When the history of this decade is written, I hope people will remember that while Puerto Rico was struggling in the aftermath of a Category 4 hurricane, President Donald Trump spent four days obsessing over professional football players who wouldn't stand during the playing of the National Anthem. Not until nine days after the storm hit, did he start taking any action to help Puerto Rico, and even then he spent way too much time patting himself and his buddies on the back and not really doing anything.
I know he's planning to visit Puerto Rico more than two weeks after the storm hit the U.S. territory, but:
1. I think he's being forced into it. His advisers are making him do it.
2. He really doesn't care about Puerto Rico. It's not on his radar.
3. The whole time he's there, he will be thinking, "Why am I doing this? This is a waste of time. And this place is a dump. Let's get out of here."
Showing posts with label idiot. Show all posts
Showing posts with label idiot. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 27, 2017
Monday, September 4, 2017
Donald Trump is Nothing But a Mean Old Man
Donald Trump is a mean old man. Nothing more.
In June 2015, I had declared Donald Trump an idiot.
In October 2016, during the height of the election season, I declared that he was a lot of other things, none of them very good. And I meant every word I said.
More recently, I had come to the conclusion that he was an infant and a jackass.
Last Thursday, I declared that Donald Trump is an impostor.
Well, now Donald Trump himself has revealed that he is nothing but a mean old man.
Yesterday, on a Sunday in the middle of a three-day weekend, the White House announced that Trump had "decided" to end the immigration policy known as "Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals," or DACA. This policy, instituted by Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama, in June 2012, gave hope to the children of illegal immigrants — children who didn't choose to come here, in the legal sense, but came with their families. DACA was a way to give them hope that they could build a future in this new country — the only country they had ever known, and the place that they considered home.
Donald Trump is not doing any good by canceling this policy. Nor does he care that he is making innocent people suffer.
Trump did not take this step to Make America Great Again, because this does not make America great. It makes America small, petty, and mean — just like its chief executive.
He did not take this step to secure our nation's borders. It has no impact at all on national security.
He took this step because he's trying to fulfill at least one of his campaign promises, and he hasn't had a lot of luck so far.
He took this step as part of his (unwritten) policy to undo everything that President Obama did, good or bad.
And he took this step to solidify his standing among his so-called base. (According to Time magazine, that's only 35% of Americans, and the number is falling. Can't Trump do math?) Donald Trump's base has shrunk to the point that it now includes only the baser elements of American society: the racists, the neo-Nazis, and the right-wing extremists. Oh, and closed-minded, two-faced hypocrites.
If you knew any of these so-called Dreamers personally, you would feel the same way I do.
Twelve years ago, I taught mathematics to some of these children, first in English, as state law required, and then a second time in Spanish, so they could understand and learn.
Six years ago, my sweet wife taught literacy, English, to some of these children. One of them, a young girl, had to skip school every Wednesday to help her parents work in the fields.
Some of these children have now graduated from college. The rest of them have found honest jobs. They have become contributing members of American society. They pay taxes, Social Security and Medicaid/Medicare. They are marrying and raising families of their own.
Where is the justice in sending them back to a country that they don't call home? Where's the fairness? There isn't any.
Let's hope that Congress has the courage and the will, to do something to ward off the damage this "decision" will cause, before it takes effect six months from now.
Please feel free to share this article - I won't consider it copyright infringement.
UPDATE: Tuesday, September 5
So, Trump had his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, give the official announcement this morning. Sessions wrapped it all up in pretty little legalese justification, inventing the word "effectuated" to help him get his point across. But according to MSNBC, a metric trainload of legal and constitutional scholars have rebuffed every point Sessions tried to make, including the most important assertion, that Barack Obama's executiveorder memorandum, setting up DACA, was illegal.
Then Trump tweeted something to the effect of "Get to work, Congress! You have six months." First of all, he's still laboring under the impression that he's the boss of Congress, and second, he's using an ultimatum again, one of his favorite negotiating tools. Ultimatums are stupid. What do you expect?
Finally, tonight, the Daily Beast reported this:
Vague threats like this are another one of Trump's negotiating tactics. To bring this article full circle, he sounds like nothing as much as a mean old man, like a grouchy neighbor.
In June 2015, I had declared Donald Trump an idiot.
In October 2016, during the height of the election season, I declared that he was a lot of other things, none of them very good. And I meant every word I said.
More recently, I had come to the conclusion that he was an infant and a jackass.
Last Thursday, I declared that Donald Trump is an impostor.
Well, now Donald Trump himself has revealed that he is nothing but a mean old man.
Yesterday, on a Sunday in the middle of a three-day weekend, the White House announced that Trump had "decided" to end the immigration policy known as "Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals," or DACA. This policy, instituted by Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama, in June 2012, gave hope to the children of illegal immigrants — children who didn't choose to come here, in the legal sense, but came with their families. DACA was a way to give them hope that they could build a future in this new country — the only country they had ever known, and the place that they considered home.
Donald Trump is not doing any good by canceling this policy. Nor does he care that he is making innocent people suffer.
He did not take this step to secure our nation's borders. It has no impact at all on national security.
He took this step because he's trying to fulfill at least one of his campaign promises, and he hasn't had a lot of luck so far.
He took this step as part of his (unwritten) policy to undo everything that President Obama did, good or bad.
And he took this step to solidify his standing among his so-called base. (According to Time magazine, that's only 35% of Americans, and the number is falling. Can't Trump do math?) Donald Trump's base has shrunk to the point that it now includes only the baser elements of American society: the racists, the neo-Nazis, and the right-wing extremists. Oh, and closed-minded, two-faced hypocrites.
If you knew any of these so-called Dreamers personally, you would feel the same way I do.
Twelve years ago, I taught mathematics to some of these children, first in English, as state law required, and then a second time in Spanish, so they could understand and learn.
Six years ago, my sweet wife taught literacy, English, to some of these children. One of them, a young girl, had to skip school every Wednesday to help her parents work in the fields.
Some of these children have now graduated from college. The rest of them have found honest jobs. They have become contributing members of American society. They pay taxes, Social Security and Medicaid/Medicare. They are marrying and raising families of their own.
Where is the justice in sending them back to a country that they don't call home? Where's the fairness? There isn't any.
Let's hope that Congress has the courage and the will, to do something to ward off the damage this "decision" will cause, before it takes effect six months from now.
Please feel free to share this article - I won't consider it copyright infringement.
UPDATE: Tuesday, September 5
So, Trump had his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, give the official announcement this morning. Sessions wrapped it all up in pretty little legalese justification, inventing the word "effectuated" to help him get his point across. But according to MSNBC, a metric trainload of legal and constitutional scholars have rebuffed every point Sessions tried to make, including the most important assertion, that Barack Obama's executive
Then Trump tweeted something to the effect of "Get to work, Congress! You have six months." First of all, he's still laboring under the impression that he's the boss of Congress, and second, he's using an ultimatum again, one of his favorite negotiating tools. Ultimatums are stupid. What do you expect?
Finally, tonight, the Daily Beast reported this:
President Donald Trump said Tuesday night that if Congress cannot pass a legislative fix for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that his administration scrapped, he will “revisit” it. “Congress now has 6 months to legalize DACA (something the Obama Administration was unable to do). If they can't, I will revisit this issue!” Trump tweeted. He declined to offer specifics on what “revisiting” would entail.
Vague threats like this are another one of Trump's negotiating tactics. To bring this article full circle, he sounds like nothing as much as a mean old man, like a grouchy neighbor.
Thursday, August 31, 2017
Donald Trump is an Impostor
Donald Trump is an impostor. Donald Trump is a fake.
At one time, I admitted that I might be wrong about Donald Trump, and that it was possible that he was nothing more than a braying jackass.
As his presidential term lurched forward, I changed my mind, and thought of him as little more than a bawling infant.
I've changed my mind again. Just like Frank Abagnale in the story Catch Me If You Can, Donald Trump is nothing more than an impostor. A total fake.
Donald Trump has demonstrated, repeatedly, that he doesn't have what it takes to be president of the United States. He has no leadership ability. He has no morals. He has no empathy. He has no courage. He has no integrity. In place of depth, he has shallowness, an appalling superficiality. In place of knowledge and wisdom, he has willful ignorance and selfishness.
