What Have Unions Done For Us?

I Love These Ladies

Evidently most of the A**holes who  supported Bush never heard of the 1st Amendment.

The Tea Party Recruitment Song

Join the largest single group of “morans” in America. Why? because Obama is a “muslin”

 

Remember When?

Recall Tom: The Video

Done to the tune of Elton John’s “Levon”

Rugged Individualists, or Sheep?

In Idaho, the loonitarian right has taken over the Republican Party. This was made clear to me by the fact that the Local Republican Women  are hosting a fundraiser  in Pocatello, charging 10 bucks to see the incredibly unwatchable  movie version of  Ayn Rand’s incredibly unreadable novel  Atlas Shrugged.  The fact that Rand, a third rate writer with a fourth rate philos0phy, was an active atheist doesn’t even register with this band of white mormon/fundy/evangelical  housewives and amway pushers.  Rand spent the last years of her life on the dole, but that doesn’t seem to phase these folks for whom reality is an inconvenience, easily dismissed.  At Huffington Post  today Alan Krinsky posts an article “It began With Ayn Rand”.

Here’s an excerpt:

Ayn Rand’s world is one without community, a place where rugged individuals achieve success all on their own. Rand is therefore blind to the societal infrastructure that makes the accumulation of wealth possible and makes a polity stable enough for an economy to function. I would suggest that the logical outcome of Rand’s philosophy is a fractured world, where the wealthy pay paramilitary forces to protect them in their gated communities. It is a world not of some ideal, free market competition, but one in which the absence of regulations leads to monopolization, the further concentration of wealth, and the breakdown of consumer protections. And in that sort of world, the production of wealth becomes more difficult, even for the wealthy. As trite as the phrase has become, it does take a village. Individual success and triumph often requires individual initiative and perseverance, but it also depends upon so much else and so many other people to create and maintain the foundations of a stable society.

Read the whole piece here.

Also, you might enjoy this

Related articles

• Chuck Colson Warns the Right: Ayn Rand Hated God (reason.com)
• Ron Paul’s godless goddess of greed: Ayn Rand (thehill.com)
• Radical RAND: The Truth About GOP Hero Ayn Rand (ynative77.wordpress.com)
• William F. Buckley did not heart Ayn Rand (maureenholland.wordpress.com)
• Ayn Rand: The GOP’s Godless Philosopher (swampland.time.com)
• Senator Ayn Rand (duanegraham.wordpress.com)

What Do We Want Our Schools To Be?

As submitted to the Idaho State Journal, 05-22-2011

It was good for The ISJ to editorialize last week about the failure of supplemental levy efforts in Meridian and several other communities. Certainly these failures will present those districts with great challenges. As an example the editorial offered up the chance that some schools might not be able to afford to send teams to the state playoffs. In my opinion, with that example lies the problem.

Might I sarcastically say, “Oh, woe is me.” The fact that some schools might not be able to participate in a post-season athletic competition should pale in comparison with the fact that Meridian could consider laying off as many as 100 teachers, eliminating some “academic” programs, increasing class sizes, cutting back on supplies, textbooks, the list of effects is endless. Yet what garners the attention? Athletics and whether or not we will “go to State” Does no one understand what the prefix word “extra” in extracurricular really means? Does no one see the irony? Where are our priorities?

Here in Pocatello, our elementary students will do without the services of trained library specialist next year. Our middle schools will have only one counselor to serve the 800-900 students in each school. How well is that going to work? Programs have been eliminated. In a time when China has become our biggest business competitor and partner, we have eliminated the Chinese language classes offered at Highland High School. The district is behind the schedule on upgrading and replacing outdated textbooks. Given Mr. Luna’s brave new world of technology, we are woefully under-prepared and lack the finances to create the infrastructure that will be needed to implement his vision. Our own legislators have told us that we have to turn to the community. Fortunately, in Pocatello we have been blessed with voters who support the supplemental levies and understand the necessity. Still, we are facing these cuts in programs and positions while still playing a full schedule of sports and extracurricular activities, so I again ask, “where are our priorities?”

Lest one think that I discount the good things that extracurriculars do for our students be assured that I do not. My own children benefited from these programs, as did I when I was young. However, given the obvious fact that he State of Idaho, for the foreseeable future, is going to continue to underfund education, do we not need to engage in a public conversation about what we want or schools to do? A community wide public conversation not directed by either the educational establishment or any political party. A real conversation. And should that conversation begin sooner, rather than later?

