Hot Times!! Hot Times!! Hot Times!!
"It's cool to be at Hot Times!!"
Friday, August 31, 2007
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
This Psycho is a Columbus, Ohio Police Officer
Hey Folks -
Something ugly has come into the common consciousness. A "motherly" 60 year old Columbus, Ohio woman police officer and her sister have published YouTube videos that would make a psychopath blush.
Here are two of them. The third link takes you to their entire collection.
Ebonics http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1S0KB_kKW4
Jews http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqD9a6iqnJMAll their Trash http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=subiesisters&search=Search
Below my comment is the report from the local newspaper.
What I find MOST disturbing about this is the total ignorance of these two monsters regarding their naive presentation of such ugly sentiments. It's one thing to be a rabid, addled racist angrily spouting hate; it's another to calmly; with an air of kindly, helpful pedagogy, reveal the "evil" nature of Jews, Blacks, Cubans, poor people, and Liberals; and to do so with obvious certainty and the clear understanding that this sick and filthy perspective will be embraced as obvious.
These two women have a combined age of 112 years, and what have they learned? How many more of them are out there? Too many, I fear.
We read about ethnic cleansing in other countries; we don't even think about it happening here, but we'd better give some thought to stopping Bush, Gonzales, Rove, Fox, & Co. from granting dispensation and benediction for such hate-based insanity as demonstrated by this "motherly" police officer!
- Uke Man
Off-duty, online production
Police officer's videos insult Jews, blacks
Tuesday, August 28, 2007 3:32 AM
By Matthew Marx and Dean Narciso
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Disparaging remarks about blacks, Cubans and Jews are found on amateur online videos co-produced by an off-duty Columbus police officer.
The videos were created and distributed on the Internet by Officer Susan L. Purtee, 60, and her sister, Barbara Gordon-Bell, 52, who call themselves "The Patriot Dames" and the "Subie Sisters."
Together on the videos, they blame Jews, blacks, illegal immigrants and Cubans for a variety of the nation's ills.
When asked about doing the videos, Gordon-Bell said, "We've had a lot of fun with it. I don't see that we've ever harmed anybody."
Purtee was off-duty when she made the videos and in civilian clothes. The women never mention Purtee's occupation, though their Web site, www.thepatriotdames.com, notes that she is a law-enforcement officer.
"We weren't trying to strong-arm anybody or do it for the money," Gordon-Bell said last night from her home in Coral Springs, Fla.
There was no answer last night at Purtee's Grove City home. Her sister said they made the videos when Purtee visited her in Florida.
Asked if she saw anything wrong with a police officer's role in making such comments, Gordon-Bell called the opinions "reality."
"And reality and racism and bigotry run awful close together."
But the videos have the attention of attorneys for the city's Police Division.
"The legal team is reviewing the YouTube videos to see if there is any misconduct within our directives," Police Division spokeswoman Amanda Ford said last night.
Purtee is a 15-year veteran who patrols day shift on the city's Far East Side.
In a video called "Jews" that is on the sisters' Web site and that has made its way to YouTube, they say that after the 1960s, Jews monopolized the entertainment industry.
The sisters largely blame violent movies and ones that set bad examples for teens on Jewish filmmakers.
"They started to tell us -- the gentiles -- how to live, because if we did, they'd make a lot of money," says Purtee on the video.
Purtee also says that "when Hitler couldn't get rid of them (Jews), no other country wanted them."
"As long as you're a Jew, you have that thinking that everybody's beneath you," Purtee says on the tape.
At one point, Gordon-Bell holds up a sign in the video that says, "Jews Are the Problem." She also says, "Mel Gibson was right."
The sisters also complain about Cubans in a video called "Cubans ... Miami's Vice." In it, Gordon-Bell says that a recent trip to Miami was "like being in the banana republic," and says "no one spoke English."
In another video, called "Borderopoly," the sisters rail against illegal immigrants and suggest building walls of prisons along the Mexican border. In one titled "Eubonics," the sisters say that many blacks won't speak proper English, and Purtee says that blacks use "mangled English, dirty and filthy."
In the event of an administrative investigation, the Fraternal Order of Police would provide Purtee or any other member with legal representation, said President Jim Gilbert of the FOP's Capital City Lodge No. 9.
"She clearly doesn't represent herself as a police officer on the video. It appears she is speaking out, utilizing her First Amendment rights."
"I've known her as almost motherly-like in her dealings on the street," Gilbert said.
Maureen Kocot of WBNS-10TV contributed to this story.
mmarx@dispatch.com
dnarciso@dispatch.com
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Gonzo sells out his Dad
Hey Folks –
So, Gonzales is gone. Good riddance.
But he pissed me off one more time saying that he’d lived the American Dream and that even his worst day at the Justice Department was better than his father’s best day.
Well, screw him. His father, Pablo Gonzales, met Alberto’s mother when both were hard-working migrant farm workers. They raised eight children while Pablo worked construction. He died from a work-related fall in 1982.
So, what is the American Dream? Working hard but honorably and honestly to raise a family? Or is it buying power, money, and status by cozying up to rotten politicians and defending whatever despicable acts they perpetrate?
I'm sure Pablo, were he still alive, would be proud of Alberto's high status, but Alberto should be ashamed of disparaging his father's life. He should also come to understand that gaining high position by selling one's soul is NOT the American Dream.
- Uke Man
So, Gonzales is gone. Good riddance.
But he pissed me off one more time saying that he’d lived the American Dream and that even his worst day at the Justice Department was better than his father’s best day.
Well, screw him. His father, Pablo Gonzales, met Alberto’s mother when both were hard-working migrant farm workers. They raised eight children while Pablo worked construction. He died from a work-related fall in 1982.
So, what is the American Dream? Working hard but honorably and honestly to raise a family? Or is it buying power, money, and status by cozying up to rotten politicians and defending whatever despicable acts they perpetrate?
I'm sure Pablo, were he still alive, would be proud of Alberto's high status, but Alberto should be ashamed of disparaging his father's life. He should also come to understand that gaining high position by selling one's soul is NOT the American Dream.
- Uke Man
Monday, August 27, 2007
Butter Finger Girl - Bored with school - thinking of feeding her fun!!!
That should wake up the boys!!!
Give Butterfinger Crisp the Finger - Part 2
Hey Folks -
Below is a posting from last May. Yesterday I got another good comment that set me to thinking - and since I still see the ad on the tube, I thought it worth bringing up again.
Below is a posting from last May. Yesterday I got another good comment that set me to thinking - and since I still see the ad on the tube, I thought it worth bringing up again.
Anonymous said...
"Actually I think the girl in the commercial is super cute, her laugh is slightly irritating, and the commercial overall is stupid, but the girl is just too damned cute."
Well, I can't dispute that; she is cute; and she is an actor playing a role; so, I don't really want to slap HER. She - the real person - might not be as vapid, slow, lazy, self-centered, and judgmental as her character.
I'd like to slap her CHARACTER. As for the boys shown sprawling over desks in an unconscious stupor (in the longer version of the ad), a swift kick would do them (their CHARACTERS) some good. As for the hot-shot Ad-Biz boys who came up with this atrocity, they should be hanged!!
Why?
Well, let's look at the premise. The scene is a college classroom. A college education is expensive; someone is paying for it, or else building up astronomical debt via loans. Every "student" we see in the ad is either comatose or "bored" beyond listening (and perhaps so stupid or so used to tuning out as to be oblivious of any possible value being offered to them by the professor).
So, the "problem" is that the foolish university has hired a dweebish-looking prof to teach Miss Butter Finger's class (we don't know for sure, but possibly the "problem" is simply having to be in a classroom at all ). Damn!! Miss BF could be on her cell with her buds; the male slackers could be home sleeping in preparation for the evening's keg party. And whatever the professor is going on about has no relevance to anything important.
It seems pretty clear that the Ad-Biz boys are focused on the immature, infantile, lazy, selfish Id in all of us. Life should be easy and sweet - it should primarily "feed your appetite for fun," as it says in the commercial. It's not "a spoonfull of sugar helps the medicine go down." It's "Fuck the 'medicine'; feed your appetite for fun."
Now, that's a great attitude for a consumer-driven economy (check out the book Consumed by Benjamin R. Barber), but it doesn't do much for scholarship, citizenship, or committed social involvement. If selling and buying are the primary goal, fine; but, according to Barber, such a consumer oriented system results in "only one paradigm - 'Unfettered markets are deemed both the essence of human liberty, and the most expedient route to prosperity' - and hence but one value (profit), one activity (shopping), one identity (the consumer), one paradigm of behavior (market exchange), one life world (commerce) that qualify as legitimate."
