CALIFORNIA WHOREMONGERING FOR DOLLARS

Those legislators who should all be fired from the state, are busy dreaming up new and exciting things that could be taxed. One of their favorites is called the California Tax on Alcohol Initiative which may be on the November ballot if enough fools sign on.

In essence it will tax alcohol purchases  up to an added $6.08 per six pack of beer and up to $5.11 per each bottle of wine and up to $17.57 for spirits – over the price of the beverage itself.  And for this they hope to gain up to $9 billion annually. So will you pay $15 for a six pack of beer, or $16 for the cheapest bottle of wine on the shelf?  And what about that $50 marguerita?

You can read the ballotpedia entry or this item if you want to see the reasoning behind it. While the staggering cost of alcohol abuse is borne by all Californians, 67 percent of the alcohol sold in California is consumed by only 11 percent of the population. One blogger suggests the staggering cost of war is born by all Americans, 100% of war is carrier out by only 1% of the population. Let's tax war.

Let us not forget what led to the American Revolution. England’s taxation of everything and anything led to the demand for representation before taxation and the rest is history.

How about a toilet paper tax. Each time you visit the bathroom you are taxed. Or a sex tax? And let’s not forget the breathing tax where the sum of your breaths over your anticipated lifetime are pro-rated to a yearly total with a levy applied.

And I vote for a stupidity tax, and a celebrity tax, which means many celebrities will be taxed twice.

Of course we have leaders who are so busy screwing up the system that we don’t notice when they ask us to bend over just a bit more.  If government trimmed waste there may well be no need for a tax at all.

Read about some historical taxation here.

MisterWriter

TOO MANY RIGHTS AND TOO MUCH FREEDOM - ABUSED

In what can only be called insanity by anyone other than lawyers, the father of a dead marine whose funeral was picketed by the radical Phelps family from the Westobro Baptist Church was ordered to pay Phelps $16,510 appeal costs. Click the image to read the article.

You may recall this group in Contra Costa County picketing the County Clerks wedding in 2008. Regardless of how you feel about gay weddings, to allow protesters carrying signs that read “Thank God for dead soldiers” and “Semper Fi Semper Fags” and “God hates fags” at a military funeral is disgusting.  You can read reports about this group HERE.

There was no detail given as to why the award was set. Phelps and his band of radicals have had many run ins with the law and have demonstrated persistently throughout the country.  There are many words that I could use to describe what I think of these people, but the only one that I will say is: “Isn’t it amazing how many vile and disgusting things are done in the name of a peaceful and loving God.”  This statement is not to rile up Christians, but to show that even shrouded with the tenets of faith – love and forgiveness of sin – that there lurks a huge cancer which has too much freedom and too many rights afforded by the Constitution.

And that is in part the decline of society in America; the exploitation of rights so that everyone has the ability to forge their unique brand of interpretation regardless of the effect or the outcome. One nation under God it is not. One nation under law it is not.

The old saying that absolute power corrupts absolutely applies to freedom as well. Too much of anything is subject to corruption and decay.  For a country that can go to war in many countries and worry little about those indigents killed, yet be unable to put to death people in prison sentenced to die for horrible crimes, or worry about the act of putting these people to death because “it might be painful, thus inhumane” offers a stark contradiction in the whole morality of how we use our basic freedoms.  Or as my favorite cartoon showed a little boy telling his teacher: “My lawyer says I can sue you for violating my right to be stupid.”

My sympathies go out to the families of those soldiers killed who must endure these terrorists picketing with their insensitive signs at the funerals. And I wonder when the law will step up and adhere to a law of basic decency that ought to be afforded one American to another.

MisterWriter

CAN YOU SUPPORT STUDENTS WHO REALLY TRY? YES YOU CAN

I received this letter from Andrew Renwick, a Concord High School student into robotics. Like many programs, theirs is in danger of having no funding at all which impacts a competition that they want to enter, in April.

Read his letter and I urge you to support this program. We need programs where students excel and the only way that will happen is with community support. If you can get your business to sponsor them, they should stand a shot at the competition. Read about it HERE.

As Andrew wrote to me: “While we would like others to know of our accomplishments, our main reason for asking this is to help find us donors and sponsors who will help fund our way to Dallas, TX as well as help pay for a field of our own, and etc. The startup cost for the class was over 10000 dollars! As you can see, robotics is expensive.

I mean, how often does Concord have a team that ever goes to the World anything? Please consider this request...”

I’m impressed. You should be, too.  Read his letter below.

My name is Andrew Renwick and I am both a student at Concord High School and the President of the Robotics Club.  About two years ago, our teacher, Mr. Michael Smidebush, partnered with the generous people at the Contra Costa County Office of Education to launch a Robotics Engineering Technology Program at Concord High School. Currently the only one of its kind in the Mount Diablo Unified School District, this program offers students a unique learning opportunity and in doing so inspires them to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and math. I know personally, that my fascination in Engineering (as well as others) grew as a result of being in the class, and I now intend to become an Aerospace Engineer, working on projects in the same way that we work on them in the class.

Robot design teams from Concord High participate in the VEX Robotics Design Competition, a multi-national robot competition format sponsored by Innovation First. Innovation First is an offshoot of US-FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), an organization founded by Dean Kamen in 1989, to inspire young people to become the science and technology leaders of the future. In our Robotics Class, we use a team approach while applying everyday engineering principles to design and build robots for these competitions.

Last year, we sent teams to regional competitions in the Bay Area where they competed against more experienced teams from Bellermine Preparatory, Foothill High, and California High Schools. We selected these robots following a rigorous in-house competition involving both driver-controlled elements and fully autonomous operation (the robot runs off of our programming by itself). The overall results were excellent with two of our robots qualifying for the World VEX Championships in Dallas, Texas. And we have been fortunate to improve on that performance this year by qualifying three robots for the 2010 World VEX Championships!

As you probably realize, attending the Dallas event this April will be expensive. And, in light of the serious budget shortfalls in our school district, we have to fund this expedition entirely on our own. We are asking for the support of our community to help send the Concord High Robotics Teams to Dallas this year. Any help at all would be appreciated, no matter how small. Any money or donations that you give to our program would be tax deductible. In return for your backing, we would gladly display your logo/mascot on our winning robots as well as on any T shirts/ booths.

Thank you for taking the time to consider our request. If you require any further information, please do not hesitate to contact either me (andyrenwick@gmail.com) or my teacher, Mr. Michael Smidebush (smidebushm@mdusd.k12.ca.us). We would be more than willing to come out to your location and present ourselves in person (perhaps during a lunch break?), with our robot and a couple pictures. On behalf of the Concord High Robotics Program, I want to thank you in advance for your support of our mission to expose technology and engineering as a viable and fascinating career option through the medium of Robotic competition.

Sincerely,

Andrew B. Renwick

andyrenwick@gmail.com

Concord High Robotics

President of the Concord High Robotics Club

--------------------------------------

You can visit their CHS site HERE and contact the teacher Mr. Smidebush at smidebushm@mdusd.k12.ca.us. Time is of the essence. Whatever you can do, don’t wait. And do pass this along to friends (you can use the email link below the post to do that.)