He has no talent. Okay, let me amend that: he has whatever talent it takes to be a unscrupulous, unprincipled real estate tycoon.
And all along, every time he opens his mouth — or Tweets — all I can think is "Jeez, what an idiot". The "idiot" theme spreads over all of my other opinions of him, like gravy covering everything on the plate at Thanksgiving.
The 30-something percent of Americans whom he is still fooling? He doesn't care about them. They don't realize the utter contempt in which he holds them.
It still astounds me that he made it into the White House. I didn't vote for him.
Insert picture here: If I could, I would post a picture here of protestors at an airport, waving huge signs saying "GO HOME TRUMP", "TRUMP IS A FAKE" and "GOOD RIDDANCE", as Trump's private jet lifts off in the background, carrying him back to ... well, to anywhere. Away from Washington D.C.
Update, 4 Sep 2017: Actually, Donald Trump is a mean old man, and nothing more.
At one time, I admitted that I might be wrong about Donald Trump, and that it was possible that he was nothing more than a braying jackass.
As his presidential term lurched forward, I changed my mind, and thought of him as little more than a bawling infant.
I've changed my mind again. Just like Frank Abagnale in the story Catch Me If You Can, Donald Trump is nothing more than an impostor. A total fake.
Donald Trump has demonstrated, repeatedly, that he doesn't have what it takes to be president of the United States. He has no leadership ability. He has no morals. He has no empathy. He has no courage. He has no integrity. In place of depth, he has shallowness, an appalling superficiality. In place of knowledge and wisdom, he has willful ignorance and selfishness.
He has no talent. Okay, let me amend that: he has whatever talent it takes to be a unscrupulous, unprincipled real estate tycoon.
And all along, every time he opens his mouth — or Tweets — all I can think is "Jeez, what an idiot". The "idiot" theme spreads over all of my other opinions of him, like gravy covering everything on the plate at Thanksgiving.
The 30-something percent of Americans whom he is still fooling? He doesn't care about them. They don't realize the utter contempt in which he holds them.
It still astounds me that he made it into the White House. I didn't vote for him.
Insert picture here: If I could, I would post a picture here of protestors at an airport, waving huge signs saying "GO HOME TRUMP", "TRUMP IS A FAKE" and "GOOD RIDDANCE", as Trump's private jet lifts off in the background, carrying him back to ... well, to anywhere. Away from Washington D.C.
Update, 4 Sep 2017: Actually, Donald Trump is a mean old man, and nothing more.
Wednesday, November 9, 2016
The Biggest Losers of the 2016 Presidential Election
At this point, it is clear that the third party wasn't a factor in this presidential race. It could have been. All of the advocates of the third-party vote were just shouting into the wind. Everyone else was locked into the two-party mentality and didn't think a third party would make any difference.
It wasn't gettting caught that makes Schultz a loser. It was engaging in those blatantly preferential and, frankly, self-centered and childish, activities in the first place.
The rest of the Wikipedia article about Schultz is not very complimentary either, She may be an elected member of Congress, but as a person, she is an idiot and a loser.
(UPDATE: Debbie Wasserman Schultz is still in office. But she won the Young Turks' 2016 Jerk of the Year award.)
3. James Comey
This is the director of the FBI. He was appointed to the office in 2013. He will serve a ten-year term, and he cannot be removed from office except by voluntary resignation. Well, perhaps he can be fired.
He came under fire in July for his mishandling of a criminal investigation against then front-runner candidate Hillary Clinton. Then he inserted himself into the political process in the last 10 days of the campaign. He was alternately praised (by both sides) for his professionalism and his integrity, and criticized (by both sides) for his partisanship, his poor sense of timing, and his clumsiness. Whether he was praised or criticized depended on who benefited from his public pronouncements.
By making any public announcements at all, he flouted FBI and Justice department protocols and interfered with both due process of law, and the election process. Someone said that he was "putting his thumb on the scale," one hamfisted man tilting the election first one way, and then the other way.
There is no doubt that he got too close to the action, stuck his nose where it didn't belong, and influenced the election. Clinton may be able to lay the blame for her loss squarely at his feet. Maybe he deserved the praise for his professionalism, maybe not, but as a person, he is an idiot and a loser.
(UPDATE: James Comey was fired by Trump on May 9, 2017, in a move that was both clumsy and controversial on Trump's part. That's par for the course.)
So there you have it: Three Big Losers
Many other people lost something in this election, but Reince Priebus, Susan Wasserman Schultz and James Comey have all earned the right to walk around in public with giant paper dunce caps on their heads, proclaiming to all the world: "THIS PERSON IS AN IDIOT. THIS PERSON IS A LOSER."
Are you kidding me? Donald Trump was pronounced the winner with just 276 electoral votes. If only one third-party candidate had won seven electoral votes, it would have made all the difference in the history of the world.
So the most obvious losers in this contest were Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party. But the American people were also losers. We were losers as soon as Clinton and Trump were nominated by their respective parties.
But no - this post celebrates three other losers, three First Class, Grade A Idiots, three long-eared jackassses, who by their actions managed to royally screw up the campaign. Like Grover Norquist four years ago, nobody voted for these people, and yet they managed to insert themselves into the election process and make a royal mess of it. If they had just used their brains, things would have happened differently.
Here, for your reading enjoyment, are The Biggest Losers of the 2016 Presidential Election.
1. Reince Priebus
This is the chairman of the Republican National Committee. In a totalitarian state like the USSR, the chairman of the ruling party is the Man Behind the Throne, and the most powerful man in the country. By hitching his wagon to the Trump star, Priebus may have really enhanced his cred, and he may yet become the most powerful political figure in the country.
But with Trump, Priebus is like a little kid taking a Great Dane for a walk: the dog drags him around wherever it wants to go, despite the child's cries of "Heel! Heel!"
In the days before the Republican national convention, and in the days that followed, Priebus missed several opportunities to take Trump behind the woodshed, give him a good whipping, and make him fall into line. Instead, he was cowed and bullied by Trump, and both blindsided and intimidated by Trump's popular support, and he chose to follow instead of to lead. He has allowed Donald Trump to lead him around by the nose since July.
Reince Priebus surrendered his brain, his spine, and his manhood to Donald Trump. He may yet come out ahead, politically speaking, but as a person, he is an idiot, and a loser.
(UPDATE: On November 13, Trump named Priebus as his White House chief of Staff. He resigned on July 27, 2017, having served the shortest term of any White House chief of Staff in the history of the republic.
For the record, Priebus was actually forced out of the White House by Anthony Scaramucci, Scaramucci was the newly-appointed White House Communications Director, a position which he held for only six days — also a historical record —before being fired by the new White House chief of staff, John Kelly. This makes Scaramucci an even bigger jackass than Priebus.)
(UPDATE: On November 13, Trump named Priebus as his White House chief of Staff. He resigned on July 27, 2017, having served the shortest term of any White House chief of Staff in the history of the republic.
For the record, Priebus was actually forced out of the White House by Anthony Scaramucci, Scaramucci was the newly-appointed White House Communications Director, a position which he held for only six days — also a historical record —before being fired by the new White House chief of staff, John Kelly. This makes Scaramucci an even bigger jackass than Priebus.)
2. Debbie Wasserman Schultz
This is the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee. She is also a member of the House of Representatives, representing a district from Florida. (Florida, by the way, voted for Trump, so that makes her a loser already.) Since she is still in Congress, she may consider herself a winner, but ...
What makes her a loser is that she and other DNC executives were exposed as having been instrumental in denying the other candidate, Bernie Sanders, a fair shot at the party's nomination. In fact, she fumbled the whole pre-convention campaign effort, and was responsible for an unelectable candidate getting nominated. Here's the way Wikipedia puts it:
2016 Presidential election
Clinton's opponents, Martin O'Malley and Bernie Sanders, separately criticized the decision by Wasserman Schultz to schedule only six debates in the 2016 Presidential Primary, fewer than in previous election cycles, as well as the timing of the debates.
In May, MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski called on Schultz to step down over the DNC's bias against the Bernie Sanders campaign. The 2016 Democratic National Committee email leak revealed that Schultz was furious at the negative coverage of her actions in the media, and she emailed [NBC News political director] Chuck Todd that such coverage of her "must stop". Describing the coverage as the "LAST straw", she ordered the DNC's communications director to call MSNBC president Phil Griffin to demand an apology from Brzezinski.
