Category Archives: Big Brother

Silencing Teachers

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Diane Ravitch has this up on the firing of teacher Mike Weston.  He spoke his mind about valid issues in education….and was fired for it.

And, of course, Gates Foundation’s dirty little fingers are in the pie, as well….

Weston spoke out against the Gates’ teacher evaluation test, ironically named Empowering Effective Teachers…gah, how he must have laughed himself silly when thinking up that name….for it is about disabling them, instead…

Note that Weston was questioning the curriculum for those not on the college-bound track.  I took the non-college path in high school because I never thought I would be able to attend, and I can say that there is such a chasm there between them.  I don’t think dumbing down the kids by not challenging them is the way to go.  How are they ever going to know their potential?

More about Mike Weston here.

 

Caging Birds

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I was flipping through the channels and saw that PBS was going to air a Nature spot featuring Hummingbirds.  Ah, I thought, a nice evening’s show.

Nope.

First, the hummers were doing their thing and going from flower to flower to get the nectar.  It showed ones with the ruby throat, ones with super-long beaks, and so on.

Then the show flips to the laboratory where a scientist is studying them.  The camera zooms into a hummer striking the glass “wall” in its confusion.  As the narrator tells the story of the scientist wanting to study the endurance of the hummer, it shows them attaching what looked to be a row of paper clips to the hummer’s feet, as it struggles to fly upward.

Well, that was it for me.

I can’t stand seeing animals caged.  I can’t understand why a scientist feels the need to, in essence, torture this bird that was once free to fly wherever it wanted.

And to those who would say, “hey, it’s getting food and is sheltered from predators…what’s the big deal…?”

To that I would say “Freedom is a big deal.”

That bird losing its ability to roam wherever and whenever and  just being let alone without someone poking at it –well, that’s what Spirit is about.  That’s what feeds the Soul. If that bird could talk, it would tell you the same thing.

Remember Fu Manchu?

The really chilling thing is….we’re not that far behind…

Making a silk purse…

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…out of a sow’s ear is an old saying, but applicable here to describe the continued damage of No Child Left a Mind…which has not improved the public schools, and in my opinion, made them worse.

You cannot test potential.

You cannot eliminate arts and music from education.  Arts and music teach creative expression.  It’s with creativity that one can imagine solutions to problems that one might not have otherwise thought of.  Teaching to the test only teaches children to memorize answers, not think creatively or outside the box.

Politicians have no business setting education standards.  It’s obvious by continuing the failed policy of No Child Left Behind that they don’t have a clue.

 

Manning trial starts today

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(hat tip commondreams)

If they are successful with prosecution, we can kiss our Consitution good-bye.  The First Amendment guarantees one the right to speak out to air one’s grievances against the government.  I don’t believe that this was the only way that Bin Laden could have gotten his information or even if it was paramount to him attacking us.  They attacked us on 9/11 without the help of Manning…but the agencies knew of Osama and their own mistakes allowed the attack.  It’s so much easier to make someone else the fall guy when trying to deflect attention from your own mistakes.  And I don’t believe the charge of “aiding the enemy” is true in this case.  Intention is *everything* in criminal trials and I don’t believe that Manning’s intention was aiding bin Laden, but to highlight what was happening to inform the American public, which was not being informed by the mainstream media.

 

And if you read to the end, you see that the chilling effect is already taking place…whistleblowers are afraid to come forward with information.

Chilling, indeed.

Wisconsin Tea Party afraid someone might eat tonight…

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…so they’re going to make sure that if you get $1 over your allotted meager unemployment check, they’re going to freeze your bank account.  Holy crap, I think Walker is the anti-Christ….by that I mean doing the opposite of what Christ would do…you know, Loaves and fishes….Walker would tell them to get a freaking job and stop expecting free handouts.

 

Blackwater, Monsanto, and Gates Foundation

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In keeping up with all the dirty little deeds the Gates Foundation promotes….here is an article on the link between Gates, Monsanto, and Blackwater.   Really disturbing.