We could start with a discussion of what public schools are supposed to do. In many of the countries who consistently outscore the U.S. in academic endeavors, sports and other extras are a function of the community as a whole, not the schools. The purpose of the schools remains academic in nature. Games, concerts, plays, competitions occur apart from the schools and are supported by those who wish to support those activities. Perhaps we could start there and ask ourselves how we might move forward in this time of shifting paradigms and politically inspired austerity.

Perhaps the Idaho State Journal, possibly with the assistance of the League of Women Voters or some other neutral party, could take the lead in creating this conversation through a series of public forums in which a cross-section of the stakeholders in our public schools participates. Possibly, there may be a better way to approach it. In any case, we are all stakeholders in our public schools and these decisions are too important to leave to a small cadre of people on Poleline rd. or to the tender ministrations of our State Superintendent and his legislature.

Related articles

• To the Voters of Pocatello: Thank You, Thank You (billspeasoup.wordpress.com)
• Can High School Extracurriculars Get You Into College? (education.com)

Thank You Tommy Boy, Thank You

I know of at least three or four petition/referendum signers yesterday who indicated that they had been on the fence but had been brought to the light by the actions and words of Tom Luna in the previous week. Thanks Tommy.  We couldn’t do this without your continuing help.

A signature gatherer reported the following after yesterday’s work:

 I have to tell you, Tom Luna’s Uncle approached me today at a site and told me he was his Uncle and thought he was a jerk.  He signed the petition and said his @#*&!*#  nephew (his words, not mine) needs to go because he is a liar.  This man is in his late 80′s and can’t see well but he knows his nephew. [He signed the petitions]

I have written here before  that Tom Luna is the single most reviled politician I have run across in my 25 years in Idaho. Apparently, he intends to help keep it that way. I’m reminded of a school board member a few years ago  who liked to make public pronouncements and write to the newspaper, expounding on the dispute the district was in with the union.  At the end of the year (after we had settled the dispute, mostly in our favor) I jokingly suggested that we should nominate her for a Friend of the PEA award because every time she wrote to the paper or opened her mouth we gained new members. Tommy Luna provokes much the same reaction, so I offer up my sincere thank you for a job poorly done.

Related articles

• Educational-Industrial Complex, Idaho-Style (crooksandliars.com)
• Is a shift occurring? (ridenbaugh.com)

Introducing Tom Luna, Graduate

This great photo of Tommy Boy and his fellow graduates, Jimmy and Billy, appeared on the  great blog, Clarence Worly’s Southeast Idaho Check it out but be prepared; if you are offended by profanity, Clarence certainly isn’t.

                          MEET TOM LUNA

AND HIS COLLEGE GRADUATION CLASS FROM

 THOMAS EDISON STATE COLLEGE IN 2002!!

L – R: Billy Crowder- Certificate of Completion in Auto Body

                         Tom Luna- BA in Weights and Measures

                        Jimmy Carbunkle- BA in American English

My understanding is that Tom bought completed his 2-yr on-line degree in only 90 days, WOW!!

Be sure to put on next years’ calendar their 10 yr reunion !!!

There will be a block of rooms for the alumni, family and friends at Motel 8,

And the celebratory dinner at Denney’s!!!

Friend Susan Johnson thought this picture of the  boys needed something so she added graduation caps. you can view that here.

Thomas Edison State College class of 2002

Related articles

• Surprise! Tom Luna is a liar. (billspeasoup.wordpress.com)

Primer for Liberals

Steve Bunk lives and writes in Boise for Writers on the Range. This piece appears in today’s Salt Lake Tribune . Steve has some advice for those of us who live in the three of the most conservative states in the union– Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho.

Here’s an excerpt:

Better stay away from politics: Don’t talk about taxes, or health care, or education, or governmental regulation, or the poor, the rich, the new mining project, global climate change, religion, evolution, abortion, sex or drugs. You can still talk about rock ‘n’ roll, though. And football.

It’s understandable that you might want to seek out an enclave of like-minded folks, if you can find one. In Idaho, where I live, there’s essentially only one place for liberals. It’s the city’s first suburb, which began to grow in 1878, a few blocks north of downtown Boise.

It’s called the North End, and its legislative district voters haven’t elected a Republican in 15 years. Many North End homes lie within a historic district, which means, among other things, that these houses boast a lot of creaking floorboards and boxy bedrooms that would probably appall those who favor newness in their accommodations. But from this neighborhood, you can ride a bicycle or walk into town, and that’s make-or-break for most liberals who fuss over fumes.

Read the whole piece here

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