ResignationSee also: 2016 Democratic National Committee email leak
After Wikileaks published Democratic National Committee emails which suggested that DNC staffers had inappropriately backed Hillary Clinton in the primary campaigns while criticizing the Bernie Sanders campaign, Wasserman Schultz tendered her resignation as the head of the DNC, to become effective as of the close of the nomination convention in Philadelphia. According to reports in the Washington Post, Wasserman Schultz strongly resisted suggestions she resign, requiring a phone call from President Barack Obama to finally force her resignation.
Following a speech at the convention before the Florida delegation where Wasserman Schultz was "booed off stage" the DNC announced she would not gavel open the convention. She was subsequently appointed honorary chair of the Clinton campaign's "50 state program."
The rest of the Wikipedia article about Schultz is not very complimentary either, She may be an elected member of Congress, but as a person, she is an idiot and a loser.
(UPDATE: Debbie Wasserman Schultz is still in office. But she won the Young Turks' 2016 Jerk of the Year award.)
3. James Comey
This is the director of the FBI. He was appointed to the office in 2013. He will serve a ten-year term, and he cannot be removed from office except by voluntary resignation. Well, perhaps he can be fired.
He came under fire in July for his mishandling of a criminal investigation against then front-runner candidate Hillary Clinton. Then he inserted himself into the political process in the last 10 days of the campaign. He was alternately praised (by both sides) for his professionalism and his integrity, and criticized (by both sides) for his partisanship, his poor sense of timing, and his clumsiness. Whether he was praised or criticized depended on who benefited from his public pronouncements.
By making any public announcements at all, he flouted FBI and Justice department protocols and interfered with both due process of law, and the election process. Someone said that he was "putting his thumb on the scale," one hamfisted man tilting the election first one way, and then the other way.
There is no doubt that he got too close to the action, stuck his nose where it didn't belong, and influenced the election. Clinton may be able to lay the blame for her loss squarely at his feet. Maybe he deserved the praise for his professionalism, maybe not, but as a person, he is an idiot and a loser.
(UPDATE: James Comey was fired by Trump on May 9, 2017, in a move that was both clumsy and controversial on Trump's part. That's par for the course.)
So there you have it: Three Big Losers
Many other people lost something in this election, but Reince Priebus, Susan Wasserman Schultz and James Comey have all earned the right to walk around in public with giant paper dunce caps on their heads, proclaiming to all the world: "THIS PERSON IS AN IDIOT. THIS PERSON IS A LOSER."
Tuesday, June 16, 2015
Oh, great. The idiot is running again.
While the spotlight has been shining on Hillary Rodham Clinton and her remarkable lack of Democratic contenders, Republicans have been quietly walking up to the Goblet of Fire and slipping their names into it.
The latest Republican to announce his candidacy for the presidency was our own Billionaire Clown, Donald Trump. He can't stand it when the news isn't about him. And he just can't stand to stay out of his own spotlight. I guess that's his right. He bought the spotlight, and paid for it, so he might as well shine it on himself. It's a pity he couldn't spend the money on a better hairpiece.
Clearly, he didn't learn his lesson from the "birther" beating he inflicted upon himself in 2011.
Anyway, in the latest installment in the comedy-cum-soap-opera that is his life, Trump invoked God Himself in promising:
Reuters reporter Alana Wise wasn't too impressed with his announcement, as she makes clear in this report of the press conference announcing his candidacy.
Everytime I read or hear about Donald Trump saying something, I get this mental image of a donkey in a pasture, braying loudly because he loves to hear the sound of his voice, while all of the other animals grazing in the field ignore him or silently wish he would be abducted by aliens.
UPDATE, JUNE 17: Most of the news media didn't take Trump's announcement very seriously. One of them even accused him of "throwing his rubber nose into the GOP ring." This jesting at his expense, and lack of respect, hasn't sat well with Trump, who fired back in a fit of petulance: "Well, I'm rich and you're not, so nyah. Jerks." Now we can really take him seriously.
The latest Republican to announce his candidacy for the presidency was our own Billionaire Clown, Donald Trump. He can't stand it when the news isn't about him. And he just can't stand to stay out of his own spotlight. I guess that's his right. He bought the spotlight, and paid for it, so he might as well shine it on himself. It's a pity he couldn't spend the money on a better hairpiece.
Clearly, he didn't learn his lesson from the "birther" beating he inflicted upon himself in 2011.
Anyway, in the latest installment in the comedy-cum-soap-opera that is his life, Trump invoked God Himself in promising:
I will be the greatest jobs president that God ever created.I remind you that in 2011, all of the Republican candidates, except for Mitt Romney, announced that God had told them to run for President. This statement sounds like Trump is telling God what to do, and not the other way around. Ladies and gentlemen, the Clown is back, and he's about to eat his clown shoes.
Reuters reporter Alana Wise wasn't too impressed with his announcement, as she makes clear in this report of the press conference announcing his candidacy.
Everytime I read or hear about Donald Trump saying something, I get this mental image of a donkey in a pasture, braying loudly because he loves to hear the sound of his voice, while all of the other animals grazing in the field ignore him or silently wish he would be abducted by aliens.
UPDATE, JUNE 17: Most of the news media didn't take Trump's announcement very seriously. One of them even accused him of "throwing his rubber nose into the GOP ring." This jesting at his expense, and lack of respect, hasn't sat well with Trump, who fired back in a fit of petulance: "Well, I'm rich and you're not, so nyah. Jerks." Now we can really take him seriously.
Friday, June 13, 2014
Common Core opponents are irrational - and ignorant
Forgive me getting a little overheated about this.
Right now, it's fashionable to trash the Common Core State Standards Initiative - or Common Core, as it's more generally known. However, after having read a lot of anti-CC articles (and comments on articles) on the Web, I have reached an important conclusion. Two conclusions, as a matter of fact.
1. Common Core opponents are irrational.
2. Common Core opponents are ignorant.
To illustrate their irrationality, I will point you once again to "Frustrated Parent." He couldn't figure out his son's math problem, and so he and the entire world blamed it on Common Core. I looked at the math problem in question. It simply presented another way to learn subtraction. As I explained in my posting about it, there are many different ways to teach subtraction.
Common Core does not tell you how to teach subtraction, but it allows for all those different teaching strategies.
To underscore the irrationality, I have been following the comments in another article about CC. One of the commenters was bashing CC because, to quote his words as well as I can from memory, it doesn't allow for the fact that there are many different ways to teach a concept, and it requires that the concept be taught in one way. Um, (a) nothing could be further from the truth; and (b) this directly contradicts the underlying notion behind the math problem that "Frustrated Parent" was bawling about.
As for ignorance, when I say "ignorant" I mean "stubbornly unwilling to learn (more) about a subject." I've read lots of comments by people who are spouting off authoritatively about something they know nothing about, when the truth is freely available, and easy to read, at the Common Core State Standards website. All they have to do is look it up. But they prefer to go on blabbering ignorantly about what they perceive as Common Core and all its shortcomings, unencumbered by facts or the truth.
Right now, it's fashionable to trash the Common Core State Standards Initiative - or Common Core, as it's more generally known. However, after having read a lot of anti-CC articles (and comments on articles) on the Web, I have reached an important conclusion. Two conclusions, as a matter of fact.
1. Common Core opponents are irrational.
2. Common Core opponents are ignorant.
To illustrate their irrationality, I will point you once again to "Frustrated Parent." He couldn't figure out his son's math problem, and so he and the entire world blamed it on Common Core. I looked at the math problem in question. It simply presented another way to learn subtraction. As I explained in my posting about it, there are many different ways to teach subtraction.
Common Core does not tell you how to teach subtraction, but it allows for all those different teaching strategies.
To underscore the irrationality, I have been following the comments in another article about CC. One of the commenters was bashing CC because, to quote his words as well as I can from memory, it doesn't allow for the fact that there are many different ways to teach a concept, and it requires that the concept be taught in one way. Um, (a) nothing could be further from the truth; and (b) this directly contradicts the underlying notion behind the math problem that "Frustrated Parent" was bawling about.