Yep, the girl playing the bratty kid IS cute, but anyone who is unfortunate enough to get involved with a cute kid who actually IS a bratty Miss Butter Finger will need more than a candy bar to diminish the consequences of that involvement.
- Uke Man
(Here's the original posting and the link to the ad)
Hey Folks,
Does anyone besides me want to slap the Butterfinger Crisp girl?
Here's a short clip of the commercial if you don't know what I'm talking about:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XiquTB8tmQ
If you've seen the whole thing, and if you are old enough to be paying your own bills, don't you think Butterfinger was better off with Homer Simpson and Bart pushing their products?
- Uke Man
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Garrison Keillor on "Turd Blossom"
Hey Folks,
Here's another take on the departure of Mr. Kkkarl "Cookie" Rove.
- Uke Man
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
The Chicago Tribune
Good Riddance Turd Blossom
by Garrison Keillor
What truly cheers me up through these dog days of summer is the thought that two old friends of mine are up north on a canoe trip in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area and that I am not there with them.
I am here, reading the paper, and if I wanted to go to a movie, I could go, and if I wished to use a flush toilet, I could do that, too. But for the grace of God, I could be sitting on the ground, filthy, embittered, homeless, eating freeze-dried food and listening to the Master Woodsman tell me what a great experience I'm having and meanwhile a cloud of mosquitoes has come out to avenge the white man's colonizing of North America . I have been on canoe trips, I know what goes on.
Every canoe trip has a self-appointed Master Woodsman. In civilian life he may be a mild-mannered clerk in a cubicle but out on the trail he is transformed into the song leader, pathfinder, the great helmsman, the tier of correct knots and the authority on bears. He shows you how to do everything except the things you really need to do, such as (1) relieve yourself in some dignified manner and (2) get out of here and find a hotel. Your body aches from sleeping on the ground and you are thinking about "Lord of the Flies" and what it says about the fragility of civilization, but he is relentlessly upbeat. And then it dawns on you: Your suffering is what turns him on. The man is a sadist.
At this point, the current administration is like a very, very bad canoe trip with a week left to go, and Karl Rove is the Head Counselor who has found a path to the highway.
He left the White House with a wave and a grin and not in handcuffs as some had hoped, followed by the usual backwash of commentary on how important he was, or how not important in comparison to how important some people thought he was, and what I find eerie about the man is his inexhaustible self-confidence and optimism. He was the Master Woodsman.
According to some accounts, his positive outlook was responsible for the Current Occupant's sunny disposition in the face of bad news. No wonder Rove's nickname was "Turd Blossom." He could put fecal matter on his lapel and call it a boutonniere.
There are basically two types of Americans and the first is the type most of the world considers typical: the Americans who when the big smiley preacher stands in the pulpit and says, "How about everybody turn around and shake hands with the person behind you and give them a big howdy!" they all turn around and shake and say howdy and feel uplifted by this. And then there are the Americans who would do anything to avoid this, including staying away from church entirely.
The first type, when the preacher says he is going to show us a way we can double our net worth in the next year, thinks, "Boy, this is my lucky day." The second does not. There are more of the second type than the first.
Mr. Rove believed in himself 150 percent and believed he could make history and create the permanent Republican majority to run the country, but when people look at what he actually brought to pass - this wretched war that costs us $10 billion a month or more, a mortgaged economy, the corruption of the Department of Justice - somehow the permanent majority seems less and less interesting.
His last big assignment was to get the immigration bill passed. It failed in large part because Congress was tired of Rove and his boy-genius high-handedness.
Instead, Homeland Security announced a new crackdown on illegal immigrants, which aroused protests from farmers who said that 70 percent of farm workers today are illegal - a stunning fact, if true. Most of the people who pick our beans and tomatoes are men and women forced to sneak across the border, and why? Because they're a security threat? No. So that we can get them cheap, that's why.
Rove spoke with great confidence about beans and tomatoes and showed slides and got standing ovations in many places, but he didn't get the crops in. Goodbye and good riddance.
Here's another take on the departure of Mr. Kkkarl "Cookie" Rove.
- Uke Man
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
The Chicago Tribune
Good Riddance Turd Blossom
by Garrison Keillor
What truly cheers me up through these dog days of summer is the thought that two old friends of mine are up north on a canoe trip in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area and that I am not there with them.
I am here, reading the paper, and if I wanted to go to a movie, I could go, and if I wished to use a flush toilet, I could do that, too. But for the grace of God, I could be sitting on the ground, filthy, embittered, homeless, eating freeze-dried food and listening to the Master Woodsman tell me what a great experience I'm having and meanwhile a cloud of mosquitoes has come out to avenge the white man's colonizing of North America . I have been on canoe trips, I know what goes on.
Every canoe trip has a self-appointed Master Woodsman. In civilian life he may be a mild-mannered clerk in a cubicle but out on the trail he is transformed into the song leader, pathfinder, the great helmsman, the tier of correct knots and the authority on bears. He shows you how to do everything except the things you really need to do, such as (1) relieve yourself in some dignified manner and (2) get out of here and find a hotel. Your body aches from sleeping on the ground and you are thinking about "Lord of the Flies" and what it says about the fragility of civilization, but he is relentlessly upbeat. And then it dawns on you: Your suffering is what turns him on. The man is a sadist.
At this point, the current administration is like a very, very bad canoe trip with a week left to go, and Karl Rove is the Head Counselor who has found a path to the highway.
He left the White House with a wave and a grin and not in handcuffs as some had hoped, followed by the usual backwash of commentary on how important he was, or how not important in comparison to how important some people thought he was, and what I find eerie about the man is his inexhaustible self-confidence and optimism. He was the Master Woodsman.
According to some accounts, his positive outlook was responsible for the Current Occupant's sunny disposition in the face of bad news. No wonder Rove's nickname was "Turd Blossom." He could put fecal matter on his lapel and call it a boutonniere.
There are basically two types of Americans and the first is the type most of the world considers typical: the Americans who when the big smiley preacher stands in the pulpit and says, "How about everybody turn around and shake hands with the person behind you and give them a big howdy!" they all turn around and shake and say howdy and feel uplifted by this. And then there are the Americans who would do anything to avoid this, including staying away from church entirely.
The first type, when the preacher says he is going to show us a way we can double our net worth in the next year, thinks, "Boy, this is my lucky day." The second does not. There are more of the second type than the first.
Mr. Rove believed in himself 150 percent and believed he could make history and create the permanent Republican majority to run the country, but when people look at what he actually brought to pass - this wretched war that costs us $10 billion a month or more, a mortgaged economy, the corruption of the Department of Justice - somehow the permanent majority seems less and less interesting.
His last big assignment was to get the immigration bill passed. It failed in large part because Congress was tired of Rove and his boy-genius high-handedness.
Instead, Homeland Security announced a new crackdown on illegal immigrants, which aroused protests from farmers who said that 70 percent of farm workers today are illegal - a stunning fact, if true. Most of the people who pick our beans and tomatoes are men and women forced to sneak across the border, and why? Because they're a security threat? No. So that we can get them cheap, that's why.
Rove spoke with great confidence about beans and tomatoes and showed slides and got standing ovations in many places, but he didn't get the crops in. Goodbye and good riddance.
Friday, August 24, 2007
Which of these upstanding leaders is sending young people off to die in hopes of forcing the world to kiss his ass?
Both of them!!Imperialism's Wicked Web
Hey Folks -
A little history lesson from John Stewart. Regardless of all the spin about our Empire's altruistic motivation, the actual behavior tells a more accurate story:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8maMmj5u58
- Uke Man
A little history lesson from John Stewart. Regardless of all the spin about our Empire's altruistic motivation, the actual behavior tells a more accurate story:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8maMmj5u58
- Uke Man
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Why I hate America
Hey Folks –
The next time some Bush-freak asks me why I hate America, I’ll just hand them the August 21, 2007 Columbus Dispatch editorial “Education first.” That should make it clear.
The editorial (below) is written from the perspective of a wealthy, white, Republican businessman criticizing the school district of the city where he headquarters his business but in which he most likely does not live and to which he would never send any of his young, white relatives.
The editorial claims unions make school administrators less "efficient" and "innovative" in doing what wealthy, white, Republican businessmen think the schools should do. It never dawns on aristocrats that wealthy, white, Republican, businessman who don’t live in the district or have kids in the school might not be the ones best suited to guide the district. Perhaps the kids who go there and their parents should have a bigger say.
But isn’t the point of the editorial that parents should be listened to?
No. It is that a few parents at one school should be listened to, but ONLY because in that particular case it meshes with the publisher’s agenda. His agenda embraces the Proficiency Test / No Child Left Behind scheme which, with its emphasis on reading and math (French is never mentioned), has caused thousands of Ohio children to experience cutbacks in art, music, and physical education instruction. The paper hasn’t complained about that (additional funding [taxes] would be required).
