Category Archives: ALEC

Moskowitz using the kids for her personal gain

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David Sirota has this up on Eva Moskowitz, queen of charters in NY.  She closed the schools to bus children to her rally.  Unfreakingbelievable.  Can you imagine anyone in public education being allowed to do that?? They would be fired.

Next, we have this from Fred Klonsky on the close ties of pro-charter education profiteers and our elected representatives.  Sleazy opportunists.

One notorious group, “Democrats for Education Reform” (DFER), is a front for financiers that seek to spread charter schools in Chicago, even at the expense of neighborhood public schools. DFER has given extensive support to Christian Mitchell, placing him on their “Hot List of 2012” and naming him their “Reformer of the Month” for January 2014, in which they solicited political contributions on his behalf.

Rep. Mitchell has also accepted over $100,000 in political contributions from “Stand for Children,” an organization that wants to defund public education through voucher programs and other failed policies that only hurt Chicago students.

Last year, Mayor Rahm Emanuel closed 50 neighborhood schools which put more than 80,000 children at risk. The closings are the largest in U.S. history. Rep. Mitchell showed little support to his constituents as they protested the drastic action. Instead, he has loudly supported private charter expansion, which research shows have little accountability and a questionable academic success rate.

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In more education news, Fred Klonsky has this up about DFER and David Axelrod.

Julian Vasquez Helig, PhD, has a great summary of the billionaires’ club influence on public education and charters here.

Diane Ravitch features a poem by a teacher who couldn’t take any more.

Their innocence plundered their self now askew,
They hardened completely while no one even knew.

Their spirits were taken their childhood replaced
A new breed of children – a much meaner race.

Now where are those sadists who made up such rules
to torture young children with cruel cunning ruse?

They’re safe in their castles no thoughts of that time,
When children were maimed by their heinous crime

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Victory for Saucedo teachers

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Woot! Teachers taking back their classrooms!   The tactics of intimidation by Barbara Byrd-Bennett did not work.

…and the teachers, bless their hearts, still taught a lesson in civil disobedience and nonviolence, a la Ghandi and Rosa Parks.

Makes me smile. 🙂

 

Aboriginal rights a threat to Canada’s resource development

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Warrior Publications has this up on what we already knew, but yeah, putting it in writing that Harper and the rest see the land rights of the First Nations folks being problematic.

See…it’s so much harder to get the oil out when you have to ask permission by folks who see it as violating the Earth.  They aren’t as easily swayed by $$ because the Earth is sacred to them.

It’s even more of a problem when those folks have the law on their side.

Honor the Treaties, Canada.

 

 

Supporting teachers, supporting public schools

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Bill de Blasio, the mayor, and Gov. Cuomo were at what could be described as dueling rallies.

Eva Moskowitz, the queen of charters with Success Academy, claims their rally was not meant to compete with Mayor de Blasio’s.  Um-hmmm…

You might remember Success Academy with this post.

Meanwhile, support came far away for the Saucedo teachers in Chicago…from the big ole’ state of Texas.

No Confirmed Link with Pig Feed and virus

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Okay….I’ve been casually reading on this story and find it reeeaaally hard to believe they “can’t find” a link between the dreaded virus in the feed and the pigs contracting the virus.  It just seems a no brainer that if the virus is in the feed…and the pigs come down with the virus…yeah, it’s the feed…and here we have the evidence that the virus can survive not only in feed, but feces and water.

From the article:

While dry ground feed only allowed PEDV to survive for seven days, wet ground feed provided a more hospitable environment, allowing PEDV to survive at least 28 days. Again, the duration could be longer, but Goyal’s study ended. Storing infected feed at room temperature for two weeks should kill the virus.

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The next question is why is blood plasma in the feed to begin with?  Can you say unhealthy, inhumane factory farms?  I knew that you could.

Ryan continues war on poor

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Paul Ryan has not been swayed from his austerity measures, as he still advocates for the rich while seeking to starve people…

I started to watch a link to a Newseum piece hosted by Brian Williams, but five minutes of listening to Paul Ryan and I couldn’t stand any more.  Him being a toadie of Kochs and Peterson just turns my stomach.

More from Mother Jones here.

I followed the link to Paul Ryan’s False Advertising Photo Op at a soup kitchen.  What an opportunist.

It seems that the answer to poverty is pretty basic:  jobs with livable wages; affordable housing; healthcare.  That’s it.  With those factors, you can’t lose, because those are the three factors that keep people off of food stamps, off the streets, and free of financial disaster when an illness hits.