 

Robotics World Championships in Dallas, Texas 2010 ,
April 21- April 25, 2010

Here are the cost breakdowns:

1 Teacher and 11 Students (Three Teams/Robots: 1129A, 1129B, 1129C)

Cost Breakdown:

Airfare from San Francisco International to Dallas/ Fort Worth International: $415 per person

Hotel for four nights ($1920): $175 per person

Food (11 meals at about $15 per meal): $165 per person

Extra Baggage Fees: $20 per person

Transport of Robots from Concord to Dallas: $400

Registration Fees to enter the World Championships : $500 a robot (already generously covered by the Contra Costa County Office of Education’s ROP Program)

Most of the money needs to be raised by mid April at the latest.

In Total:

Airfare: $415 * 12 people= $4980

Hotel: $480 * 4 rooms= $1920

Food: $165 * 12 people=$1980

Extra Baggage: $20 * 12 people=$240

Robot Transport: $400

Registration for the Worlds Championship= $500 * 3= $1500 (already paid for)

FINAL COST: $ 11020

WE NEED: $9520

Any money that people want to give should be sent to: Concord High School,  c/o Mr. Smidebush,  4200 Concord Blvd., Concord, CA 94521

MisterWriter

ANOTHER STUDY BUDGET WELL SPENT-DRINKING

Students everywhere will be pleased to know that a study from Boston University and Brown University has shown that binge drinking the night before a test does not adversely affect the student’s performance. You can read that HERE.

So how did they get these results? Well the line for volunteers was huge, no doubt as students were given alcoholic drinks over four days until their blood alcohol level reached 0.12. The following day they took practice versions of the Graduate Record Exam on a lecture from the day before. Other students were not given anything to drink. The results were similar.

Now wasn’t that money well spent? Students everywhere will now enjoy their binge drinking with full confidence that it will not affect their grades.

Cheers!

MisterWriter

WHO IS THAT COUGHING UP A TOENAIL?

Oh that’s me, I forgot, short gaps between the stomach churning, lung wrenching, sandpaper fits of coughing that end as quickly as they begin. It’s been three weeks of this, first a flu with fever, then a cough, then allergies as the sunshine reawakened California’s perpetual blooming, which turned into a cough, bronchitis and ear infection, sinus infection, laryngitis and sleepless nights.

There were antibiotics two weeks ago, but they did not work. And now there is antibiotics plus, steroidal spray, anti-inflammatory, allergy meds and the promise that I will be better soon.

I have almost stopped coughing, although this morning you could have played the full Symphony #40 in d minor from Mozart in the time I spent making dying sounds.

But everywhere I look there are people coughing, sneezing, sniveling, sniffing, snorting, spitting, popping cough drops like candy, croaking, groaning and generally miserable. Are you one of them?

For all the hoopla we made over the Swine Flu, it seems each year the regular garden variety bugs are getting worse, knocking people out of action for weeks at a time, with a greater antibiotic resistance and no promise of relief.

I guess it is one way to find out if you have an aneurism – if you’re still standing after the coughing fit, you might be okay in that department.

I have tried herbal remedies, ginger teas, lemon teas, hot showers, sitting in the sunshine, gargling, the Neti-Pot, and whatever else I could find. It doesn’t work for me.  Neither does scotch on the rocks, although the pain is lessened. Scotch does not taste so good after a cough drop, though.

I’ve been living off cough drops. The instruction say to suck one slowly every two hours. Two hours? Are you nuts. It’s more like every two minutes and I can’t suck the things – have to chew them up. And after a giant bag of cough drops has gone, I do feel better, even though there is a sugar rush and a pasty coating in my mouth.

And then the coughing starts again.

To those of you who are suffering this cough thing – my sympathies. Get well soon. It’s Friday. Happy Friday. Enjoy this last video…

MisterWriter

HOW ABOUT MORE TESTING SO WE CAN REALLY BLAME THE TEACHERS?

As the great bird of the NCLB lost its tail feathers and spiraled down to its demise, a new bird took flight. Keeping the premise that the fault lies not in the stars but in the teachers, the new bird wants to test in September and again in May or June so that growth, or lack thereof, can squarely be pointed at a teacher and merit pay ascribed accordingly.

And you took a pay cut for that!

Already we have been witness to the lowest performing schools with the options of firing their principals, closing them, turning over to state control – and doesn’t the state do so well with everything else it touches – or privatized. Privatized.

It is the age of privates. Privatize the prisons, the schools, and solve all those nagging problems. No privatization left behind!  Maybe the potential next governor of eBay, I mean, er…Kalifornia can show everyone how to do that.  Let’s auction the state.

What the feds and the state need to do is ban anyone without 20 years school site level experience from saying the word “education.”  Using education as the carrot for political gain is a cowardly way for personal gain. In such a short span of time the insanity that was NCLB has created a negative education culture based solely on testing results of a poor excuse of a test and everyone too fearful to stand up to it.

I doubt we need more of the same. A test in September will then be used to compare to the results from the past May to show what students “lose” over the summer. Will that loss be the fault of the last teacher who did not cement in learning? Or will teachers allow a “loose” testing environment at the urging of their districts, so that the initial test score is worse than the final test score?

How about banning multiple choice testing? How about expecting a student to actually have a coherent answer written legibly and correctly spelled? How about testing what they learned and not their ability to guess well?  How about grouping students by ability? How about no longer holding the best behind so the least can catch up only to find they never catch up? 

Of course it is easier to blame the teachers. I’m guessing there is another 20 years of life in that choice.

Read a good article about his HERE.

MisterWriter

LAUGH OF THE DAY – THE BUSH HAITIAN HANDSHAKE

If you haven’t seen this yet… it comes about ten seconds into the video. -MisterWriter

HOW QUICKLY WE FORGET THE THINGS THAT END OUR LIVES

If you think this is depressing, read through to the end.  Our species, as ignoble and yet as amazingly creative as we can be, has a propensity to overlook or “forget” the things that really can affect our lives. For example – we are all dying. Life is about death. Sooner or later we die and that’s it. Knowing that the clock is ticking seems like an amazing bummer to daily life, don’t you think? Cross the street the wrong way and BAM – a semi just checked you out. Drive down the wrong road and BANG – freeway shooter took you out. Use drugs and OOPS – bad shit, end of game. Or Cancer of the (name your own body part because I guarantee you there is a cancer for it.)  There are a million ways to die and a million ways to linger on, and a million ways to hasten or delay what ultimately is an end game. And we choose not to dwell on it, not to think about it, especially when we are young.

But then we get to that point where age matters, where the years ahead are fewer than those behind and where you notice the changes whether it be a loss of hair or a loss of libido, a wrinkling where smooth skin once existed. Aches set in and odd pains where none used to exist. Patience and energy levels decline in unison while crutches like alcohol become a lot friendlier. Sure you go through that age defying stage where you just know that if you did a thousand crunches a day your six pack abs would look eighteen years old and perhaps that sag beneath the eyebrows would lift again into a youthful gaze.

The glass is half full and yet we still come up with those time-weary sayings that life begins at forty or fifty or whatever number you want to plug in there, or that age is just a number – and death is just anti-insomnia – but whatever, we need to lie to stay sane, to not dwell, to not wonder when the time will come and how it may come.  Your heart may race every now and again, but you tell yourself that is a good thing because it means the damned thing still works, until you are felled by some ailment that has to be explained to you twice, unlike when you were twenty and did not give a damn when the doctor told you it was an STD (calm down I am being metaphorical here).

