Category Archives: equality

U.S. Dept. of Ed. receiving money from Gates

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What a bombshell…the United States Department of Education is taking dirty money from Bill and Melinda Gates.

For a “collaboration conference” April 2012

Another “collaborative” effort to implement Common Core, December 2013

Note the “shared responsibility” white paper….and the focus is on labor collaboration…nothing about a well-rounded education as a robust part of democracy….the focus is on labor and business.

Note the paper states that the Dept. of Ed. is under “immense pressure” to implement labor-management collaborative…um, yeah, I don’t remember asking for more corporate involvement in public schools, have you…?

This sentence is telling:

To advance this collaborative theory of change the Department has been using both its convening and

grant making powers.

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(I have no idea why the font changed to smaller size…must be the pdf.)

…in other words, the Dept. of Ed. has been coercing schools to adopt the policy through grants and legislation…

n February 2012, the Department

announced the launch of the RESPECT Project.
RESPECT stands for Recognizing Educational Success, Professional Excellence, and Collaborative Teaching.
The project’s purpose is to directly engage with teachers across America in a national conversation about transforming the teaching profession by
dramatically changing the way teachers are recruited,
credentialed, supported, compensated, promoted,
and retained in the profession.
The near-term aim of the RESPECT Project is to elevate teachers’ voices in shaping federal,
state, and local policy, with a long-
term goal of making teaching one of America’s most respected professions.

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This is such a joke.  Respect means you pay teachers a decent wage that reflects their professional education and their experience.  Respect means you do not bash teachers and teacher’s unions.

“…the…aim of RESPECT Project is to elevate teachers’ voices…”  Unless, of course, those voices are in passionate disagreement with you:

Finally, I found this wonderful video that takes on “Waiting for Superman” and all the false claims made by the education profiteers and their allies:

Supporting Walmart and McDonalds…

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…but not the working poor.

$7 BILLION dollars to the biggest welfare queens…McDonalds and Walmart.

Peter is an unethical toad. He never mentions the $$ executive pay that could easily be cut to allow for a decent livable wage.  And preying on the mentally challenged?  I have no words.

This  LA Times article talks about income inequality and executive pay:

Unlike most SEC regulations, the CEO rule isn’t really designed to provide information for investors. Rather, it’s designed to provide information for the larger community — for society, if you will. Its aim is to provide ammunition for the argument that the share of corporate profits going to top management, and by extension corporate shareholders, has gotten out of control.

That’s a sound argument, shared by many management experts and economists who argue that the diversion of corporate resources from workers to executives and shareholders is a major contributor to rising income inequality in the U.S., as well as to other social and economic ills.
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This information would be very helpful to folks who wish to invest but want to do so with a conscience.  Even if I had the money, I would think twice before investing again–I would not want to invest in a company that paid the execs 350% more than workers, nor one like Johnson, who was sooo overcompensated for….failure.  That’s poor management, in my opinion.
This piece states that companies were supposed to notify shareholders of environmental impacts…it’s been awhile since I had invested in stocks, but I don’t recall ever receiving notice of what a company did environmentally.  And would those reports be worth anything?  If a company is polluting, and does not wish to alert shareholders, they could skew the statistics towards a favorable view.  They could also use jabberwocky language to confuse people.
A better option would be independent inspectors sending stockholders reports of all the above to hopefully get an unbiased opinion.

Mi’kmaq Warrior Suzanne Patles speaks

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She addresses the situation in Canada and how the indigenous’ rights outlined in the law have not been honorably enforced.  She speaks with heartfelt passion towards the land.  She sees this as a fight for her children.

We are all borrowing this land while we are here–no one owns the land, truly.  One cannot own what one did not create…and one cannot take without giving equally in return…

#RacistOil

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(Side note~ I updated the “Eat Cake” blog–)

Warrior Publications has this up on the racist rant of *cough* Ethical Oil, a pro-oil group.

Al Gore said in this article “there’s no such thing as ethical oil”….

 

 

Neil Young sings Mother Earth

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What a stirring, beautiful song.  (Now THIS is what I’m talking about when I talk about music stirring the soul!) (hat tip to Global News Canada)

Thank you to Neil Young for making this available.  The video is just stunning…how beautiful the untouched Earth is when left alone…and how quickly it is destroyed by thoughtlessness and lack of vision of the future…

Young isn’t asking for any contributions, but I’m sure this song will be available for download.  If you’re able, please support him and this effort.  We are all connected.

Newark parents fighting back

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This just makes my morning!  Bob Braun’s article here.

