Conservatives-in name only.

The people who call themselves conservative are not-not even close. Whenever I meet someone who tells me that they are,I bet them to define it. The bet is $20 to 20 cents. I always win the bet. The father of the American conservative movement, Barry Goldwater did not give birth to these bastards. To Goldwater, government did not belong in your bedroom or doctor's office. (his daughter was gay). Conservatives were for stable markets which allowed for long term investments..not these guys who threaten market stability by threatening to shut down the government. He was also for conservation (get it ..conserve?) that you don't us up resources that you can't replace..like forests, streams,parts..something you cannot replace. Was Goldwater imperfect..yes he was somewhat of a racist-and was against Martin Luther King Jr.Birthday as a holiday (As was Dick Chaney-but that's another story) and he was right on Viet Nam. The thing that also separated Goldwater from today's GOP is that he was capable of putting country over party by going to Nixon and telling him that it was best to resign. In today's political climate he'd be booting out of his party. Today if President Obama said it was Tuesday and some member agreed with him he'd be chastised. To all those who claim to be conservative or know someone who claims they are and you really want to stick it to them..offer them a copy of Goldwater's autobiography "With No Apologies"...you'll win the bet.

happy to be back

I've been wanting to get back here for a while..will be writing on everything from politics..a lot on that one..sociological issues..theatre and even comic books and my love of history..hope you find my work interesting and thought provoking and making just provoking in general..and just plain fun...looking forward to your journey here with me..

the problem with schools...

It is very easy today to point the finger at teachers and teachers unions for the dismal performance of students in the US and how far we have fallen in math and reading scores compared to other countries. Scapegoating is not the answer nor is it an accurate depiction of the problem.
I worked for the NYC department of education for 26 years. Are there bad teachers, bad counselors, social workers, psychologists etc? Of course-and this is true in other occupations as well. It is fair for me to say that that there were some of my colleagues who I wouldn't want working with a child of mine. There were others who were astounding in their ability to help the most difficult child and work with the most hostile of families. I knew people who sat in the "Rubber Rooms" for years-again some who should have been fired and others where the complaints were totally unfounded. I had one supervisor who could diffuse the most explosive,hostile situation with her presence. Others-make the same situation worse.
There is also a political atmosphere in each school that is determined by the building principal. One principal can make a building seem like heaven-another like being in hell. One principal maybe secure enough to listen to ideas-another can see disagreement as being insubordinate-which is a clear path to being fired. A good principal can make a new teacher love his career-another could end the new teacher's career very quickly. People complain about overpaid teachers. A masters degree in teaching does not get the same salary return as masters in other occupation. As a female dominated field, the inherent sexism is not surprising. Many teachers don't make it through their first years, others don't make tenure. Tenure is not given to teachers. It is earned. I want to see how many of the critics of teacher would last one week in a classroom..try one day.
there is the issue of kids not being prepared to be in school. Many come to school hungry. Some come to school from chaotic situations where school is their only respite. I have seen children come to DOE offices drinking soda and munching on chips. One source of frustration for me over the years, is seeing children sitting in the lobbies of education offices with Walkmen,cell phones, video games etc. I couldn't give books away.. There is an anti-intellectual atmosphere in our culture, where the bright kid is teased and called a "Geek". We tend to glorify sports and entertainment figure who couldn't conjugate the verbs or speak in complete sentences if you spotted them the vowels. The general coarsening of the culture by music and what passes as literally work today is another factor. There are people who read online who don't know the difference between: their, they're and there.
There are several solutions that will probably meet Resistance from many sources. President Obama is right-the school year should be longer. Classroom sizes should be smaller and a real investment in education, not just lip service should be made. Another source of revenue-not property taxes should be used for schools so the kid in Mississippi has the same chance as the kid in Westchester.
We also need to expand the pool of candidates who can become teacher-those who come from other backgrounds. By today's licensing rules, Bill Gates couldn't teach in most cities. The sucess of charter schools are also a myth. The clamour for vouchers just takes money away from public school where they are the most needed.

There are lots of things that have contributed to the decline in education in the United States.No one is blameless here. Demonizing teachers and the people who protect dedicated teachers is not going to make things any better. We are all at fault.

