Apparently the Problem is That Being a Public School Teacher Doesn’t Suck Enough

We will not stop until whining drunken parents have the right of life and death over teachers.

Mona Charen, National How Do These Fucks Earn Their Paychecks, Oh Right, Jonah Goldberg is Executive Editor:
Democrats and Teacher Tenure

When last we left Mona Charen she was losing a fight against her own spell-check software.

So obviously, she is more than qualified to weigh in on matters of education. Because obviously an education system that could produce a mind like hers has rather glaring flaws needing addressing.

And while you or I may suspect it has to do with massive underfunding of schools, over-emphasis on meaningless tests than actual education standards, and constant meddling by Evangelical leaders who fear education will turn their children away from Jesus might form some of the main problems, Mona Charen has her finger on the real problem.

That is, she’s frigging herself like a madwoman while she shits out the standard “teachers are evil” post that every wingnut is required to by law ever since Gov. Walker and the Koch-sucking Brigade declared war on teachers over in Wisconsin.

Allow her to explain:

  • The only way we’ll get good teachers in our schools is to make the job so unpleasant, abusive, and underpaid that the only people who’d take the job are child molesters.

Also, apparently she’s been met with the shocking and unthinkable news that she’s not actually the Queen of the Universe.

A recent weeknight found me among a group of about a dozen unhappy parents meeting with the principal of our kids’ high school.

Wow. A whole dozen, huh. In Virginia.

That’s pretty sad even for the usual brigade of Evangelical nutters and fuckwads who constantly ring up the Principal of every school everywhere to demand the firing of half of the teachers for such crimes as “obliquely mentioning evolution in anything other than disgust”, teaching actual history in history class, daring to use any book in English class that mentions the existence of black people, the existence of sex or drugs, or presents a moral more complex than heathens are bad and need to die, or just breathing in a way viewed offensive to repressed middle aged housewives with literally nothing better to do than terrorize the local school.

If I was the principal of that school I wouldn’t give a fuck either.

The issue: An incompetent teacher who we had been promised would not be returning to the school

What did he do? Teach your kid about evolution?

had shown up unexpectedly, and an administrator had told the students that he might indeed be returning in September.

Sounds like your witch hunt against him failed to come up with any actual bad behavior despite your best effort to demonize him. Obviously this means all teachers must be flayed alive over the sacrificial pit as penance to Your Holiness.

Yeah, teachers don’t nearly get paid enough to deal with this shit.

Parents expressed dismay and frustration. The principal was guarded.

He was trying to figure out how to say, “get the fuck out of my office, you delusional psychotics” without becoming the next target.

There was much he could not say for legal reasons, he explained. In the course of a long and often tense discussion, a number of the parents made the point that if an employee in the private sector had engaged in the behavior that this teacher had, he would be gone in a flash.

And yet, despite you lacking any actual legal reason to remain quiet about these “heinous accusations” fail to bring it up outside a vague “one crazy parent said they’d be fired by the all-sainted free market, hallow be its name”.

Yeah, I’m willing to bet a month’s salary that it was some “non-controversy” like telling your kid to stop punching the queer kid or trying to actually teach a subject that the local wingnuts have declared war on. Given your previous post declaring war on the very notion of a future, because green energy makes you foam at the mouth, I’m suspecting it was something related to that as I’m starting to see a rather personal pattern forming in your writing habits.

But when it comes to teachers — those critical figures in our children’s lives — it requires a minimum of three years to remove someone . . . if you’re lucky.

Not really. Thanks to the cowardice of principals and the tendency of wingnuts to try and swamp the School Superintendent candidates, teachers who actually try and you know, teach the kids about reality and life tend to be on a pretty short leash no matter how many dedicated years they’ve given to the school.

John Stossel, writing in Reason magazine, detailed the case of a New York teacher who sent sexually explicit e-mails to a 16-year-old student. It took six years and plenty of expensive litigation to fire him, though the school had possession of the e-mails, and the teacher admitted sending them.

Okay, first off, this story is bullshit. Transparently bullshit. It’s got all the hallmarks of a wingnut urban myth. It’s practically dripping with “welfare queen driving a Cadillac”.

So, to confirm this, I tracked down the article she so vaguely references… which was written in 2006. And despite being written by a complete Libertarian hack, it still happens to note that this made-up incident “took” 6 years because they had to prove it happened. 6 years wherein said teacher wasn’t allowed to teach a single class and definitely wasn’t allowed any contact with students.

Oh, yeah, and said bullshit story was courtesy of Mayor Bloomberg appointee Joel Klein.

Yes, that would be the same Joel Klein whose “noteworthy” accomplishments as Chancellor of the New York City Board of Education was failing to curb NYPD activities on school grounds despite repeated incidents where the police officers had abused and beaten students, firing Rashid Khalidi from a teacher training program because of his personal political views in direct violation of the First Amendment, and getting the New York Senate to deny Bloomberg the opportunity to ever have control over the school system again thanks to his personal incompetence as Chancellor.

Oh, and he also is Rupert Murdoch’s replacement at News Corp.

So, long history of intellectual honesty and respect for the truth.

As Stossel observes, faced with the bureaucratic maze they must navigate to fire a bad teacher, most principals don’t even try.

Bullshito! Bullshito! Bullshit-eo!

Bad teachers, unless they are being protected for political reasons (such as being a relative of the football coach or being a wingnut in a wingnut-run school), tend to be out of a job in a drop of a hat.

Any cursory glance over teacher personal narratives will tell you tales of teachers being fired for being atheist, gay, or pagan in their private lives, teaching evolution or acknowledging events like the massacre of Native Americans, or even just trying to enforce the law against a well-connected Christian group or student.

Teachers are the maligned wreckage of our society, expected to do complex and difficult tasks requiring at least double their hours in unpaid labor, potentially limitless funds out of their pockets to keep their classrooms running, and serving as educator, psychologist, babysitter, and disciplinarian with little to show for it in money or respect.

And they are expected to put up with all this out of pure love for teaching and a legitimate desire to make sacrifices for the public good.

And even then, they tend to be at the mercy of loud Huck Finn’s dad wannabes, bitter at the notion that their kids could end up knowing more than them and thus reject their small-minded viewpoints, looking for a reason, any reason, to make themselves feel better by claiming a scalp.

They attempt to sucker another school into taking the incompetent (“the dance of the lemons”) or they put the bad teachers in “pretend work” jobs, where they continue, of course, to collect full salaries and benefits.

Oh no, Proofreadess is circling that and noting that I copy and pasted that from an article on child-molesting priests and search and replaced school for parish and teachers for priests.

Yeah, well, fuck you and your lies. You’re not going to fix my glaring errors without a fight!

Between 2005 and 2008, Newsweek reported, the public-school system of Chicago fired 0.1 percent and Akron, Ohio fired none at all. The Denver and Toledo systems didn’t fire any, either.

Because why would they fire when they can downsize, call for the resignation of, indefinitely suspend without pay, call for the early retirement of, eliminate the position, etc…?

Also, Chicago, eh? Well, maybe 4,000 teachers is only 0.1 percent.

Confronting such a Kafkaesque system (Bill Bennett dubbed it “the blob”), most parents shrink away feeling deflated and helpless.

Oh yes, wingnut parents just shrink away deflated and helpless.

Why, they never lead regular vigils demanding X or Y teacher be fired because of X book choice or Y teaching standard.

It really is amazing to realize that as a teacher, you aren’t accountable to anyone and can do anything you want and the parents just have to sit there and take it, powerless to do anything against the might of Underpaid Teacher Union 703.

Such is union power.

Ah, yes, we return to the reason that the 27% decided to go all in against teachers in the first place. Trying to have some form of worker protection as public servants when the Koch brothers wanted to siphon all the public employee benefits into their giant maw made of money.

No one mentioned it, but as we were gnashing our teeth about the difficulty of removing bad teachers from the public-school system, the Virginia legislature was voting on a measure that would have brought decisive change to our system — the elimination of teacher tenure.

Hey, remember when “tenure” was a universal thing? Where it represented the respect a company had for a person as a result of their hard work and sacrifice for the company over some large amount of years, letting the company siphon off parts of their hard work as profits, and thus would be rewarded in job security, a guaranteed pension and retirement and so on?

Well, now they want everyone’s life to be a panicked scramble to protect oneself by job-hopping faster than the downsizing can get to them.