Age is like a half finished bottle of wine. You better hope the vintage was a good one because your chances for another bottle are low.  And then you notice that there are a hell of a lot of E.D. ads on television, and you wonder whether you will fall into that prostate range of asking the MD for some blue pills so that all your parts work –even if you feel like your head might explode as it does!  You stand in front of the mirror and notice gravity’s handiwork. And worse, hair that used to be on top of your head has taken to sprouting elsewhere. How the hell did my ears get a tuft? And how do I remove it? Is there a special ear tuft removal tool that the late Billie Mays was selling on TV for $9.95? The reason men have eyes on the front of their face is so they cannot see what grows behind them!

Really, it would make sense to plan the end days early because after parenthood it really is a downhill run. Sure you get those spurts of testosterone where you believe, for one happy moment, that you can beat the crap out of the annoying neighbor, and, if you get drunk enough, you really might try to prove that theory, but truth be told you are not the hormone wild, full head of hair, testosterone laden young man you once were and you never will be again no matter the pills you consume or the hours you spend at the gym.

You join the gym and realize that as men get older their most prized possession gets smaller. It is one of life’s cruel ironies, that and no longer being able to see that far down because half dome gets in the way. And you prance around flexing and trying to look like gravity is not working against you 24/7 even though you know better. You need no membership for that much fun.

And it is then that you know point blank that there will come a day, not too long from now that you will end and the world will go on without you. And you let out a deep sigh, one of acceptance that the prime has gone and the warranty has expired and that the young have taken over, for better or worse. The world you knew is fading and one day, if you last long enough, past all your heroes, icons, friends and family that you will be a stranger in a land you no longer know, still wearing pocket protectors and wrinkle free polyester pants. 

Or as Will said:

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
……  Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

Ain’t life grand?  But you know what?  You JUST HAVE TO LAUGH about it all because that is what life is about. We live in bubbles that we like to think are permanent and when we find they are not we get anxious about finding meaning and hope. But being human means having no guarantees, whether that is a job, a home, a family. And while that is somewhat unnerving a prospect, never knowing how it will all turn out, it does not have to be bad, even with all the aging things I joked about above. Sure those things happen – most of my list came from television commercials that I have seen over this last week.  But aging is not about getting older. It is about finding a peace with that temporality and being able to enjoy whatever the “it” is.  Ten years, a hundred years, it’s not the number but the quality.  It is the ability to survive the negative changes and relish in the positive ones. It is the ability to be the last one standing and being able to see a linear progression somewhere behind you.

I wouldn’t change it. I wouldn’t replace what it is for what it could be. It is the best gift to have, the biggest treasure that comes at the biggest cost, where the stakes are immense and the potential for loss so great that you quake in your boots and breathe a sigh of relief to awaken and see the faces of those you hold dear one more day; one more time.

And even in its misery there remains the promise of something better, the freedom to make that choice, short of death itself, to continue to reach, strive, hope and dream, regardless of success. That each sunrise and every sunset can fill the heart with warmth negates the inevitable to some minor part in the grander scheme of life.

Age is to be savored for while it is not the perfection or the lack thereof that makes it true, it is the knowledge and the experience that allows the richness of the journey to stand alone, strong and vibrant, until the very last breath, released with gratitude and thanks. What more could one ask for?

MisterWriter

PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY IS JUST A FOUR LETTER WORD

Watching the news each day has me convinced that personal responsibility in America is long dead and buried. No one will accept fault and no one will admit responsibility. Just look at the state of the state.

Perhaps the most sensational media bit is that of Michael Jackson’s doctor who will face manslaughter charges for administering the surgical anesthetic Propofol to the singer.  The family is outraged. The fans are outraged. Aside from the fact that by his death everyone forgot about MJ’s Jesus Juice incident(s) where he was accused of drugging and molesting some kids whose parents (lacking in personal responsibility) allowed their children to sleep over in MJ’s house/bed.

So now the sucker doctor who helped this media giant drug user to sleep will be charged with his death. The fact that MJ was addicted to that drug and many others and sought out doctors to help him plays no part in the judgment made, or lack thereof. The fact is that MJ lacked personal responsibility and paid the ultimate price. What is strange is that the public won’t accept that. It has to be somebody else’s fault. 

A few years ago I witnessed a woman and her son in a grocery store. There were a stack of cans that had been on display and the child, against his mother’s instructions, started pulling at the cans causing the whole lot to rain down on him and injuring him slightly.  The store sprang into action, immediately attempting to cover their liability by offering medical attention, offering to pay for the injury, and at a loss when the mother stated that the injury happened because of her son’s lack of regard and personal responsibility. He had been told not to touch and did so anyway. It was, she told the store, his fault and there should be no compensation for that.  The store could not let it go. First they offered a settlement, then tried to get a release from liability signed. The mother wanted nothing to do with either. It was a lesson learned.

When I watch how many parents spring to life defending their brats from bad choices, abrogating them from personal responsibility, I am appalled. When we wonder how we became a nation of self-absorbed, selfish, spoiled brats, we only have to look at how quickly we stopped accepting responsibility and how well we have passed that down to the next generation. Truth, justice and the American Way is no longer a Superman proud statement of fact. It is instead, life, liberty and I’ll do what the hell I want.

Bill Clinton showed the country that it wasn’t his fault he had an intern on her knees in the Oval Office. When he lied to the Grand Jury he showed millions of Americans that it was acceptable as well.

Tiger Woods showed the country that golf is a sport about sex so long as no one finds out. He showed the country that remorse comes with exposure. Is that personal responsibility? No, that would have come before getting caught.  Likewise for Michael Vick and many, many others.

What no one has stated publicly is that America loves a lack of personal responsibility.  It makes for great ratings, television and tabloid coverage and helps drive the economy. Whether that may be panty-less celebrities, or fallen political figures, a lack of personal responsibility seems the order of the land. We are addicted to it and crave it as evidenced by the slew of reality television shows that we love to hate.

And coupled with the great advertising game prostituting values in flashy packaging without concern for the toxic effects it will have for generations to come, the quest for money and power overrides all else.  The weak get killed off by the strong and the strong have fewer moral restraints than the weak. Or as they used to say…nice guys finish last.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised how bad it has become. Here is an article from the Badger Herald on the subject.

MisterWriter

HELP OUT CONCORD TITLE 1 SCHOOLS WITH YOUR TIME – WEDNESDAY 3/24

A plea from our friend Edi… If you have some time Wednesday and can volunteer please do so.

K to College School Supply Assembly 

WE  NEED  YOUR  HELP:

The lease on the warehouse is up soon and K to College has to move out.  

We have assembled nearly 15,100 supply kits  and there are only 1400 left to be done.

We must finish this job!!

See you Wednesday!!  976 Howe Road Martinez, CA

Wednesday, March 24th, 4:00pm - 9:00pm or until we have completed this job!!

(Search/Directions at Google Maps http://www.google.com/maps)

If you need more information, please call (510) 967-8978

MisterWriter

WHO NEEDS HORROR MOVIES – JUST WATCH THE NEWS

Shootings at rugby games, corporate theft by credit card companies, lies by drug manufacturers, ineffective politicians, crime, drugs without rock and roll…

I don’t know if you can feel the water temperature rising as we swim in the pan, but I do; it’s been rising for some time now, slowly at first with terminology like tolerance and acceptance, as though tolerance and acceptance, implied when it comes to racial equality, is more than a stun term when it comes to a general societal attitude of apathy and regret.  The temperature has been rising for some time, as we watched the financial meltdowns and the real estate meltdowns caused by the greedy bastards of the world implode around us; our clothes got dirty from the fallout, our nest eggs destroyed by the decay, our future hopes of retirement becoming more an exercise in how well our children will care for us, assuming they do not disown us for the cockup we have made of it all.