Revisionist History On Iraq

Iraq was an unprovoked war-without an enemy. There wss in intelligence that there was a threat to the US..no WMD. The Downing Street memo noted that there was no evidence of WMD and that there was no terrorist threat from Saddam Hussain. President Bush deliberately ignored information by Ambassador Joseph Wison noting that there was no uranium for a potential bomb. At a White House Press Correspondants Dinner (available on youtube) President Bush actually made a joke about looking for the WMD under the dais he was speaking from. Children of only about 10% of the population were sacrificed for a battle that chicken hawks like Bush,Chaney and Rumsfeld pushed as part of a broader global strategy to transform the middle east. The lives of the disposable (not their children were sacrificed for what was basically a war game-that was also suppose to pay for itself. Sometimes people do die in vain. This is the continuing case in Iraq even after the alledged end to our combat role. Do you really think if there was a draft and the children of Bush and Chaney were at risk to combat, that the war would have been so cavalierly entered into?)
Now we have revisionist history about the war from President Obama and Vice President Biden-who basically have been praising President Bush for his role in the war and for his concern for the soldiers and their families. (Bush did not attend the funeral of any downed soldier and images of the returned coffins were not televised to shield the public from the impact of the war.
In spite of his opposition to the war, President Obama is pulling his punches and quite frankly not telling the truth about the war in Iraq and the false claims leading to the invasion and attempts at nation building and the subsequent distraction of the terrorist threat of Ben-Ladin in Afghanistan. The President and the justice department are pulling their punches and being passive to the heartless committing of war crimes by Bush, Chaney,and Rumsfeld, leading to the killing and maiming of over 4,000 troops,those suffering from emotional problems (including the disturbing levels of suicides) and the killing of over 100,000 Iraquis.
The President and Vice President are not telling the truth and reshaping the discussion which again is another casulty of war: the truth. Bush and Chaney need to not be praised but comdemned and prosected. Lets not make another horrific joke by looking under yet another table for the truth, when its sitting there right in front of us..sort of like the white elephant in the home of any addictive family.

Show me your papers....

I remember this line in most World War 2 movies where a German Nazi official-usually an SS officer, would confront likely suspects and enemies of the Third Reich. This was a way of smoking out "un-Nazis"-for the most part Jews. The movie "The Great Escape" comes to mind") If your papers were not in order, your life was literally in danger or deportation or physical harm. This situation is what Arizona is going to be like if a bill passes that would allow law enforcement officials to confront suspected illegal aliens. The law would basically legalize racial and ethnic profiling and allow officials to confront, harass, and arrest people suspected of being undocumented and of being the "wrong color". This racist bill is being supported by of all people that "don't call me a maverick" John McCain who for political reasons is going so far to the right that he makes Hammurabi seem like a liberal. The claim by Arizona officials is that the federal government is not doing enough to control our borders. They are not completely wrong on this issue. There are about a half million illegals in Arizona. and obviously something has to be done. There obviously has to be some change in our immegration laws-some sort of amnesty or perhaps not confirring automatically citizenship on children of illegal immegrants.
As the son of Holocaust survivors, I am against the "show me your papers" fascist approach to US immegration policy. Anyone...anyone including several Arizona congressman would be open to being question. (This is like driving while being Black in many places). This is not my America and its not the place my parents came to to start a new life in the US. We don't need our law enforcement officials to became 21st century versions of SS officers.

Too much is never enough...politcally and otherwise..

When I was in high school I came home from school one day with a report card that I was very proud of. I had an 88% average that was better than most of the students in my school. I was a writer on the school paper and a member of two sports teams. When I showed my father my report card he said "why isn't it a 90?" I remmber being hurt,frustrated and thinking "what more could I do". President Obama recently decided to approve offshore drilling as part of US energy policy. This is a decision that those on the left were shocked by and seemed like an act of betrayal and brought memories of Sarah Pallin's almost mocking approach of "drill baby drill".
The president seems to have taken a middle ground regarding limited oil drilling. It seems that the president is making some consessions to the right regarding US energy policy-a very adult like approach of "not all or nothing". The response by House Minority leader John Boehner is that the president hasn't gone far enough and that there should be more expansive drilling including areas in pristine,protected areas of Alaska.
When I read this,I found myself both laughing and filled with a sense of familarity of this situation. It just seems that no matter what the president does, no matter how far he reaches out to the Republican leadership-88%-98% will never be good enough.

suicide by taunting in Massachusetts.

The recent suicide by a young girl in Massachusetts as a result of emotional, physical and verbal taunting is partially caused by the continued coarsening of the culture. In my clinical social work training regarding child abuse or spousal abuse, one of the first lessons I learned is that the calling of a woman by an animal or body part (bitch,cunt,etc) is a precursor to physical abuse. What I have noticed over the last few years is the calling of girls by other girls "a bitch". Look how often you hear this term on television, in movies. The acceptance of this blurs the boundaries of acceptable behavior.(The blurring is made worse by the technology that is so readily available and so intrusive and minimizes as well the sense of personal responsibility for behaviors. The attempts to keep connected with others actually has the opposite effect. Having this behavior shown so readily reduces the impact and its importance. For boys, its a mixed message: if girls can do it, so can I. Look at all the TV shows where meanness and abusive behavior is enabled by having it seen as entertainment. (Its like an electronic version of being in the lion's den or the gladiators) instead of thumbs up or down you get electronically voted out of a house for horrible behaviors or high television ratings.
The blurring of boundaries in any situation has an emotional price. We see this politically with the encouragement of violence by politicians. Joe Wilson became famous for "you lie". The problem with the use of taunting words as was the case with the most recent suicide story and others is that words do hurt and often kill. The question for me is : where were the adult to say "this is not acceptable. There are consequences for verbally abusive behavior. It will be interesting to see how accountable not just the taunters are but school official and the parents of the taunters.