Math -- Baltimore County Public Schools' Superintendent Style

The corrupting arrogance of Baltimore County Superintendent, Joseph Hairston, is not going unnoticed. WBAL, Baltimore's news radio station has investigative reporters digging in deep and the State Legislature who approves huge payments to the corrupt system are taking note. State Senator Kathy Klausmeier and Delgate John Olszewski Jr. have sent a letter to the superintendent demanding he justify the hiring of a deputy superintendent, Renee Foose at $214,000 a year while eliminating over 200 middle and high school teaching positions. They are also questioning the Superintendent's policy that any salary information must be requested in writing.

It is unacceptable and should be illegal for ANY school system employee's salary and benefits to be confidential. Considering that Baltimore City rank-in-file fire fighters had their entire earnings identified by name including overtime posted in the media, certainly out in the county citizens should be able to see what their high taxes are used to fund.

Given the Board is appointed by the government having no allegiance to the country residents' they serve, that a corrupt, secretive, bureaucratic villain like Hairston would be hired and act as ruthlessly as he has should be no surprise. This is the same fellow who rewarded an ex-associate from Georgia million dollar software deals on a no-bid, no public proposal basis when Anne Arundel County was able to use commercially available, IBM software to meet the same need  for their system.

REFERENCE ARTICLE: http://www.wbal.com/absolutenm/templates/story.aspx?articleid=69632&zoneid=3

It's time for an uproar in Baltimore County. Proper investigations including grand jury action if necessary must be conducted to turn over every stone, rifle every file, interrogate every bureaucratic, and study every expenditure. Joseph Hairston and his inner circle must be removed from office immediately.

County residents must demand they be represented. If their state legislators will not create an elected school board, then as citizens, the measure must be submitted for referendum. There is sufficient evidence right now that Joe Hairston must go RIGHT NOW. However, until there is a management structure that is accountable to the people of Baltimore County not the political ambitions of the governor, the structure is inherently corrupt.



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On the Behalf of Working People in Wisconsin to Their Teachers, "Time's Up!"

Time's Up -- Report Directly to Detention Hall for a Good Old Fashioned Ass-Whoopin'

“We’re not neglecting our teachers; we’re giving them a real life lesson.”

How far do unionized teachers think they can push the public at a time when public education is attacked from all sectors even the film industry with the release of “Waiting for Superman?”

The real life issue is that public school teachers are violating the law selfishly defending so-called rights they have abused and benefits that go far beyond what most employees could dream of receiving. The real story is teachers are engaged in fraud obtaining bogus doctor’s notes excusing their absence for fake illnesses. Reality shows that almost everybody in Wisconsin has had to make some concessions to help stabilize the state’s economy while private employees are seeing no growth in salary or benefits during a weak economy. Unemployment is high and part of the reason seeking concessions is to prevent layoffs.

How can these unprofessional, selfish teachers possibly show up for school, be on time, and be honest when they’re playing hooky to whine about how unfair their lavish compensation is? Plenty of Wisconsin residents would love to have just some of what teachers have to whine about. These greedy teachers will take the notion of “Do as I say, not as I do” to even a more absurd degree when they return to work, something they do not deserve to enjoy, when those who have engaged in dishonest behavior contrary to their employment agreement should be fired.

It’s time the public treat public schools with the same kind of harsh zero tolerance which they show for children as false packaging for strict discipline. Wisconsin teachers are now on the “time out” bench and the dunce caps should be forthcoming.




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AMEN

Governor warns of as many as 12,000 could lose jobs!!!!

Don't tell these union goons, they couldn't have seen this coming. Many of them won't have to complain about what they think is a raw deal from the state. They won't have jobs to complain about at all, and it SERVES THEM RIGHT!!!

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/02/20/12g-state-workers-fired-budget-deal-wisconsin-governor-warns/

The teaching profession is revealing its true agenda by engaging in the unlawful behavior they have chosen to follow. Is it any wonder public schools are falling to pieces? Who'd want these people entrusted with their children's future?




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It's Time for a Ronald Reagan Moment: Dealing with Wisconsin Lawless Labor

FIRE THE BASTARDS, NOW!!!

America is a country that lives by the rule of law. The law is established by the representatives of the people who elect them to serve the public good. Public employees are bounded by contract to report to work, discharge their duties, and accept the terms and conditions of their employment.

For most folks, the understanding is clear, “Do your job.” In Wisconsin, the Democratic Members of the Wisconsin State Senate have fled to Illinois to prevent a quorum allowing the legislature to do its job. The writing is on the wall – a measure that public employees, the base of the Democratic Party’s base, will pass if just ONE Democrat dos his job and shows up to take his seat he was elected to fulfill the responsibilities and duties thereof by the citizens of the state.