There is no joy to wake up to news of shooting deaths in Richmond, Oakland, Vallejo every morning, or, as in last night’s shooting at DVC, something closer to home. There is no joy to the news about businesses stealing your money through inappropriate bonuses, or the state stealing money from the school again. There is no joy in learning how drug companies with mega profits are forced to pull a drug they defended for years because too many corpses tell a different story. There is no joy to endless stories of the Catholic priest abuses that now touch the Pope who avoids it through the routine of pomp and circumstance. In fact, everywhere you look the moral fiber of society is unraveling ever faster, not just celebrity antics but those of the normal people who one day are on the news having committed some atrocity before killing themselves.  The water is hot in the pan and we keep swimming, hoping that it will pass, but it does not.

In our national quest for homogenization we have stopped fighting the system because the system has become too damned complicated and needs too many lawyers in order to battle. Who has that kind of money? I understand why people settle; despite the smear on their reputation, the costs is far less to settle. And so an entire industry of suing people has become almost another corporate job. You sneezed near me – I’ll sue you for the health effects it left me with.  And it is your fault that Michael Jackson took so many pills and then had to find some sucker to administer a surgical anesthetic. With that kind of guilt complex we should all be Catholics.

Now when those movie trailers for horror films come on I shrug; the scary movie is nothing compared to the real world, nothing compared to the horrors we have reported to us each day. I can deal with Freddie Kreuger and Jason; it’s the thugs on the street who don’t give a damn about life that are the ones I worry about, more for my kids than myself.

There is that old expression that says that if you throw a fish into a pot of boiling water it leaps out because it knows its going to die. But if you put a fish in a pan of room temperature water and slowly turn up the heat it will happily swim until it is cooked.

The water is already very hot!

MisterWriter

GOING AND COMING – A SHORT FRIDAY FLIGHT

With all the doom and gloom I thought it would be nice to share a take-off and landing from/to San Francisco International as seen from the cockpit of a 747.

There is something amazing when you take flight. And when you look down, all those big problems seem just a little smaller.

Happy Friday

MisterWriter

THE WORST STATE IN THE WORST STATE HAS TERRIBLE PLANS…

An interesting article from the Contra Costa Times HERE that suggests that the state sanctions against failing schools may lack any strength with the intimation that ignoring the requirements for change and/or deferring any implementation would have no consequence.

In the article both Gary Eberhart and Sherry Whitmarsh, trustees for the district, assert their opposition to the methodology of the list and the consequences, with Eberhart pointing out that every time the federal or state government comes out with a plan the complications involved and the strings attached make it more costly. “Their plans are terrible,” he is quoted as saying in the article.

And so the real question is whether the district should face off with the state with regards to these underperforming schools?  Given the ongoing budget cuts forced upon local districts by the state and its inability to handle state finances, with politicians still earning large salaries and bonuses despite terrible leadership and governance, with lawmakers offering additional bureaucracy as a solution to their failures – if you confuse the people they stop asking questions – why should school districts that are already in the worst state of the worst state have to endure added punishments?

I have long maintained that the structure of education is flawed. As a political entity it is a popular point of enraging the populace during election years – flog the teachers, raise the standards, leave no one behind. The reality is that the lip service translates into bloated policy devised by people with as little true understanding of learning as a societal end goal rather than a political tool.  Having watched California nose dive from the top to the last place among the states should convince even the most hardened voter that this has reached insane proportions. People should be angry.

You go to school to learn. If you are not learning what is the point? You learn by following the rules prescribed and not being disruptive. If you cannot do that you do not belong there.  Your right to an education is not a right to misbehave. But when the parents fail to control the children who then cause disruptions to the actual teaching the problem begins.  The fault lies with the parents. And the fact that taking personal responsibility has become taboo. Plausible deniability was a term coined for political evasion.

The irony is that at the expensive private schools with strict rules, where parents demand excellence because of the effect it will have upon their child’s life and careers, they expect obedience in school from the child as well.  I visited one such school in Walnut Creek last year and was amazed by the difference in the attitudes, even of the middle schoolers and high schoolers. Respectful, polite students listening in class. There were no disruptions. Work was of a high standard. The school looked clean and well kept up. Teachers enjoyed their work. And the principal was proud of their organization. 

And when I presented that to public school parents I was told that was what happens when parents have money. And I replied, that was what happens when parents require their children to behave and enforce it. The money was an added benefit to the expectation to learn.  The students were getting an education because manners, respect and a school-wide culture of conduct was firmly in place. There were no exceptions. If a child could not follow those rules the child was out. 

There is no reason that public school cannot be run the same way.  Parents have to be required to exercise control otherwise their child should not have the right to be at that school.  Tougher kids, tougher behaviors require tougher schools designed for handling that stuff. Why should the kids who do behave, the kids whose parents are on the ball, have to tolerate the conduct of those kids whose parents are not?  It is not about equality and fairness. It is not about opportunity. It is about personal responsibility and the responsibility of being a parent and actually allowing our children to learn something of substance. 

Since I have no illusion about those parents changing having encountered so many of them, why not change the schooling? Why not start by making a law that allows behavior issues to be transferred to behavior schools where they can be handled leaving the other kids – the majority – to learn in a positive and safe atmosphere?

That would be a great start!

MisterWriter

THE “MOVING OUT OF CALIFORNIA” SALE – BUSINESSES HAVE HAD ENOUGH

Its one thing to have driven your education system to last place, down from #1 to #50, and another to allow generations of lawmakers the opportunity to squander the wealth of the state for their own means with shady deals and scotch tape budget fixes.  And yet another to pass down your debt not only to the counties and the cities but also to the children of the people you are busy screwing.

Is your house worth what it was worth a short while ago? Are you floating upside down? Are you waiting for the recession to end? How will it end?

It takes a revenue stream to make up for the slash and bleed approach. That comes from jobs, opportunity and growth. What growth? Births? Births with no insurance funded by the state’s already hefty debt?  Businesses having the incentives to expand their base, hire workers and thrive? 

Nope – many businesses are leaving, have been leaving for some time. Between outsourcing to India and just up and leaving the state, I am curious how California will EVER come out of this economic disaster.  I guess the schools can’t drop below #50, although we could have the kids sitting in huts and scribbling in the dirt with their sticks "I want to be a California Politician.”

Apparently there is no list of businesses that have bailed on the state – far nicer to not have one when you are a politat spouting sound economic growth and how your mail-order graduate degree will help turn California back into the wonderland it once was.  Already I am sick of the commercials on TV – wouldn’t vote for any of the candidates.  What happened to decency and principles that mattered?

Here is a list of 100 business moving out of state (as of 2009). Ask yourself why they are going going gone. Could it be that California is really attempting to become the ghetto state of the union? It surely looks that way with all the illogical stuff going on.

HERE IS THE LIST and also read DAN WALTER’S take on it from The Modesto Bee HERE, an NBC report HERE and a businesswoman’s perspective HERE and the Business Insider HERE .

Are you leaving California? What do you think will happen and how?

