Tag: education

…maybe part of the problem is we need to go back into the schools at a very early age, maybe at the grade school level, and have a class for the young girls and have a class for the young boys and say, ‘You know, this is what’s important. This is what a father does that is maybe a little different, maybe a little bit better than the talents that a mom has in a certain area. And the same thing for the young girls, that, you know, this is what a mom does, and this is what is important from the standpoint of that union which we call marriage.’

Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.), on the floor of the House of Representatives yesterday. These are the views of the people that are holding the country hostage. And the hostages can’t seem to find a way of effectively countering any of it.
Source: maddowblog.msnbc.com

Is It Time to Rein In the Super Bowl?

Lots of good stuff in this article:

The last great building binge in the NFL was from 1995 through 2003, when 21 stadiums were built or refurbished in order to create more luxury boxes, at cost of $6.4 billion. Know how much of that the public paid for? $4.4 billion.

The richest people in the richest, most popular sport in America. And you and I foot the bill for almost all of it in the name of “economic impact” that those eight home games a year supposedly have on a stadium neighborhood that’s inevitably parking lots as far as the eye can see. Hell, we’re even on the hook for the half-million dollar flyover. Absolute lunacy. Sally, the Superbowl, and the mega-arenas built to host it, can be any scale the NFL (and the owners running it) want it to be. Just so long as they are willing to pay for it.

But let’s not leave this quote on the floor:

the state of Texas [spent] $31 million to host the Super Bowl, even as deficits force public school cuts

Says it all.

(reblogged from wanderingreveries)

Is It Time to Rein In the Super Bowl?

Now, [the GOP] will say, ‘Well, we’re going to cut spending.’ So you say, ‘Okay, what are you going to cut?’ And then what they say is, ‘Well, we’ll cut education by 20 percent. We’ll eliminate 200,000 children from early childhood education programs like Head Start. We’ll cut financial aid for 8 million college students.
At a time when the education of our country’s citizens is probably the best predictor of that country’s economic success, they think it’s more important to give another tax break to folks who are on the Forbes 400 list.
Now, I want to ask my Republican friends: Do you think China is cutting back on education? Do you think South Korea is making it harder for its citizens to get a college education? These countries aren’t playing for second place. And guess what. The United States doesn’t play for second place. We play for first place.

Barack Obama, finally playing for first place himself.

Never confuse “plan” and “scenario”

Alyssa Battistoni notes the creeping cost of “privatization” (read: funding cuts) that is resulting in kids being sent to school with their own toilet paper because the school will not be providing any:

The worst-case scenario, though, is that reduced public spending on essential goods and services will continue to hollow out our infrastructure and reduce our capacity to meet the needs of most Americans. And that rather than have a real conversation about which public goods we consider essential and what we’re willing to do to pay for them, we’ll gradually starve core programs until working- and middle-class Americans grow accustomed to a lower standard of living while better-off Americans pay out of pocket for benefits that everyone once enjoyed.

We’ll leave aside her usage of “backdoor privatization” in this context and just say that this is not some worst case scenario, but rather is a succinct encapsulation of the GOP “roadmap” for America’s “future.”
However: if you’re explaining, you’re losing; let’s instead get all Democrats saying this rather elegant formulation (from Natasha Chart):

Because nothing says ‘superpower’ like when your public schools can’t afford toilet paper.

Cheap and effective.

When you see frightened Americans turning on brown-skinned people they see as potential “Muslims,” that is terrorism working. When the kind of Imam who will say Judaism’s holiest prayer in solidarity with Jewish victims of Islamic extremist terrorism and who tells Muslim audiences that the way to have a government more in line with the Islamic ideal is to be more like the United States is treated as a terrorist sympathizer, terrorism is working.

Adam Serwer
Unfortunately, these instances of terrorism working are being aided and abetted by one of the major political parties in this country. It’s one thing to combat al Qaeda or the Taliban or whatever group out there and quite another to combat this outgrowth of invincible ignorance within our own country; then ladle on top the fact that you’re being fought at each and every step in that long and slogging education initiative by both a party and its extremely popular misinformation outlet which is uncritically treated by most Americans as actual news that must bear some relation to fact, because Walter Cronkite never knowingly lied to us, now did he?
And do not believe for one second that there is any coincidence to the policy positions that lead the GOP to blithely cut funding for teachers, Head Start, and manifold other early intervention programs either. With the GOP’s demographic outlook and warm relationships with most of the emerging majorities in this country, such a move is necessary for survival. It’s their Joe Camel.

…now that the enviros have embraced a GHG tax or its cap-and-trade equivalent as the way to deal with global warming, conservative support is nowhere in sight. They’re all too afraid of Grover Norquist.
Remember this the next time a conservative explains how we ought to voucherize public education. The minute that happens, the conservatives will come back and decide that we need to means-test the vouchers. That done, they’ll attack the remaining program as “welfare.”
This is not a group of people it’s possible to do business with.

Mark Kleiman on the ever-moving goalposts that “sensible people” must forever be chasing after.

Tea Klan in Brief(s)

Witness the Shirks, perhaps the most ironically named Tea Klanners in existence:

For the Shirks, it was a day for their children to seek inspiration from Palin and the other speakers, who questioned Obama’s patriotism and at least one of whom referred to him repeatedly as Barack Hussein.

The couple, who rely on Medicaid for their health care, were also upset about the nation’s new health reforms.

When asked why her family used state-subsidized health care when she criticized people who take handouts, Valerie Shirk said she did not want to stop having children, and that her husband’s income was not enough to cover the family with private insurance.

“I know there’s a dichotomy because of what we get from the state,’’ she said. “But I just look at each of my children as a blessing.’’

Truly paragons of the Individual Responsibility arm (far-right lunatic division) of the GOP. I mean, seriously. No doubt they arrived in a Cadillac.
Lest you think this is some isolated case, here’s another just like it (served up with a twist):

Tea Party supporters said they did not want to cut Medicare or Social Security – the biggest domestic programs, suggesting instead a focus on “waste.”

Some defended being on Social Security while fighting big government by saying that since they had paid into the system, they deserved the benefits.

Others could not explain the contradiction.

“That’s a conundrum, isn’t it?” asked Jodine White, 62, of Rocklin, Calif. “I don’t know what to say. Maybe I don’t want smaller government. I guess I want smaller government and my Social Security.” She added, “I didn’t look at it from the perspective of losing things I need. I think I’ve changed my mind.”

Progress, I guess. When faced with a serious logical disconnect, a Tea Klanner didn’t just impugn the veracity of Social Security being a government program or somesuch, they reassessed their position. More like this, please.

And maybe there would be more like that if we bothered to teach any kind of formal reasoning or critical thinking in schools. Unfortunately, we all know that shit went out along with any other R not relating to Religion. Years ago.

The other angle here, of course, is the failure of the Democrat. Bridge falls, E. coli outbreak, mine explosion, train crash, whatever: each a powerful object lesson in what functional government can do that a non-functional, regulatory captured government cannot. But that sort of talk is, apparently, too shrill.