And yet they wonder why respect for corporations, respect for the rich, and employee loyalty are circling down the toilet.

Virginia doesn’t call its system of job security “tenure,” but after just three years of teaching, a teacher gets a “continuing contract,” which amounts to the same thing. By contrast, university professors typically don’t get tenure until they’ve been on the job for seven years. And even then, only a minority get it. Many college instructors are not tenured faculty.

So, it’s not actually tenure.

In fact, it’s just the point in which a teacher gains the illusion of job security in the form of having a real job contract rather than the horseshit they put new teachers through these days where there’s absolutely no sign they’ll have a job come summer’s end so future planning to avoid becoming homeless is impossible.

Also, nearly no one in the state receives it.

But it’s the source of everything wrong in your life and must be destroyed.

Yup, it’s a wingnut argument all right.

Do you have life tenure in your job?

You just spent the last paragraph noting how this was nothing even remotely approaching life tenure, you vapid uneducable &#$^!

Unless you are one of the above-mentioned professors, a federal judge, or a public-school teacher, the answer is almost certainly no. So why do teachers have it?

They don’t! You just noted it last paragraph.

Hell, not even the much-vaunted college professor in a real state, 20-40 years to get it, tenure works like an unlimited get out of jail free card. If you fuck up, you’re still fired, it’s just an earned position wherein by your proven service and the thousands-millions you’ve earned for the school with your teaching prowess and academic accomplishments, you have a slot to teach if you want it and don’t lose your job if say you need to take off a quarter to deal with a family or medical emergency or something or fuck, need some time to finish an academic study that will make the school more money/raise the profile of the school.

It’s almost like wingnuts, having spent so much time “earning” wingnut welfare have forgotten that it’s possible for an employee to actually earn their salary rather than undeservedly receiving the largesse of a wealthy patron.

Whose interests does it serve other than the teachers’? It permits sloth and incompetence. Can you keep your job without reference to how well you perform it?

Um, tenure means they demonstrated how well they performed their job.

It’s an earned title built out of genuine hard work, not the “hard work” of “this guy inherited his daddy’s company, but deserves to pay no taxes because that’s punishing hard work” but the hard work of actually doing hard work for way WAY under market value.

Tenure insulates teachers from accountability.

It is earned from accountability.

And no, it isn’t at all infuriating to hear a genuine underqualified moron with a guaranteed life position because of who they are married to or are the children of, lecturing teachers, who nearly kill themselves for criminally low wages meeting impossibly high standards to earn tenure, for being “lazy” and “avoiding accountability”.

But hey, IT’S ALWAYS PROJECTION is a truism for a reason.

The unions really put one over on the public. Is it hopeless?

Well, it certainly does seem like it sometimes with the added bullshit legislatures are adding on to teachers to try and make them give up and cede the ground back to religious organizations and-

Oh, you meant for the side of busybodies and fuckwits.

Never mind.

People who want to seem sophisticated affect a jaded view of politicians and political life. If you say that all politicians are crooks and that the difference between Republicans and Democrats is the difference between Tweedledee and Tweedledum, you will get energetic agreement. But here is a case in which electing a Republican governor and a Republican legislature really might have begun to release Virginia’s schools from the iron grip of the teachers’ unions.

Governor Robert McDonnell introduced legislation that would have replaced the “continuing contracts” with three-year contracts. At the end of a teacher’s contract period, a principal could choose not to renew the contract for any reason, giving principals in Virginia real power to shape their faculties for the first time.

Yes, because anyone who knows anything about education knows that the biggest problem in public education is that the politicians and principals have too little power in the classroom.

The bill passed the Republican-controlled House of Delegates, but when it reached the Senate, three Republicans joined all 20 Democrats to kill the measure. “This bill does nothing but kick teachers in the teeth,” explained Senator Phillip Puckett, a Democrat. Delegate Richard Bell, a Republican, saw it differently. “If we always do what we’ve always done,” he told the Washington Post, “then we’ll always get what we’ve always gotten.”

Snrk.

I love this exchange for what it actually says.

“This bill does nothing but kick teachers in the teeth.”

“Well, yes, but if we continue to not kick teachers in the teeth, then we’ll be doing what we’ve always done.”

Personally, I’ve always found that eating through a straw really motivates me to do my best for the kids.

If the citizens of Virginia had elected just a handful more Republicans, their majority would have been large enough to survive the defections and implement tangible reform.

If we just elected more Republicans, we could have a system so Byzantine and punitive to teachers that no teacher would ever in their right mind agree to serve in our schools!

Then we’ll be able to get rid of all the teachers we want, leaving… hmm, leaving… someone to teach the kids… well, what about those nice Catholic priests? I’m sure there would be no problems there.

I wonder how many of the parents who were at that meeting — seething about the problem teacher and the clotted system that makes it so hard to get rid of him — voted Democratic.

None.

I will bet a mother-fucking kidney that not a damn one of those parents was anything less than Full Metal Wingnut, because any pitiful protest of “almost a dozen” parents is a red flag of “wingnuts whining about bullshit” if I’ve ever seen one.

When I went to school, we had some legitimate “this person needs to be fired” moments, biggest one being a wingnut school administrator deciding to flip open the dress of every girl going to the dance to make sure none of them were wearing thongs or other signs of wicked evil sluttiness. The protest went into the high hundreds and the only parents seemingly absent from it were the same wingnut parents who were front and center when it was time to complain about X teacher teaching evolution or how Brave New World or Huck Finn needed to be banned from the reading list.

And seeing as how you didn’t devote this post to how evil Mrs. Kensington at the protest supports Planned Parenthood, I’m going to guess that they were a group of local readers you dragged along for the ride and that’s before we note Wingnut Math for Crowds means that “almost a dozen” equals you and your husband who would have showed if he didn’t have work.

Wait.

Hold up, one second.

Mona Charen has like obscene amounts of money and is a dedicated wingnut with an obvious hate-on for the public school system.

So, this little tantrum could either be really easy to solve by her following her own advice and using the “power of the market place” to place her kids in private school where they wouldn’t be at the mercy of these mean union teachers and their impenetrable barrier of tenure OR…

She already has done that and is whining about the private school she sent her artifact children to deciding to bite their thumb at her and her cronies’ bullshit and she’s deciding to blame the public school system for her issues with her “glorious free market solution”.

Either way, that kicks this whole affair into a whole new level of “May you burn forever on a pile of your own vomit”.

Oh, Mona Charen, is there no personal failing or life event you cannot turn into another creeping tendril of Liberal Fascism?

 

Comments: 203

 
 
 

An incompetent teacher who we had been promised would not be returning to the school had shown up unexpectedly, and an administrator had told the students that he might indeed be returning in September.

Parents expressed dismay and frustration. The principal was guarded. There was much he could not say for legal reasons, he explained. In the course of a long and often tense discussion, a number of the parents made the point that if an employee in the private sector had engaged in the behavior that this teacher had, he would be gone in a flash.

I note her article is guarded as well, as she mentions no names and gives no information other than unsubstantiated opinion. If it’s so obvious, nut up and spill the beans, Moana! Use your “bully pulpit” to be an influence for good! Or admit you’re a coward who’s so full of shit you need a “warning: contents under extreme pressure” label.

 
 

Wait. Teachers in Virginia have a three-year long probationary period where they can be fired without cause? And that’s apparently too cushy and generous?! Wheeeee!

 
 

Apparently the Problem is That Being a Public School Teacher Doesn’t Suck Enough

That is the only way they can insure that only rightards will be willing to take the jobs and they don’t have to worry about the kids actually getting educated.

 
 

An incompetent teacher who we had been promised would not be returning to the school had shown up unexpectedly, and an administrator had told the students that he might indeed be returning in September.

Oddly she expresses absolutely no concerns about the retention of incompetent administrators, who actually set policy and determine the curriculum, as well as set the standards in the schools.

 
 

She makes it sound like this “continuing contract” tenure is a license to goof off and comment on humour blogs all day when you should be working. Here is the official list of things “tenured” Virginian teachers can get shitcanned for. Prominent on the list is “incompetency”. Also note that the regs allow for “right-sizing” regardless of the “continuing contract” status of the teacher. It’s not guaranteed employment, it’s just a promise that you won’t get fired on the whim of an incompetent administrator or the one-off protest of “about a dozen” folks who think you aren’t religious enough. After three years probation. Fuck.