MisterWriter

OVER 60% OF 22,000 TEACHERS WON’T BE BACK – AGAIN – CALIFORNIA PRIDE

Well done California. It really is a point of pride to pink slip 21,905 teachers.  Last year 26,000 teachers got the pink slip notice and about 60 percent of those lost their jobs – 15,600.  This year the final number is expected to be higher given the state’s fiscal mismanagement.  Read that story HERE.

There are about 307,000 public school teachers in the state and so when the state says that figure represents only 7 percent of the workforce that got pinked, it sounds so cheery, doesn’t it? Even better when you add that only 5 percent actually lose their jobs.  But the effect is cumulative.  Last year’s 15,600 that lost their job and this year’s number and the years going back since the money mess first started. How many teachers are lost?  In 2008 20,000 teachers were pinked resulting in 3,000 actually losing their jobs. So if this year’s loss is the same as last year, that would be 34,200 lost teachers in 3 years. And so it goes.

Worse, with each purging, more experienced teachers are leaving and getting replaced by fresh out of mind control school teachers that know how to turn pages and not argue, know little of classroom management and lost to the powerlessness of the profession which has no money to train them properly, even though they will each spend about $15,000 in student fees to get certified to teach.

They also work for less money as they are lower on the pay scale. And while many old teaching dinosaurs are also purged – and thankfully too, the system is ill. This is the front line of the nation’s future. This is where the formulation of an adult is created – more so by the fact that parents have given up that right so they can enjoy an extended immaturity while the public school nannies their kids.

And don’t forget California’s biggest pride point; the drop from being the best in the nation to the absolute lowest. Now that is an achievement gap that really should fall under NO STATE LEFT BEHIND.

Prop 98 which passed in 1988 requires the state to increase education funding each year based on the prior year’s budget.  It really shows, doesn’t it. That and the lottery money, the Fed’s stimulus funding, the amazing and always questionable NCLB and now…. the RACE TO THE TOP!  Hey, when you are at the bottom any movement is a race to the top, isn’t it.

MisterWriter

DO YOU HAVE HEALTH INSURANCE? I DON’T, BUT NOT BY CHOICE

I consider it a game of Russian Roulette, having no medical insurance and not at a low enough income level to qualify for Medi-Cal. For me this was not choice – a series of Medical Information Bureau reports over the last decade which was filed when I tried increasing my life insurance has created a cascade of declines that I have spent the last few months battling with many more to come.  And for the sake of my family my end solution was to form a group health plan so that I could qualify, even though this meant having to switch from John Muir Health to a Kaiser plan as well as having to offer coverage to employees as well as other added costs. My plan starts April 1 so my game of chance continues for a few more weeks.

Here is my story: I had a private health plan, the notorious Blue Cross/Anthem whose rates kept going up. And then I switched to a group plan through my last employer. When I purchased The Concordian that plan ended. I reapplied for Blue Cross Anthem and was delayed for a month as they hummed over getting medical records. Then another month (the short term coverage expired) and then a decline. By then my choice was to try and get Cobra retroactively – that would have been a very large amount of money for the limited coverage that last plan offered, or push forward.

According to the MIB, I have stage 3 kidney failure. My creatinine levels fluctuate, and have done so for the last 30 years, sometimes well into the normal range while at other times just cresting a hair over the normal range. Normal is also a subjective term depending which lab does the tests. Kidney function is determined by a GFR rate (glomerular filtration rate) which is a combination of age, serum creatinine, gender and race. My GFR comes in at 58 which classifies as Stage 3. Another test comes in at 71 which is stage 2. In fact my creatinine level would have to be at 2.4 in order for me to reach a GFR of 29 that would bump me into stage 4 kidney failure. There are 5 stages. Stage 4 is where you start preparing for dialysis or a kidney transplant. Stage 5 is kidney failure. Given the fact that the last 30 years has seen nothing different is a good indication of the future.

My creatinine levels have fluctuated from .8 to 1.4 over the last thirty years. No symptoms. No treatment. No diagnosis. I had an imaging scan done a few years back that showed two normal kidneys functioning normally.  In fact, aside from my general insanity, I am in good health. This should not have posed any problem at all.

Nonetheless it resulted in my being declined from all the major insurance carriers and told that I would have to apply for coverage under California’s Major Risk Medical Plan which would cost me even more money while offering even lower coverage.  You see, in California, insurance companies really do want you to bend over.

When I consulted with my doctor he agreed that with the last 30 years of lab tests available that he would write a letter stating that not only were my creatinine levels in the normal range, but there is no indication of illness, treatment, symptoms and has never been the case.  I could go until my death with the same result. My creatinine would have to jump from the current 1.2 level to 2.4 to bump me in the next level. Or drop to 1.1 to decrease my level to Stage 2.  It is that simple and that ridiculous all at the same time. The MIB and the carriers do not care. Nothing changes even with the letter.

Dehydration plays a part in kidney function. If you are not well hydrated your kidney function decreases. Blood pressure can affect kidney performance – untreated high blood pressure can kill off your kidneys.  Similarly, some studies have shown that sodium bicarbonate (antacid) actually improves kidney function.

So why are California insurance companies treating me like I am a stone’s throw from death’s door when this is not the case?

Before the illusion of being able to get a plan, I looked at coverage and prices. To cover a family with two or more kids with a plan that costs $30 co-pay to visit the doctor can cost anywhere from $900 to $1600 per month. That still includes a high deductible for everything else, in the $2000/4000 range (individual/family) or more.  When I was a teacher my insurance including dental cost $1500 month which explained why my net paycheck was $1.50 after taxes.

To get a decent premium range $710 for a family you need to have a very high deductible where you are paying cash for almost everything.

To get my family covered I elected for group health. Employers traditionally have to pay toward their employee’s health plans. In my case, fortunately, my employees are covered elsewhere and declined. That left my wife and I as employees. I don’t mind telling you that our premium is $710 a month for a Kaiser plan with a $2500 individual deductible and a $5000 family deductible. While Kaiser services are generally less costly and there are a few things like preventative visits that are covered with a small deductible, it is generally a plan that will cover major hospitalization.  To get the same coverage with Anthem that would allow me to see my regular doctor would have cost $350 more per month.  I like my doctor (John Muir Health) and we have elected to pay cash when we go there (the difference in what we would have paid for the two policies goes toward that.)

The term that comes to mind is robbery. And the statistics that came out in the Los Angeles Times today shows that 25% of the people in the state are uninsured. Between lost wages, layoffs, and ever rising premiums, fewer people can afford to carry coverage.

The whole Health Care Reform Debate, while now a joke that has been polluted by every politician along the way still remains to be seen if and when it ever passes. Without a long diatribe about the reasons for this mess, it is not different from the greed that took place with the housing crisis, the banking industry and more. It is greed. Each facet of the medical business feeds on other pieces. The providers needing twenty billing clerks just to file the paperwork and do battle to collect payments is absurd.  And watching the process unfold even with coverage is insanity. Last year my son needed physical therapy and with each bill, the provider re-filed with the insurance company. Each filing got a dribble more money from the insurance company until the bill was reduced by about seventy percent – one year later. It is like watching hyena’s fighting over a carcass only we are the carcass.

On April 1st, I get the pleasure of knowing that my family has coverage again. That is after the $10,000 out of pocket, after the $5000 deductible and with the limitations that Kaiser has with managed care. I am wondering when the euphoria of that relief will lift my spirits.  Like the kidney function test where people with perfectly functioning kidneys are still considered to be stage 1 kidney failure, we are viewed as a progress marker on the hill towards the grave.  It reminds me of The Matrix where the industrial machines suck our life force as their power supply. 

