Category Archives: art and music

The Winter We Danced

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Leanne Betasamosake Simpson has a post up on a book about the Idle No More movement with stories and poems and such.  I haven’t read it, but would love to have a copy of what sounds like a wonderful historical book.  She notes that the royalties will benefit the indigenous youth. 

Brainless model stands up to Terry Richardson

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Well, this was heartening when I read it…a young woman is not taken in by Terry Richardson’s manipulation, bullying, and exploitation.

I admire her, as many young women are unsure of themselves, which Richardson exploits.  I can feel it in my bones that the young women are most likely the victims of prior molestation or products of a home life that devalued them.  It’s hard to think you have the right to set boundaries when your boundaries were violated by someone you trusted…whether that be in a sexual way or in violation of your sense of self–your own autonomy.

…and the question is:  how many women have to be allegedly assaulted by this guy before authorities nab him?

My former post here.

 

Fact-Checking Eva Moskowitz; Dangerous Bipartisan collusion

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Diane Ravitch has posted this on Eva Moskowitz’s loose version of the facts.

Moskowitz’s Success Academy 4 has almost none of the highest special needs students as compared to nearby Harlem public schools. In a school with nearly 500 students, Success Academy 4 has zero, or one, such students, while the average Harlem public school includes 14.1 percent such students. With little sense of irony or embarrassment, Moskowitz has attacked Bill de Blasio for preventing the school’s expansion inside PS 149. Her school’s expansion would have come at the cost of space for students with disabilities. The school has already lost “a fully equipped music room … A state-mandated SAVE room … A computer lab… Individual rooms for occupational and physical therapy … and the English Language Learners (ELL) classroom,” due to earlier Success Academy expansions in the same building.

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Moskowitz made a number of other claims during her Morning Joe appearance. She said “we are self-sustaining on the public dollar alone.” In fact, Success Academyspends $2,072 more per student than schools serving similar populations. This additional funding comes from donations by the very same hedge fund moguls who have donated over $400,000 to Governor Cuomo’s re-election campaign (charter supporters in the financial and real estate sector have contributed some $800,000 to Governor Cuomo’s campaign).

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Jan Resseger posts about the dangerous bipartisan conventional *cough* wisdom.

As early as 1989, President George H.W. Bush, responding to fears that the United States was becoming uncompetitive,  launched a movement based on standards, assessments, and accountability by convening an education summit of the nation’s governors, chaired by Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas, to agree on national education goals. Through the 1990s states began to embrace test-based accountability. Then in 2001, when Congress—under President George W. Bush—reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, with a new name, “No Child Left Behind,” the federal government mandated test-and-punish.

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Once again, the Bushes and Clintons responsible for so much destruction and misery.

Today, DN hosted a debate between public schools and charters.  The car salesman, er I mean, charter school proponent, Steve Barr,of Green Dot, who was behind the fiasco of Los Angeles schools, Parent Revolution, and  Brian Jones , a public school teacher now pursuing a doctorate.

Barr did the usual charter proponent schtick:  he tried to once again pull the wool over the public’s eye and say that charter schools were public schools; he refused to answer direct questions (because he knew it would make charters look bad); and repeatedly stated he was a “progressive”.  Yeah, right.  Just like Bill Clinton is a progressive.  Wink, wink. Nod, nod.

He was pushing the “progressive” schtick a little too much in hopes that would make opponents back down, I guess, because he’s a “good guy”.  Pffft.  He also lied about charters NOT being about profit.  Thankfully, he got called on that….but some key points were not countered by Amy or Juan.  I was disappointed in that.

Finally, Reclaim Reform has a post up on Diane and the FUD, or Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt propaganda campaign to destroy public education.  This is one of the psychological techniques used in communications that turned my stomach and why I would never be in PR.  Fear, sex, anger, and love are the top communications techniques to persuade people….keep that in mind, folks, whenever you view any type of media: spoken word, radio, TV, internet, printed, etc.

Related to this, the local school administration said this on the radio: “A teacher can ask the student how many nickels equal a quarter…but if they go to a computer, it can be illustrated how many nickels equal a quarter, and then a dollar, and so on…” (may not be verbatim, but close).  What I heard from that is two things:  1) teachers are boring, so we have to have computer animation; and 2) another way to slip online/computer learning as a replacement of live, human beings.  I personally would have illustrated how many nickels equal a quarter by bringing out five nickels.  I would always use visual cues to help kids understand.  This is especially important for dyslexics, of which I am one.

And a question that keeps rolling around in my head is…why are these people called philanthropists?  Isn’t philanthropy giving money away, not expecting anything in return?  ‘Cause the Broads, Clintons, Bushes, Gates, and billionaires boys clubs absolutely expect to gain from their so-called philanthropy. Absolutely.  So I don’t see that this is philanthropy, but should be called “investment”…

 

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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Sleazebag Terry Richardson **updated

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I came across the name Terry Richardson as a sleazebag photographer…and decided to look him up to see what the fuss was about.  What I found was sickening, to say the least.

Warning, the links here and here are graphic, so if that bothers you, don’t click.  Briefly, this photographer has done some creepy acts, including alleged rape, by the models he was supposed to be shooting.  And the alleged abuse is known to the industry….so why are they allowing it…?  Because they use sex to sell the products…?

As someone whom has been sexually harassed and abused, I take this very personally.  I know his type of predator and how they operate….so it’s not hard to believe he did these actions because the predators always work in the same way–gain trust, manipulate, use power over, and then abuse them while accusing them of “wanting it.”

Excuse me, I need to go throw up…

**updated with more on this creep here.