 
 

I’m going to ignore this whore and go OT already.

Apparently there is one Republican who is not an irredeemable, unorganized, grabasstick piece of shit:

Pimp sez “hey ladies, give your money to Democrats”

 
 

Whoa–she busted out the Stoesselstache of Knowledge. GIMME A BREAK!

Looks like Mona wins this round. Your move, libtards!

 
 

Okay, before I read this, I just want to wish JP best of luck in the sewage industry. I’m sure you’ll pinch off the job and quickly rise to the top, flowing through the organization most fluidly, clearing out the waste resulting in a clear, clean win.

 
 

nut up and spill the beans, Moana!

Do. Not. Want.

 
 

more ot goodness: jonah calls the waaaahbumlance because dumb liberals are mocking him

The dumbest and most common liberal response to my column is the smirking rejoinder, “Oh sure, and why should we listen to Jonah Goldberg about black life in America.” Or as Eric Boehlert, the chief intern at Media Matters tweeted: “again, because who knows more about being black in America than National Review writers like @jonahNRO?”

The problem with this response is that it’s a non-response. Worse, it’s a dumb non response. Even worse than that, it’s a damning dumb non-response. Let’s go in order.

 
 

and an administrator had told the students that he might indeed be returning in September.

also, too…i guess i wouldn’t go 10010% batshit based on information brought home from my kid…

 
 

When last we left Mona Charen she was losing a fight against her own spell-check software.

So obviously, she is more than qualified to weigh in on matters of education.

Well, clearly! She’s so smart a) she doesn’t need spelling and b) she can beam her thoughts directly into impressionable minds.

But remember, there can be only two Sith: no more, no less.

 
Privatize the Profits! Socialize the Costs!
 

-Was there ever a union that conservatives found to be acceptable?

-Was there ever a corporation that conservatives found to be objectionable?

They won’t be happy until unions are abolished and corporations run everything, and in case you haven’t noticed, we’re getting pretty damn close to that.

Poor people’s salaries are always considered to be too high. Taxes are always considered to be too high.

But when it comes to bank profits? Oil prices? CEO salaries?

***** crickets chirping *****

You know, your beloved rightwing economic policies have already been tried in Chile and Argentina… and how did that work out, wingnuts?

***** crickets chirping *******

 
 

Good lord, Jonah’s whole argument was that black people don’t talk enough about black-on-black violence for him to take seriously their protestations against Zimmerman and the Sanford police response, how is “you don’t know what the fuck black folks talk about you ignorant asshole” NOT a perfectly valid response to that sort of bullshit?

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

Moana sed: Can you keep your job without reference to how well you perform it?

Moana, can you keep your job without reference to how well you perform it?

 
 

And even then, they tend to be at the mercy of loud Huck Finn’s dad wannabes, bitter at the notion that their kids could end up knowing more than them and thus reject their small-minded viewpoints, looking for a reason, any reason, to make themselves feel better by claiming a scalp.

A thousand times THIS.

 
 

The problem with this response is that it’s a non-response.

No, it’s an entirely appropriate response. Your claim to fame was to write a book called “Liberal Fascism” in which you equate an ideology that supports civil rights for racial and sexual minorities with an ideology that supports rounding them up and gassing them to death. Which means you either know less about Life As A Minority Throughout History (both here and elsewhere) than I do about Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity (which takes some doing, let me tell you), or it matters so little to you that when comparing political systems, you actually choose to ignore little things like the Holocaust or the Civil Rights Act.

Either way, you’re pretty much the last person on Earth anyone should ask about the experience of any minority population.

 
 

-Was there ever a union that conservatives found to be acceptable?

Reagan liked that one in Poland.

Was there ever a corporation that conservatives found to be objectionable?

Solyndra.

 
 

Well see, Jonah talked to Thomas Sowell the other day and so now Jonah knows what all black people are thinking.

 
 

Oddly she expresses absolutely no concerns about the retention of incompetent administrators, who actually set policy and determine the curriculum, as well as set the standards in the schools.

Or incompetent parents, who don’t pay attention or remain in the loop.

 
 

The problem with this response is that it’s a non-response.

No, it’s an entirely appropriate response.

No, you misinderstood. Jonah is actually being right up front here and telling us right off the bat that his response to accusations that he knows little or nothing about black life in America is going to be a non-response.

 
 

Oddly she expresses absolutely no concerns about the retention of incompetent administrators, who actually set policy and determine the curriculum, as well as set the standards in the schools.

Now you are just being silly. Everybody knows that in the competetive free market world no incopetent person could ever rise all the way up to the administrative level.

 
 

As a teacher of 20+ years, I have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly in teachers and administrators. But her arguments are shiite.

OT: Yeehaw, my home state is number 1!!!!!!
http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/27/10812551-states-with-the-most-lax-anti-corruption-laws

 
 

Everybody knows that in the competetive free market world no incopetent person could ever rise all the way up to the administrative level.

“Those who can, do.-Those who can’t do, teach. – Those who can’t teach, administrate.” would like to have a word with you…

 
 

Well see, Jonah talked to Thomas Sowell the other day and so now Jonah knows what all black people are thinking.

and surely there’s some blacks on the nro cruze…

 
Mark D (a.k.a. Unholy Moses)
 

As a white guy who can, in reality, say that some of his best friends are black, I’d like to tell Jonah to eat a bag of salted rat dicks.

I’ve been pulled over for NOTHING other than having a black guy with me, and had my car searched ’cause, ya know, a white guy in a CR-V with a black guy wearing a skull cap = DRUGZ!!!!!11 (It doesn’t.)

I’ve heard countless stories of that happening to them all over this city (KC) and the utter bullshit they’ve had to endure from cops, store managers, et alia.

So when I hear white people try to talk about how racism is overblown, or how they’re all afraid of the black guys on the corner, I just want to cockpunch them. Those black guys are MUCH more afraid of any white person in power — and history has proven that fear is founded.

 
Enraged Bull Limpet
 

Bill Bennett dubbed it “the blob”

Whoa, more projection there than we saw back in jr. high mental hygiene classes.

 
 

Actually, I think apparently the problem is that some of the ways that the hated “Liberals” have made life better in this country still exist. Only when the last of the Works of The Great Satan (did you know that if you convert the letters ‘FDR’ into numerancy you get ‘666’? true fact!) are razed to the ground which is then plowed with salt, will we finally be Free to build our Randian Utopia.

 
 

What I find interesting about righties is how, whenever the question of equality of opportunity comes up, they get all Schopenhauer and start essentially arguing that “if those poor people really had a will to succeed, they would”. And yet, when it comes to the question of an administrator firing an “incompetent” teacher, it’s the union’s fault? What ever happened to “if there’s a will, there’s a way”?

Perhaps it’s because I’m an educator not an administrator so my sympathies are with one side over the other, but whenever I hear an administrator complain about “we can’t fire teacher X because … um … unions”, I tend to figure it to be an excuse for “I simply don’t want to do my job and go through the hoops involved in actually getting rid of teacher X” or even “well, if we get rid of Prof. X, we would then have to spend even more money/resources we don’t have trying to find a replacement”.

Of course in Mona’s world, administrators wouldn’t have to go through hoops to replace teachers because conservatives, by def., want to preserve hierarchies and administrators > teachers. But in such a world, administrators then would, at matters of whim or for political reasons (as in office politics, not ideology), fire teachers. And yes, this happens. If you’ll pardon the anecdote (the plural of which I do realize is not data), it happened to my ex-gf’s mother back in Nigeria — drove her away from teaching for life. Evidently, this sort of arbitrary firing of civil servants and teachers for political reasons is one of the key challenges facing third world nations. Of course for the crew that wants us to be less like Yurp and more like a feudal hell-hole, the likelihood that, without job security protections like tenure, administrators could fire teachers at whim is not a bug but a feature.

Still, I wish the so-called liberal media would more often call the right on their quest to turn us into our neo-feudal shithole. If we libs can be faulted for trying to turn the US into “Yurp”, then the righties should be faulted for trying to turn the US into medieval Yurp.

 
 

an exchange in the comments:

“The problem with this response is that it’s a non-response. Worse, it’s a dumb non response. Even worse than that, it’s a damning dumb non-response. Let’s go in order.”

How about not.