The explosion of personal anger occurred at 8:30 pm, two hours after the meeting at First Avenue School got off to a delayed and troubled start.  Scores of residents who wanted to attend the meeting were kept outside in single-digit temperatures. Then some were allowed to enter an unheated cafeteria. Police officers, citing fire regulations, said the auditorium in the school was too crowded.

The venue clearly was chosen to keep the size of the crowd down.

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See…you can control the negative speech against you by making it harder for the mounting opposition to even get a space to stand.

Remember what I said in the previous blog about education and how it seemed like they were trying to separate kids from their parents by reducing the amount of time at home?

Well, this statement kind of supports that:

a letter to families that suggested if Newark children were home from school they would get into trouble, make the city “less safe” and cause crime to go up

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Where do I start?  The insinuation is that parents don’t know how to raise their kids.  That kids are little criminals just waiting for the opportunity to commit a criminal act.

Perhaps art and music instruction would be helpful here in creating and encouraging imaginations so that kids could entertain themselves while out of school, eh?

They could be painting, drawing, learning a new game, playing/practicing an instrument,  playing tag outside, making snow sharks 🙂  , or doing something to give back, like shoveling an elderly/disabled person’s sidewalks, or running errands…the list is endless….

Helping Afghan women

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I sometimes forget about my “past life”…

I had purchased a crafted zippered “wallet”,  for want of a better word, crafted by the women of Afghanistan **, featured on the Feminist Majority’s website many moons ago when I had a job…I wondered if they still had this program going.  They do. 

So…I hope that some of you can support the women of Afghanistan to gain some independence with a purchase of their handicrafts.

**keep the kleenex handy…for those in pain and those that never made it home, on both sides of the ocean…

NSA using phone apps like Angry Birds to gather personal info

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Well, I wish I could say I’m surprised, but no…nobody is going to design a game and give it away for free…ain’t gonna happen without some benefit for themselves.  No free lunches, folks.

Here we have another case of taxation without representation…since a majority of people want this invasion of privacy to stop.

 

 

Repost: Rape is Not Entertainment; The Grammys **edited

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After once again being subjected to Robin Thicke’s rape song, Blurred Lines, at the Grammys,  I feel the need to repost a couple of blogs on the misogyny:

Rape is not a joke.

Blurred Lines

Rape culture in living color.  Degrading women as second class starts with media images.  The media is a powerful messenger.   Fear and Anger and Sex are the major influences in Communications and the media uses them well to influence the public.

Music has been a part of my life since I could remember, and the Grammy’s were one of the shows I used to watch regularly, but last night was a reminder of why I quit watching the awards show…it’s more about promotion of artists than promotion of music as an art.  Because I don’t see that Robin Thicke and the others (including women) that sexualize women to promote their songs have a load of talent.

If one has talent, their music speaks for itself.

Good music stirs the soul….speaks to the soul…bad music is just noise to fill the airwaves.

And on a personal note~  I really wish Ringo would have sung “It Don’t Come Easy”…I requested this song for Christmas one year, and my thirty year old son liked it…it could have been a way for Ringo to reach the younger crowd, if he had introduced them to it….

The opening notes as they are played on the recorded version are beautiful and stirring.

**edited to take out video–oops, thought it was official. Apologies.

Sherman and Crabtree

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I’m not a big football fan, but have caught the controversy surrounding Richard Sherman and his opponent, Michael Crabtree.

I think the whole thing has been blown waaaay out of proportion.  Sherman wasn’t threatening Crabtree with physical violence.   Should he have toned it down a bit?  Yes, in my opinion.  But it’s not on the level of being a thug, as some have referred to him.

Ed Schultz was talking about it, and Sherman has questioned whether “thug” is the new word for the n-word.  I don’t know, but I don’t think so.

I do find it interesting that the media, which framed this message in a way that almost guaranteed Sherman would be flamed for what happened.  The video is cut off to *just* Sherman’s rant….instead of showing the entire context with Crabtree pushing Sherman away after Sherman offered to shake hands.  That is why Sherman went off.  Again, it wasn’t the wisest thing, but yeah, not a crime, either.

~~As a side note, MSNBC, via Ed Schultz, is once again trying to push Hillary Clinton for president with yet another talking head declaring that “everybody” wants Clinton for candidate.  Bullshit.

I find it ironic that Ed is blasting the new super secret trade agreement, TPP, while promoting Hillary Clinton for president.  She is in the back pocket of Wall Street, and Big Oil, and the war profiteers.  Her husband signed NAFTA into law which drove our economy into the toilet…and here Schultz was promoting her.  Unreal.