As for ignorance, when I say "ignorant" I mean "stubbornly unwilling to learn (more) about a subject." I've read lots of comments by people who are spouting off authoritatively about something they know nothing about, when the truth is freely available, and easy to read, at the Common Core State Standards website. All they have to do is look it up. But they prefer to go on blabbering ignorantly about what they perceive as Common Core and all its shortcomings, unencumbered by facts or the truth.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
I didn't vote for Grover Norquist
Here's a great illustration of why we should despise, and even get rid of, the unelected powermongers who prowl the streets of Washington, New York City, London, and other seats of power in the world.
Grover Norquist is the president of an organization called "Americans for Tax Reform." Twenty years ago, he started pushing newly elected Republican Congressmen (and women), or those who were running for election, to sign a pledge that they would never vote to raise taxes.
After 20 years of fiscal irresponsibility on the part of both the executive and legislative branches of the federal government, our country finds itself in a difficult financial position. We need to implement our own "austerity measures" before they are dictated to us by someone else — like international banks and foreign governments. We are facing a fiscal crisis which can be resolved in several ways, most of them painful. One of the least painful ways is a combination of spending cuts and tax increases.
I didin't say it was "painless." I said it was "one of the least painful." Don't be stupid.
You will recall that, on August 2, 2011, the U.S. Congress set up a bipartisan "supercommittee" that was supposed to break through the Congressional gridlock and come up with a solution to this fiscal problem while there was still time to act. As an incentive to getting things done, Congress wrote a Plan B into the legislation, a bitter pill that the nation would have to swallow on January 2, 2013 if the supercommittee failed in their mission. This was no secret to anybody — nor was the timing of Plan B, two convenient months after a critical national election. Congress as a whole may be a pack of idiots, but they're clever idiots.
At any rate, the supercommittee proved to be as fractious and stubborn as the body which had created it, and they hit their deadline without completing their mission. So Plan B kicked in, and the automatic spending cuts and other measures that it specified will also kick in, on January 2, 2013. These automatic measures, if activated, will severely impact the still-fragile economy and could drive the country back into a recession. Some wag coined the term "fiscal cliff" to describe the country's situation, and now everybody is saying it. I'm so sick of hearing the term that I get the urge to chew my leg off every time someone says it.
Now that the election is over, the executive and legislative branches are scrambling to find a way to deactivate this time bomb before it goes off. As I said earlier, one solution involves raising taxes.
Enter Grover Norquist.
In general, Democrats have always been eager to raise taxes, and Republicans have been just as eager to cut taxes, or at least not to raise them. For the most part, every tax vote that has come up in Congress for the past 20 or so years has gone right down party lines. Now, for the sake of the country, some Republicans are warming up to the idea of raising taxes on some people. This includes some powerful Congressmen who signed Norquist's pledge 20 years ago, such as John McCain, R-Ariz, and Lindsay Graham, R-N.C.
Now, Norquist is holding their feet to the fire, insisting that the pledge lasts forever and that they can't back away from it just because it's no longer practical or convenient. He compares the power of the pledge to the power of a mortgage or a marriage vow. (It's ludicrous that he should pick these two analogies, when homeowners are walking away from underwater mortgages and the ratio of divorces to marriages in this country exceeds 50%.) But a pledge not to raise taxes is not as sacred as a marriage vow, nor as legally binding as a mortgage commitment. And it ignores the fact that, in politics, practicality has to win out over ideology. We've had four years — actually, we've had 20 years, but the last four years are a representative sample — of a Congress ruled by ideologues, and you can see what a mess it has gotten us into.
Norquist has been in the news a lot this week, sounding like someone who's in charge of Congress. He is attempting to enforce his will through threats, blackmail, and innuendo. His tax pledge is an ideology that has blinded him to the current reality. He cannot see past the tax pledge, to what is really important for the country. He is no better than the members of the supercommittee, who couldn't see past their own positions and party platforms to work out a compromise and act in the country's collective best interests. Actually, he's worse than they were, because we didn't elect him.
Our Congresspeople should be accountable to us, the voters, not to some unelected lobbyist or to the president of a lobbying organization like Americans for Tax Reform. I didn't vote for Grover Norquist. I don't want him running the country. To grant him any measure of power in Washington is just plain wrong. We as Americans should stand up and, in one loud voice, tell Grover Norquist to "SHUT UP!"
UPDATE:
John Cassidy, of the New Yorker, apparently beat me to the punch, publishing this analysis of Norquist two days ago.
POSTSCRIPT:
While we're at it, here are some other people who should shut up and keep their power-hungry paws and their fat, padded asses out of the halls of power in Washington, D.C.:
And here are some people that we should see and hear more of in Washington. Somehow, these people come across as wise, as speaking up in behalf of the American people instead of themselves. Both the legislative and executive branches would do well to heed their advice.
POST-POSTSCRIPT:
Some of those paws are money-grubbing paws, not power-hungry paws. But the first rule of power is "Power follows money," so in my mind there's not a lot of difference between them.
Grover Norquist is the president of an organization called "Americans for Tax Reform." Twenty years ago, he started pushing newly elected Republican Congressmen (and women), or those who were running for election, to sign a pledge that they would never vote to raise taxes.
After 20 years of fiscal irresponsibility on the part of both the executive and legislative branches of the federal government, our country finds itself in a difficult financial position. We need to implement our own "austerity measures" before they are dictated to us by someone else — like international banks and foreign governments. We are facing a fiscal crisis which can be resolved in several ways, most of them painful. One of the least painful ways is a combination of spending cuts and tax increases.
I didin't say it was "painless." I said it was "one of the least painful." Don't be stupid.
You will recall that, on August 2, 2011, the U.S. Congress set up a bipartisan "supercommittee" that was supposed to break through the Congressional gridlock and come up with a solution to this fiscal problem while there was still time to act. As an incentive to getting things done, Congress wrote a Plan B into the legislation, a bitter pill that the nation would have to swallow on January 2, 2013 if the supercommittee failed in their mission. This was no secret to anybody — nor was the timing of Plan B, two convenient months after a critical national election. Congress as a whole may be a pack of idiots, but they're clever idiots.
At any rate, the supercommittee proved to be as fractious and stubborn as the body which had created it, and they hit their deadline without completing their mission. So Plan B kicked in, and the automatic spending cuts and other measures that it specified will also kick in, on January 2, 2013. These automatic measures, if activated, will severely impact the still-fragile economy and could drive the country back into a recession. Some wag coined the term "fiscal cliff" to describe the country's situation, and now everybody is saying it. I'm so sick of hearing the term that I get the urge to chew my leg off every time someone says it.
Now that the election is over, the executive and legislative branches are scrambling to find a way to deactivate this time bomb before it goes off. As I said earlier, one solution involves raising taxes.
Enter Grover Norquist.
In general, Democrats have always been eager to raise taxes, and Republicans have been just as eager to cut taxes, or at least not to raise them. For the most part, every tax vote that has come up in Congress for the past 20 or so years has gone right down party lines. Now, for the sake of the country, some Republicans are warming up to the idea of raising taxes on some people. This includes some powerful Congressmen who signed Norquist's pledge 20 years ago, such as John McCain, R-Ariz, and Lindsay Graham, R-N.C.
Now, Norquist is holding their feet to the fire, insisting that the pledge lasts forever and that they can't back away from it just because it's no longer practical or convenient. He compares the power of the pledge to the power of a mortgage or a marriage vow. (It's ludicrous that he should pick these two analogies, when homeowners are walking away from underwater mortgages and the ratio of divorces to marriages in this country exceeds 50%.) But a pledge not to raise taxes is not as sacred as a marriage vow, nor as legally binding as a mortgage commitment. And it ignores the fact that, in politics, practicality has to win out over ideology. We've had four years — actually, we've had 20 years, but the last four years are a representative sample — of a Congress ruled by ideologues, and you can see what a mess it has gotten us into.
Norquist has been in the news a lot this week, sounding like someone who's in charge of Congress. He is attempting to enforce his will through threats, blackmail, and innuendo. His tax pledge is an ideology that has blinded him to the current reality. He cannot see past the tax pledge, to what is really important for the country. He is no better than the members of the supercommittee, who couldn't see past their own positions and party platforms to work out a compromise and act in the country's collective best interests. Actually, he's worse than they were, because we didn't elect him.
