Category Archives: community

Teachers’ Letters to Bill and Melinda Gates

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This is one of the most compelling letters I’ve read so far.  It’s sickening how these little children are being forced to perform at levels above their comprehension and emotional growth.  It’s abuse, plain and simple.  Bill Gates is a child abuser…why isn’t he held accountable??

Kids had to solve 8+6 when the answer choices were 0-9 and had to DRAG AND DROP first a 1 then a 4 to form a 14. There were questions where it was only necessary to click an answer but the objects were movable (for no reason). There were kids tapping on their neighbor’s computers in frustration. To go to the next question, one clicks “next” in lower right-hand corner…..which is also where the pop-up menu comes up to take you to other programs or shut down, so there were many instances of shut-downs and kids winding up in a completely different program.

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Some of the links in the letter:

Gates dining with 80 Senators. Eighty.  Unfortunately, it stops short of naming names. So, I went looking for other reports to try to find out the senators’ names…no such luck.  All that I could find were quoting Politico.

On Politico’s site, I found this little tidbit:

SPOTTED: Political odd-couple Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) having dinner last night at Bistro Bis just off Capitol Hill. Sen. Joe Donnelly later strolled over with a big group to say hi. (h/ts: @ZStoller and @dsamuelsohn) Pic here: http://bit.ly/1qyM4dx

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Wanna bet Joe Donnelly was one of those senators that dined with Gates?

And from this link:

There is a growing body of evidence that the Common Standards are not the solution to make America more competitive, to make kids smarter in math, reading and science, and any of the other ills that have been cast upon the education system.  I’ve reported on this blog that independent research questions the efficacy of a standard-based approach to education as it is now conceived.  The standards-based system is a top-down authoritarian system that disregards the professional decision-making ability of classroom teachers.  I’ve reported research by Wallace that shows that this authoritarian accountability system is a barrier to teaching and learning.

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….the Gates Foundation has invested about $2.3 billion into the Common Standards and related efforts.

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Bill and Melinda Gates are not educators.  Why does their $$$ opinion $$$ matter more than those who are educators and don’t wish to abuse children?!

Run, Lucy, Run **updated

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Lucy the emu made a break for freedom on Monday…

As I read “her owner would like to catch her and bring her home…”

…I thought “she already IS home…”

Funny how because they can’t speak about their wishes…that those wishes are ignored.  No human being wants to be caged–and yet…here “she” is making a break for it, so her/his wishes are clearly to be free, as she/he was meant to be.

**updated 3.25.14 — poor Lucy was captured.  The article and a commenter stated that she/he was now “safe”.  Hello?  She may be safe living in captivity, but is she happy?  It never ceases to amaze me how frightened people would rather be caged and “safe” than free and taking the risks that go with that….and they project that onto wild animals.

Greenpeace protests logging in Canada

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Report here. 

What bothers me is when I see trees torn down for yet more construction when there are thousands of empty buildings waiting to be occupied.  There should be a law that prohibits this–we don’t have the luxury of time anymore.  We need those trees to take the carbon dioxide out of the air and provide us with fresh oxygen.  Indiana is especially bad about destroying forests–when you look at aerial photos, you can pick Indiana out just by the lack of trees.   You can tell such a difference when leaving Indiana and going to Ohio–the air is better.  Combine this with the 15 million pounds of toxins released into our waterways…toxic soup.  (sigh)

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. 

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”…

 

Mohawk became ill after fed jail meal

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Warrior Publications has this up on a Mohawk warrior who became ill after being fed a meal while being held in jail.

He became violently ill, but did not receive medical attention.

Shawn Brant is asking that the tape of the day he became ill not be erased. There’s no mention of any remaining food being tested, so I’m guessing that is not being done.

It doesn’t appear that the police are going to own this, based on the comments of the representative.  We’ll see…

Spring

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Heard a songbird singing its heart out this morning…

I think we might have moved past this strong, forceful winter…tomorrow the forecast is for 50 degrees. Woot.

It still might take awhile for the ice road that is the driveway to disappear…mornings will be…interesting…if the temps dip down below freezing at night.  Slip slidin’ away…

Winter brings its own stories–some days I would see deer tracks in the snow, along with bunny tracks.  It is amazing that any of them survive in such brutal conditions.

The poor dog hasn’t seen grass in three months. Heh.

I saw a robin for the first time last week (others saw them earlier). I’m afraid that one of the neighborhood cats might have gotten one, because an area had a bunch of feathers scattered about…

The sun has moved across the horizon…the heated orange coming through the fingers of the trees in the lane…

Welcome Spring.