The article mentions The Nation with Jeremy Scahill—while looking for the Scahill article, I happened upon this with a scathing reply by the authors:

We agree that it will ultimately be up to farmers to decide what is best for them. Our concern continues, however, to be that the choices farmers face is systematically skewed, with some ideas being amplified over others. Any policies that involve redistribution–such as land reform–are off the Gates agenda, despite being a live concern to many African farmers’ movements. This demonstrates our broader point. Despite the foundation’s best efforts to be accountable once the policy has been laid down, the Gates Foundation’s interventions reflect, at heart, the undemocratic vision of a single very powerful and ultimately unaccountable organization.

Sincerely,

RAJ PATEL
ERIC HOLT-GIMENEZ
ANNIE SHATTUCK
www.foodfirst.org

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(italics are mine.)
Jeremy Scahill’s article here.

One of the most incendiary details in the documents is that Blackwater, through Total Intelligence, sought to become the “intel arm” of Monsanto, offering to provide operatives to infiltrate activist groups organizing against the multinational biotech firm.

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Another fracking/nuclear/oil toadie on CSPAN

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Michael Levi was on CSPAN this morning…he was vague in his assertions, but reading between the lines, I saw “fracking toadie”.

He has written a book on energy that they were highlighting on CSPAN.  It has the words  “battle for  America’s future”  ….words that are emotional and raise an immediate red flag.

Brookings Institute fellow—another huge red flag.

From the wiki page on it:

Funders

At the end of 2004 the Brookings Institution had assets of $258 million and spent $39.7 million, while its budget has grown to more than $80 million in 2009.[64] Its largest contributors include the Ford Foundation, the Gates Foundation, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and her husband Richard C. Blum, Bank of America, ExxonMobil, Pew Charitable Trusts, the MacArthur Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation, and the governments of the United States, Japan, Qatar, the Republic of China, the District of Columbia, and the United Kingdom.

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The Gates Foundation.  ExxonMobil. Republic of China.  Bank of America.  All giving money…for what payback…because these folks play to win and they don’t throw their money after something without expecting something in return.

And why is our government contributing to a think tank??

Here’s another piece I found on the Brookings Institute and their treatment of Diane Ravitch.  Pretty much says it all, doesn’t it?  I don’t know why they are considered liberal?

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And the fact that Levi is a doctor doesn’t necessarily impress me–Mengele and Freud were also doctors who skewed things towards their point of view.  It’s especially troubling that his doctorate is in War Studies.

He was advocating “clean energy” another industry catch phrase that actually means “keep on doing what we’ve always been doing, but keeping our dirty business out of the public eye as much as we can…”  (as seen by the non-coverage of the Arkansas oil spill.)

He was also stating that fracking should be done, and concern for the environment should be a priority. Sounds good, eh?  But then….he states further in the interview that the *only* problem was what to do with the contaminated water once they had extracted the natural gas…um, yeah, he totally ignores that there is a HUGE problem with the chemicals traveling through the earth to people’s wells, contaminating them.   My blog on that here. And here. And here.

There was a male caller making outrageous statements about green energy and allowing even more leasing to oil/gas companies…and he was not characterized as emotional…

…but when a woman caller called in and raised the earthquake question and the contamination from the chemicals…whoa…she was *cough*  “emotional”.  (I can’t remember if that was Levi’s exact wording, but the meaning was the same.)  In other words, even though she brought up facts, she was discredited as being emotional.  ::don’t worry your pretty little head, darling, we men folk will take care of this important stuff::   Grrrr.

So, my conclusion from the above is the Michael Levi is an energy industry toadie.  He’s dirty.

 

AG – GAG hits a snag…

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(sorry, couldn’t help myself)

It would seem that the attempts by the ALEC groups to infringe on the First Amendment right to speak out have been thwarted…at least for now.

Stories here.

Be sure to click on the link for the Amy Meyer story.  Chilling.

And Indiana drops it for the year.  Knowing how they like to bring stuff under the radar, I’ll assume that it will be back next year and voted in when attention is diverted elsewhere…

Ten Things Charter Schools Won’t Tell You; and the Modern Day Witch Hunt

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(**edited to fix  links. Oops.)

Diane Ravitch has a link up to this piece on the dirty little secrets of charter schools.  Everything that parents want in education is not in these schools.  They’re all fluff and no substance.  They’re not there to educate, but to collect funds. (it is so arrogant to think that you don’t have to be audited…you’re using the public funds for your endeavor–you better have your books open to the public. Gah…where have we heard this before?  IRS, anyone?)