Goldberg, why do conservatives make it a point to be extremely incensed ALL the damned time by an idiotic comment? Whatever happened to ignoring idiots? Why give them respectability, or even credibility by acknowledging their idiocy?

Why give these idiots the time of day?

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MarkW 03/28/12 12:10

Because that’s his job. He’s hired to write stories about those idiots.

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American 03/28/12 12:32

Except that he’s not writing about those idiots; he’s writing about its effect on him and playing defense.

If he’s paid to “stand athwart history yelling “Stop!”, then why is he continually repeating the same tired, old processes that have never stopped what it is that he is supposed to be getting paid for?

What exactly did you learn from his column that would move things forward?

 
 

Well see, Jonah talked to Thomas Sowell the other day and so now Jonah knows what all black people are thinking.

What, were they on a conference call with Geraldo Rivera, or something?

 
 

What, were they on a conference call with Geraldo Rivera, or something?

oh, this is hi-larious!

“I apologize to anyone offended by what one prominent black conservative called my ‘very practical and potentially life-saving campaign urging black and Hispanic parents not to let their children go around wearing hoodies,’” he said in a statement to Politico. “I remain absolutely convinced of what I said,” he added, apparently unaware of the irony. The “prominent black conservative” is Thomas Sowell, who has compared President Obama to Hitler, called liberals “traitors,” warned Obama will implement Sharia law, and wondered if “the only thing that can save this country is a military coup.”

 
 

Reagan liked that one in Poland.

Sure he did – it was in Poland, not threatening any of his peeps’ ambitions.

As a sidenote, unions have historically been a huge asset in the anti-communist struggle – not just in the Eastern Bloc, propping up anticommunist unions in France, Italy and the like was one of the key strategies for undermining them, and one in which the AFL-CIO actively participated in. (At the same time the McCarthy crowd was calling them communists, of course). That’s yet another detail about unions that they conveniently leave out of the history books and Cold War narratives.

 
 

“-Was there ever a union that conservatives found to be acceptable?”

The American Medical Association.

 
Marion in Savannah
 

The American Medical Association

Some of those goddamned docs are actually in favor of single payer, so probably not.

 
 

How weird that she would spend an entire column fuming about how this teacher wasn’t fired and NEVER SAY the reason why he/she should be fired.

Could it possibly be because the reason is, um, what’s the word…stupid?

 
 

Shopworn troll is shopworn:

jim2011
03/28/12 13:33

This concern – it seems misplaced.

“Union power” is the buzzing of a gnat compared to the kind of spectacles of failing-upward that are now ongoing in the banking & financial service sector. Other private sector industries are also similarly afflicted. The informal tenure system at work in certain boardrooms is apt to make even the most activist teacher’s union look like rank amateurs.

One might also wonder: just what would William F. Buckley make of an article in National Review railing against tenure for educators?

Do not taunt Lulznir!!!

 
 

Was there ever a union that conservatives found to be acceptable?

Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York circa May 1970.

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

THIS IS EXELLENT NEWS! FOR MITTENS!

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

How weird that she would spend an entire column fuming about how this teacher wasn’t fired and NEVER SAY the reason why he/she should be fired. even be there in the first place. “Oooh let’s get Moana to come – WE WILL DESTROY THEM!” I’m betting it didn’t even happen, at best someone told her about some such meeting.

 
 

I am so goddamn tired of assholes who pretend (or actually believe) that tenure means “you can’t be fired.” It means you can’t be fired AT WILL, for economic reasons or because the principal doesn’t like you or you refuse to sleep with him. You can still be fired for cause, except they have to…gasp, imagine that!…PROVE it.

There are some of us who don’t want our children taught by the cheapest, youngest, least experienced teachers available.

 
 

Send us your huddled masses of rightwingers, yearning to breathe free.
We are governed by the Tripartite Alliance – the ANC, the SA Communist Party and COSATU – the Congress of SA Trade Unions.
Hoo boy, would they have a good whining orgy.

 
 

Actually, Mona just spilled the beans about the teacher in her latest “column” on the 27th:
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/294514/tale-two-teachers-mona-charen

Curious, I went looking for information about the county she mentioned and found…yikes.
http://www.fairfaxunderground.com/forum/list/2.html

 
 

>”…the sainted free market…”

Resolved: in any audio book, audio version of a newspaper, magazine, or other periodical, or any text-to-speech rendering of any such, whenever the words “free” and “market” form a word digram with that ordering, an angelic choir (‘Aaaahhh!!’) shall momentarily supervene the text.

Example: ‘I provide oral sex to Koch brothers for free. Market me to right-thinking people all across the wing-world.’

 
 

http://www.fairfaxunderground.com/forum/list/2.html

That link is not enlightening, but now I have Lost in Love in my head and I’m okay with that.

 
 

Okay, before I read this, I just want to wish JP best of luck in the sewage industry.

Sadly, No POOP! 😆

I’ve toured exactly one water treatment plant in my entire 48 years, and it did both potable water treatment AND waste water treatment. The job for which I’ll be interviewing Friday is for the former only. Thank Dog. 🙂
.

 
 

OK, here are Mona’s complaints about Bad Teacher:

repeatedly fails to show up for work, does not teach when he is on the premises, is verbally abusive to students, has been accused of unethical behavior on a number of fronts, and endangered the life of a child on a field trip by failing to seek medical attention when the kid fell (he had a ruptured spleen and might have died had a parent chaperone not taken him to the hospital on her own authority).

Let’s take these one by one:

“Repeatedly fails to show up for work”: How often is “repeatedly”? And is there some sort of reason, like family problems or a medical emergency?

“does not teach when he is on the premises” – Could mean anything. Or nothing.

“has been accused of unethical behavior on a number of fronts” – See above.

“and endangered the life of a child on a field trip…”

That sounds like it might actually be substantive. OTOH, it can be very difficult for someone with no medical training to judge when someone, especially a young child, needs to go to the hospital. Worst-case scenario, it was bad judgment, not a firing offense.

Meanwhile, she bitches that someone who told a 9th grader “read i[a Langston Hughes poem] blacker. You’re black, aren’t you?” was yanked from the classroom (NOT fired). Her comeback is, “If the class were reading a poem by Sholem Aleichem and the teacher asked a Jewish student to read it with a Yiddish inflection, would that be cause for instant disciplinary action?”

Are you fucking kidding me? That kid’s parents would be in the principal’s office demanding the teacher’s head on a platter.

 
 

“and the teacher asked a Jewish student to read it with a Yiddish inflection”

Needs more phlegm?

 
 

“Repeatedly fails to show up for work”: How often is “repeatedly”? And is there some sort of reason, like family problems or a medical emergency?

Seriously. Also: does he schedule a sub? Because making sure your work is covered while you’re out for some unavoidable reason is completely different from just not showing up. Just not showing up, verbal abuse, and actual proven “unethical behavior” are grounds for firing anywhere in this country, as long as they’ve been documented. If they haven’t been, it’s not the fault of unions, teacher tenure, liberals in general, or whatever, it’s ONLY the fault of those who should have documented it and didn’t.

 
 

“If the class were reading a poem by Sholem Aleichem and the teacher asked a Jewish student to read it with a Yiddish inflection, would that be cause for instant disciplinary action?”

Yiddish inflection my ass, it’d be “read it Jewier, you’re a Jew aren’t you?” And yeah, there would be and should be disciplinary action for that.

 
Nymstra-name-change-soon
 

Where were the SadlyNaughts when my local fishwrap carried Mona Charen’s syndicated screeds? I so needed that S,N! snark back then (1980s).

Good post as always, Cerb!

 
 

So basically, Mona’s whine is about a teacher who probably has a medical condition (which is why the principal can’t talk about it) who’s job is protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act and rather than assume the school system knows what the fuck it’s doing, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! MONA KNOW BETTER! MONA FIX!

 
 

I’d like to tell Jonah to eat a bag of salted rat dicks.

What you got against rats (or salty rat dicks)?

 
 

What you got against rats (or salty rat dicks)?

Usually? Mustard.

 
Nymstra-name-change-soon
 

So basically, Mona’s whine is about a teacher who probably has a medical condition (which is why the principal can’t talk about it) who’s job is protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act and rather than assume the school system knows what the fuck it’s doing,…

“HIPAA? FERPA? Bureaucratic folderol!” sez Mona.

