Category Archives: ethics and morals

Moskowitz using the kids for her personal gain

by

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.

~~~~~~~~~~~

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

~~~~~~~~~~~

Sleazebag Terry Richardson **updated

by

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.

Victory for Saucedo teachers

by

Woot! Teachers taking back their classrooms!   The tactics of intimidation by Barbara Byrd-Bennett did not work.

…and the teachers, bless their hearts, still taught a lesson in civil disobedience and nonviolence, a la Ghandi and Rosa Parks.

Makes me smile. 🙂

 

Aboriginal rights a threat to Canada’s resource development

by

Warrior Publications has this up on what we already knew, but yeah, putting it in writing that Harper and the rest see the land rights of the First Nations folks being problematic.

See…it’s so much harder to get the oil out when you have to ask permission by folks who see it as violating the Earth.  They aren’t as easily swayed by $$ because the Earth is sacred to them.

It’s even more of a problem when those folks have the law on their side.

Honor the Treaties, Canada.

 

 

Supporting teachers, supporting public schools

by

Bill de Blasio, the mayor, and Gov. Cuomo were at what could be described as dueling rallies.

Eva Moskowitz, the queen of charters with Success Academy, claims their rally was not meant to compete with Mayor de Blasio’s.  Um-hmmm…

You might remember Success Academy with this post.

Meanwhile, support came far away for the Saucedo teachers in Chicago…from the big ole’ state of Texas.

No Confirmed Link with Pig Feed and virus

by

Okay….I’ve been casually reading on this story and find it reeeaaally hard to believe they “can’t find” a link between the dreaded virus in the feed and the pigs contracting the virus.  It just seems a no brainer that if the virus is in the feed…and the pigs come down with the virus…yeah, it’s the feed…and here we have the evidence that the virus can survive not only in feed, but feces and water.

From the article:

While dry ground feed only allowed PEDV to survive for seven days, wet ground feed provided a more hospitable environment, allowing PEDV to survive at least 28 days. Again, the duration could be longer, but Goyal’s study ended. Storing infected feed at room temperature for two weeks should kill the virus.

~~~~~~~~~

The next question is why is blood plasma in the feed to begin with?  Can you say unhealthy, inhumane factory farms?  I knew that you could.

Ryan continues war on poor

by

Paul Ryan has not been swayed from his austerity measures, as he still advocates for the rich while seeking to starve people…

I started to watch a link to a Newseum piece hosted by Brian Williams, but five minutes of listening to Paul Ryan and I couldn’t stand any more.  Him being a toadie of Kochs and Peterson just turns my stomach.

More from Mother Jones here.

I followed the link to Paul Ryan’s False Advertising Photo Op at a soup kitchen.  What an opportunist.

It seems that the answer to poverty is pretty basic:  jobs with livable wages; affordable housing; healthcare.  That’s it.  With those factors, you can’t lose, because those are the three factors that keep people off of food stamps, off the streets, and free of financial disaster when an illness hits.

My previous post on Ryan here.

 

 

 

More on Tyendinaga Mohawks blockade

by

Here’s another article on the blockade drawing attention to the missing and murdered indigenous women.

The federal government has already insisted that it is willing to commit $25 million to the National Centre for Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains. While this is a start, the mandate is not specific to why First Nations women are at a higher risk of violence due to historical and socio-economic factors.

~~~~~

It seems lost on the Harper government that these women are being targeted because they are First Nations women…why?

And why have most of them occurred in the last 15 years?  A serial killer undetected?

 

Venezuela Protests: S. American Tea Party?

by

Dispatches from the Underclass has an interesting post up on what is happening in Venezuela.

Ukraine, revisited, it would seem…if the allegations about being funded by a conservative, elite network including Americans, is true.

I have no illusions about how greedy oil corporations and others  are and what lengths they will go to in order to get what they perceive as theirs…

…but I have to plead ignorance about the situation there and who is telling the truth–situations can be manipulated by the media, as well as helping shed light.

Here is an article with the opposite stance on the protesters.  It is so lopsided and devoid of facts that I have to wonder about the author’s financial connections to those that stand to gain from Maduro’s overthrow.