Our Congresspeople should be accountable to us, the voters, not to some unelected lobbyist or to the president of a lobbying organization like Americans for Tax Reform. I didn't vote for Grover Norquist. I don't want him running the country. To grant him any measure of power in Washington is just plain wrong. We as Americans should stand up and, in one loud voice, tell Grover Norquist to "SHUT UP!"
UPDATE:
John Cassidy, of the New Yorker, apparently beat me to the punch, publishing this analysis of Norquist two days ago.
POSTSCRIPT:
While we're at it, here are some other people who should shut up and keep their power-hungry paws and their fat, padded asses out of the halls of power in Washington, D.C.:
- Donald Trump
- Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton
- Bank presidents, bank lawyers, banking organizations, and lobbyists acting on behalf of banks
- Uh, the same thing, this time substituting "auto company" for "bank" and "banking"
- The same thing again, this time substituting "insurance company"
- The same thing again, this time substituting "investment firm" or "finance company"
- Any special-interest group representing a privileged minority of Americans
- Actors, musicians, sports superstars and anyone else trying to parlay their fame into power - unless they run for office and get elected
And here are some people that we should see and hear more of in Washington. Somehow, these people come across as wise, as speaking up in behalf of the American people instead of themselves. Both the legislative and executive branches would do well to heed their advice.
- Warren Buffett
- Mitt Romney, the private citizen
- Meg Whitman
- Wow, this is a frightfully short list!
POST-POSTSCRIPT:
Some of those paws are money-grubbing paws, not power-hungry paws. But the first rule of power is "Power follows money," so in my mind there's not a lot of difference between them.
Monday, October 15, 2012
Teachers vs. idiots: The teachers finally win one!
This blog obviously has a soft spot for good teachers who have been unjustly treated by their employers. Most stories of this genre do not have happy endings. Here's one that does. Sort of. At least, the good guy wins.
In April 2006, Jeffrey Leardini was teaching sixth grade at Community House Middle School in the Charlotte-Mecklenberg (North Carolina) School District. One of his students, a girl, wasn't doing very well in his class. After she received one poor grade too many from him, she decided to do something about it. So she reported that he had been "inappropriately touching" her - that is, touching her in "sexually suggestive ways." And she got four of her friends to report that he had touched them, too.
This was Leardini's eighth year of teaching. According to everything I've read about the case, he was an "excellent" teacher, who got "glowing reviews". He acknowledged, in response to questions from a reporter in the Charlotte Observer, "that he squeezed shoulders, patted arms and touched students' heads as part of his teaching style."
Teachers used to be able to do that. Female teachers can still do that. But in this enlightened century, male teachers would be wise not to touch anyone, no matter how innocent or accidental the touch may be. It's a lesson that a few male teachers are still learning the hard way. It's not fair, and it's definitely not justice, but it's reality.
But this isn't a story about who Leardini did touch. It's a story about who he didn't touch.
Leardini was immediately pulled from the classroom. In a meeting with Kay Cunningham, of the district HR office, he was told that the district had a "no-touch" policy, and he was advised that "he had no choice but to resign immediately or be terminated." She assured him, however, that if he resigned, there would not be an investigation and she would note on his record that he had "resigned voluntarily."
For a teacher who has been trying hard to do all the right things, who has been trying to make the classroom a safe and comfortable place where students can concentrate on learning, and whose mind has never even considered this kind of behavior, accusations like this can be devastating. I can imagine that he was so shocked as to be at a complete loss for words. He wouldn't be able to come up with anything in his defense because he had never considered having to defend himself from anything like this. And when Ms. Cunningham was so belligerent and threatening, of course he felt like he had no choice but to resign.
So he did. He resigned. His personnel record, in addition to a copy of the complaints against him, noted that he had "resigned in lieu of dismissal" and that he was "not eligible for rehire" — which was the kiss of death to his teaching career. Nobody would hire him with that kind of black mark on his record.
Then Cunningham faxed an "urgent" case summary to the police, and eventually criminal charges were filed against Leardini. I don't know for sure, but I would guess that that's about the time he decided to hire a real lawyer. Either Leardini got a really good lawyer, or Leardini has a really good brain between his ears. You see, he knew he was innocent. And that counts for a lot. And eventually, he and his lawyers found out a few important things:
So the suit went to trial. In February 2012, nearly six years after he had been falsely accused and wrongfully terminated, a jury awarded him $1.1 million from the school district, and $52,000 from Cunningham.
The idiots at the district, when they realized their own misbehavior been exposed and that they had lost the trial, went pale and immediately filed an appeal. By the laws of the state of North Carolina, the appeal went automatically to mediation. Eventually the two sides worked out a deal whereby the district would pay Leardini, not $1.1 million, but $680,000. That's still cheap, compared to the cost of an unjustly tarnished reputation and a ruined career.
As part of the settlement, the district had to remove the complaints from Leardini's file and replace them with a copy of the mediated settlement. They had to remove the "resigned in lieu of dismissal" and any other mention of "disciplinary action" or "termination." But these were only symbolic moves. They couldn't replace the six lost years, or his shattered future.
Leardini's lawyer, Luke Largess, says he hopes that the school district has learned a lesson. The words of a district spokesman, however, reveal that the district hasn't learned a thing. You can read their exact words in the sources listed below.
In the years between 2006 and 2012, Leardini moved as far away from North Carolina as he could get. He's now a manager at a Petco in San Diego, California.
According to news reports, Cunningham no longer works for the district, so good luck collecting on the $52,000 she owes. It doesn't say whether she quit or was fired, or where she is, but she has had six good years to move elsewhere and cover her tracks. For all we know, she's bullying naïve teachers at another school district somewhere in the U.S.
His accusers got away with no punishment at all. Being minors, their names were never revealed, so they haven't had their reputations dragged through the mud like Leardini has. Today, they're probably freshmen at UNC Charlotte, or at Duke University. They should feel right at home at Duke.
Sources:
NBC News
Charlotte Observer
WBTV
Triangle News14
And here's a Washington Post article from 2000 about a similar incident. The school mishandled it at first, but they quickly set about to make things right.
Update:
Here's an article that appeared in Charlotte Magazine, written in December 2006. At that time, things were looking pretty bleak for Leardini. This is an extremely well-written article about the incident, and it's still relevant today.
In April 2006, Jeffrey Leardini was teaching sixth grade at Community House Middle School in the Charlotte-Mecklenberg (North Carolina) School District. One of his students, a girl, wasn't doing very well in his class. After she received one poor grade too many from him, she decided to do something about it. So she reported that he had been "inappropriately touching" her - that is, touching her in "sexually suggestive ways." And she got four of her friends to report that he had touched them, too.
This was Leardini's eighth year of teaching. According to everything I've read about the case, he was an "excellent" teacher, who got "glowing reviews". He acknowledged, in response to questions from a reporter in the Charlotte Observer, "that he squeezed shoulders, patted arms and touched students' heads as part of his teaching style."
Teachers used to be able to do that. Female teachers can still do that. But in this enlightened century, male teachers would be wise not to touch anyone, no matter how innocent or accidental the touch may be. It's a lesson that a few male teachers are still learning the hard way. It's not fair, and it's definitely not justice, but it's reality.
But this isn't a story about who Leardini did touch. It's a story about who he didn't touch.
Leardini was immediately pulled from the classroom. In a meeting with Kay Cunningham, of the district HR office, he was told that the district had a "no-touch" policy, and he was advised that "he had no choice but to resign immediately or be terminated." She assured him, however, that if he resigned, there would not be an investigation and she would note on his record that he had "resigned voluntarily."
For a teacher who has been trying hard to do all the right things, who has been trying to make the classroom a safe and comfortable place where students can concentrate on learning, and whose mind has never even considered this kind of behavior, accusations like this can be devastating. I can imagine that he was so shocked as to be at a complete loss for words. He wouldn't be able to come up with anything in his defense because he had never considered having to defend himself from anything like this. And when Ms. Cunningham was so belligerent and threatening, of course he felt like he had no choice but to resign.
So he did. He resigned. His personnel record, in addition to a copy of the complaints against him, noted that he had "resigned in lieu of dismissal" and that he was "not eligible for rehire" — which was the kiss of death to his teaching career. Nobody would hire him with that kind of black mark on his record.