 
Lurking Canadian
 

Remember kids, the two biggest problems in society are (1) teachers making $75000/year are overpaid and either need to take a pay cut or lose their jobs and (2) lawyers making $400000/year are barely scraping by and can’t afford to pay an extra five grand a year in taxes.

Also, it is well known that all people work better when they are in constant fear of unemployment, ruin and starvation and believe themselves to be hated and held in contempt by their employers than they do when they feel confident and secure in the knowledge that their contributions are valued. I mean, that’s just common sense.

 
 

We don’t know what Mona’s whine is about because she doesn’t substantiate ANYTHING. She sounds like a mom whose sole source of information is a child who doesn’t like his teacher, and God knows momma’s little boy would never tell a lie. Let me guess, Junior only made second sax when he was TOTALLY better than the other guys!

 
 

Do you have life tenure in your job? Unless you are one of the above-mentioned professors, a federal judge, or a public-school teacher, the answer is almost certainly no. So why do teachers have it? Whose interests does it serve other than the teachers’?

Why some people get Good Things For Themselves is mysterious, isn’t it Ms. Capitalist?

 
 

My mother used to be a teacher (unionised and everything), and my father is a retired commercial pilot (CALPA represent!). I’m just now (at the ripe old age of 37) earning an income equivalent to what my mom or dad earned when they were about ten years younger than that. While I know there are other factors, I think the decline in union power (and the concomitant devaluation of labour since Reagan-Thatcher-Mulroney) has a lot to do with it.

But wingnuts basically want people like me (female, handicapped) to go through life dependent on the caprice of a patron (husband or an institution) so we’re not out in public doing unseemly things like being independent or good at our jobs or anything.

 
 

Do you have life tenure in your job?

also, wingnuts DO have life tenure…they just call it jeebus! he can take care of everything!

 
 

The principal was guarded.
If I were that principal I would want a bodyguard too.

Do you have life tenure in your job?
Has anyone ever lost a job wiht WIngnut Welfare?

 
 

Sometimes, just reading the things these guys rant about, like it’s life or death…now I know how Superman feels when he goes up against a bank robber after weeks of fighting off an alien invasion.

 
Nymstra-name-change-soon
 

Has anyone ever lost a job wiht WIngnut Welfare?

David Frum?

 
 

Whose interests does it serve other than the teachers’?
This complaint about job security also applies to the concept of paying them. The free market demands MOAR SELFLESS ALTRUISM.

 
 

hmmm…there is a noise out in the anteroom that sounds suspiciously like a hoverround stuck in the automatic door…chances are it’s the big crabby lady…not going to go look…

 
 

chances are it’s the big crabby lady…

This one?

 
 

This one?

yours is much cuter…but i guess i would be crabby too if i had to get dialysis…although they do get to lay down for four hours AND get free snacks…

 
 

Dialysis sounds like paradise!

 
 


The choice is an odd one for many reasons, the least of which is the fact that the brutal dictator isn’t known for nice hair. He’s typically known instead for the his well-groomed mustache documented murder of millions of Jews, homosexuals, gypsies, and many more in the Holocaust — and waging a war that cost the lives of countless soldiers across the globe.

 
 

Dialysis sounds like paradise!

i KNOW!

 
 

She doesn’t seem to understand the concept of “due process.”

 
 

The choice is an odd one for many reasons, the least of which is the fact that the brutal dictator isn’t known for nice hair.

Yeah, but the upside is, they don’t have to pay him royalties.

 
 

John Stossel, writing in Reason magazine

LOL. I bet they gave him the “You’re Doing it Wrong” series.

Also, I noticed that (reading only what Cerberus quoted) Mona the Hobag fails to mention just what it is that is considered “incompetent”. My money is on teaching that evolution exists.

Also, as Bitter Scribe scribes, tenure does NOT mean you cannot be fired. It means they have to have a good reason to do it, and incompetence is featured prominently on the list of good reasons.

 
 

The only job with tenure that guarantees you’ll never be fired is wingnut welfare.

Mona Charen isn’t qualified to run a slushie machine.

 
 

The only job with tenure that guarantees you’ll never be fired is wingnut welfare.

I don’t think so. Let one of them write a well reasoned defense for something that isn’t laughably stupid and see what happens. I’d guess they’d take the gun, leave the cannolis.

 
 

chances are it’s the big crabby lady…not going to go look…

It’s pointless to point and laugh if she can’t see you.

 
 

The only job with tenure that guarantees you’ll never be fired for incompetence is wingnut welfare.

Bettah?

 
 

I’d guess they’d take the gun, leave the cannolis

Now this doesn’t seem right…what happened here?

 
 

I’d guess they’d take the gun, leave the cannolis

damn you…i have successfully avoided cupcakes and caramel rolls today…resolve…weakening…

 
 

While I know there are other factors, I think the decline in union power (and the concomitant devaluation of labour since Reagan-Thatcher-Mulroney) has a lot to do with it.

It was about that time…

Penury has always been, in this country anyway, closely associated with lack of virtue. Protestant work ethic or something. Similarly, wealth has always been associated with virtue. But it was rarely talked about openly, not without lots of dog whistles involved. Excepting the 1%ers of course.

It was about that time … that Reagan et al. actively and viciously demonized the poor … for being poor. They equated weath with virttue and need with depravity, sloth, poor moral grounding. Yep, they’re the ones who worked really hard to make that a core tenet of their party ideology: being poor is a moral failing. Since they choose to be poor they don’t deserve any sympathy. Nor asssistance of course. Why, they might not even be fully human – say, 3/5 or something.

 
 

Let one of them write a well reasoned defense for something that isn’t laughably stupid and see what happens.
Satan opens an ice-skating rink?

 
 

WHO IS THE DEVIL-PERSON WHO BROUGHT UP CANNOLI?

 
 

Since I’ve got the place to myself, a little pimping…if you need a no kidding laugh, check out B^4’s latest entry.

 
 

Curious, I went looking for information about the county she mentioned and found…yikes.
http://www.fairfaxunderground.com/forum/list/2.html

Whoa.

The thread about the kid who got shot by the security guard after skipping on his ihop bill is fucking amazing.

 
 

Yikes, I LIVE with those awful Fairfax people. Dayum.

 
 

Said it once, and I’ll say it again— teachers should get paid what they’re getting paid just for being responsible for so many children all day. If the wing-nuts want something cheaper, they can pay high school dropouts to educate their children.

 
 

WHO IS THE DEVIL-PERSON WHO BROUGHT UP CANNOLI?

It was me and I’m NOT sorry. Also, picturing grey matter splattered all over a windshield should tone your appetite down some, yeah? Wait, wingnuts don’t have any of that. Let’s try that again:

**clack**

Also, picturing POOP splattered all over a windshield and even getting some on your cannolis should tone down your appetite some, yeah?

 
 

If the wing-nuts want something cheaper, they can pay high school dropouts to educate their children.

Oooh, they can make their own schools and staff them with Bob Jones and Oral Roberts and BYU alumni. It will be a regular dope factory.

 
 

It occurs to me that a wingnut WOULD take the gun and leave the cannolis.

Geez I’m dumb.

 
 

It’s common practice in California for school superintendents to have 3-year “evergreen” contracts, meaning they automatically renew EVERY year for a NEW 3-year term. The magic is they never really get to the last year of the contract, so the school board doesn’t get the opportunity to just part ways at the end. The superintendent leaves under his/her own timeline or gets a generous buy out of the contract. Firing for cause in mid-contract is unheard of and never happens. No teachers union in existence could ever dream of getting such a contract.

 
 

“mmmmmmmm cannollis………”

H. Simpson

 
 

Wow, it’s been a long time since I thought of cannoli. It’s been mostly meat here today, with the large DIY sous-vide rig containing a whole brisket, more than 6 kilos, pickled for pastrami and a large and savage looking picnic in jerk that will now be relaxing at 130F for a couple of days. And a 3.5 kilo lasagne. Picked up 3 kilos of spatchcocked quail last night and can ponder overnight what to do with them. The sous-vide beckons but I want to do something light enough so the quail comes through.

Plenty of euphemism fodder there.

 
 

No, the lasagne is not in the sous-vide, smartypants.

 
 

You smart people with your moneys and your non-ramen foods!
.

 
 

Happy squirting fountains, JP.

