Diane Ravitch has a link up to the discussion on the Washington Post. You can’t let President Obama off the hook, as is discussed–he picked Arne Duncan and actually praised No Child Left a Mind while slobbering over Bush at the dedication to the *cough* library.
No one who cares about public education and children can endorse No Child Left a Mind. Only someone with a narrow view and narrow mind can believe it is a success. Those with $$ in their eyes, that is….
…at what they have done to our schools….
Little ones who are now exposed to the constant fear of some bad person coming into their school and killing them or their teacher…
Schools being locked down every day instead of just when there is a possible suspect in the area…
…and No Child left a Mind continuing to be regarded as some sort of successful program, when all arrows point in the opposite direction…
…and the ones that care, the teachers and principals who give a rat’s behind about the children and not just earning a paycheck, well…they’re the ones that are leaving the profession.
I just want to cry.
…no, not THAT one! This guy was arrested for posing as Bush….how ironic to arrest a guy exercising his First Amendment rights…while Bush is given accolades he did not earn nor does he deserve.
I swear that I did not see this before making my previous comment on the connection between domestic violence and war. Wow, what a timely article.
From the article:
Some 3,073 people were killed in the terrorist attacks on the United States on 9/11. Between that day and June 6, 2012, 6,488 US soldiers were killed in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, bringing the death toll for America’s war on terror at home and abroad to 9,561. During the same period, 11,766 women were murdered in the United States by their husbands or boyfriends, both military and civilian. The greater number of women killed here at home is a measure of the scope and the furious intensity of the war against women, a war that threatens to continue long after the misconceived war on terror is history.
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On the photos taken of the violence at home:
The photos are remarkable because the photographer is very good and the subject of her attention is so rarely caught on camera. Unlike warfare covered in Iraq and Afghanistan by embedded combat photographers, wife torture takes place mostly behind closed doors, unannounced and unrecorded.
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An excellent point–because in Communications, the Vietnam War is known as the media war —a war that was lost because of the diligence of the press–they brought the war home every night on the nightly news. People could see with their own eyes what was happening–politicians in Washington could not whitewash it. The violence we were doing to others could not be denied. The thought of a photographer taking photos while someone commits domestic violence makes my stomach turn…and at the same time, I’m thinking “is this what it takes to make it *real*….???” Do the people have to see photos of women beaten to a pulp on the nightly news, every night to grasp how horrible this is?
Here’s another report on domestic violence in Africa following war. Does the war cause domestic violence or is it a cycle repeating itself?
Diane Ravitch has this up on the debate on Common Core education standards in Michigan. It’s odd that they are debating it after they had accepted it….jumped the gun, maybe? That seems to be all to common in the education world–some *expert* claims to have the magic bullet for *fixing* education, but that never seems to pan out….
Another good blog from Diane Ravitch on the bullying in schools…
….not by the kids, mind you, but a teacher under pressure to conform and teach to the test and the principal who, as a commenter put it, has “lost their way”.
As was said–pit the parents and teachers against one another, and *voila*, you have dysfunction….leading to failing schools that can be closed and handed over to the profiteers….
From the blog:
My daughter, who is in the 11th grade, was victimized by her principal and teacher today because she submitted an opt out letter. She was made to feel wrong and unsupportive of her school because she wasn’t going to take the test.
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This is what I was talking about in my previous blog–it can be intimidating even for a parent to speak out–let alone a student who is vulnerable to the teacher’s grades and attitude.
Uppity people who ask questions or protest something they perceive as detrimental are to be dealt with—can’t have that because before you know it, there will be others who will also start asking questions….
common dreams has this up on an unapologetic George W. Bush . The cartoon says it in ways that words could never come close.
From Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary:
/ˈsoʊsijəˌpæθ/ nounplural so·cio·paths
/ˌsoʊsijəˈpæθɪk/ adjectiveAt the same time, representatives from ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Halliburton, among others, met with Cheney’s staff in January 2003 to discuss plans for Iraq’s postwar industry. For the next decade, former and current executives of western oil companies acted first as administrators of Iraq’s oil ministry and then as “advisers” to the Iraqi government.
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Note further down the word privatization. Sound familiar??
I tried to search for Afghanistan profiteering, but coming up empty. I’ll wager that it’s the same, since there is an oil pipeline there.
I found this on the companies that profit the most from war.
Feeding the dark side.
common dreams has a link up to this McClatchy piece on the targets of drones–an estimated 3,500 people killed.
From the piece:
“The United States has gone far beyond what the U.S. public – and perhaps even Congress – understands the government has been doing and claiming they have a legal right to do,” said Mary Ellen O’Connell, a Notre Dame Law School professor who contends that CIA drone operations in Pakistan violate international law.
The administration has declined to reveal other details of the program, such as the intelligence used to select targets and how much evidence is required for an individual to be placed on a CIA “kill list.” The administration also hasn’t even acknowledged the existence of so-called signature strikes, let alone discussed the legal and procedural foundations of the attacks.
I heard about this on the local rightwing radio. They stated that the protest in Fort Wayne was a bust because they don’t manufacture drones. And the union workers mounted a counter-protest.
The comments here are priceless on Margaret Thatcher’s passing. Gah, I used to think so well of this woman in my repub daze. Arrgh.
And even if I had the money, I would not have seen Meryl Streep’s version of her. I was afraid that the worst would not come out, and from the comments on the movie, my guess was accurate. Trying to make her into someone to admire? Wow, Streep has gone so far away from Silkwood.
The comments on feminists praising Thatcher as being a woman that “made it” is spot on. One doesn’t have to look any farther than Hillary Clinton to see that.
I mean, really, Clinton makes a big deal about being asked about her clothes, and there are feminists who applaud that thinking she’s being assertive. Pfft. Men are asked about the suits they wear. I wouldn’t know what an Armani suit was if not for that. And a man could not walk into a courtroom, to use the above example, in jeans and flannel shirt and expect to be given the same consideration from a judge that he would if he were wearing a suit. Men notice other men’s suits, but they’re not as obvious about it. It may come out as “hey, nice suit” and left at that.
Should a person be judged by appearance? Absolutely not.
In my personal observation, we are becoming worse about judging folks by the outside instead of the inside. Our cultural programming, from watching shows like Survivor, among other things, buys into the notion that others are superior. Some see clothes as an indicator of superiority. I remember that it wasn’t so much so before we moved away from an agricultural (family farm) culture. I remember when Levi’s became the preferred jean and you were “uncool” if you didn’t have those jeans. Uncool = lesser person. This also coincides with “poor person”, btw….
Somehow our culture became twisted along the way and “rich people” became associated with “good people”. Being poor, one comes to assess folks not on their bank accounts, but on their actions. What do they do with their funds? Do they help others or spend their time degrading others and, like the Kochs, do their best to make sure that they have it all?
Anyway, Margaret Thatcher and Ronnie Reagan were the architects of what we’re dealing with today–the culture of greed. “I’ve got mine, screw you.” or “I’ve got mine, and I want yours, too.”
Eagle 
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