This case involves a K-8 French-immersion school where four of the teachers don’t speak French. Three of the four will teach any given child only one period a day; the rest of the day will be in French. One 3rd grade English-only teacher will have two classrooms of students half a day each; how many students does that affect and to what extent?
It doesn’t seem like too much of an impact – not compared to the effects of reduced art, music, and phys ed; increased class size; or the effects of poverty on thousands of students – no editorial complaints on these topics (additional funding [taxes] would be required). So, it’s not about parents or kids getting what they need. It’s something else.
The reason the wealthy, white Republican businessman is jumping to defend a few irate parents is that it gives him an excuse to bash workers and the unions that try to bring them a shadow of the dignity and security long-owned by the wealthy Wolfe Publishing family.
First things first; the wealthy, white Republican businessman assures us that “Superintendent Gene Harris' . . . commitment not to exceed the district's self-imposed cap of 3 percent spending growth per year is appropriate.” Wealthy, white Republican businessmen don’t like spending any more of their money on other people’s children than they have to. Wealthy, white Republican businessmen especially don’t like taxes (ask wealthy, white Republican businesswoman Leona Helmsley).
He admits that “Living within the district's budget required teacher layoffs for the past two years” but complains that “the teachers' contract requires that any vacancies be offered first to teachers who were laid off.” Hence the terrible “problem” that results in a few students hearing a little English along with their French during the school day – a problem easily solved by pushing just four families into chaos and distress.
This sort of thinking isn’t much different from that of slave-owning plantation owners or serf-owning manor lords who saw the aristocrat’s selfish (though officially altruistic and Christian) agenda as preeminent, trumping the humanity of those they controlled. No atrocity committed against these “lower creatures” was beyond the pale if it pleased or enriched the Master or the Lord. With the Dispatch's publisher, it’s just a matter of degrees.
So, why do I hate America? Well, it’s more than what I’ve said so far. Even worse than that is this:
People responsible for such editorials, people who praise such editorials, people who see nothing wrong with such editorials run this country, run America. They own the media and control what gets said in America. They own the politicians and control what they do to America. They own the police and the criminal “justice” system and set the larger parameters of who gets imprisoned, who gets executed, and who can’t be touched in America. They constitute the aristocracy of wealth Alexis de Tocqueville cautioned against long ago. They know their place, and they know ours, and they know best.
This - in such stark contrast to the ideals we embraced as children - is why I hate America.
- Uke Man
Education first
Quality of language-immersion school is threatened by teacher-contract provisions
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Teacher contracts often are blamed for impeding the ability of school administrators to manage their districts efficiently and innovatively. A case in the Columbus City Schools illustrates the point.
Ecole Kenwood, a French-language immersion school, has been one of the district's most successful and popular programs, exactly the sort of alternative it needs to offer families who otherwise might choose private or charter schools.
Now parents are justifiably upset by the news that four teachers assigned to the school for the coming academic year don't speak French.
Two are math and science specialists and one is at the middle-school level of the K-8 school. Parents are most upset, though, about a third-grade classroom teacher, because at that level, students are supposed to receive 70 percent of their instruction in French.
Kenwood's principal will try to make do by having the new third-grade teacher split her time with another third-grade teacher who is a native of France, but that leaves neither classroom with more than half of its instruction in French.
How can parents be confident their children are immersed in the language, as the school's philosophy promises?
Superintendent Gene Harris' explanation is simple: Living within the district's budget required teacher layoffs for the past two years, and the teachers' contract requires that any vacancies be offered first to teachers who were laid off.
Her commitment not to exceed the district's self-imposed cap of 3 percent spending growth per year is appropriate, but failing to ensure that specialized programs such as language immersion are staffed by teachers with specialized expertise is a glaring flaw in the contract.
Surely, the provision requiring that openings go to laid-off teachers with appropriate certifications could further stipulate that positions in specialized programs must be filled with people who have the qualifications required by those programs.
While defining specialized might require some negotiation, language-immersion programs clearly ought to qualify.
This is an area of the contract in which school management should reclaim its rights. Administrators and teachers with students' best interests at heart should not knowingly undermine a successful program in the name of teacher seniority.
The next time some Bush-freak asks me why I hate America, I’ll just hand them the August 21, 2007 Columbus Dispatch editorial “Education first.” That should make it clear.
The editorial (below) is written from the perspective of a wealthy, white, Republican businessman criticizing the school district of the city where he headquarters his business but in which he most likely does not live and to which he would never send any of his young, white relatives.
The editorial claims unions make school administrators less "efficient" and "innovative" in doing what wealthy, white, Republican businessmen think the schools should do. It never dawns on aristocrats that wealthy, white, Republican, businessman who don’t live in the district or have kids in the school might not be the ones best suited to guide the district. Perhaps the kids who go there and their parents should have a bigger say.
But isn’t the point of the editorial that parents should be listened to?
No. It is that a few parents at one school should be listened to, but ONLY because in that particular case it meshes with the publisher’s agenda. His agenda embraces the Proficiency Test / No Child Left Behind scheme which, with its emphasis on reading and math (French is never mentioned), has caused thousands of Ohio children to experience cutbacks in art, music, and physical education instruction. The paper hasn’t complained about that (additional funding [taxes] would be required).
This case involves a K-8 French-immersion school where four of the teachers don’t speak French. Three of the four will teach any given child only one period a day; the rest of the day will be in French. One 3rd grade English-only teacher will have two classrooms of students half a day each; how many students does that affect and to what extent?
It doesn’t seem like too much of an impact – not compared to the effects of reduced art, music, and phys ed; increased class size; or the effects of poverty on thousands of students – no editorial complaints on these topics (additional funding [taxes] would be required). So, it’s not about parents or kids getting what they need. It’s something else.
The reason the wealthy, white Republican businessman is jumping to defend a few irate parents is that it gives him an excuse to bash workers and the unions that try to bring them a shadow of the dignity and security long-owned by the wealthy Wolfe Publishing family.
First things first; the wealthy, white Republican businessman assures us that “Superintendent Gene Harris' . . . commitment not to exceed the district's self-imposed cap of 3 percent spending growth per year is appropriate.” Wealthy, white Republican businessmen don’t like spending any more of their money on other people’s children than they have to. Wealthy, white Republican businessmen especially don’t like taxes (ask wealthy, white Republican businesswoman Leona Helmsley).
He admits that “Living within the district's budget required teacher layoffs for the past two years” but complains that “the teachers' contract requires that any vacancies be offered first to teachers who were laid off.” Hence the terrible “problem” that results in a few students hearing a little English along with their French during the school day – a problem easily solved by pushing just four families into chaos and distress.
This sort of thinking isn’t much different from that of slave-owning plantation owners or serf-owning manor lords who saw the aristocrat’s selfish (though officially altruistic and Christian) agenda as preeminent, trumping the humanity of those they controlled. No atrocity committed against these “lower creatures” was beyond the pale if it pleased or enriched the Master or the Lord. With the Dispatch's publisher, it’s just a matter of degrees.
So, why do I hate America? Well, it’s more than what I’ve said so far. Even worse than that is this:
People responsible for such editorials, people who praise such editorials, people who see nothing wrong with such editorials run this country, run America. They own the media and control what gets said in America. They own the politicians and control what they do to America. They own the police and the criminal “justice” system and set the larger parameters of who gets imprisoned, who gets executed, and who can’t be touched in America. They constitute the aristocracy of wealth Alexis de Tocqueville cautioned against long ago. They know their place, and they know ours, and they know best.
This - in such stark contrast to the ideals we embraced as children - is why I hate America.
- Uke Man
Education first
Quality of language-immersion school is threatened by teacher-contract provisions
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Teacher contracts often are blamed for impeding the ability of school administrators to manage their districts efficiently and innovatively. A case in the Columbus City Schools illustrates the point.
Ecole Kenwood, a French-language immersion school, has been one of the district's most successful and popular programs, exactly the sort of alternative it needs to offer families who otherwise might choose private or charter schools.
Now parents are justifiably upset by the news that four teachers assigned to the school for the coming academic year don't speak French.
Two are math and science specialists and one is at the middle-school level of the K-8 school. Parents are most upset, though, about a third-grade classroom teacher, because at that level, students are supposed to receive 70 percent of their instruction in French.
Kenwood's principal will try to make do by having the new third-grade teacher split her time with another third-grade teacher who is a native of France, but that leaves neither classroom with more than half of its instruction in French.
How can parents be confident their children are immersed in the language, as the school's philosophy promises?