 
Lurking Canadian
 

Good luck with the interview, JP.

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

Just because they’ve been spatchcocked (thanks for the opportunity to say spatchcock, btw, I take every one) doesn’t mean you shou,d rule out Cailles en sarcophage. Like Babbett made. Gawddam ONE of these days I’m going to pull the trigger and make Babette’s feast!

They’re also nice just grilled, after marinating overnight in balsamic, honey, thyme. I have also enjoyed riffing on Mario’s quail spiedini and sage polenta.

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

JP is going to get the job because WOLVERINES!!!

 
 

JP is going to get the job because WOLVERINES KITTEHS!!!

Also because I have assembled all of my good-luck totems on my desk in anticipation of Friday’s Triumph.

 
 

My experience is; most folks one meets are delighted for an opportunity to say “spatchcocked”.

Here, where quail are an industrial commodity I’ve been able to experiment. All southrons want them fried in the traditional way and I can do that pretty well (sous-vide!) but I don’t do that at home. Not going to spiedini due to recent pancetta overindulgence. My favorite way is to substitute quail for chicken in the Malaysian ayam percik, it’s an excellent way to grill fowl, but for this bunch I’ll probably do some country French roast thing, I’ve got great herbs right now.

 
 

I don’t want to know how you spatchcock a quail.

 
 

As for Babette, what always stops me is the turtle soup. We know most of the turtle scientists/herpetologists roundabouts and they’re already horrified that I endorse the use of tortoise shell guitar picks, if I start making turtle soup “the best food vouchsafed by a generous Providence to Man” (Gen. Winfield Scott) it might ruin me in it’s excellence.

 
General Winfield Scott
 

That “the best food vouchsafed by a generous Providence to Man” thing?

I was tripping balls SO HARD when I said that.

 
 

TIL: how to spatchcock.

 
 

A stoned college friend of mine once loudly proclaimed my lasagne “The best fucking shit I ever ate!”

I appreciated the sentiment but not the comparison to shit.

 
 

“…because people like to say ‘SALSA’.”

 
 

Here, where quail are an industrial commodity I’ve been able to experiment.

This Thanksgiving I cooked a turkey for us and a quail for the cat. I mostly just wanted to get a picture of the cat with her own little bird on a plate.

It was kind of a wasted effort, because she really didn’t know what to do with a whole bird. I ended up having to cut the meat up for her.

 
 

“The best fucking shit I ever ate!”

Faint praise, man.

 
 

Thanks again, y’all. I have a good feeling. My buddy gets some incentive pay if I get hired, and they all love her, so hopefully that and my stunning interest in and knowledge of municipal water system, processes and regulations* will stun them into hiring me on the spot.

* Hey, I’ve now spent HOURS on the EPA web site larnin’ stuff!
.

 
 

Jeffraham, as someone who used to work under the Clean Air Act and an EPA grant, take time to learn the acronyms. Air and water have different ones and I remember my first few months trying to keep them all straight. You are smart to use the EPA website – tons of great information.

 
 

Aren’t quail really tiny? LIke, the size of sparrows? How do people eat them, anyway?

 
 

You are smart to use the EPA website – tons of great information.

There really is. They have a full training section on potable water treatment, complete with interactive tests. Very cool!
.

 
 

knowledge of municipal water system

If it’s brown, flush it down; if it’s yellow, let it mellow.

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

How do people eat them, anyway?

With great relish.

 
 

With great relish.

Or ketchup and mustard.

 
 

baloney is the salami of liberal fascism.

 
 

Pastrami is the baloney of paper-shredder fascism.

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

Teh Ho is out this evening for a board meeting. I’m going to have some old school comfort food ready for his return. If he brings the gin, he’ll get to eat. Chicken and herb dumplings. With some tweaks, to be sure. I’ll make the veloute using my insanely good brown chicken stock – it’s basically chicken demi glace. Oo la fucking la baybee!

 
Alfred Spatchcock
 

Good eeeveninAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

S. cerevisiae said,
March 29, 2012 at 4:50

Oh Jesus fuck. I’m a leetle leery, given the lack of references and links and shit. But ABC and the LA Times are both reporting the shooter’s anomalously pristine appearance on the night in question.

 
 

Anyone care to explain how this does not stink as bad as it seems? Anyone?

as christian slater once so boldly said, ‘fuck me!’ really?!!? they are going to go balls to the walls for zimmerman?!?!

really, it is no surprise…

hoodies, out…

 
 

hubbkf and i are off to sioux falls again in the morning…he now has symptoms in his arms…wheeeee…will check in with y’all when i can…

 
 

he now has symptoms in his arms…

🙁

I hope it turns out to be innocuous.
.

 
 

How do people eat them, anyway?
With great relish.

With Two bottles of relish.

 
 

Education “reform” is always the punitive same and is invariably conducted by rich misanthropes who hated school back in their day. Usually because someone tried to make them think.

 
Karl The Crap Blog Detective
 

-Was there ever a union that conservatives found to be acceptable?

Police and prison guards.

 
 

-Was there ever a union that conservatives found to be acceptable?

Other than the union of my schlong and some hipster’s self-righteously clenched sphincter???

Sadly, no, indeed.

 
 

The thread about the kid who got shot by the security guard after skipping on his ihop bill is fucking amazing.

Remind me never to jaywalk there.

I went to high school in Fairfax County from ’84-’89 . I don’t recall it being nearly that bad

 
 

When conservatoid moneybags try to smear unions by using anecdote, they invariably (and ironically) point out as “bad behavior” of unions examples of corruption, abuse-of-power, and other fundamental habits of capitalism that they value as essential motivators in their mad dreams of commerce. Of course, they lie, distort, and exaggerate even these, but I find it interesting that their minions don’t see the comparison.

It’s similar to how they worship the Men (and women) In Uniform, but refuse to see how the military live and thrive* in a nearly perfect socialist system.

I suppose it’s the usual IOKIYAR (or capitalist). Hoi polloi should not aspire to the same goals as their betters.

*except when they are getting screwed.

 
 

Obviously, Zimmerman has a healing factor just like WOLVERINES!!!:

So much blood, in fact, that the Sanford PD forgot the basic rule about wearing rubber gloves because of infection potential.

 
 

And suddenly, banks in Spain began loaning at an unprecedented rate: http://now.msn.com/money/0328-spanish-prostitutes-on-strike.aspx

 
 

Shorter Victor Davis Hanson:

10 Things That We’ve Learned from the Trayvon Martin Tragedy

1-10. Victor Davis Hanson is fucking insane.

Slightly longer shorter:

10 Things That We’ve Learned from the Trayvon Martin Tragedy

1. Eric Holder will probably charge George Zimmerman with Not Being Black. What else have they got? It’s not like he killed anyone ferchrissakes.

2. People who think it’s ok for Trayvon Martin to wear a hoodie are hypocrites if they acknowledge that he ever wore anything else.

3. Why’s everyone getting so hysterical anyway?

4. Was Trayvon Martin a nigger? His Twitter account says he was!

5. Trayvon Martin’s mother is a gold-digger.

6. Why hasn’t anyone arrested Spike Lee?

7. The president was wrong: Sandra Fluke is too a slut.

8. Let’s put all this hostility aside and agree that black people who disagree with NRO are the real criminals.

9. If people are so upset by this, why don’t they quit being hypocrites and make their kids join West Baltimore drug gangs?

10. Elites are controlling your mind.

 
 

Damn it. Me^^

 
 

And suddenly, banks in Spain began loaning at an unprecedented rate

Interestrata?

 
 

10 Things That We’ve Learned from the Trayvon Martin Tragedy

I call fake BDH.

Not one Ancient Rome reference???? Or a Greek?

 
 

6. Why hasn’t anyone arrested Spike Lee?

You want to arrest Spike Lee for re-tweeting and address purported to be Zimmerman’s? Very well, I accept. Just as soon as you’ve arrested every “pro-life” group that broadcasts the addresses of abortion-performing doctors for all to see.

[leaning back, bracing myself for the onslaught of “it’s not the same when we do it” pissing and moaning]

 
 

Just as soon as you’ve arrested every “pro-life” group that broadcasts the addresses of abortion-performing doctors for all to see.

Michelle Malkin, too

Also.