Somehow there has got to be a better way.  Read the LA Times article here.  You should know your kidney function – you would be surprised how many people suffer some form of impaired kidney function and do not even know it. You can read more HERE.

 

MisterWriter

FAST, FREE AND EASY – THE WAY WE LIKE IT!

Okay all you potty minded readers – I am talking about Internet content here so clean up those thoughts.  As a newspaper publisher I see the slow demise of the printed word, as yet to evolve into the nether form it will have in the future.  So far, my community paper survives, I hope, in part because of good content and reasonable ad prices, but also because we go the extra mile for both. And our readers – thank you readers. Click the right hand side link if you want to go there now.

Not so for the other papers that watch their page counts fall,  Font size increase and struggle to find new revenue by which to survive.  The concept of charging online readers has been fueled by the suggestion that if all providers followed suit the readership would have to pay for content.  Not so, I countered.  The Internet being the great big whore house of information, you can get your content from anywhere on the planet. If the big US papers want to charge, jump over to another country and read their papers.  You see, Reuters and UPI that supply much of the syndicated content are global.

But don’t take my word for it. A recent study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism (an oxymoron if there ever was one) did a study that found that while 6o percent of Americans do check online news, 82 percent of those would not pay for the pleasure.  And they can’t be blamed. Buying content is like paying for a leftover meal in many cases.

And another thought – the sheer volume of pirated content in music, movies and software that flits through offshore servers and generated by some lone Asian or Russian entrepreneur would simply include news as part of that black market shopping list.

Porn sites started the revolution. Offer glitzy sites with a sampling and then hook in subscribers. What happened with that model, however, was as the quantity of sites increased, so too did the sampling that quickly because full videos, imagery and more.  It is like Costco’s food sampling; circle the store a few times and you have a full meal for free. If they served cocktails the experience would be complete.

We are suckers for FREE which is why we see that word EVERYWHERE. To me FREE means that there is no cost. So Buy One Get One Free is not free – it just means half price.  FREE analysis, means nothing. Hair Club offers a FREE follicular examination – again, meaningless since anyone going there knows they are losing their hair.  FREE software means that it has limited use. Timeshares gave away FREE prizes but you had to spend your time listening to the pitch to qualify.

We like fast and free and easy – easy is very important because if it is too complicated no one is interested.  Fast is important because we do not have the time.

Newspapers online are free right now – although many sites attempt to have you register to read the free content which takes away from free because it is not fast or easy at that point.  And in many ways blogs have filled that hole by being fast, easy and free to read.

Read about the newspaper survey HERE.

MisterWriter

Happy Birthday Al

Einstein still rules

MisterWriter

A LITTLE FRIDAY PERSPECTIVE

Unless you are a staunch creationist who believes that early humans roamed the Earth with the dinosaurs, the universe has existed for about 13.7 billion years, and that’s assuming there wasn’t another one before the first big “pop”.

To truly appreciate time spans you must first have a frame of reference. An adult mayfly has a lifespan that ranges from a half hour to one day. In comparison the giant tortoise lives 177 years.

The human who lived the longest, Jeanne Calment of France, died at the age of 122 1/2 years.

The earth rotates on its axis in 24 hours, and the moon’s cycle is about 30 days. The Earth travels around our sun in a year which in turn (as a solar system) orbits the Milky Way once every 200 million years.

Light from the sun takes 8.3 minutes to reach the Earth, yet only 1.3 seconds from the Moon to the Earth. From our nearest star, Alpha Centauri, light takes 4.4 years to reach us, while it takes 100,000 years to travel across the Milky Way galaxy.  Light from our closest galactic neighbor, the Andromeda Galaxy, takes 2.5 million years to reach us.

Humans sleep for 122 days each year, which seems an incredible waste of time except when you look at what people do while awake. The average daily amount of time the household TV was on last year was about 28 hours a week. By age 70 you have spent 10 years of your life watching TV (and that’s in addition to the 23 years you spent sleeping.) Teens spend 31 hours a week online or 8 years of their life by age 70. Add to that the 7 years you spend eating. 

For all the time it consumes our thoughts, the average person spends only 100 or so days through age 70 having sex. That’s about one third of a year. Of course you spend 20 years thinking about it.

There are currently about 6,805,826,570 people in the world of which 308,783,838 live in the USA. In contrast there are over 400 billion stars in the Milky Way Galaxy.  Google has an index of approximately one trillion unique URL’s (1,000,000,000,000) with about 2 billion searches taking place each day.  YouTube holds about 70,000,000 videos at this time. It is estimated that there are 133,000,000 blogs indexed (of which I am one) and 346,000,000 people reading them. 900,000 blog posts are made each day. Twitter has 200,000,000 active users with half of them logging on daily.

You can check at howmanyofme.com to see how many people in the US have your first, last or both first and last name.  There are 120,426 Andre’s in the US. Only 1 has my first and last name. Finally, something unique. If you are Bob Smith there are 2,719,929 people in this country with the same name. Of course, you take that with a grain of salt – there are 6 people in the US named Jesus Christ, and 9,264 people named Santa.

 

It is Friday. If you live to age 70 you will have 3,640 Fridays to enjoy.  Each day you take over 20,000 breaths and breathe about 35 pounds of air. In your life you may breathe 625 million times. In our life we breath the volume of two football fields that are almost twenty stories high.

And finally, if you think it is easy to become a millionaire, consider this: If you count once every second from 1 to one million it will take you almost 12 days with no sleep to get there. If you could travel one mile in a second, it would take you twelve days to travel one million miles. The sun is 92 million miles away and at that same rate it would take you over a thousand days to reach the sun.

One mile a second is quite fast. We run about 5-10 feet in a second. Light travels at 186,400 miles in one second making us look very slow, no matter how hectic our day.

I present all this to you to offer a balance between the insanity we live each day, and the scope of life on this planet and beyond. In that short period we live, packed solid with every emotion, thought, feeling and choices we make and often take for granted, remember that it only takes one second for a life to change, for better or for worse.

Happy Friday. Enjoy the video to gain an added perspective.

MisterWriter

MORE CUTS – A 3 YEAR COLLEGE PLAN AND BUY YOUR OWN DAMN DIPLOMA!

When the going gets tough the tough start cutting requirements. Everything from high school graduation requirements to college courses turn out to be totally negotiable.  You see, as fewer people can afford college, the colleges have to be flexible. You can now save 25% on your basket weaving degree by doing a three year plan.

Is the value of education getting to the point that it is a disposable commodity? Is that degree worth the paper it is printed on?

Not if you choose the even easier way to get yourself a degree. That’s right, I am talking about those “real, legal and accredited college degrees that you can get in 5 days!” For a few bucks.

Instant Degrees.com offers an Associate Degree for $120, a Bachelor Degree for $130, a Masters Degree for $155, a Doctorate for $180, a Professorship for $210 and more. 100% approval. No Coursework.

 

Of course it’s crap, and if you read the Terms of Service you see that: “The Client certifies and warrants on pain of perjury that all the following are true:

The Client understands that any degree obtained through InstantDegrees.com will most probably come from an Institution outside the Client’s own Jurisdiction and that the Client cannot, in any circumstances, specify the actual Institution nor specific geographic location of any Institution.