They dump the learning disabled and behavioral cases.

I also clicked on the link to the “Ten Things Your School District Won’t Tell You” and have a few quibbles with the writer.  One is the licensing thing–Indiana has required licenses from teachers and not only that, but that they further their education into Master’s degrees–at least they used to.  I can’t say whether that is still true–I haven’t checked it lately…and with Governor Daniels’ assault on the public education in Indiana, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if that standard has lapsed. )

Another thing I have a quibble with is the student-teacher ratio.  People want to have smaller class size?  Then you better be prepared to spend more in tax dollars towards the amount of teachers in the school.  But no…we can’t spend tax money on schools…we need to spend it on the military industrial complex because of a boogey-man enemy….meanwhile, our society crumbles all around…

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Ravitch also has another blog up with this link to the continuing meanness of the Queen of Mean, Leona Helmsley,. whom uttered the line:  “Only the little people pay taxes….”

(gotta love the snarky style of the writer…heh.)

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Courage and ethics.

…something tells me that you won’t see this with Charter school teachers. Nope.  Nor would I think they would lay down their lives for their students, as we saw with the Oklahoma tornado.  I’m sure there will be exceptions to the rule, but as a general application…I just don’t see that kind of caring about the kids.  It’s hard to care about something when you’re looking at it with $$ in your eyes….

…speaking of which.

Incredible.  Just incredible.  The game is on, folks.  Be aware of anything that plays on your emotions…as these opportunists are doing…look how they have tried to using anger, outrage, and the ever effective “don’t be a dummy and let them get away with whatever it is WE say they’re doing”  and the “us versus them” divisional tactics.

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And now we have the modern day “witch hunt” where it only takes a few disgruntled people to start a whispering campaign, or in this case, a petition drive, to disparage and ultimately permanently damage someone. (from Ravitch’s blog here.) (and the fact that it is once again a woman who is the target speaks volumes.)

I can’t get past this:

Parent leader Llury Garcia said that although her second-grade daughter has done fairly well at Weigand, Cobian was inaccessible and rude. She and other petition backers were assisted by Parent Revolution, a Los Angeles nonprofit that lobbied for the parent trigger law and is aiding overhaul efforts at several other Los Angeles campuses.

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…although her second-grade daughter has done fairly well at Weigard….mindboggling—just mindboggling….that this parent would start a drive to oust her because she wasn’t “accessible” and perhaps was curt with her.  No telling what Garcia did that would warrant a crisp reply.  It says more about Garcia than about Cobian, as you read that Cobian was very accessible to the kids and frequently popped into the classrooms.  And the parent whose child had academic and behavioral issues…well, I don’t know the parent or the child personally, but what I do know is that the parent has to take responsibility towards the child’s education and is perhaps responsible for the behavioral issues (not always, as there are other factors in behavior, but the ultimate responsibility is the parents’. )  I mean, I have seen children come to school without breakfast!  And the parent expects the child to learn on an empty stomach?  Or worse, blame the teacher because the child can’t concentrate because they’re hungry…?!! (Or perhaps with this economy, the parent is poor and not able to provide a good nutritious breakfast…)

I have seen parents who don’t want to take responsibility…and expect the schools to be miracle workers.  They won’t put out the effort towards their own kids…

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…and then there is the subtext–I can’t help but wonder if Cobian is a liberal/progressive and Garcia is a conservative….just throwing that out there…

More on Rosen and the attack on investigative journalism

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I missed this from Glenn Greenwald.  It’s more in-depth on the specifics…and what it means to investigative journalists.  In essence, it is criminalizing the act of journalism.

From the article:

Under US law, it is not illegal to publish classified information. That fact, along with the First Amendment’s guarantee of press freedoms, is what has prevented the US government from ever prosecuting journalists for reporting on what the US government does in secret. This newfound theory of the Obama DOJ – that a journalist can be guilty of crimes for “soliciting” the disclosure of classified information – is a means for circumventing those safeguards and criminalizing the act of investigative journalism itself.

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Our democracy depends on being able to inform the citizens of their government’s actions, so that they can make informed decisions towards that government.  As Greenwald points out—the media was silent with Julian Assange…and only now are they starting to squawk now that AP has been caught up in the assault on the freedom of speech and the press…