 
Nymstra-name-change-soon
 

6. Why hasn’t anyone arrested Spike Lee?

See, this is where the NRO proofreader applies his or her research skills. Because for a brief moment, VDH was about to ask why hasn’t anyone arrested Stan Lee.

 
 

If anyone arrests Spike Lee, it should be for making bad movies.

 
 

I like Spike Lee’s movies! Though I admit I haven’t seen Girl 6 and several of the others that looked really terrible.

 
Nymstra-name-change-soon
 

Just had to go mango-hunting against my better judgment:

The hysteria is not just over the death of a young African-American male, because hundreds are tragically killed to near silence every year, 94 percent of them by other African-American males.

So, what percentage of those “other African-American males” get arrested, charged, and convicted? As opposed to, say, what happened last month in Sanford, Florida with no arrest as yet made?

If Mr. Zimmerman were applying for a civil-service job, no one would have created the new rubric “white Hispanic.”

At my place of employment, it is possible for an applicant or current employee to identify as “Hispanic” and “White” as the same time. Hence the phrase “White Hispanic.”

Even at this late date, if he were to use his mother’s maiden name as part of a hyphenated last name, he would earn more empathy. Unfortunately, he found himself pigeonholed as a white conservative vigilante, not a Hispanic Democrat, and that has made all the difference in his media profile.

Yes, because it’s unpossible for Hispanic Democrat to be conservative and/or racist.

 
 

What I’m particularly disgusted by is VDH (and others) criticizing Martin’s mother for trademarking his name and pictures. I assume her lawyer advised her to do that for several reasons, not least to prevent bottomfeeders from capitalizing. VDH assumes it’s because she wants to turn a quick buck. I wonder what it is about her that makes him think that way?

 
 

I find it fascinating that the wingnuts think that as soon as we learn that Zimmerman is a Democrat that we’ll be like. “Oooooh. OK. We had it all wrong then! Nothing to see here! Kid had it coming!” I mean, that would be so craven and disgusting. I’ll just mark it down as yet ANOTHER case of projection.

They simply CANNOT COMPREHEND that we care because WE CARE. Because we saw and injustice and we spoke up. IT DOES NOT PENETRATE THE WINGNUT BUBBLE. *sigh*

 
 

I find it fascinating that the wingnuts think that as soon as we learn that Zimmerman is a Democrat that we’ll be like. “Oooooh. OK. We had it all wrong then!”

Yeah, <a href="http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/139807/"I quoted Instapundit at LGM earlier:

A Hispanic Democrat shoots a black guy and somehow it’s the fault of white Republicans.

I mean, I guess if you really wanted to you could say that a lot of people who have protested are generally for gun control and opposed to Stand Your Ground, and that Republicans generally take the opposite position, but to assert that as a motive would be really stretching.

 
 

A Hispanic Democrat shoots a black guy and somehow it’s the fault of white Republicans.

Ha ha, these fuckers have been defending him and attacking the kid since day one, and now they’re going to try to wash their hands of it? Please, this is not a fucking tribal thing, it doesn’t matter if Zimmerman was SUPER DEM and Trayvon was Sowell Jr, the response from the right to the crime was wrong and still is.

 
 

A Hispanic Democrat shoots a black guy and somehow it’s the fault of white Republicans.

Sady, no! The reality is a Hispanic Democrat shoots a black guy, then a police department with a history of racism lets the Hispanic Democrat go home free. Sensible Americans are upset at this travesty of justice and it’s the white Republicans that leap to the defence of the racist police department.

 
Nymstra-name-change-soon
 

If Trayvon was Sowell Jr., I wouldn’t be certain that he’d want dear old dad to deliver the eulogy.

 
 

I don’t feel like looking for the link, but Sowell wrote a really stupid column defending Geraldo’s hoodie comment. The gist was that when Sowell was at Harvard he didn’t walk through racist Irish neighborhoods looking uppity in a Brooks Brothers suit, so why should a kid expect safety when dressed like a thug? But then he (sort of) defended Zimmerman by mentioning that he once pulled a gun on someone who was following him in the dark . . . which he failed to notice is a lot more like Martin’s position than Zimmerman’s.

 
 

If Trayvon was Sowell Jr., Zimmerman would have asked him for his autograph, because he would have thought it was Urkel.

 
Nymstra-name-change-soon
 

I don’t feel like looking for the link, but Sowell wrote a really stupid column…

Could have ended the post right there.

 
 

The gist was that when Sowell was at Harvard he didn’t walk through racist Irish neighborhoods looking uppity in a Brooks Brothers suit, so why should a kid expect safety when dressed like a thug?

So Sowell would have been better walking through racist Irish neighborhoods “dressed like a thug”?

Or maybe he just takes it as a given that whole sections of American cities should be closed to people who share his skin color.

I used to think the people who sneered at him as “Thomas Soweto” were being unfair. I no longer think so.

 
 

Thanks TB for bring us back to teh point. This isn’t about Zimmerman, it’s about Sanford PD. It’s about buying Zimmerman’s self-defense story in toto despite teh 911 call. It’s about fabricating facts about Zimmerman’s injuries.

It’s about teh obvious attitude from teh Sanford police that Trayvon’s death might possibly be considered as bad as “unfortunate” – but certainly not something worth arresting anyone over.

 
 

Yeah, I think someone linked it a couple days ago, either from here or alicublog. It was pretty gross. I didn’t mean literally Sowell Jr, obviously, just that if Trayvon had been seen as a member of their “tribe” their response would’ve been 180 degrees from what it was. Everything really is all tribal to them, no matter how much they bullshit about “objective” morality, because what could be more objectively wrong than a guy with a gun stalking and killing some skinny kid for doing precisely nothing and the cops and other officials appearing to conspire to obstruct justice?

 
 

Here it is:

There is no point in dressing like a hoodlum when you are not a hoodlum, even though that has become a fashion for some minority youths, including the teenager who was shot and killed in a confrontation in Florida. I don’t know the whole story of that tragedy any more than those who are making loud noises in the media do, but that is something that we have trials for.

People have a right to dress any way they want to, but exercising that right is something that requires common sense, and common sense is something that parents should have, even if their children don’t always have it.

Many years ago, when I was a student at Harvard, there was a warning to all the students to avoid a nearby, tough Irish neighborhood, where Harvard students had been attacked. It so happened that there was a black neighborhood on the other side of the Irish neighborhood, and I had to pass through the Irish neighborhood when I went to get my hair cut.

I never went through that Irish neighborhood dressed in the style of most Harvard students back then. I walked through that Irish neighborhood dressed like a black working man would be dressed — and I never had the slightest trouble the whole three years that I was at Harvard.

While I had a right to walk through that tough neighborhood dressed in a Brooks Brothers suit, if I wanted to — and if I could have afforded one, which I couldn’t — it made no sense for me to court needless dangers.

He also seems to not be aware that this became a national issue mostly because Zimmerman hasn’t been charged with anything; he notes a few times that we should be quiet and let the jury sort it all out.

 
Nymstra-name-change-soon
 

I used to think the people who sneered at him as “Thomas Soweto” were being unfair. I no longer think so.

Well it’s sort of unfair to actual Soweto residents.

 
 

Everything really is all tribal to them, no matter how much they bullshit about “objective” morality

That’s really the only explanation. Why else would you think to check Zimmerman’s voter registration? The first mention I saw of it Glenn Reynolds labeled it “#NARRATIVEFAIL,” as if anyone else cared one way or the other, and gave a hearty “Heh” to a “I bet he doesn’t vote for Obama THIS YEAR” comment.

 
 

While I had a right to walk through that tough neighborhood dressed in a Brooks Brothers suit, if I wanted to — and if I could have afforded one, which I couldn’t — it made no sense for me to court needless dangers.

A Brooks Brothers suit is to the Irish as a red flag to a bull, or human dignity to a Repub: a cause of immediate and thoughtless rage.

 
 

“I bet he doesn’t vote for Obama THIS YEAR”

Some of my friends are cop-wannabe vigilantes.

 
 

A Brooks Brothers suit is to the Irish as a red flag to a bull

You know how much they hate the Kennedys in Irish sections of Boston!

 
Pupienus Maximus
 

Everything really is all tribal to them, no matter how much they bullshit about “objective” morality

Projection too also and such as.

 
 

“I bet he doesn’t vote for Obama THIS YEAR”

Loss of the murderous-bigot bloc could be fatal to Obama’s chances.