Superintendent Gene Harris' explanation is simple: Living within the district's budget required teacher layoffs for the past two years, and the teachers' contract requires that any vacancies be offered first to teachers who were laid off.
Her commitment not to exceed the district's self-imposed cap of 3 percent spending growth per year is appropriate, but failing to ensure that specialized programs such as language immersion are staffed by teachers with specialized expertise is a glaring flaw in the contract.
Surely, the provision requiring that openings go to laid-off teachers with appropriate certifications could further stipulate that positions in specialized programs must be filled with people who have the qualifications required by those programs.
While defining specialized might require some negotiation, language-immersion programs clearly ought to qualify.
This is an area of the contract in which school management should reclaim its rights. Administrators and teachers with students' best interests at heart should not knowingly undermine a successful program in the name of teacher seniority.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
That face, at once contemptuous and greedy and self-righteous, is Karl Rove's face.
Hey Folks -
This says it all !!
- Uke Man
August 19, 2007
New York Times
By FRANK RICH
BACK in those heady days of late summer 2002, Andrew Card, then the president's chief of staff, told The New York Times why the much-anticipated push for war in Iraq hadn't yet arrived. "You don't introduce new products in August," he said, sounding like the mouthpiece for the Big Three automakers he once was. Sure enough, with an efficiency Detroit can only envy, the manufactured aluminum tubes and mushroom clouds rolled off the White House assembly line after Labor Day like clockwork.
Five summers later, we have the flip side of the Card corollary: You do recall defective products in August, whether you're Mattel or the Bush administration. Karl Rove's departure was both abrupt and fast. The ritualistic "for the sake of my family" rationale convinced no one, and the decision to leak the news in a friendly print interview (on The Wall Street Journal's op-ed page) rather than announce it in a White House spotlight came off as furtive. Inquiring Rove haters wanted to know: Was he one step ahead of yet another major new scandal? Was a Congressional investigation at last about to draw blood?
Perhaps, but the Republican reaction to Mr. Rove's departure is more revealing than the cries from his longtime critics. No G.O.P. presidential candidates paid tribute to Mr. Rove, and, except in the die-hard Bush bastions of Murdochland present (The Weekly Standard, Fox News) and future (The Journal), the conservative commentariat was often surprisingly harsh. It is this condemnation of Rove from his own ideological camp — not the Democrats' familiar litany about his corruption, polarizing partisanship, dirty tricks, etc. — that the White House and Mr Rove wanted to bury in the August dog days.
What the Rove critics on the right recognize is that it may be even more difficult for their political party to dig out of his wreckage than it will be for America. Their angry bill of grievances only sporadically overlaps that of the Democrats. One popular conservative blogger, Michelle Malkin, mocked Mr. Rove and his interviewer, Paul Gigot, for ignoring "the Harriet Miers debacle, the botching of the Dubai ports battle, or the undeniable stumbles in post-Iraq invasion policies," not to mention "the spectacular disaster of the illegal alien shamnesty." Ms. Malkin, an Asian-American in her 30s, comes from a far different place than the Gigot-Fred Barnes-William Kristol axis of Bush-era ideological lock step.
Those Bush dead-enders are in a serious state of denial. Just how much so could be found in the Journal interview when Mr. Rove extolled his party's health by arguing, without contradiction from Mr. Gigot, that young people are more "pro-life" and "free-market" than their elders. Maybe he was talking about 12-year-olds. Back in the real world of potential voters, the latest New York Times-CBS News poll of Americans aged 17 to 29 found that their views on abortion were almost identical to the rest of the country's. (Only 24 percent want abortion outlawed.)
That poll also found that the percentage of young people who identify as Republicans, whether free-marketers or not, is down to 25, from a high of 37 at the end of the Reagan era. Tony Fabrizio, a Republican pollster, found that self-identified G.O.P. voters are trending older rapidly, with the percentage over age 55 jumping from 28 to 41 percent in a decade.
Every poll and demographic accounting finds the Republican Party on the losing side of history, both politically and culturally. Not even a miraculous armistice in Iraq or vintage Democratic incompetence may be able to ride to the rescue. A survey conducted by The Journal itself (with NBC News) in June reported G.O.P. approval numbers lower than any in that poll's two decades of existence. Such is the political legacy for a party to which Mr. Rove sold Mr. Bush as "a new kind of Republican," an exemplar of "compassionate conservatism" and the avatar of a permanent Republican majority.
That sales pitch, as we long ago learned, was all about packaging, not substance. The hope was that No Child Left Behind and a 2000 G.O.P. convention stacked with break dancers and gospel singers would peel away some independent and black voters from the Democrats. The promise of immigration reform would spread Bush's popularity among Hispanics. Another potential add-on to the Republican base was Muslims, a growing constituency that Mr. Rove's pal Grover Norquist plotted to herd into the coalition.
The rest is history. Any prospect of a rapprochement between the G.O.P.and African-Americans died in the New Orleans Superdome. The tardy,botched immigration initiative unleashed a wave of xenophobia against Hispanics, the
fastest-growing voting bloc in the country. The Muslim outreach project disappeared into the memory hole after 9/11.
Forced to pick a single symbolic episode to encapsulate the collapse of Rovian Republicanism, however, I would not choose any of those national watersheds, or even the implosion of the Iraq war, but the George Allen "macaca" moment. Its first anniversary fell, fittingly enough, on the same day last weekend that Mitt Romney bought his victory at the desultory, poorly attended G.O.P. straw poll in Iowa.
A century seems to have passed since Mr. Allen, the Virginia Republican running for re-election to the Senate, was anointed by Washington insiders as the inevitable heir to the Bush-Rove mantle: a former governor whose jus'-folks personality, the Bushian camouflage for hard-edged conservatism, would propel him to the White House. Mr.Allen's senatorial campaign and presidential future melted down overnight after he insulted a Jim Webb campaign worker, the 20-year-old son of Indian immigrants, notjust by calling him a monkey but by sarcastically welcoming him "to America" and "the real world of Virginia."
This incident had resonance well beyond Virginia and Mr. Allen for several reasons. First, it crystallized the monochromatic whiteness at the dark heart of Rovian Republicanism. For all the minstrel antics at the 2000 convention, the record speaks for itself: there is not a single black Republican serving in either the House or Senate, and little representation of other minorities, either. Far from looking like America, the G.O.P. caucus, like the party's presidential field, could pass for a Rotary Club, circa 1954. Meanwhile, a new census analysis released this month finds that nonwhites now make up a majority in nearly a third of the nation's most populous counties, with Houston overtaking Los Angeles in black population and metropolitan Chicago surpassing Honolulu in Asian residents. Even small towns and rural America are exploding in Hispanic growth.
Second, the Allen slur was a compact distillation of the brute nastiness of the Bush-Rove years, all that ostentatious "compassion" notwithstanding. Mr. Bush and Mr. Rove are not xenophobes, but the record will show that their White House spoke up too late and said too little when some of its political allies descended into Mexican-bashing during the immigration brawl. Mr. Bush and Mr. Rove winked at anti-immigrant bigotry, much as they did at the homophobia they inflamed with their incessant election-year demagoguery about same-sex marriage.
Finally, the "macaca" incident was a media touchstone. It became a national phenomenon when the video landed on YouTube, the rollicking Web site whose reach now threatens mainstream news outlets. A year later, leading Republicans are still clueless and panicked about this new medium, which is why they, unlike their Democratic counterparts, pulled out of even a tightly controlled CNN-YouTube debate. It took smart young conservative bloggers like a former Republican National Committee operative, Patrick Ruffini, to shame them into reinstating the debate for November, lest the entire G.O.P. field look as pathetically out of touch as it is.
The rise of YouTube certifies the passing of Mr. Rove's era, a culturalchanging of the guard in the digital age. Mr. Rove made his name in direct-mail fund-raising and with fierce top-down message management. As the Internet erodes snail mail, so it upends direct mail. As YouTube threatens a politician's ability to rigidly control a message, so it threatens the Rove ethos that led Mr. Bush to campaign at "town hall"meetings attended only by hand-picked supporters.
It's no coincidence that this new culture is also threatening the Beltway journalistic establishment that celebrated Mr. Rove's invincibility well past its expiration date (much as it did James Carville's before him), extolling what Joshua Green, in his superb new Rove article in The Atlantic, calls the Cult of the Consultant. The YouTube video of Mr. Rove impersonating a rapper at one of those black-tie correspondents' dinners makes the Washington press corps look even more antediluvian than he is.
Last weekend's Iowa straw poll was a more somber but equally anachronistic spectacle. Again, it's a young conservative commentator, Ryan Sager, writing in The New York Sun, who put it best: "The face of the Republican Party in Iowa is the face of a losing party, full of hatred toward immigrants, lust for government subsidies, and the demand that any Republican seeking the office of the presidency acknowledge that he's
little more than Jesus Christ's running mate."
