Category Archives: whistleblowers

Absolute Immunity

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Never mind absolute power….how’s absolute immunity grab ya?  Good God.

Why is it wrong to shoot down an unarmed black child in Florida, but okay to shoot down brown people in Iraq–especially under the lie of weapons of mass destruction perpetuated by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz??

1/9/03   After nearly two months, UN’s Hans Blix says his inspectors have not found any “smoking guns” in Iraq.

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2/27/03 US diplomat John Brady Kiesling resigns, citing the “distortion of intelligence” and “systematic manipulation of American opinion.“

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3/8/03 On CNN, Joe Wilson says, “I think it’s safe to say that the US government should have or did know that [the Niger documents were] fake before Dr. ElBaradei mentioned it in his report at the UN yesterday.” Decision to discredit Wilson made at a meeting within the Office of the Vice President. [Date the public knew: 5/3/04]

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I saw where the President was going to hand out yet another Medal of Honor.  I couldn’t stand to watch it.  I’m sure this veteran should have been a better candidate for the Medal of Honor.  He actually knows right from wrong.

The Moyers Program

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Well, I was right about Bill Moyers’ program being eye opening….

African American folks who think Bill Clinton is pro-African American might want to pay close attention to who he associates with:  Haley Barbour was governor of Mississippi when Katrina hit.  I was still in the town I grew up in at the time and the local radio station was collecting donations for the victims of Katrina.  They made sure to note that the donations would be going to a certain town or county in Mississippi.  I asked a blogger that I knew to see what the demographics were–it was repub and white.  Yep.

Tony Rodham, Hillary Clinton’s brother…um-hmmm…Gulf Coast Funds Management...raised money from overseas.

You know, a representative (vice president, I believe) of an fighter jet manufacturer was on CSPAN talking about one of the bombers that costs us millions of dollars to build and maintain, and the VP stated during the conversation that these bombers weren’t only for the U.S. forces…but were also necessary for U.S. allies.  Read that again–we are spending millions of dollars for fighter jets so that other countries can benefit from American technology…as the American taxpayer foots the bill.

In other words, we order the plane to specs…plane is built…..taxpayers pay $$$$$ for the plane….company then sells the plane to other countries….courtesy of the American taxpayer.

At  about 16:00 in, it is noted that the joke is “we’re all Patriots…”   The contempt here being that they are not representing the American public, but the corporations who will pay and pay and pay…they don’t give a shit about the country….it’s all in how much money they can make….

Mark Leibovich’s statement on The White House Correspondents Dinner really causes one to pause–rewarding the media for being on television, basically.  The mix of nooz and glamour is stunning.  Although he mentions Tom Brokaw railing against it, he fails to mention that George Clooney, via his father, thanked Brokaw for speaking out.   And what is really bad is that none of the so-called “serious” news outlets mentioned Clooney or Brokaw’s sentiments….quite telling, isn’t it?

As Leibovich brings up the massive PR campaign of BP after the oil spill, my mind flashes to all the commercials aired nightly on the nooz–BP, Big Pharma, Big Energy…rinse, repeat.  And I think of all the major problems facing the nation right now and how this lack of true coverage of these important issues have left the American public without crucial information.  Our democracy is fragile and the Press is in the thick of it–and they don’t give a shit that they are aiding the demise of that democracy.  Hey, they’re on TV!!  They’re very important people!!  And this is why they attacked Edward Snowdon for doing what they should have been doing.

…and there are still those who blame the American public for not knowing what is going on in their government.  <sigh>

Go Virginia!

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Virginia has had enough of dismissive politicians who circumvent the people whom they represent and they have filed suit against what is basically taxation without representation.

 

In other education news,  Diane reposts about the Gesell Institute’s take on Common Core…waay back in 2010.

From the statement:

We urge the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers to respect the individual developmental differences of children and revise the K-3 standards based on research and the advice of experts in the field of early childhood.

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In the comments, someone provided a link to Bill Moyers’ program on Glitz and Greed in D.C.  I haven’t viewed it yet, but knowing Bill Moyers, it will be eye-opening.

North Carolina memory hole on voting rights

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Well, if there was any doubt that repubs are trying to interfere with voting rights….this should pretty much take away that doubt.

How is this not a violation of civil rights?  As Rachel brings up—this is why we need newspapers and the media.   Granted, they’ve not done the best job of keeping people informed, but it’s never been more clear that they are just as important as ever.

If you don’t have a newspaper that does its job, then take it upon yourself to record public meetings as was done here.   If you’re not available for all public meetings, then form a co-op of news where a group of folks take turns recording public meetings.  Of course, you need reliable folks who are dedicated to get to the truth, no matter what, and will stick to the facts.  They can write their own opinion about the facts, in an editorial,  but the facts need to be put out there for everyone to draw their own conclusions.