Neither the Client nor any associated person is a journalist or media professional acting in that capacity. Neither the Client nor any associated person is going to obtain an award or awards through InstantDegrees.com to publish a news story or article of any sort in any media whatsoever, specifically including but not limited to printed matter, books, magazines, journals, newspapers, television, radio, multimedia, Internet, websites, Chat Rooms, Newsgroups, Forums, Usenet, telephone, mobile telephone, Wireless Access Protocol, FAX (facsimile transmissions) or emails.

Neither the Client nor any associated person is a law enforcement officer or investigator acting in that capacity, nor acting on behalf of a law enforcement agency. Neither the Client nor any associated person is obtaining documents or products to use as evidence in any type of civil or criminal investigation.…”  

Um…big clue!!!!!!

But in laughing through this site, I am thinking that colleges reducing the requirement to three years and high school reducing the credits needed are both guilty of cheapening the effort and the purpose of the degree; to create an indebted situation whereby the student is paying student loans for the next fifty years in return for a diploma that barely gets you a better pay scale. Okay, maybe not that bad, but heck I’m still paying my student loan for my teaching credential and I have not been a teacher for almost 3 years.

It is all hoop jumping. We would be better served having students deal with real life, obtain job experience as part of their schooling (you know, dump some electives for god’s sake) and turn out productive people that might help the economy rather than a bunch of dim witted pant-saggers who are more interested in waddling like a penguin than appearing intelligent.

But that’s just me! Like the confusion we call state government, like the insanity we call public education, like the disjointed law-inspired disclaimers and limitations that lawsuits have inflicted upon every aspect of society, why not just pay that fee and get your diploma from the University of Ignorance from the island colony of Bwanista?

Its getting so bad that George Carlin’s jokes are hitting home:

“They say we need more money for education. That’s the big answer to everything, education. They say we need more money for books, more teachers, more classrooms, more schools, and more testing for the kids, and they’ll say, well we tried all of that, and the kids still can’t pass the tests. Don’t worry about that, because we’re going to lower the passing grades, and that’s what they do in a lot of these schools. They lower the passing grades so more kids can pass – more kids pass, the school looks goods, and the IQ of the country slips another 2 or 3 points. And pretty soon all you’ll need to get into college is a pencil. Got a pencil? Then get in there, it’s physics! Then people wonder why 17 other countries graduate more scientist than we do. Education – politicians use that word, they use it on you. Politicians have traditionally hidden behind 3 things: the flag, the bible, and children – no child left behind, no child left behind. Oh, really it wasn’t too long ago you were talking about giving children a head start. Head start – left behind, someone’s losing ground here.”

I miss George Carlin!

MisterWriter

YOU’RE NOT IN KANSAS DOROTHY, BUT YOU COULD BE GETTING A VILLAGE EDUCATION

Kansas City School Board closes half of the city’s schools in the face of bankruptcy. A dire forecast in the face of their budget woes that could quite easily be mirrored elsewhere including the MDUSD.  You can read that story HERE.

Meantime back at the local ranch, the list of underperforming schools getting sanctioned has changed. Removed from the list is Mt. Diablo High School, but added is Glenbrook Middle School. No decision yet from the superintendent whether to apply for the federal monies available once the district jumps through the revision hoops of how to bring the schools up to par.

Meantime watch as the local communities swirl through their budget cuts and decide whether to slash the police department (like Vallejo did) or whether to slash community recreation programs.

When you watch all these little dances of doom going on you come right back to the causes – a national, political greed and power play that has been getting progressively worse as the general populace allowed itself to get distracted with such weighty matters as the recession and American Idol. What can you expect when the average voter has no clue about the candidates? What can you expect when the average American is unaware of the line of succession should the President of the United States get incapacitated?  Oh yes,  they all know that the VP is second, but who knows who is third?  Or fourth? The Secretary of Education is 17th inline but where does the Secretary of State rank? If you do not know the answer click HERE for your emergency civics lesson, but at least be honest that you did not know.

Hillary Clinton popularized the saying that it takes a village to raise a child, but if we do not get the state in order, the education will be village-like in its simplicity complete with sticks for pencils and dirt for whiteboards, assuming we don’t close half the schools first.

MisterWriter

MDUSD: IS SIMPLIFYING THE HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION REQUIREMENT WORTH THE SAVINGS IT PRODUCES?

In what will no doubt be an ongoing and active debate, the MDUSD board approved, as part of the major budget cutting that took place at last night’s board meeting, to reduce the comprehensive high school graduation requirements so that students would need 20 credits of math and only 200 total credits – down from 230. Likewise, the already lowered requirement for necessary small high schools and alternative education dropped to a total of 180 credits. This in addition to shortening the school year.

This begs the question whether the savings, projected at $400,000 annually from the reduced demand for summer school for students lacking the needed credits, is offset by the damage done by lowering further, the academics needed to graduate. Can we claim to be graduating qualified high school students if we are lowering the bar?

The chart above presented by the board shows the pre-cut levels of the MDUSD graduation requirements in comparison to surrounding districts. Acalanes and San Ramon districts, both of whom boast higher testing scores have a more stringent exit requirement of 240 credits, while West Contra Costa at 225 and Pittsburg at 210 were lower than the MDUSD credits needed prior to the reduction. In effect, the reduction makes the MDUSD graduation requirement the lowest in our surrounding area.

As the board began discussions there were loud boos from the audience. Superintendent Steven Lawrence clarified the district’s position by saying: “I never thought I would ever recommend [this]…the goal is to ensure that we are not reducing teachers at the high school level. So that AP classes can still be offered.”

Faced with criticism that the result of a lowered expectation would be students now able to cut classes even more prompted trustee Gary Eberhart to explain: “It is not the goal of the board of education to empty our schools, but this is a way where we can make some reductions and it won’t impact students on track to a UC or state college.”

In fairness to the board, faced with limited options reducing the graduation requirements cannot be dismissed as anything more than a necessary evil and certainly not a choice they make lightly. Three out of the five board members have children attending the MDUSD who are impacted by all the cuts that they have been forced to make. Likewise, the new superintendent’s children will be attending the MDUSD next school year and will similarly face the repercussions of these cuts.

The fact remains that this school district, like many others, suffers due to the idiocy of the state in its inability to balance its own budget without forcing counties and cities within to shoulder the burden unfairly. What needs to change is not the manner of cuts but rather the method of decision making in Sacramento. And after too many years of sloppy stop-gap measures that only worsened the situation, the time for talk has passed. These legislators have all proved their failures by the results we are forced to bear. Those wishing to be elected offer absolutely nothing tangible that would amount to change.  And without being forced to do so there will be no change to the manner by which they conduct the business of the state.

  It is time for a recall and a change in the manner by which we elect these people, a change in the job functions and certainly a change in their pay and perks. Public service was supposed to be a service to the community and not a for profit venture regardless of failure at our expense. Our representatives are not representing us because none of us want this fiasco. And unchecked it will continue – unabated. If you think that the district cuts are over you are only deluding yourself. The state will continue to revise its budget and will continue to pass the damage down, no matter how much Arnold claims to be protecting education.

If you are interested, here is the procedure for recalling State and Local Officials. Let me know your thoughts on this and the lowered graduation requirements.

MisterWriter

MDUSD $48.8 MILLION IN CUTS – YOUR SCHOOL IS NOW AN EMPTY BOX

How do you take something from nothing? Well the MDUSD Trustees have to do that tonight as they add to the over $50 million previously slashed by slashing another $48.8 million.