 
 

I don’t know the whole story of that tragedy any more than those who are making loud noises in the media do, but that is something that we have trials for.

Holy Missing-the-point, Batman!

 
 

You want to arrest Spike Lee for re-tweeting and address purported to be Zimmerman’s?

So now Zimmerman is afraid that every angry black person in the US is going to track him down and attack him? I don’t see how this has changed from his previous state of mind.

 
 

Mitt Romney said,

March 29, 2012 at 20:19

“I bet he doesn’t vote for Obama THIS YEAR”

Some of my friends are cop-wannabe vigilantes own police forces.

Repairated to reflect Rmoneyness.

 
 

So now Zimmerman is afraid that every angry black person in the US is going to track him down and attack him? I don’t see how this has changed from his previous state of mind.

Smut, you have just won A NEW INTERNET! And models are gesturing at it now!

 
 

So now Zimmerman is afraid that every angry black person in the US is going to track him down and attack him?

You libs don’t get it, do ya? T-Mart was a black-belt Skittle Master who ensnared poor Zimmy! There was only two choices: fire in self-defense or Taste The Rainbow!

 
 

You libs don’t get it, do ya? T-Mart was a black-belt Skittle Master who ensnared poor Zimmy! There was only two choices: fire in self-defense or Taste The Rainbow!

Well, shit. Sorry, Smut, you have to split the Internet with Pryme.

 
 

Smut, you have just won A NEW INTERNET! And models are gesturing at it now!

 
 

There was only two choices: fire in self-defense taste the Rambo or Taste The Rainbow!

 
 

Great, Thread Bear, you’ve revealed the Internet’s True Identity: A zonk-Llama. THANKS A LOT.

 
 

I feel threatened by people in Brooks Brothers suits.

They might bust my union, raid my pension and send my job overseas.

By Florida law I should have the right to stand my ground and fire first.

 
 

I feel threatened by people in Brooks Brothers suits.

They might bust my union, raid my pension and send my job overseas.

By Florida law I should have the right to stand my ground and fire first.

They do have a history of anti-American behavior, like election fraud.

 
Helmut Monotreme
 

I had to taste the rainbow once. Once I could feel my legs again, it really didn’t take me all that long to re-learn how to walk. No more than three weeks or so.

 
 

I feel threatened by people in Brooks Brothers suits.
They might bust my union, raid my pension and send my job overseas.
By Florida law I should have the right to stand my ground and fire first.

Welp, there’s Mitt. Feel free.

 
 

A Brooks Brothers suit is to the Irish as a red flag to a bull

Hey, defense attorneys are people too, my friend!

 
 

Welp, there’s Mitt. Feel free.

I wish Mitt nothing but a long and happy life – as far from the levers of power as humanly possible.

 
 

Zonk-llamas have changed my life!!

 
 

a black-belt Skittle Master

Liquorice allsorts don’t kill people, no wait.

 
 

ALL Sadly threads are open threads, yes?

I just ran across a most interesting site. http://arthursbookshelf.com/

Lots of free books, in various e-reader formats. I am assuming, by the fact that most of them are pretty old that their copyrights have expired. The sci-fi section is especially interesting, lots of stuff I’m looking forward to rereading.

This Public Service Announcement was brought to you by ME ME ME ME!

 
Surreal American
 

Honestly, I’m surprised that wingnuts haven’t tried by now to demonstrate that Skittles and iced tea are slang terms for crack and 40 oz malt liquor.

 
 

I wish Mitt nothing but a long and happy life – as far from the levers of power as humanly possible.

Here’s my Crazy Mitt Romney Theory On Healthcare: if the Supremes uphold Obamacare and he won the election, he would not “repeal and replace.” I mean, he’s lied about literally everything during his campaign so far; why should we believe this one? If anything, he’ll make some tweaks and then claim that he “saved” it, while giving his wealthy buddies so many tax breaks that they won’t give a crap, leaving the social conservatives to whine (like they do every time a GOP president doesn’t do 100% of what they want).

Of course, the sole reason I subscribe to the CMRTOH is that the guy is so wealthy if he won he wouldn’t owe anyone anything. His personal wealth would outmatch any party challenger, forming a third party would be pointless and he knows no one who calls themselves a “conservative Republican” would ever support/endorse a Democrat to replace him. He may be the first candidate in a long time who could govern as he personally pleases, with virtually no repercussions. On the other hand, this would also be a reason to support Major Kong’s statement.

 
 

Honestly, I’m surprised that wingnuts haven’t tried by now to demonstrate that Skittles and iced tea are slang terms for crack and 40 oz malt liquor.

They’re still between the Denial and Anger Stages; give it time.

 
Surreal American
 

They’re still always between the Denial and Anger Stages…

Fixed.

 
 

So, this little tantrum could either be really easy to solve by her following her own advice and using the “power of the market place” to place her kids in private school where they wouldn’t be at the mercy of these mean union teachers and their impenetrable barrier of tenure OR…

She already has done that and is whining about the private school she sent her artifact children to deciding to bite their thumb at her and her cronies’ bullshit and she’s deciding to blame the public school system for her issues with her “glorious free market solution”.

Bingo. It is almost certainly the latter. She has her kids in private school and just needs to claim a few public employee scalps anyway. It makes them feel so much better.

 
 

Honestly, I’m surprised that wingnuts haven’t tried by now to demonstrate that Skittles and iced tea are slang terms for crack and 40 oz malt liquor.

They’re still between the Denial and Anger Stages; give it time.

Nah, I have already actually seen someone somewhere bring up the notion that Skittles is slang for some king of popular drug. It wasn’t crack, but I can’t remember what it was.

 
 

Oh yeah, Skittles is slang for Coricidin.

 
 

Skittles is slang for some king of popular drug. It wasn’t crack, but I can’t remember what it was.
This one;

 
 

Oh yeah, Skittles is slang for Coricidin.

Yeah, I’ve heard racist motherfuckers bring this up, but WTF does it have to do with the ACTUAL Skittles he was ACTUALLY carrying? Seriously, if he’d been carrying cough medicine no damn news org is going to just say “Skittles” and leave it at that for fuck’s sake.

 
 

So is Rush slang for Oxycotin?

 
 

So is Rush slang for Oxycotin?

I believe they’re referred to as Limpballs.

 
 

New post!

That plump turkey was too juicy not to carve it up.

 
 

CHICKENMAN! (HE’S EVERYWHERE! HE’S EVERYWHERE! )
.

 
 

@ anonymous above:

“6. Why hasn’t anyone arrested Spike Lee?”

I’m not actually sure he should be arrested, but giving out Zimmerman’s address was seriously out of line. Something like that could easily result in vandalism, or even someone getting hurt. And of course it turned out to be the wrong address, so that makes it even worse. My respect for Spike Lee has definitely dropped a couple of notches.

 
 

“the public-school system of Chicago fired 0.1 percent and Akron, Ohio fired none at all. The Denver and Toledo systems didn’t fire any, either”

I was a front line manager at a Fortune 100 company for 10 years with about 15 direct reports at any given time, was a mid level manager with about 100 people under me for another 10 years
With normal churn, I’ve probably had 4 to 5 hundred employees that I was accountable for over 20 yrs

You know how many times I’ve fired someone?
Once

The wingnut theory sounds like this to me – “I have fire incompetent workers every day, none of them know what they are doing. Now, how much are you willing to pay me to have my lazy incompetent workers in charge of your project?”

“…if an employee in the private sector had engaged in the behavior that this teacher had, he would be gone in a flash”

Yeah, right
The one time I fired somebody, no union, no civil service protections, just bastion of free enterprise corporate firing,
It was a 2 year process where I had to justify the firing to HR before it could happen

And no, HR was not afraid of “lawsuits”, HR in the corporate world wants to protect the corporation from front line managers getting rid of good workers and installing a regime of kick-backs, nepotism, and corruption

 
 

[…] wonder Mona Charen was so bitter about the school her totally non-fictional child is trapped, trapped I say, in. If only we had […]

 
 

Only time my or my sister’s schools didn’t fire someone?

…When they couldn’t find someone with the appropriate degrees to work for near minimum wage.

When schools can’t afford to hire people because they don’t pay enough, it’ makes it hard to replace people.

Never did a teacher who was even accused of misconduct come back to class. Due process? What’s that?

 
 

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