That face, at once contemptuous and greedy and self-righteous, is Karl Rove's face. Unless someone in his party rolls out a revolutionary new product, it is indelible enough to serve as the Republican brand for a generation.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
The Housing Financial Crisis
Hey Folks –
Have you been following this financial / housing “Crisis”? Interesting, huh!! Interesting-er and interesting-er.
Stage 1
Remember Alan Greedspan? The chairman of the Federal Reserve back in the day? He’s the one that kept saying, “Nah!!! There’s no housing bubble!! Everything’s hunky dorey.”
Remember all those dildos on radio and TV who’ve been saying for years now how great the economy is? And did you see Kkkarl Rove on Meet the Puss, a day or two after he quit DC, saying the economy was great?
Yep! What “crisis”??
Stage 2
Regular people start losing their homes. Not much of a problem – just some stupid rednecks, immigrants, and ethnics in over their heads. Not to worry. There’s no housing bubble – the economy’s great.
Stage 3
A lot more regular people (people who had trouble with fractions and decimals in school and who think George Bush is intelligent) start losing their homes. Hey!! Don’t ask for any help you losers!! YOU made bad choices! You should have read the fine print.. If you aren’t smarter than predatory lenders, that’s your problem.
Stage 4
Now, a few "friendly" lenders start to go belly up. Well, the line is that they shouldn’t get any help either. As Compassionate Conservative George Will said, that would be “folly” – gotta punish those home owners and lenders for their folly or capitalism will be degraded. Will reminds them (and us), “caveat emptor” (literally: “buyer beware,” or as I translate it, “If I can con you into something, that’s your problem”).
Will explains that the Federal Reserve Board should not help the low-life home-owners or the few scofflaw lenders.
Stage 5
More and bigger lenders start having trouble. The federal Reserve Board throws billions of dollars into the loan availability pot to help out banks’ “liquidity.”
Stage 6
More big-deal lenders start having problems. The Federal Reserve lowers the discount rate (interest rate), the action George Will said would reward scofflaws.
An economist working for the Wall Street Urinal says they did it to help out the people who can’t get loans to save or sell their homes – it’s NOT a bailout!!!!
Ok, Folks. Here’s what I don’t get. Here’s their argument:
When the regular folks (who think God cares who wins football games and that the earth is only 7,000 years old and that “The Secret” works and that it’s Mexicans’ fault Americans are poor) lose their houses, it’s because they foolishly failed to have their legal departments check out what the friendly, smiling, Christian man from the loan company told them. They deserve what they get. AND they certainly don’t deserve our help or even our sympathy. Fuck ‘em.
And when one or two lenders get in trouble, they get pretty much the same treatment (but with less vehemence, perhaps).
When more big-time lenders start having trouble, all bets are off, and the money spigots start flowing. Here’s where it gets interesting.
Now, supposedly the "stupid" people who lost their homes are still the primary cause, and the lenders who directly loaned them the money are still a lesser cause. Bad boys, bad boys – they still need to be punished.!! They made bad choices and have to pay George Will’s price – or capitalism will suffer.
But the next level; that’s different.
Those ginks did nothing wrong; they are innocent lambs; and, beyond that, the Federal Reserve is doing what it’s doing – NOT as a bailout of the money ginks, but only to help out the good people who can’t get loans to save or sell their homes. This is NOT a bailout.
But didn’t these noodles make bad choices too? Shouldn’t they have kept more money back in case they ran into “liquidity” problems? If Joe six-pack should be punished for not thinking ahead, and the Fly By Night Loan Co. should be punished for not thinking ahead, why shouldn’t the ginks higher up the food chain be punished for not thinking ahead?
Remember Alan Greedspan and the non-existent housing bubble and all the chatter about a great economy? Well, the ginks aren’t getting punished. They are getting bailed out.
Sounds to me like another clear case of “it’s who you blow.”
- Uke man
Have you been following this financial / housing “Crisis”? Interesting, huh!! Interesting-er and interesting-er.
Stage 1
Remember Alan Greedspan? The chairman of the Federal Reserve back in the day? He’s the one that kept saying, “Nah!!! There’s no housing bubble!! Everything’s hunky dorey.”
Remember all those dildos on radio and TV who’ve been saying for years now how great the economy is? And did you see Kkkarl Rove on Meet the Puss, a day or two after he quit DC, saying the economy was great?
Yep! What “crisis”??
Stage 2
Regular people start losing their homes. Not much of a problem – just some stupid rednecks, immigrants, and ethnics in over their heads. Not to worry. There’s no housing bubble – the economy’s great.
Stage 3
A lot more regular people (people who had trouble with fractions and decimals in school and who think George Bush is intelligent) start losing their homes. Hey!! Don’t ask for any help you losers!! YOU made bad choices! You should have read the fine print.. If you aren’t smarter than predatory lenders, that’s your problem.
Stage 4
Now, a few "friendly" lenders start to go belly up. Well, the line is that they shouldn’t get any help either. As Compassionate Conservative George Will said, that would be “folly” – gotta punish those home owners and lenders for their folly or capitalism will be degraded. Will reminds them (and us), “caveat emptor” (literally: “buyer beware,” or as I translate it, “If I can con you into something, that’s your problem”).
Will explains that the Federal Reserve Board should not help the low-life home-owners or the few scofflaw lenders.
Stage 5
More and bigger lenders start having trouble. The federal Reserve Board throws billions of dollars into the loan availability pot to help out banks’ “liquidity.”
Stage 6
More big-deal lenders start having problems. The Federal Reserve lowers the discount rate (interest rate), the action George Will said would reward scofflaws.
An economist working for the Wall Street Urinal says they did it to help out the people who can’t get loans to save or sell their homes – it’s NOT a bailout!!!!
Ok, Folks. Here’s what I don’t get. Here’s their argument:
When the regular folks (who think God cares who wins football games and that the earth is only 7,000 years old and that “The Secret” works and that it’s Mexicans’ fault Americans are poor) lose their houses, it’s because they foolishly failed to have their legal departments check out what the friendly, smiling, Christian man from the loan company told them. They deserve what they get. AND they certainly don’t deserve our help or even our sympathy. Fuck ‘em.
And when one or two lenders get in trouble, they get pretty much the same treatment (but with less vehemence, perhaps).
When more big-time lenders start having trouble, all bets are off, and the money spigots start flowing. Here’s where it gets interesting.
Now, supposedly the "stupid" people who lost their homes are still the primary cause, and the lenders who directly loaned them the money are still a lesser cause. Bad boys, bad boys – they still need to be punished.!! They made bad choices and have to pay George Will’s price – or capitalism will suffer.
But the next level; that’s different.
Those ginks did nothing wrong; they are innocent lambs; and, beyond that, the Federal Reserve is doing what it’s doing – NOT as a bailout of the money ginks, but only to help out the good people who can’t get loans to save or sell their homes. This is NOT a bailout.
But didn’t these noodles make bad choices too? Shouldn’t they have kept more money back in case they ran into “liquidity” problems? If Joe six-pack should be punished for not thinking ahead, and the Fly By Night Loan Co. should be punished for not thinking ahead, why shouldn’t the ginks higher up the food chain be punished for not thinking ahead?
Remember Alan Greedspan and the non-existent housing bubble and all the chatter about a great economy? Well, the ginks aren’t getting punished. They are getting bailed out.
Sounds to me like another clear case of “it’s who you blow.”
- Uke man
Monday, August 20, 2007
Ding Dong the Witch is dead!! Which old Witch? The Mean Old Witch!!!
Only the little people pay taxes
Hey Folks –
Well, the passing of Leona Helmsley at 87 does nothing to dispute the adage: only the good die young. Leona was a mean old cur, a shining example of what one who puts acquisition of wealth above humanity becomes and how they end up.
According to Wikipedia:
Hotel career
Leona Panzirer was a real estate agent when she met and began her involvement with the then-married multi-millionaire real estate investor Harry Helmsley. Supposedly under her influence, he began a program of conversion of apartment buildings to condominiums. He later began to concentrate on the hotel industry, building the Helmsley Palace on Madison Avenue.
Leona Helmsley became infamous during the 1980s for being a tyrannical "boss from hell" whose petulance seemed ill-suited to the hospitality industry. Harry left her his entire fortune, estimated to be worth well in excess of $5 billion, upon his death in 1997.[1]
Part of her company's portfolio at one time included the Empire State Building, The Helmsley Palace (now The New York Palace), The Park Lane Hotel, The Helmsley Middletowne Hotel, The New York Helmsley Hotel (a.k.a. The New York Harley), The Helmsley Windsor Hotel, The St. Moritz (now Ritz Carlton), The Carlton House hotels, the Harley Hotels chain and The Helmsley Building.