What if someone had not recorded this meeting?  What is happening to other states where the meetings are not being recorded and there is no proof of these crooks?  This goes back to the damage Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton caused with consolidating media and removing the Fairness Doctrine.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

First Graders expected to know 6th through 12th grade levels **edited

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This is outrageous.  There is no way a first grader, who can barely tie their shoes, can be expected to understand subjects that are more geared towards 6th through 12th grades.

I mean just look at the complexity:

Explain the
importance of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers and the use of
canals to support farming and the development
of the city of Babylon;

Explain the significance of the
Code of Hammurabi;

Describe the city of
Babylon and the Hanging Gardens;Describe how a civilization evolves
and changes over time;

Explain that much of what we know about ancient
Egypt is because of the work of archaeologists;

Identify Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as major monotheistic world
religions;

Answer questions that require making interpretations, judgments, or
giving opinions about what is heard in a nonfiction/informational read-aloud,
including answering why questions that require recognizing cause/effect relationships;

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This is but a glimpse of it–see more on Diane’s website.

Unreal.  I didn’t even learn about the code of Hammurabi until I was in college studying ancient Greek history!!  As you can see by the link, this is complicated material–too complicated for a first grader to know!  OMG. As others commented, this is child abuse.

And let’s touch on the elephant in the room–the teaching of religion in a public school.  It does not belong there.  If one wants their child to have religious instruction, they can enroll them in a parochial school.    After all the bloodshed throughout the centuries over who had the “right” religion, it is stunning that people continue to try to force religion upon others…the lesson lost is that we have no right to push our religion upon others–everyone has the right to find their own spiritual path.

And what is glaringly omitted from the religious instruction, as seen here, are what Jesus taught–he provided loaves and fishes when people were hungry; he healed the sick and touched those with leprosy when no one else would (much like AIDS); he overturned the tables of the moneychangers (bankers) whom had set up shop in the temple–something the religious leaders had allowed.   He had a woman as a trusted companion, in a time when women were not respected nor regarded as equals.  He lived the golden rule of doing unto others as one would have done to you (this is also noticeably absent from the requirements–they fail to mention that all religions have that belief.)

Jesus promoted things that the conservatives rail against….

Anyway, these requirements are not psychologically sound.   No one in their right mind would think these requirements are in line with the brain and social development of a seven year old.

Hey, I know what–let’s drive these poor children into depression and low self-esteem so that Big Pharma can make more $$ drugging them up with antidepressants and happy pills…./snark

**edited to correct psychology

Earthships rising…

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..ha ha.    Sorry, couldn’t avoid the pun.  But, yeah, they’ve raised about another $16,000 towards the goal of $68k for the Malawi construction.

Woot!

You may note that they also have projects in other places--Haiti being one.  They are also close to goal with this one, too.

Here’s to sustainability and artsy fartsy creativity, too. 🙂

 

NCLB is a failure…

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….so the natural thing to do is require it for colleges and universities, too. /snark

Be sure to click on the link Diane has provided.  The speech she gives is outstanding in outlining exactly what is wrong with testing, testing, testing.

One of her points is that they are subjective social constructs.

Another important point she makes is that we can’t fully comprehend what will happen when children are subjected to  this nonsense testing year after year, trained like Pavlov dogs to get the “only” correct answer.  And the weight of the world upon that  “only” correct answer–if they are fond of their teacher, their principal, their school, but fail to get the correct answer and that teacher loses her/his job, and the school is closed…well, that’s a lot of pressure to put upon a child who will then blame him/herself for failing a test that was designed for them to fail.

About ten minutes in, Diane brings up the very important point that a university professor would expect the student to come to college prepared for it–to be able to comprehend complex texts and use critical thinking skills to analyze the ideas.  She states that the students won’t be able to ask “why”?

I don’t know about other universities, but Purdue was already gravitating towards lecture-only courses that were not designed to have robust classroom discussions.  That was one of the things I looked forward to when I began my college career….I was very disappointed with the lack of classroom discussion on the subjects–very few of the courses I took made sense to have lecture-only.  Most would have enriched the subject and expanded one’s worldview by new ideas being discussed.  As I write this, I can only think of five classes where we had good discussions.  And one of those classes–sociology, where I had open classroom discussion, had changed when one of my children took the very same class—it had been turned into ALL lecture and she did not have to read the five books I was required to read for it.  I was shocked.  Diane touches on this point at about 20:00 in to the speech–cram as many students you can into a lecture hall to have cost savings and….more profits.  Meanwhile….we’ll build a million dollar new sports stadium….

Diane brought up something the charter school movement would rather people not hear–that teachers are demoralized by the testing, too.   They hate what it has done to their profession.  In other words–teachers care and want their students to do well.  And it’s not because of the pay!

As I’m listening to this, it pops into my head what my college adviser had told me when I said I wanted to be a teacher–she discouraged me because she said there would not be that many jobs.  How did she know this?

And I for one cannot figure President Obama out–I know that he cares about this country.  I know he is an intelligent man.  What I can’t figure out is why he is promoting this failed policy?  Why isn’t he listening to these impassioned teachers?