Chicago Teachers Under Fire

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Ken Previtti has this up on the bullying of Chicago Teachers….a modern day twist of McCarthyism, where if you don’t tow the line, you’re blacklisted via losing certification.

Democracy, meet dictatorship.

This is unconscionable.    The teachers refuse to subject the kids to it. The parents don’t want it. And the kids certainly don’t benefit from it.  As Ken states, the only people that benefit are the education profiteer$ who sell the test prep, the tests, scoring the tests, and anything else they can think of to profit.

Are the parents not taxpayers? Are the teachers not taxpayers? And the public taxpayer who does not want CCSS?  Again I ask, if the taxpayers don’t want this…then why are their wishes being ignored?

Meanwhile, in Indiana, they are going to push online learning to make up for all the snow days we had this winter….nice way to shoehorn the kids into online learning…

…and get rid of teachers altogether.

My environmental journey

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The critics of environmentalists claim that we’re phonies…okay, well, here is my journey…

…my advocating for the environment has been a slow evolving process that includes my experience with mercury poisoning, growing awareness of what we’re doing to the atmosphere, and a spiritual component of realizing everything is connected.

Here are some of the things I do:

–use cloth bags when going to the grocery.  I might use plastic for meat, but I re-use those bags, too, bringing them to the grocery along with the cloth bags.  If you use the cloth bags for meat, be sure to launder them before using again, to avoid contamination.

–avoid plastic packaging. …well, plastic *everything*.   This has been much easier following the GAPS diet because you don’t eat the processed food in packaging, but real food.  If I am given an option, I will buy something in glass packaging before plastic.

—re-use the glass containers for drinking glasses, food storage, plants, etc. I try to avoid ziploc bags when possible.

—don’t purchase synthetic materials like nylon and other materials requiring petroleum.  The list I think is a catch-all, because I think some of the things listed are made with petroleum if plastic or manufactured cloth such as nylon, so some of the products listed could be okay if not using those materials.  Here’s a website on organic cotton, fyi.

–When I had my home, I made a conscious decision not to pave the driveway–it was gravel.  I didn’t spray for weeds, either.  I let my grass grow to 3 inches so that the roots could grow deeply enough to avoid having to water the lawn, especially during the dry time in July–this also helped keep the weeds down. Meanwhile, my neighbors practically shaved the grass off and…wait for it…had to waste precious water to keep the grass from dying in July.    I let a patch of ground that was the former owner’s garden, grow its natural way, without my interference.  Yeah, I was the neighborhood hippie…

—use baking soda, borax, and vinegar for cleaning.  A formula I found in a natural health mag goes like this:  Bathroom cleaner:  6 T vinegar, 2 T borax mixed with a cup– of warm water.  Put this in a 1 qt. spray bottle and fill the rest with water.  Works great, especially if used every day.

—I would like to use non-toxic natural cleaners for laundry, dish washing, etc., but with my finances, this isn’t doable right now. Oh, and fyi, avoid dishwashers–the detergent used in them is highly toxic.

—ride a bike or walk when going somewhere.  This was easier for me when I lived in Fort Wayne, where everything was within walking distance.  I could get to the downtown in 45 minutes to an hour.  There is something to be said for walking or riding–you are much more connected to what is going on around you.  You hear the birds sing.  Feel the breeze.  Hear the ripple of water along the river…driving a vehicle cuts you off from so much, besides polluting.

—use flannel cloths instead of toilet paper and re-wash them.  I know, I know, some of you are going “ick” right now.  No. 1 is fine…No. 2 still requires paper. So there.

—cloth pads instead of chemically manufactured pads.

—use less.  I just use less.  This was part of the learning process of being poor–you just learn how to manage on less.  Not easy, for sure.  I became much more adept at planning meals and using food up before it went to waste.  I didn’t buy as much at the grocery until I needed it.  This is easier if the grocery is within walking distance….which is becoming harder as the independents are being forced out while big box stores are situated out in no-man’s-land, forcing people to drive there.

—garden organically, using compost from kitchen waste, and if you’re really adventurous, pee and poo.   This is not for sissies…so come with your brain in active mode and your determination to get away from petroleum and chemicals.  You will succeed, but you can’t give up when challenged.  Nature does challenge you, but also gives such splendid rewards. 😉

This is an ongoing process, for sure.  I didn’t just wake up one day and start doing all of this.  It was a gradual endeavor with every new discovery of my own contribution to pollution.

So…there you have it…my efforts towards helping instead of hurting the environment.

I think if we all took those first steps, and built on that, we would greatly reduce our dependency on petroleum.  Everything helps and every bit matters.