Wisconsin teachers are violating the law not showing up for work lying about their absence, claiming to be sick, so they can organize en masse to protest in the state Capitol of Madison.

At what point can the legislators’ seats be declared vacant and are there provisions to replace them? Under such circumstances it’s almost unimaginable no matter how much money the unions throw at the proceedings the Republicans would not gain a seat or two and gain a quorum.

The teachers are in clear violation of the terms and conditions of their employment. It’s time for a Ronald Reagan moment. FIRE THE BASTARDS!!! The public puts tremendous trust in their teachers part of which is to discharge their duties in a professional and ethical fashion and in so doing serve as appropriate roll models for their students. In Wisconsin, the teachers under direction of their union are violating their responsibilities even coercing students to participate in rallies in support of their insurrection. Using students as pawns in a politically motivated cause is unacceptable.

Adding to the numbers of protesters, it should be no surprise that the unions would mobilize their faithful busing in cadres of supporters from out of state to create a nosier ruckus. What we do not expect to happen is for the President of the United States to use his political apparatus to encourage ILLEGAL behavior and further to provide recruits to actively participate in the insurrection.

This is not Cairo, Egypt. What is happening to the public employees, the school teachers, is a reflection of the will of the people who elected new legislators to address the economic concerns of Wisconsin like many Midwestern states are severe with the loss of manufacturing jobs and a shrinking tax base.

For the Democratic Party specifically under the direction of the President, to actively thwart the legislative and legal process in Wisconsin is illegal, immoral, and unacceptable. No one should be surprised how Nancy Pelosi views the activities in Wisconsin.  This disgusting excuse for a political leader is clearly engaged in sedition. She describes the Wisconsin insurrection as; "an extraordinary show of democracy in action.”

“Wisconsin's workers, teachers and public servants must have a seat at the table to fight for a safe workplace, I stand in solidarity with the Wisconsin workers fighting for their rights, especially for all the students and young people leading the charge.”

Listen up you SICK BITCH -- there is NOTHING being imposed that in any way compromises the safety of teachers or their workplace whatsoever. That Pelosi would encourage students to serve as pawns in a cynical political display of pure greed and absolute entitlement is beneath contempt. While Pelosi might work for an electorate of San Francisco freaks, Wisconsin teachers work for the citizens of their community whose generosity has been stretched beyond all reasonable patience.

Elections have consequence. All the crybaby teachers and other state employees are being asked to do is accept a FRACTION of that which those of us in the private sector accept as standard terms of our employment. Just how likely are tenured teachers likely to lose their jobs? If they were to compare their total compensation including benefits with private sector employees, they’d have to be blind not to see their communities are taking damned good care of them. The message is loud and clear, they are being asked to contribute to their state’s well-being too while every cent they own is right out of the pocket of those they are acting confrontational towards now.

How bad is the Wisconsin insurrection? The new technique of the radical left which obviously means labor unions is to organize their goons to harass those they disagree with by surrounding their private residences holding people hostage in their own homes violating their right to security in their own homes. This kind of lawlessness should subject all those involved to nothing less than prison. Once again, those who are engaged in union organized events somehow think that implies a sense of immunity from consequences.

It’s time for the local school boards to demand an immediate return to work. Those who don’t comply will be found in violation of the terms of their employment and fired. It is most unfortunate that unions feel free to do whatever they want when their demands are not met. American history is full of episodes of theft, vandalism, assault, and other crimes against anyone who gets in the way of unions. It’s time for an all out assault on public employee unions and break their backs.

Any elected official who supports such insurrections will pay for this. We the people must demand such NOW!!!



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WISCONSIN: No Time for Cheesy Nonsense

Obama's GOON SQUAD "Organizing for America" Sends Rabble Rousers and Resources to Stir Up Rancor and Civil Unrest at State Capital



Here's an open statement to the teachers, union jerks, students, public employees, and Democratic party legislators, cut out your bull crap and get back to work. No one with any  common sense feels sorry for your situation whatsoever. You're lucky your state receives relatively little national press for it does not escape our notice that Madison, Wisconsin and the state university campus is one of the great hotbeds of American radicalism that set the stage for the kind of excesses that you are being asked to give a little back so the whole state can move onward and you can keep your job.

Private sector workers contribute to their health care costs. You don't. You're being asked to contribute an amount about half that of private sector employees and you act like you're being screwed. You're being asked to contribute to your pension. You get a pension! Most private sector workers at best get a 401k. You're not getting the pay raise you expected. Well, from the private sector here's a big loud BOO-HOO-HOO.