Then Cunningham faxed an "urgent" case summary to the police, and eventually criminal charges were filed against Leardini. I don't know for sure, but I would guess that that's about the time he decided to hire a real lawyer. Either Leardini got a really good lawyer, or Leardini has a really good brain between his ears. You see, he knew he was innocent. And that counts for a lot. And eventually, he and his lawyers found out a few important things:
- The girls' lies were exposed, and their conspiracy was uncovered.
- The district did not have a "no-touch" policy, at least not before April 2006.
- The district didn't even follow the policies it did have in place.
- He was entitled to a full investigation of the allegations before the district could take any action, but nobody had told him that. Remember, Cunningham had told him he had "no choice" but to resign or be terminated. She lied to him.
- He had been bullied and misled into resigning.
- He had been denied his right to due process.
So the suit went to trial. In February 2012, nearly six years after he had been falsely accused and wrongfully terminated, a jury awarded him $1.1 million from the school district, and $52,000 from Cunningham.
The idiots at the district, when they realized their own misbehavior been exposed and that they had lost the trial, went pale and immediately filed an appeal. By the laws of the state of North Carolina, the appeal went automatically to mediation. Eventually the two sides worked out a deal whereby the district would pay Leardini, not $1.1 million, but $680,000. That's still cheap, compared to the cost of an unjustly tarnished reputation and a ruined career.
As part of the settlement, the district had to remove the complaints from Leardini's file and replace them with a copy of the mediated settlement. They had to remove the "resigned in lieu of dismissal" and any other mention of "disciplinary action" or "termination." But these were only symbolic moves. They couldn't replace the six lost years, or his shattered future.
Leardini's lawyer, Luke Largess, says he hopes that the school district has learned a lesson. The words of a district spokesman, however, reveal that the district hasn't learned a thing. You can read their exact words in the sources listed below.
In the years between 2006 and 2012, Leardini moved as far away from North Carolina as he could get. He's now a manager at a Petco in San Diego, California.
According to news reports, Cunningham no longer works for the district, so good luck collecting on the $52,000 she owes. It doesn't say whether she quit or was fired, or where she is, but she has had six good years to move elsewhere and cover her tracks. For all we know, she's bullying naïve teachers at another school district somewhere in the U.S.
His accusers got away with no punishment at all. Being minors, their names were never revealed, so they haven't had their reputations dragged through the mud like Leardini has. Today, they're probably freshmen at UNC Charlotte, or at Duke University. They should feel right at home at Duke.
Sources:
NBC News
Charlotte Observer
WBTV
Triangle News14
And here's a Washington Post article from 2000 about a similar incident. The school mishandled it at first, but they quickly set about to make things right.
Update:
Here's an article that appeared in Charlotte Magazine, written in December 2006. At that time, things were looking pretty bleak for Leardini. This is an extremely well-written article about the incident, and it's still relevant today.
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Another School District Run By Idiots
It looks like Central Bucks East isn't the only high school with sawdust-for-brains administrators. Ross Sheppard High School, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada appears to have gotten their admins from the same place. Here's another article about choices, consequences, students who are learning the wrong lesson about the two, and a teacher who got in trouble because of it. This article is from the National Post, a Canadian newspaper. I'm reprinting it here in toto, just in case the online story disappears. (They do that, you know.)
Let's make this clear: Mr. Dorval had been a teacher for 35 years. This is not a case of a teacher who, after 35 years, slacks off and coasts into retirement or, on the other hand, becomes a curmudgeon because he doesn't care anymore. This is a teacher who, after 35 years, still cares about his students and wants to see them succeed. He takes a stand against a wrongheaded policy that is destined to turn them all into failures, and he gets punished for it. Give him credit for having the courage to take a stand, and give the school board a collective thump on the head for their STUPID policy.
Now, here's the article.
Edmonton teacher may lose job for refusing to let kids skip assignments
Joe O'Connor Jun 2, 2012
Lynden Dorval tried to talk himself out of it. He understood the stakes.
You push back against school administrators, swim against school policy and you become a marked man, an “insubordinate” problem teacher with a bull’s eye on your back.
But the problem was the more he thought about it, the more Mr. Dorval, a physics teacher at Ross Sheppard High School in Edmonton with 35 years’ experience, became convinced of what he had to do — even if it cost him his job.
“I knew it was going to be a lot of stress,” he says. “But I just couldn’t talk myself out of it. It was the right thing to do.”
What he did, over the past 18 months, was what he had done for over three decades when a student didn’t submit an assignment, skipped a test or missed an exam: he pulled out his red marking pen and gave them a zero.
It was a lesson in consequences, one contrary to the school’s no-zero policy, an official dictum Mr. Dorval willfully ignored.
After repeated warnings from the principal to toe the line, the renegade was hauled before a school board hearing. Three days later, on May 18, he received a letter informing him he had been suspended indefinitely. He suffered the consequences.
Mr. Dorval fully expects to be fired in the coming months.
“It was against my principles not to give zeros,” the 61-year-old says. “Through experience, I found that giving a zero — a temporary zero; the students could come to me to make arrangements to do something to erase that mark — was the most effective way to get students to do the work.
“It put the onus on them. I could see some other method working with younger kids. But these are high school students. They are becoming adults. They are getting ready to step out into the real world and it is time for them to start taking responsibility for their own actions.”
The anti-zero argument goes something like this: Getting a goose egg discourages students. Zeros are not a measure of intelligence but a matter of behaviour. Kids should only be graded for what they do — not for what they don’t do.
So … why do anything?
Mr. Dorval gives the example of a student who transferred to his class from a non-zero class. The student completed six of 15 assignments for his previous teacher and, since he was only graded for what he did, had a 63% average. Mr. Dorval made it clear to the boy that missed work meant zeros on his watch.
“With me, he did seven of seven assignments,” he says. “It is right there in black and white.”
Other teachers at Ross Sheppard expressed support for Captain Zero, telling him they wished they had the courage to do what he did.
And he understood why they didn’t. Being younger, they had a career to think about. After 35 years, his career was nearing its end.
Ron Bradley, principal of Ross Sheppard and the man responsible for adopting the No Zero Rule, declined to take my phone call Friday. A school secretary directed me to the local school board. The board did not return messages.
In the vacuum, however, is the voice of common sense. We all have it, those of us who somehow survived high school. And we all know the voice speaks the truth: Life is about consequences.
It is a series of tests.
Don’t submit the job application and you won’t get the job. You get a zero. Skip work, tell the boss to shove it, neglect to file your taxes, miss a mortgage payment, bounce a cheque or get a speeding ticket, and what happens? You pay for it.
‘When I was a student it never occurred to me that if you did not do something that you wouldn’t get a zero’
It is Newton’s Law: for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction. Unless, of course, you are a student at Ross Sheppard high or some other institution where every missed assignment is met with an excuse.
And not from the kids, but from an apologist administration that encourages serial irresponsibility by offering second, third, fourth — and 10th chances — but not zeroes, never a zero.
Lynden Dorval knew it was wrong. He had had enough. So he picked up his red marking pen and stayed true to his conscience. It is a choice, he says, he would make again.
“When I was a student it never occurred to me that if you did not do something that you wouldn’t get a zero,” he says.
“Things like exams — I would never think about not writing an exam. I would never think about asking a teacher to write it later.
“It was just assumed, even if you were sick, that you went to school and wrote the exam. You went to school and you did the work.”
National Post
• Email: joconnor@nationalpost.com
Let's make this clear: Mr. Dorval had been a teacher for 35 years. This is not a case of a teacher who, after 35 years, slacks off and coasts into retirement or, on the other hand, becomes a curmudgeon because he doesn't care anymore. This is a teacher who, after 35 years, still cares about his students and wants to see them succeed. He takes a stand against a wrongheaded policy that is destined to turn them all into failures, and he gets punished for it. Give him credit for having the courage to take a stand, and give the school board a collective thump on the head for their STUPID policy.
Now, here's the article.
Edmonton teacher may lose job for refusing to let kids skip assignments
Joe O'Connor Jun 2, 2012
Lynden Dorval tried to talk himself out of it. He understood the stakes.
