinned Chavez's book recommendations? Chavez' critics from the Venezuelan upper middle class think he's no brighter than a monkey. His message, educate yourselves. Eduardo Galeano was interviewed by Amy Goodman on the day Barack Obama learned he had won the election. Galeano had this hope for the first US President of color: that he never forget that the White House, his new home, had been built by black slaves. By the way, Galeano's classic, with which Hugo Chavez hopes to bring Obama up to speed, was published in 1971. When Obama won the 2008 election, Eduardo Galeano wrote this essay: I HOPE. 10 November 2008 Will Obama prove, at the helm of government, that his threats of war against Iran and Pakistan were only words, broadcast to seduce difficult ears during the election campaign? I hope. And I hope he will not fall, even for a moment, for the temptation to repeat the exploits of George W. Bush. After all, Obama had the dignity to vote against the Iraq war, while the Democratic and Republican parties were applauding the announcement of this carnage. In his campaign, the word most often repeated in his speeches was leadership. In his administration, will he continue to believe that his country has been chosen to save the world, a toxic idea that he shares with almost all his colleagues? Will he insist on the United States’ global leadership and its messianic mission to take command? I hope the current crisis, which is shaking the imperial foundations, will serve at least to give the new administration a bath of realism and humility. Will Obama accept that racism is normal when it is used against the countries that his country invades? Isn’t it racism to count the deaths of invaders in Iraq, one by one, and arrogantly ignore the many dead among the invaded population? Isn’t this world racist, where there are first-, second-, and third-class citizens, and the first-. second-, and third-class dead? Obama’s victory was universally hailed as a battle won against racism. I hope he will assume, in his acts of government, this great responsibility. Will the Obama government confirm, once again, that the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are two names of the same party? I hope the desire for change, which these elections have established, will be more than a promise and more than a hope. I hope the new government has the courage to break with the tradition of the one and only party, disguised as two parties which at the moment of truth do more or less the same thing while
College Republicans not brightest bulbs
BOULDER- A favorite photo from Thursday night's event. This is the president of the CU College Republicans, who got up to object to student funds being spent on terrorists and frauds. Even after Ayers and Churchill spoke about how neither education nor students should be treated like commodities, sweaty dope Andrew Crown asked why a university could not do like any well-run corporation, and fire whomever it wished. The crowd booed, but the panel of guests calmly encouraged us to let everyone have their say. It's a reserve and graciousness of which I am in short supply. These guys shout down activists, attack progressives, remember the RNC Kicker, and the Protest Warriors? They have the ear of the mainstream corporate press. Why would we need to tolerate a single of their blimp-necked peeps at a discussion for intelligent people? If you think I am assessing someone's intelligence level based on whether he agrees with me, I am. On academic matters, it most certainly is appropriate. In classes, assessments of the retention and comprehension of man's accumulated understanding of the subjects are called tests. Does the University of Colorado have no admissions standards? Mr. Crown's questions was answered well beyond his ability to understand, and he returned to his seat shaking his head like the whole lot of us were incorrigible. I hope so.
Bill Ayers and Derrick Jensen to speak on Forbidden Education in Boulder
FORBIDDEN EDUCATION: Bill Ayers and Derrick Jensen will speak in Boulder on Thursday March 5, in solidarity with Ward Churchill's legal challenge against his dismissal by CU. MEANWHILE, THIS JUST IN... This press release just came in from DC conservative Christian PR group GRIFFNEWS, also of USAsurvival.org... Wednesday, March 04, 2009 Attorney General Urged to Investigate Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn by Campaign for Justice for Victims of Weather Underground Terrorism WASHINGTON, D.C.- Pressure is mounting for an expanded probe of former Weathermen Bill Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn , and their alleged roles in the 1970 bombing murder of a San Francisco policeman. Larry Grathwohl, former FBI informant in the Weather Underground and author of Bringing Down America: An FBI Informer with the Weathermen, will repeat his sworn testimony that points to the involvement of the Weather Underground in the bombing murder of Sgt. Brian V. McDonnell at a News Conference on Thursday, March 12, at 12:30 p.m. at the National Press Club, 529 14th St., NW, 13th floor (First Amendment Lounge), Washington, D.C. Grathwohl says that he was at a meeting where Ayers said that his wife Dohrn had planted the bomb. The News Conference is being sponsored by the Campaign for Justice for Victims of Weather Underground Terrorism, a project of investigative journalist Cliff Kincaid's America's Survival, Inc. The cold case of Sgt. Brian V. McDonnell, killed in 1970 when a bomb exploded at the San Francisco Park Police Station, has been quietly reopened by law enforcement authorities in the hope of finding the person or persons responsible for the crime. But Grathwohl and other speakers say that more cooperation at the federal level in the investigation is needed. That is why they are demanding that Attorney General Eric Holder authorize more resources for the probe. Grathwohl will be joined by four other speakers who will discuss the McDonnell case, the violent history of the Weather Underground, and the reemergence of its members in political and campus organizing activities: – Cliff Kincaid, veteran journalist and President of America's Survival, together with internationally-renowned blogger Trevor Loudon, will release a new report on how members of the SDS and Weather Underground have revived a radical student movement on college campuses. The report will examine the international connections that people like Ayers currently have with anti-American regimes and movements. –Jim Pera, a retired San Francisco police sergeant who was one of the first on the scene after the February 16, 1970 bombing, will have photographs of the heavy metal staples from the bomb used to kill Sergeant McDonnell. – Herbert Romerstein, a former Congressional investigator, will release a new report that examines the violent history of the Weather Underground and its links to other terrorist and communist groups. The Campaign for Justice for Victims of Weather Underground is a project of America's Survival, www.USAsurvival.org, an independent foreign affairs watchdog organization.