Tax evasion conviction
She was convicted of tax-related crimes in 1992. United States Attorney Rudolph Giuliani was one of the two chief prosecutors in that case.[2] She was convicted and sentenced to prison for one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States,[3] three counts of tax evasion,[4] three counts of filing false personal tax returns,[5] sixteen counts of assisting in the filing of false corporate and partnership tax returns,[6] and ten counts of mail fraud.[7]
Harry Helmsley was initially charged as well; however, he was found to be both physically and mentally unfit to stand trial, having begun to appear enfeebled shortly after the beginning of his relationship with Leona Helmsley years before. At trial, one of the key witnesses was a former housekeeper at her Greenwich, Connecticut home, Elizabeth Baum, who recounted having the following exchange with Leona Helmsley four to six weeks after being hired in September 1983, "I said, 'You must pay a lot of taxes.' She said, 'We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes.'"[8] Helmsley denied ever saying this. Most legal observers felt that Mrs. Helmsley's personality alienated the jurors. She was convicted but eventually managed to have her sentences, originally decades long, largely set aside except for 18 months, which she served. She was released in January 1994.
When the last of her appeals failed and it was clear she was going to jail, she collapsed outside of the courthouse, later diagnosed with a heart irregularity and hypertension
After prison
Helmsley's later years were apparently spent in isolation. A 2001 Chicago Sun-Times article depicted her as estranged from her grandchildren and with few friends, living alone in a lavish apartment with her dog [9] In 2002, Helmsley was sued by Charles Bell, a former employee, who sued her alleging that he was discharged solely for being homosexual. A jury agreed and ordered Mrs. Helmsley to pay Bell $11,200,000 in damages; a judge subsequently reduced this amount to $554,000.[10]
Donald Trump and Helmsley despised each other.[11]
Death
Leona Helmsley died from congestive heart failure, aged 87, on August 20, 2007, at her summer home in Greenwich, Connecticut [12][13] Cardiovascular disease ran strong in her family, claiming the lives of her father, son and a sister.
Good riddance !!!
- Uke Man
Hey Folks –
Well, the passing of Leona Helmsley at 87 does nothing to dispute the adage: only the good die young. Leona was a mean old cur, a shining example of what one who puts acquisition of wealth above humanity becomes and how they end up.
According to Wikipedia:
Hotel career
Leona Panzirer was a real estate agent when she met and began her involvement with the then-married multi-millionaire real estate investor Harry Helmsley. Supposedly under her influence, he began a program of conversion of apartment buildings to condominiums. He later began to concentrate on the hotel industry, building the Helmsley Palace on Madison Avenue.
Leona Helmsley became infamous during the 1980s for being a tyrannical "boss from hell" whose petulance seemed ill-suited to the hospitality industry. Harry left her his entire fortune, estimated to be worth well in excess of $5 billion, upon his death in 1997.[1]
Part of her company's portfolio at one time included the Empire State Building, The Helmsley Palace (now The New York Palace), The Park Lane Hotel, The Helmsley Middletowne Hotel, The New York Helmsley Hotel (a.k.a. The New York Harley), The Helmsley Windsor Hotel, The St. Moritz (now Ritz Carlton), The Carlton House hotels, the Harley Hotels chain and The Helmsley Building.
Tax evasion conviction
She was convicted of tax-related crimes in 1992. United States Attorney Rudolph Giuliani was one of the two chief prosecutors in that case.[2] She was convicted and sentenced to prison for one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States,[3] three counts of tax evasion,[4] three counts of filing false personal tax returns,[5] sixteen counts of assisting in the filing of false corporate and partnership tax returns,[6] and ten counts of mail fraud.[7]
Harry Helmsley was initially charged as well; however, he was found to be both physically and mentally unfit to stand trial, having begun to appear enfeebled shortly after the beginning of his relationship with Leona Helmsley years before. At trial, one of the key witnesses was a former housekeeper at her Greenwich, Connecticut home, Elizabeth Baum, who recounted having the following exchange with Leona Helmsley four to six weeks after being hired in September 1983, "I said, 'You must pay a lot of taxes.' She said, 'We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes.'"[8] Helmsley denied ever saying this. Most legal observers felt that Mrs. Helmsley's personality alienated the jurors. She was convicted but eventually managed to have her sentences, originally decades long, largely set aside except for 18 months, which she served. She was released in January 1994.
When the last of her appeals failed and it was clear she was going to jail, she collapsed outside of the courthouse, later diagnosed with a heart irregularity and hypertension
After prison
Helmsley's later years were apparently spent in isolation. A 2001 Chicago Sun-Times article depicted her as estranged from her grandchildren and with few friends, living alone in a lavish apartment with her dog [9] In 2002, Helmsley was sued by Charles Bell, a former employee, who sued her alleging that he was discharged solely for being homosexual. A jury agreed and ordered Mrs. Helmsley to pay Bell $11,200,000 in damages; a judge subsequently reduced this amount to $554,000.[10]
Donald Trump and Helmsley despised each other.[11]
Death
Leona Helmsley died from congestive heart failure, aged 87, on August 20, 2007, at her summer home in Greenwich, Connecticut [12][13] Cardiovascular disease ran strong in her family, claiming the lives of her father, son and a sister.
Good riddance !!!
- Uke Man
Sunday, August 19, 2007
End the War!!
Hey Folks -
Here's a quicky I've been saving. The Uke Man made the paper, but big deal. There were only three politicians who showed up for the testimony (all Democrats), and one of them was a whimp. The best that one Republican could do was send a gopher to make excuses.
So, there we are. Millions protesting at the start, ignored. Millions protesting right along, ignored. We DID get coverage in the paper, but the whole movement is still getting the finger from Bush at the top of the dung heap all the way down to the little turds at the bottom.
- Uke Man
Downtown meeting
Audience eager to end Iraq war
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
By Dean Narciso
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
There was unified support -- from politicians, college instructors, physicians and regular folks -- urging a peaceful withdrawal from Iraq during a town meeting Downtown last night.
The event drew about 100 passionate voices, and one ukulele player, to First Congregation Church, 444 E. Broad St., to discuss the war's effect locally.
Columbus is spending $1.73 million a year in overtime costs to cover for firefighters who are serving in the military, said Jack Reall, president of the Columbus firefighters' union.
Reall praised Columbus leaders for supporting the extra spending and acknowledged that no jobs have gone unfilled.
Columbus police also have used overtime to fill vacancies while officers are fulfilling military duties overseas. Details were not available.
Critics of the war have produced staggering numbers showing the war's cost to the nation's
cities. The claim for Columbus' share: more than $927 million, enough to cover the city's general fund for 1½ years, said Columbus City Councilwoman Charleta Tavares, one of two council members present last night.The other, Hearcel Craig, said he came to listen. But when pressed on ways to help returning veterans, he said, "We owe them everything -- those who would give up their lives."
The front of the chapel was filled with activists, children and war opponents.
Columbus State Community College professor Rita Bova called the war an "illegal, immoral" occupation. She has urged her military-reserve students to flunk their physicals.
"Why the hell should you go?" she has told them. "Why should anyone go?"
Dennis W. Bartow II spoke for U.S. Rep. Deborah Pryce last night. Pryce, a Republican from Upper Arlington, supports President Bush's administration on the war.
He said Pryce's position is to continue to support Bush, but wait for a military summary of the conflict, expected this September. She is hoping for progress by then.
Tavares, Craig and Franklin County Commissioner Mary Jo Kilroy were the only three central Ohio politicians to attend.
"We need to make the opposition to the war visible, and I will join you in those rallies," Kilroy told the crowd.
More than half of the two-hour event was made up of audience comments.
Dr. Scott Hickey, a pediatrician, worried about the war's toll on the young.
"I was trained to look for evidence," he said. "I've yet to hear anyone talking about any evidence, any justification for the war, to be effective."
Vanetia Turner was to celebrate the July return of her son, Army Sgt. Eddie Gore. Instead, she's learned he's being redeployed Aug. 9 for 14 months.
"I believe America needs to take care of home before fighting a never-ending battle," Turner said.
Tom Harker's ukulele guided his thoughts, as he sang the satirical Sunny Day in Baghdad.
dnarciso@dispatch.com
Called up
Number of Ohio National Guardsmen and reservists mobilized as of July 18:
Army (guard and reserve): 1,597
Air National Guard: 307
Navy Reserve: 245
Marine Reserve: 0*
Total: 2,149
* Individual Marines may be attached to other units but no Ohio reserve unit has been mobilized.