You push back against school administrators, swim against school policy and you become a marked man, an “insubordinate” problem teacher with a bull’s eye on your back.
But the problem was the more he thought about it, the more Mr. Dorval, a physics teacher at Ross Sheppard High School in Edmonton with 35 years’ experience, became convinced of what he had to do — even if it cost him his job.
“I knew it was going to be a lot of stress,” he says. “But I just couldn’t talk myself out of it. It was the right thing to do.”
What he did, over the past 18 months, was what he had done for over three decades when a student didn’t submit an assignment, skipped a test or missed an exam: he pulled out his red marking pen and gave them a zero.
It was a lesson in consequences, one contrary to the school’s no-zero policy, an official dictum Mr. Dorval willfully ignored.
After repeated warnings from the principal to toe the line, the renegade was hauled before a school board hearing. Three days later, on May 18, he received a letter informing him he had been suspended indefinitely. He suffered the consequences.
Mr. Dorval fully expects to be fired in the coming months.
“It was against my principles not to give zeros,” the 61-year-old says. “Through experience, I found that giving a zero — a temporary zero; the students could come to me to make arrangements to do something to erase that mark — was the most effective way to get students to do the work.
“It put the onus on them. I could see some other method working with younger kids. But these are high school students. They are becoming adults. They are getting ready to step out into the real world and it is time for them to start taking responsibility for their own actions.”
The anti-zero argument goes something like this: Getting a goose egg discourages students. Zeros are not a measure of intelligence but a matter of behaviour. Kids should only be graded for what they do — not for what they don’t do.
So … why do anything?
Mr. Dorval gives the example of a student who transferred to his class from a non-zero class. The student completed six of 15 assignments for his previous teacher and, since he was only graded for what he did, had a 63% average. Mr. Dorval made it clear to the boy that missed work meant zeros on his watch.
“With me, he did seven of seven assignments,” he says. “It is right there in black and white.”
Other teachers at Ross Sheppard expressed support for Captain Zero, telling him they wished they had the courage to do what he did.
And he understood why they didn’t. Being younger, they had a career to think about. After 35 years, his career was nearing its end.
Ron Bradley, principal of Ross Sheppard and the man responsible for adopting the No Zero Rule, declined to take my phone call Friday. A school secretary directed me to the local school board. The board did not return messages.
In the vacuum, however, is the voice of common sense. We all have it, those of us who somehow survived high school. And we all know the voice speaks the truth: Life is about consequences.
It is a series of tests.
Don’t submit the job application and you won’t get the job. You get a zero. Skip work, tell the boss to shove it, neglect to file your taxes, miss a mortgage payment, bounce a cheque or get a speeding ticket, and what happens? You pay for it.
‘When I was a student it never occurred to me that if you did not do something that you wouldn’t get a zero’
It is Newton’s Law: for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction. Unless, of course, you are a student at Ross Sheppard high or some other institution where every missed assignment is met with an excuse.
And not from the kids, but from an apologist administration that encourages serial irresponsibility by offering second, third, fourth — and 10th chances — but not zeroes, never a zero.
Lynden Dorval knew it was wrong. He had had enough. So he picked up his red marking pen and stayed true to his conscience. It is a choice, he says, he would make again.
“When I was a student it never occurred to me that if you did not do something that you wouldn’t get a zero,” he says.
“Things like exams — I would never think about not writing an exam. I would never think about asking a teacher to write it later.
“It was just assumed, even if you were sick, that you went to school and wrote the exam. You went to school and you did the work.”
National Post
• Email: joconnor@nationalpost.com
Sunday, October 23, 2011
A tale of two congresscritters
Here's a story about something that happened this week. I've omitted the names because I'm too lazy to look them up. You can google for them if you want to.
A junior senator (one who also made the news recently for a Cosmo photoshoot he once did to pay his way through law school) wrote an autobiographical essay and posted it online.
Well, this week (or maybe the week before; again, I'm too lazy to look it up), an alert reader noticed some uncanny similarities between his bio and a biography published a few years ago, about a highly respected former senator (and a very classy lady) from a different state.
Not just uncanny similarities. Some passages were identical. It was a case of blatant plagiarism. The reader, who happened to work for Atlantic Monthly, called him on it. (Heh. As if his Cosmo photos weren't "blatant" enough.)
The junior senator's office responded to the charges, saying that he wasn't responsible for the blog entry, because it was ghostwritten by a staff member. The exact wording of the spokesperson was "a staff level oversight." (This is where you can get all indignant and say that he should have known what other people were saying in his name. And you'd be right. But don't stop reading yet.)
Upon further investigation, it was determined (or at least highly suspected) that the section lifted from the senior senator's biography was not really her words. It just sounded like something she would say. Actually, it had been ghostwritten for her.
So the ghostwriter for one senator plagiarized content from the ghostwriter for another senator, and therefore it's nearly impossible to hold the first senator responsible for the misdeed. And that, my children, is the way it's done in Washington, D.C.
(Well, if we can't hold him responsible, can we at least lump him in with the Idiot Ones?)
A junior senator (one who also made the news recently for a Cosmo photoshoot he once did to pay his way through law school) wrote an autobiographical essay and posted it online.
Well, this week (or maybe the week before; again, I'm too lazy to look it up), an alert reader noticed some uncanny similarities between his bio and a biography published a few years ago, about a highly respected former senator (and a very classy lady) from a different state.
Not just uncanny similarities. Some passages were identical. It was a case of blatant plagiarism. The reader, who happened to work for Atlantic Monthly, called him on it. (Heh. As if his Cosmo photos weren't "blatant" enough.)
The junior senator's office responded to the charges, saying that he wasn't responsible for the blog entry, because it was ghostwritten by a staff member. The exact wording of the spokesperson was "a staff level oversight." (This is where you can get all indignant and say that he should have known what other people were saying in his name. And you'd be right. But don't stop reading yet.)
Upon further investigation, it was determined (or at least highly suspected) that the section lifted from the senior senator's biography was not really her words. It just sounded like something she would say. Actually, it had been ghostwritten for her.
So the ghostwriter for one senator plagiarized content from the ghostwriter for another senator, and therefore it's nearly impossible to hold the first senator responsible for the misdeed. And that, my children, is the way it's done in Washington, D.C.
(Well, if we can't hold him responsible, can we at least lump him in with the Idiot Ones?)
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
FEMA does Congress' job for them, this time
That emergency budget bill finally passed. Here's how it all came out. The emergency budget bill got stuck in the Senate, where it was trapped by more politicking and grandstanding. Read some of the outrageous stuff the Senators were saying, at Yahoo! News.
If that article, and others on CNN and other websites, are accurate, then it looks like nobody standing at the podium in the Senate chamber cared one way or the other about the looming government shutdown, or the disaster victims in the northeastern U.S. They only cared about winning. In their eyes, this budget bill had nothing to do with the good of the country or the fate of the disaster victims. It had everything to do with political power - winning and losing.
Nobody was going to compromise on this. The elected officials only wanted to engage in posturing, stonewalling, and name-calling. It was Business As Usual.
And what hung in the balance, other than the poor lady in Vermont whose house was nothing but a naked frame with the wind blowing through, was funding to keep the Federal Emergency Management Agency running. If this bill didn't pass, the federal government would shut down, including FEMA - and that lady in Vermont was depending on FEMA to help her.
(We can save for another time the debate on the merits of FEMA, or whether hurricane and earthquake victims should depend on federal agencies to help them recover. That's peripheral to the crisis happening in Washington DC right now.)
Once more, to make it clear: the fiscal year ends on September 30. The problem was that FEMA would run out of funds before the end of the fiscal year, and this budget bill was an emergency bill to keep FEMA, and other agencies, running until then. You may think it's only 3 days, but a lot of money passes through Washington's hands in 3 days. If the U.S. government shuts down for one day, that's a big enough problem.
In the end, a compromise was reached. It wasn't the Democrats. It wasn't the Republicans. It wasn't the Senate. It wasn't the House of Representatives.
It was FEMA.
FEMA, not wanting to shut down (obviously), had a look at their accounts and figured out a way they could legally shuffle things so that they could make it through Friday. Once they figured it out, they told the Senate leaders, who must have looked a bit confused and said, "Oh, okay then." Shortly afterwards, the Senate voted 79-12 to approve it. Now, according to Yahoo, it goes back to the House for a final rubber stamp. Let's hope they can manage that.