Colorado Springs District 11 School District corruption in plain view
Something called a 'School Accountability Report' came to my house in the mail last week. Let's take a look at it, shall we? How is Colorado Springs District 11 Administration doing with that $409,468,689 they spent on less than 30,000 students last year? That's almost a half a billion dollars! That's a lot of money! First off, they spent 15% of that money ($63,437,095) on 'servicing debt' as they called it. Wow! Double WOW! These are the people in charge of teaching math to kids, too... and it is no wonder that so many of District 11 miseducated kids cannot hardly count, let alone add and subtract, multiply and divide. $63 million per year! What did it buy? Well, it bought nothing. It was spent on 'debt service'! Why in the world would this School District borrow money? After all, when school levies can raise hundreds of millions of dollars at a time, why not wait before spending our tax monies? Is that really so hard for these people to do? The answer is NO. So why did they go and put parents into hock like this with taxpayers' money? The answer is CORRUPTION. You see, the $63 million PLUS money paid out in interest annually is something that big financial corporations lobby to get. No need to go after the bottom dwellers (you and I) to get us to add on a credit card or two, when this sort of interest 'servicing' can be had by getting the School Board in bed with them. Nobody questions necessary debt, but a taxing agency such as government can obtain money without borrowing it beforehand. That is something that should be called unnecessary debt when they borrow first. It's unnecessary for us, but necessary for banks to get corrupt fools (the D-11 School Board Administrators) to line them up with them to get that $63 million annually. Yes, those School Board Administrators are corrupt, corrupted, and shameless, and back to the 'School Accountability Report' once again... Those corrupt administrators pull off an average salary of over $40/ hour. That's right. That's an average. The corrupted administrators that passed these deals to have the D-11 public now paying off $63 PLUS million per year in 'debt service' made more than that average. Perhaps $50-$70 per hour? Perhaps the sky? Your guess as to that? Many of these students at District 11 have parents making less than $10 an hour apiece. They support these corrupt School Administrators through their taxes, who then sign these sweetheart deals with financial institutions that then helps torpedo these parents' kids from getting much of an education for that $11,289 operating revenue per kid
Obama’s slam Duncan of public education
It seems that the 'Change' President and basketball player, Barack Obama, has picked another Basketball jock like himself to head up National Education policy? In choosing Arne Duncan for the post, Barack Obama slam Dunkan-ed the Chicago community organizing group, Parents United for Responsible Education, with an Aspen Institute prodigy who specializes in closing down public schools and then reopening them as privatized 'charter schools'. No wonder Pastor Rick Warren will be at the Inaugural Ceremony performing for BO, because this is the favored program of the Religious Right that would have religion put back in schools forcefully, using public tax monies to get it done. Barack is on board this program, and so is Harvard Basketball jock Arne. Who is this Arne really? He is a guy who has never been a teacher, and get this! ... he has a degree in Sociology! That would get me and you a job at about $13/hr, but Arne got his Sociology Degree at Harvard. Add some extra points, because he paid some extra dollars for that degree. PLUS, he's added on some honorary credentials from other elite outfits, too, including a 'Doctor of Laws' degree from Lake Forest College. Wkipedia tells us that Most (if not all) U.S. universities that award the degree of Doctor of Laws (LL.D.), award it only as an honorary degree. Read.... big shots are given it for free, this degree. But that would not be enough alone to have gotten Barack Obama to pick the guy for Education Boss. The fact is, that Arne Duncan was one of Harvard's greatest basketball Stars! Oh the alumni! Oh, and there's more! Arne plays BB games with Barrack in Chicago! Never has cronyism been so narrowed! The impact of Obama's slam dunk of public education with this sorry choice of exHarvard BB Star Duncan, is more than just an indication of how Barack Obama wants to do yet more with the 'No Child Left Behind' sort of privatization mish mash of the Dubya years, but is also an indicator of how little real public heath care we shall see in the cards in the years ahead. After all, if you think that privatizing public education is a good thing, then it is not going to mean that this 'Change' BB Dude will be ready to change the already privatized American Health Care System for the better either. No way! He'll just put a basketball jock, this time from Yale, perhaps?, in charge of Medicine. First the Boss would have to be vetted by the Aspen Institute or some other elite ruling class money laundering outfit like them though. Then slam dunk Health Care. It looks deadly. Yes, it's going to be corruption as usual in the Education Department and one doesn't need a