And to be honest it is not their fault. Why do we permit the incompetence of the state legislature to pad their pockets, slash our programs, inflict inmates upon us and decimate any hope our children have of a decent education?

So now the district will shorten the school year – that will do wonders for the already struggling students, reducing employee benefits, cut $8,4 million from Special Education, $4.5 million from teacher training, $3.6 million from office staffing and $1.2 million from summer school. Read the CCTimes story HERE.

Welcome to Mt. Diablo. Your school is now an empty cardboard box.  All the gains made over the past few decades are lost, rolled back, destroyed because the state cannot handle its responsibilities.

And the scary part is that they are not done yet! Nothing has been solved. Nothing has been fixed. All the state has done is push these cuts down the line while they continue with business as usual. The system is still broken. And we are paying for it.  They all still pull their hefty salaries and perks at our expense.

The state legislators need to ALL be recalled – fired! And no one should vote for any candidate who is not willing to agree to controls and restrictions. Somehow this has got to stop. How do you take something from nothing? Well California knows how to do that and they do it well.

Read the MDUSD Agenda for tonight HERE. They meet at Monte Gardens Elementary, 3841 Larkspur Dr. Concord. Or watch the meeting HERE.

MisterWriter

FAILING SCHOOLS & FAILING BUDGETS=FAILED STATE

This morning the state – that bastion of screwed up policy and budget priorities – will release its list of 190 failing schools in the state, of which 6 are within the MDUSD.

Under the “Race to the Top” bill package – again an oxymoron given the fact the state took away the crutches – failing schools representing the lowest 5 percent are sanctioned and must reform immediately in order to qualify for Title 1 funding.  Sanctions include dumping their principal and half the staff, restart the school by turning it into a charter school under a different management program or, as is under consideration as part of budget reduction, closing schools permanently.

On the list, reportedly is one high school, one middle school and four elementary schools. The list will be public at 10 am.  The California Department of Education website is HERE.

Here is a list courtesy of Claycord.com. Click it to read his story.

The above list is from the California Student Aid Commission while the CDE site lists the following:

Bel Air Elementary

Meadow Homes Elementary

Oak Grove Middle

Rio Vista Elementary

Shore Acres Elementary

Mt. Diablo High

 

In other news, a few hundred East Bay inmates (nearly 90 from Contra Costa County) have been released under the state’s other genius plan to save money. The state hopes to reduce the prison population by about 6,500 prisoners.

I would like to know how many state legislators have foregone on their paychecks while they inflict this insanity upon us?  Public servants need to serve. California legislators (as of 2007) were paid an annual salary of $116,208/year which puts them at the top nationally.  So the state that is failing the most has legislators being paid the most, and their solution to the budget that they cannot control is to release prisoners and fail schools and require districts to slash millions from their budget that will likely result in school closures.

Now what is wrong with that picture?

MisterWriter

WHY DOES EVERY IDIOT GET TO VOTE?

The problem with democracy is that every moron gets to partake regardless of qualification. The dumbest, most ignorant, illiterate, brain numbing buffoon who needs hand holding instruction while trying to figure out how to use the scratcher lottery ticket has the same voice as you when it comes to voting, even if he has never read anything a day in his life.

How about this – I have to take a test for just about everything else in my life I want to do – why not require a basic civics test or you don’t get to vote. I mean, come on, if you are too stupid to vote you really shouldn’t be mucking up the process.  If you vote for someone because they “look cute” you should be flogged.  Politics and government is enough of a mess that we do not need anything else screwing it up. George Washington would cringe looking at society today.  He said: “I was no party man myself, and the first wish of my heart was, if parties did exist, to reconcile them.”

Sometimes I watch Letterman or Leno asking questions of the “average citizen” and in the name of comedy it seems fitting to show how ridiculously stupid so many people are when it comes to their total lack of understanding how the country is run.  When citizens cannot name the leadership of the country, when they do not know the order of succession of power (no folks, the Secretary of State is not number three on the totem pole for presidency) then giving such people the vote is akin to giving a ten year old a driver’s license.

Americans endlessly talk about patriotism and yet part of that patriotism is to hold a fundamental knowledge about the history and the politics of the country.  the greatest gift in any democracy is the right to vote – something that is taken for granted by too many American’s who would rather be watching American Idol than a political conference.  Perhaps that is why so many people can see Alaska from their bedroom windows, too!

Here are some statistics:

1/3 of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives.

42 percent of college graduates never read another book after college.

80 percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year.

70 percent of U.S. adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.

57 percent of new books are not read to completion.

Each day in the U.S., people spend 4 hours watching TV, 3 hours listening to the radio and 14 minutes reading magazines.

Like I said…

MisterWriter

 

 

 

 

 

MisterWriter

DO PROTESTS WORK? DOES ANYBODY LISTEN AT THE GOVERNMENT LEVEL? WHY DOES NOTHING CHANGE?

There isn’t a politician who hasn’t uttered the “C” word numerous times, promising to change everything once elected to whatever office they get, and yet, as time attests, nothing changes. In fact, frequently it gets worse as the newly elected becomes part of an ever growing problem, the epitome of Lord Acton’s “absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

So when the education genii that think up ways to protest their dissatisfaction come up with before and after school protests, black armbands, letters to elected officials I have to wonder whether it has any effect at all.  Granted, in this statewide “Day of Action” there are larger numbers across the state and even nationally, yet the expression of dissatisfaction has no teeth.

The problem is that the people running the state should have expiration dates that ensures we are rid of them. Sorry, but there are no politicians that are worth extensive terms and the ability to be a part of a mismanaged system of inefficiency and greed.  THEY are supposed to represent US. And yet they represent themselves at our expense, to the point that we have to expend a great deal of time and energy to stand sniveling in protest in the hopes that someone will have the balls to step up to the plate and start leading by example and not by who is indebted to whom for their political gains.  This is not the leadership envisioned by the founding fathers and certainly is not representative of the people.

Education is in ruins. Between the legal prohibition on any solidly enforceable school discipline, the obsession with scores that reflect a provincial stimulus despite the statewide statistics to the contrary, a lack of solid career potential programs for the majority of students rather than the minority, and teachers that have been beaten into submission both financially as well as emotionally. Devastating budget cuts that still favor the penal system over the education system, and a big shot movie star governor who shows why our leaders should not be actors, round out the state.

The irony is that unless something changes, even if this protest is a huge success and the state does not take more funding from education, it will make up for that loss by taking more from the local cities which in effect will still affect the schools. Look at Vallejo with a 25% reduction in the police force and a skyward rising crime rate.

We need a total change in California. We need new leaders who should be forced to sign an agreement that they will not accept contributions over $25, that they will not represent special interest groups, that they will not defer, that they will accept a public servant salary instead of a CEO salary, and that they will not run for reelection so that their term is well spent and focused on the issues to fix the state.

I congratulate the people who showed up to protest regardless of the outcome. One of the great problems of this age is apathy, borne mostly of a feeling of total frustration that no matter what we do that nothing will change. But if we really want to make a difference, we need to clean house and start over and that will take a lot more than standing outside a school with a cardboard sign hoping that the cardboard governor will heed the message.

You can read about today’s edu-protests at Claycord.com HERE,  MDUSD Parents HERE and from the CC Times HERE or a contrary take in the video below from Halfway To Concord that portrays the event as a “Union Socialist demonstration against State Run education in California.”

MisterWriter