Source: defenselink.com; Marine Corps
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Newsprint Helps make us Manure-Independent !!
Hey Folks -
I don't know whether Michael Hamill works for an oil company or is just one of those conservative loonies who hate government and all tax money spent on anyone but themselves; but, in any case, he is a good example of how ignorance and a narrow perspective on reality will neither keep a person from being published nor save him from sounding like a foolish know-it-all.
Directly below is his letter to the Columbus Dispatch. Below that is my response. Mine probably won't be published.
You decide which makes better sense.
- Uke Man
Ethanol shaping up to be a boondoggle Thursday, August 16, 2007
I was pleased to read The Dispatch's Aug. 10 editorial on ethanol and government subsidies, "Look before leaping." I've followed ethanol's merits, or lack thereof, for years and have written to my representatives about it. I can tell from their responses that they're under great pressure from corn growers and corporations to provide government subsidies and inducements for ethanol production.
If, in fact, the benefits of producing ethanol from corn were so compelling, then the industry could grow on its own without government support.
The rush to government-supported ethanol production in this country has the look of a costly boondoggle in the making. If people don't speak out, before long we may have additional interest groups dependent on and constantly seeking government funding for an inefficient means of energy production.
MICHAEL HAMILL Columbus
To the Editor,
Debating the benefits and liabilities of ethanol and other alternative energy sources is worthwhile, but it should be done rationally. A longstanding criticism of alternative energy is that it requires "subsidies" to compete with oil. This makes no sense.
The billions of dollars we're spending on today's war, the billions we spent on the last war, and the billions we've spent over the years maintaining an army and navy presence in the Middle East were spent solely to maintain our access to oil. Had we been energy self-sufficient via some "subsidized" alternative, none of this oil "subsidy" would have been needed.
How can any existing or proposed "subsidy" of alternative energy production even begin to come close to the number of dollars and lives expended to subsidize oil?
Yours - Tom Harker
Hey Folks -
I don't know whether Michael Hamill works for an oil company or is just one of those conservative loonies who hate government and all tax money spent on anyone but themselves; but, in any case, he is a good example of how ignorance and a narrow perspective on reality will neither keep a person from being published nor save him from sounding like a foolish know-it-all.
Directly below is his letter to the Columbus Dispatch. Below that is my response. Mine probably won't be published.
You decide which makes better sense.
- Uke Man
Ethanol shaping up to be a boondoggle
Thursday, August 16, 2007
I was pleased to read The Dispatch's Aug. 10 editorial on ethanol and government subsidies, "Look before leaping." I've followed ethanol's merits, or lack thereof, for years and have written to my representatives about it. I can tell from their responses that they're under great pressure from corn growers and corporations to provide government subsidies and inducements for ethanol production.
If, in fact, the benefits of producing ethanol from corn were so compelling, then the industry could grow on its own without government support.
The rush to government-supported ethanol production in this country has the look of a costly boondoggle in the making. If people don't speak out, before long we may have additional interest groups dependent on and constantly seeking government funding for an inefficient means of energy production.
MICHAEL HAMILL Columbus
To the Editor,
Debating the benefits and liabilities of ethanol and other alternative energy sources is worthwhile, but it should be done rationally. A longstanding criticism of alternative energy is that it requires "subsidies" to compete with oil. This makes no sense.
The billions of dollars we're spending on today's war, the billions we spent on the last war, and the billions we've spent over the years maintaining an army and navy presence in the Middle East were spent solely to maintain our access to oil. Had we been energy self-sufficient via some "subsidized" alternative, none of this oil "subsidy" would have been needed.
How can any existing or proposed "subsidy" of alternative energy production even begin to come close to the number of dollars and lives expended to subsidize oil?
Yours,
Tom Harker
Friday, August 17, 2007
It's all in who's getting fucked !!
Hey Folks -
How many times have I said that the way things are reported in our media depends on the perspective of those in control? Benedict Arnold is a traitor. Had we lost the war, it would have been George Washington (the rebel who was hanged for treason).
Here’s another example.
The man killed is described in the headline of the article below as an “Infamous bandit," but also undercuts that characterization by also describing him as Robin Hood. This disparity is somewhat decreased by placing Robin Hood in smaller type-face and within quotation marks (which usually indicates an unsubstantiated, not necessarily accurate, claim).
Infamous bandit appears in large print without quotation marks.
Read the article below and notice what is presented as a given and clearly true and what some might think, believe, or “romanticize.”
How much of the negative perspective presented is based on the following:
“There he established a reign of terror, killing those who opposed him, kidnapping rich landowners for ransom, and extorting and robbing money from businessmen in the area.
Rich landowners and businessmen didn’t like what he did to them.
On the other hand, how much did it count in his favor that:
“Kumar had a reputation for being fiercely loyal to the poor villagers in the region, particularly those from his Kurmi caste, a group on the lower rungs of India's complex social ladder and one of the most downtrodden in the area in which he operated.”
Well, Kumar killed people, and the “good” people protecting rich landowners and businessmen killed him and others. Kumar broke the law, I’m sure; but the Indian legal system outlaws discrimination on the basis of caste; and the “good” people don’t kill (or even arrest) the rich landowners and businessmen who perpetuate and benefit from the caste system.
Seems to me that who is notorious and a bandit and who should be “romanticized” by the press depends on whose side the press is on. In this case it looks like the press has sympathy for rich landowners and businessmen rather than for poor villagers “on the lower rungs of India's complex social ladder and one of the most downtrodden [groups] in the area.”
Surprise, surprise !!!
- Uke Man
INDIA'S 'ROBIN HOOD'
Infamous bandit killed by police
Monday, July 23, 2007 4:05 AM
By Gavin Rabnowitz
Associated Press
NEW DELHI -- Indian police killed one of the country's most notorious bandits yesterday -- a man who ruled the ravines and forests of central India through a mixture of fear and love for three decades, with many hailing him as a modern-day Robin Hood.
Shiv Kumar led one of the few remaining bands of outlaws that have roamed central India for centuries, their exploits romanticized in Bollywood movies.
Kumar, thought to be in his 60s, was wanted in more than 200 cases of kidnapping, extortion and murder and had a bounty on his head of more than $12,000, a small fortune in this region.
A.K. Jain, inspector general of the police special task force, said Kumar was slain after a battle between police and bandits. He was identified by villagers, Jain said.
Four of his accomplices were also killed in the battle about 400 miles southwest of New Delhi, Jain said.
Kumar had managed to evade police since escaping from custody in 1975 after being arrested for murder. Since then, he had built up a band of followers and carved out a 100-square-mile fiefdom on the border between the central Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.
There he established a reign of terror, killing those who opposed him, kidnapping rich landowners for ransom, and extorting and robbing money from businessmen in the area.
He also monopolized the tendu leaf industry. The tendu is a tobaccolike leaf used in bidis, small Indian cigars.
Kumar had a reputation for being fiercely loyal to the poor villagers in the region, particularly those from his Kurmi caste, a group on the lower rungs of India's complex social ladder and one of the most downtrodden in the area in which he operated.
He would share some of his loot with them, paying for weddings and helping with medical bills in times of need. In return, they would provide him food and shelter and tip him off when police were coming, enabling him to slip away into the safety of the forests.
How many times have I said that the way things are reported in our media depends on the perspective of those in control? Benedict Arnold is a traitor. Had we lost the war, it would have been George Washington (the rebel who was hanged for treason).
Here’s another example.
The man killed is described in the headline of the article below as an “Infamous bandit," but also undercuts that characterization by also describing him as Robin Hood. This disparity is somewhat decreased by placing Robin Hood in smaller type-face and within quotation marks (which usually indicates an unsubstantiated, not necessarily accurate, claim).
Infamous bandit appears in large print without quotation marks.
Read the article below and notice what is presented as a given and clearly true and what some might think, believe, or “romanticize.”
How much of the negative perspective presented is based on the following:
“There he established a reign of terror, killing those who opposed him, kidnapping rich landowners for ransom, and extorting and robbing money from businessmen in the area.
Rich landowners and businessmen didn’t like what he did to them.
On the other hand, how much did it count in his favor that:
“Kumar had a reputation for being fiercely loyal to the poor villagers in the region, particularly those from his Kurmi caste, a group on the lower rungs of India's complex social ladder and one of the most downtrodden in the area in which he operated.”
Well, Kumar killed people, and the “good” people protecting rich landowners and businessmen killed him and others. Kumar broke the law, I’m sure; but the Indian legal system outlaws discrimination on the basis of caste; and the “good” people don’t kill (or even arrest) the rich landowners and businessmen who perpetuate and benefit from the caste system.