Just so you know where I stand on this: Our elected legislators in Washington DC have proven for the third time this year that when the chips are down, they can't legislate their way out of a wet paper bag. If they can't complete a task this (relatively) simple, we cannot depend on them to achieve anything really, seriously important. This Congress is totally dysfunctional, and anything they try to do is doomed to failure.
If that article, and others on CNN and other websites, are accurate, then it looks like nobody standing at the podium in the Senate chamber cared one way or the other about the looming government shutdown, or the disaster victims in the northeastern U.S. They only cared about winning. In their eyes, this budget bill had nothing to do with the good of the country or the fate of the disaster victims. It had everything to do with political power - winning and losing.
Nobody was going to compromise on this. The elected officials only wanted to engage in posturing, stonewalling, and name-calling. It was Business As Usual.
And what hung in the balance, other than the poor lady in Vermont whose house was nothing but a naked frame with the wind blowing through, was funding to keep the Federal Emergency Management Agency running. If this bill didn't pass, the federal government would shut down, including FEMA - and that lady in Vermont was depending on FEMA to help her.
(We can save for another time the debate on the merits of FEMA, or whether hurricane and earthquake victims should depend on federal agencies to help them recover. That's peripheral to the crisis happening in Washington DC right now.)
Once more, to make it clear: the fiscal year ends on September 30. The problem was that FEMA would run out of funds before the end of the fiscal year, and this budget bill was an emergency bill to keep FEMA, and other agencies, running until then. You may think it's only 3 days, but a lot of money passes through Washington's hands in 3 days. If the U.S. government shuts down for one day, that's a big enough problem.
In the end, a compromise was reached. It wasn't the Democrats. It wasn't the Republicans. It wasn't the Senate. It wasn't the House of Representatives.
It was FEMA.
FEMA, not wanting to shut down (obviously), had a look at their accounts and figured out a way they could legally shuffle things so that they could make it through Friday. Once they figured it out, they told the Senate leaders, who must have looked a bit confused and said, "Oh, okay then." Shortly afterwards, the Senate voted 79-12 to approve it. Now, according to Yahoo, it goes back to the House for a final rubber stamp. Let's hope they can manage that.
Just so you know where I stand on this: Our elected legislators in Washington DC have proven for the third time this year that when the chips are down, they can't legislate their way out of a wet paper bag. If they can't complete a task this (relatively) simple, we cannot depend on them to achieve anything really, seriously important. This Congress is totally dysfunctional, and anything they try to do is doomed to failure.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Trump is "honored" to have been a part of this? Trump is an idiot.
I used to think that a successful CEO of a large commercial entity would be the best candidate for president of the United States. Jimmy Carter was a successful CEO, but he was not a very good president. It simply wasn't the right job for him. After getting out from under that millstone, he became a great statesman and humanitarian. Ross Perot might have been a great president, but he stumbled too many times on the campaign trail. A presidential campaign requires charisma and leadership, which he had in spades, but also diplomacy and tact, which he didn't value and therefore didn't stock up on.
Donald Trump is oblivious to such things. It doesn't matter to him if he inconveniences people and interrupts the workings of the nation, and forces taxpayer money to be spent on trivialities, as long as he gets the spotlight. Here's what he had to say about it, after landing in New Hampshire and taking full credit for getting the birth certificate released to the public: "He should have done it a long time ago. I am really honored to play such a big role in hopefully, hopefully getting rid of this issue." (italics are mine)
UPDATE, April 28: From this morning's paper, here are the words of the Prez himself: "We do not have time for this kind of silliness .... We've got better stuff to do." And my personal favorite: "We're not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by sideshows and carnival barkers." Hear that, Trump? He says you're an idiot! And most Americans agree with him.
And here's one final shot from Trump, who wants to go on record as still being an idiot: "I hope it's true so we can get on to much more important matters." (italics mine)
Now we have Donald Trump, with one of the world's biggest fortunes and an ego to match. A week or two ago, Trump jumped on the "birther" bandwagon, echoing the idiots that four years ago started claiming that Barack Obama was not a natural-born citizen of the U.S., and therefore constitutionally ineligible to be president.
And Trump wouldn't shut up about it. All sorts of perfectly valid, perfectly legal proofs of birth were brought out by Obama's campaign office pre-election, and by the White House post-election, but those weren't good enough for the "birthers," and loudly not good enough for Trump, either.
What Donald Trump and the other "birthers" loudly demanded was a confidential document, the "long form birth certificate," which by law could only be requested by, and released to, those who had signed the birth certificate. In Obama's case, that's his mother, the attending physician and one other person (not his father) whose identity escapes me.
I imagine that the president wields special powers, because the president requested, and Hawaii's state Director of Health approved, that the state release a copy of the document to him. One of the president's personal aides flew all the way to Hawaii, retrieved the copy, and flew all the way back to Washington D.C. The trip was completed with some haste, and so I don't think it was a commercial aircraft. That means that the taxpayers paid top dollar for this junket.
I'm not faulting President Obama here. I'm faulting Donald Trump, who wouldn't shut up about it, and whose ceaseless yammering about it became, in the words of White House spokesmen (including the president himself), a "distraction," "silliness", and a "sideshow." Every time the president or a spokesman would hold a press conference on one of the serious issues facing the Executive Office, someone would invariably ask a question about the "birther" issue -- and at least one follow-up question. What a ridiculous waste of time.
Try putting the shoe on the other foot. I'll bet there are a few things in Donald Trump's life that he'd prefer to keep private, things he would rather not share in public. What if every time Donald Trump was approached by a reporter, all they could ask him about was his many rumored affairs? Or his publicized and well-documented manipulation of bankruptcy laws? Or whether his hair was a poorly-fitted toupee or just an awful hairstyle?
Here's what White House spokesman Jay Carney had to say about the whole "birther" issue: "The president feels this was bad for the country, that it's not healthy for our political debate." And White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said, "It was a constant discussion on main stream news organizations."
Donald Trump is oblivious to such things. It doesn't matter to him if he inconveniences people and interrupts the workings of the nation, and forces taxpayer money to be spent on trivialities, as long as he gets the spotlight. Here's what he had to say about it, after landing in New Hampshire and taking full credit for getting the birth certificate released to the public: "He should have done it a long time ago. I am really honored to play such a big role in hopefully, hopefully getting rid of this issue." (italics are mine)
I hope that Donald Trump gets his nose rubbed in this mess at every campaign stop. I hope that it becomes a distraction to his presidential campaign, to the point that he withdraws completely. I don't want to give the power of the executive office to someone as petty and self-important as he is.
Honored? I wouldn't want to take the credit for pulling off an idiotic stunt like this. He oughta just put on giant shoes, a puffy orange bowtie and a red clown nose. Democrat or Republican, I wouldn't vote for him if he were the last billionaire egomaniac on earth.
UPDATE, April 28: From this morning's paper, here are the words of the Prez himself: "We do not have time for this kind of silliness .... We've got better stuff to do." And my personal favorite: "We're not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by sideshows and carnival barkers." Hear that, Trump? He says you're an idiot! And most Americans agree with him.
And here's one final shot from Trump, who wants to go on record as still being an idiot: "I hope it's true so we can get on to much more important matters." (italics mine)
UPDATE, May 16: Donald Trump announced today that he will not run for president. Here is an excerpt from his announcement: "I maintain the strong conviction that if I were to run, I would be able to win the primary and ultimately, the general election. I have spent the past several months unofficially campaigning and recognize that running for public office cannot be done half heartedly. Ultimately, however, business is my greatest passion and I am not ready to leave the private sector."
We'll give him props for those last two sentences. Prudence and good judgement like this don't come easily when power and ambition are on the line. (And world domination.)
However, his first sentence, the one that sounds like "yeah, I could win if I wanted to," is a throwaway line. It's an unprovable assertion, the kind of smack talk that comes from a bully or a smartmouth who knows he'll never have to back it up with action. Talk is cheap, especially talk like that.
"So, Brain, what are we gonna do tomorrow night?"
"The same thing we do every night, Pinky: try to take over the world!"
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