My previous post on Ryan here.

 

 

 

Venezuela Protests: S. American Tea Party?

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Dispatches from the Underclass has an interesting post up on what is happening in Venezuela.

Ukraine, revisited, it would seem…if the allegations about being funded by a conservative, elite network including Americans, is true.

I have no illusions about how greedy oil corporations and others  are and what lengths they will go to in order to get what they perceive as theirs…

…but I have to plead ignorance about the situation there and who is telling the truth–situations can be manipulated by the media, as well as helping shed light.

Here is an article with the opposite stance on the protesters.  It is so lopsided and devoid of facts that I have to wonder about the author’s financial connections to those that stand to gain from Maduro’s overthrow.

Shutting down the media – Russia

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Global News has this up on Russia blocking websites that favored the ouster of the Russia – leaning president.  More here on Ukrainian-Montrealers protesting outside Russian consulate.

This is another example of why we need Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press and how easily those in power can block them with the claim of national security.

As I listen to and read about the uprising/civil war/revolution in Ukraine, the words I hear the most are about economic factors and standing in the world.  The message is framed to turn the viewers’ gaze on how this is going to effect economic status.

And the sharks are circling…waiting to capitalize on the fallout.

Democracy seems to be an afterthought.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again:  most folks around the world just want peace; to take care of their families; be healthy; have a purpose in life.  They want a government they elect to represent their wishes…not their economic benefactors.

Pando Daily had posted this a few days ago.  A billionaire funnels money to the opposition in Ukraine.  Ugh…

My first thought that this is wrong, wrong, wrong.

And then I thought of the dark money of the Kochs and Bill Gates, et al, and my second thought was “is it wrong to fund the underdog when up against dark money…?”

But I don’t know that the underdogs in Ukraine are for democracy or for authoritarianism a la Russia.  Reports have been that at first the original protesters were for democratic society, and then the conservatives, leaning towards authoritarianism, had taken over.

So that begs the question of who is Omidyar supporting? Does he care, as long as he can capitalize on whomever wins?

Comments section is lively and make the point that Pando is also supported by billionaires.

They responded with this article.  They make the claim the Omidyar is hands-on involved in the process, while their contributors cannot touch them with a 30-foot pole.

But back to the main theme of billionaires behind upheaval…

I come back to this is wrong, wrong, wrong in that however good intentions are…somebody always seems to twist things around to the opposite.  The dark ones always seem to manage to quash the emerging light.

If only politicians were put on poverty-level wages…then we would be governed by those truly serving out of duty instead of out of their own self-serving interests.  You’d see a mass exodus from government positions…

**A side note~ one of the links provided was to Glenn Greenwald’s behavior.

 

Public Education: The Hunger Games

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Wow.  This old post by School Finance 101 really drives home the utter madness of school “reform” and draws a correlation between the pitting of kids against each other that Race to the Bottom and Common Core demand in order to receive tax dollars and falsely rate students, teachers, and schools…..and The Hunger Games.

I haven’t seen the movie, but I have seen examples of the pitting of people against one another to “increase production”.  Personally, I have always felt that this was just a sick game by dark ones who enjoy seeing people beat each other up or use underhanded tactics to win.  Kind of like the show “Survivor” put on by “devout Christian” Mark Burnett.  Tell me, Burnett, would Jesus approve of pitting people against one another to win??  Didn’t I read that he fed everyone loaves and fishes…not feeding just a few after making them fight for it??

But, I digress…

I have never understood why business models were held up as some sort of panacea.  If the business model is an elaborate pyramid scheme, how can it possibly be sustainable?  It all depends on making a profit–make that bigger profit.  Greed is the goal instead of sustainability. It just doesn’t make sense.

Phrase of the day:  cannibalistic management practices.

As I’m reading this, I’m thinking of that gym teacher that used to punish the group that lost when we played sports games.  It was punitive and counter-productive–I hated gym class because of it.  It certainly didn’t make me want to exercise more or win more games.  Even if one is good at a particular game, if you have folks on your team who are not, you still lose.  His thinking was that you would shame or bully your teammates to perform better, but that was a stupid, thoughtless gesture that created a negative atmosphere.  It did not allow for some folks being more coordinated and therefore better at sports.  It totally missed the point that it was about getting exercise and making that enjoyable instead of competitive.

It is important to note Microsoft’s copying this insanity…with predictable results.