Seems to me that who is notorious and a bandit and who should be “romanticized” by the press depends on whose side the press is on. In this case it looks like the press has sympathy for rich landowners and businessmen rather than for poor villagers “on the lower rungs of India's complex social ladder and one of the most downtrodden [groups] in the area.”
Surprise, surprise !!!
- Uke Man
INDIA'S 'ROBIN HOOD'
Infamous bandit killed by police
Monday, July 23, 2007 4:05 AM
By Gavin Rabnowitz
Associated Press
NEW DELHI -- Indian police killed one of the country's most notorious bandits yesterday -- a man who ruled the ravines and forests of central India through a mixture of fear and love for three decades, with many hailing him as a modern-day Robin Hood.
Shiv Kumar led one of the few remaining bands of outlaws that have roamed central India for centuries, their exploits romanticized in Bollywood movies.
Kumar, thought to be in his 60s, was wanted in more than 200 cases of kidnapping, extortion and murder and had a bounty on his head of more than $12,000, a small fortune in this region.
A.K. Jain, inspector general of the police special task force, said Kumar was slain after a battle between police and bandits. He was identified by villagers, Jain said.
Four of his accomplices were also killed in the battle about 400 miles southwest of New Delhi, Jain said.
Kumar had managed to evade police since escaping from custody in 1975 after being arrested for murder. Since then, he had built up a band of followers and carved out a 100-square-mile fiefdom on the border between the central Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.
There he established a reign of terror, killing those who opposed him, kidnapping rich landowners for ransom, and extorting and robbing money from businessmen in the area.
He also monopolized the tendu leaf industry. The tendu is a tobaccolike leaf used in bidis, small Indian cigars.
Kumar had a reputation for being fiercely loyal to the poor villagers in the region, particularly those from his Kurmi caste, a group on the lower rungs of India's complex social ladder and one of the most downtrodden in the area in which he operated.
He would share some of his loot with them, paying for weddings and helping with medical bills in times of need. In return, they would provide him food and shelter and tip him off when police were coming, enabling him to slip away into the safety of the forests.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
God-fearing? or God-awful? Dick Cheney
Hey Folks -
Here's one for any born-again Christian out there who still supports Dick Cheney. One of the Ten Commandments you zealously want to put into the schools says, "Thou shalt not lie."
Listen to Mr. Cheney then and compare it to what he says now, and then either quit supporting Cheney or quit claiming to support your Bible.
Heeeeere's Dickey:
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=2879&id=10983-1857161-HvjTdh&t=2
- Uke Man
Here's one for any born-again Christian out there who still supports Dick Cheney. One of the Ten Commandments you zealously want to put into the schools says, "Thou shalt not lie."
Listen to Mr. Cheney then and compare it to what he says now, and then either quit supporting Cheney or quit claiming to support your Bible.
Heeeeere's Dickey:
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=2879&id=10983-1857161-HvjTdh&t=2
- Uke Man
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Well, aren't we special
You know, Folks -
Some people have more dollars than sense. Religious schools are one thing, serving mainly as brainwashing centers for whatever sect is running the operation. In the Middle Ages the Jesuits said to tell them what kind of a person you wanted when you dropped off the kid, and in a few years you could come back and pick him up. The loony lady in Jesus Camp expressed a similar idea.
These schools are not as expensive as the preppie schools since their aim is maintaining and expanding the sect. Keeping the poor, working class, and middle class kids out would be counterproductive; so tuition levels are moderated.
On the other hand, establishing class differences is worth any cost to some insecure upper-crust filberts. In fact, if tuition isn't extreme, the underlying need these schools exist to address cannot be satisfied.
One can feel sorry for the "faithful" who are afraid God can't protect their darlings from the upper middle class heathens of suburban Westerville without help from the Tree of Life Christian School; but these climbers, the Nicks, are disgusting. First, they move from Upper Arlington, a suburb near the top of the status food chain, to New Albany where even richer folks (e.g. Les Wexner) live. AND, although Upper Arlington Schools always score at the top of every measure and New Albany schools are so plush they have a Kinko's store on-site making student copies for free; these Nick-ies have "never thought of attending schools there."
The Nicks aren't just anybody; they're special and willing to spend $50,700 for one year of their three kids' schooling. Supposedly that's because it's "a great investment in the future . . . Hopefully, the investment pans out when they are applying to and getting accepted to good colleges, " says Phillip, the Nick-head.
Yeah, right!! If the little Nicks have a brain and the motivation they don't need a fancy-dan, private, snooty-toot education to get into a good college. Mom and Dad Nick just need to feel special, no matter what it costs.
- Uke Man
Priceless education?
Some families in high-performing districts still opt for private schools
Tuesday, July 24, 2007 3:39 AM
By Charlie Boss
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Elizabeth Nick moved to New Albany from Upper Arlington but has never thought of attending schools there.
Public schools seem incredibly gigantic, she said.
At Columbus Academy, where she will be a senior this fall, Nick will graduate with about 90 other students. Her classes have ranged from nine to 20 students. She has weekly sessions with an adviser and has befriended most of the school's staff members, from the teachers to the lunch ladies.
Her workload is challenging, and the lessons she's learned since coming to the school three years ago have been invaluable.
"My confidence has grown," said Nick, who attended Wellington before transferring to the Gahanna-based academy. "Even though I have a big workload and it's stressful, I can handle it and handle it well."
Families like the Nicks live in expensive neighborhoods with high-performing public schools, but they still shell out big bucks to send the children to private schools.
"Why would they pay for a product that is otherwise available for free?" said Joe McTighe, executive director of the Council for American Private Education, based in Maryland. "They do that because they don't think it's the same product."
He said many parents look for schools that reflect their expectations and enhance the lessons learned at home. They are drawn to the rigorous academics, small-class sizes and family-like environments for which private or religious schools are known. Many also hope that private schools will help get their kids into a competitive college.
Some people have more dollars than sense. Religious schools are one thing, serving mainly as brainwashing centers for whatever sect is running the operation. In the Middle Ages the Jesuits said to tell them what kind of a person you wanted when you dropped off the kid, and in a few years you could come back and pick him up. The loony lady in Jesus Camp expressed a similar idea.
These schools are not as expensive as the preppie schools since their aim is maintaining and expanding the sect. Keeping the poor, working class, and middle class kids out would be counterproductive; so tuition levels are moderated.
On the other hand, establishing class differences is worth any cost to some insecure upper-crust filberts. In fact, if tuition isn't extreme, the underlying need these schools exist to address cannot be satisfied.
One can feel sorry for the "faithful" who are afraid God can't protect their darlings from the upper middle class heathens of suburban Westerville without help from the Tree of Life Christian School; but these climbers, the Nicks, are disgusting. First, they move from Upper Arlington, a suburb near the top of the status food chain, to New Albany where even richer folks (e.g. Les Wexner) live. AND, although Upper Arlington Schools always score at the top of every measure and New Albany schools are so plush they have a Kinko's store on-site making student copies for free; these Nick-ies have "never thought of attending schools there."
The Nicks aren't just anybody; they're special and willing to spend $50,700 for one year of their three kids' schooling. Supposedly that's because it's "a great investment in the future . . . Hopefully, the investment pans out when they are applying to and getting accepted to good colleges, " says Phillip, the Nick-head.
Yeah, right!! If the little Nicks have a brain and the motivation they don't need a fancy-dan, private, snooty-toot education to get into a good college. Mom and Dad Nick just need to feel special, no matter what it costs.
- Uke Man
Priceless education?
Some families in high-performing districts still opt for private schools
Tuesday, July 24, 2007 3:39 AM
By Charlie Boss
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Elizabeth Nick moved to New Albany from Upper Arlington but has never thought of attending schools there.
Public schools seem incredibly gigantic, she said.
At Columbus Academy, where she will be a senior this fall, Nick will graduate with about 90 other students. Her classes have ranged from nine to 20 students. She has weekly sessions with an adviser and has befriended most of the school's staff members, from the teachers to the lunch ladies.
Her workload is challenging, and the lessons she's learned since coming to the school three years ago have been invaluable.
"My confidence has grown," said Nick, who attended Wellington before transferring to the Gahanna-based academy. "Even though I have a big workload and it's stressful, I can handle it and handle it well."
Families like the Nicks live in expensive neighborhoods with high-performing public schools, but they still shell out big bucks to send the children to private schools.
"Why would they pay for a product that is otherwise available for free?" said Joe McTighe, executive director of the Council for American Private Education, based in Maryland. "They do that because they don't think it's the same product."
He said many parents look for schools that reflect their expectations and enhance the lessons learned at home. They are drawn to the rigorous academics, small-class sizes and family-like environments for which private or religious schools are known. Many also hope that private schools will help get their kids into a competitive college.