Teachers calling in sick because they can't accept the hard fiscal reality of their state are behaving illegally and dishonestly -- a great example to set for your students who you've recruited to politic for you. Pathetic.

Democratic legislators take off for Illinois where they can't be rounded up and do their job attempting to thwart the will of the people who are sick of seeing state employees getting all kinds of perks and fortune, while many of them haven't seen a pay increase if they have a job at all. ARE YOU TOO BLEEPING STUPID TO SEE HOW PISSED OFF THE PUBLIC IS AT YOU?

Everyone knows what your answer is -- raise taxes, in other words when you're state employees, you are asking the people who pay your salaries to take a cut in their income so you can take an increase in yours. Well, one thing's for certain, folks won't be heading south of the border to Illinois which just upped their taxes 66% to support their crime-ridden corrupt political machine.

Sure, we know, you would jack up the tax more on the "rich" because you don't think people who EARNED that much money should be allowed to keep the money they earned. Here's a dirty little secret. You can accept the taxes they're paying now because if you raise them, who has the ability to move out to some place else that charges lower taxes more easily. Yep! That would be "rich" people. So what's better--raising a rich person's taxes and having them leave Wisconsin thus you get NO TAX REVENUE from them  whatsoever, or you can take what they're paying now.

While we're dumping on you, you do not have your job necessarily because you have EARNED it. You have it because you've been in your job longer. How about getting rid of some of you guys who've been on the job, don't do much in favor of young workers still full of enthusiasm ready to go.

Basic economics: for every dollar a public worker makes, a taxpayer is giving up one of his or her dollars. Private sector workers see they wages go up when they produce more and that makes the employer earn more money and can then hire more people who will pay taxes or their employees might be rewarded with higher wages which means paying more taxes. When the economy is growing there is more money to provide more for public employees. When the economy is hurting, the pool from which public employees is compensated shrinks. What is simpler the logic or the math?

Some how some people who fancy themselves as well educated just don't get it, do they?

The bottom line is your an American. You got a job. Stop complaining and get back to work. This is not a threat -- it's the cold hard truth. If you're going to demonstrate, show the public you are worthy of your job and when financial conditions improve, you will be rewarded. Demonstrate calling the governor Hitler and carrying on like idiots as you are now will only make the public feel good when someone sticks it to you -- which would serve you right.


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Baltimore County Public Schools: Three Current Issues -- Clear Symptoms of a School System in Rapid Decline

The Mansion on the Hill: Baltimore County Public School Headquarters

Insensitive, Detached, Corrupt...

Once a national leader for one of the nation’s best school systems, the Baltimore County Public Schools System now sets the standard for an unresponsive, arrogant, self-serving organization that is corrupt at the highest levels. Their behavior is overtly hostile toward the communities it serves and they act with the kind of heavy-handedness, corruption, and contempt of a banana republic dictatorship. In this posting we will examine three elements with the hopes the county population which has been stripped of their most basic rights to be able to affect the situation will become so incensed, the State of Maryland will change course allowing for the community that is supposed to be served by Baltimore County Public Schools have effective control of their local schools, but that would mean the government and state legislature, both of whom are soaking wet drenched in state teachers’ union money would have to surrender their control to the voters of the county and there is no greater threat to union hegemony than the people assessing how their ever increasing taxes are being spent.

First, a few words of background, Baltimore County is a huge school district. In well-to-do communities for the most part in the areas particularly those surrounding the county seat have schools where the school system at least provides the appearance of safety. Kids achieve at a satisfactory level and go on and succeed in college. The “fertile crescent” which follows York Road or I-83 from Baltimore City to the Pennsylvania line, an area rich with private schools still retains plenty of solid upper middle class families and well qualified teachers are not hard to find. Catonsville, on the other hand, a community due west of downtown Baltimore, is likewise a well-to-do community with a healthy dose of a cohesive small town sense of local pride finds their community all but forgotten except when the powers from the Mansion on the Hill seek to impose their way with a very heavy hand. Between US-40 and MD-140, considered the northwest is an area with an African American population where test results are terrible and schools refuse to deal with an increasingly urban attitude. The northeast corridor particularly that which is defined between US-1 and US-40 on the northeast side of the county is sprawling with rapid growth, over-crowded schools

Against this backdrop, three items are in the news right now that surely will not make the local news on television and are at best buried deep if covered at all by the Baltimore Sun. One must consider that it was only last fall when the school system got a black eye for spending over $80,000 to erect a gaudy sign and message board on Charles Street surrounded by an upscale neighborhood that would be contrary to zoning restrictions in many commercial areas for their newly opened West Towson Elementary School and the Ridge School which serves special needs students. After community outrage, the sign was replaced by something less obtrusive, but the money was wasted by a system that is always pounding its fist for more money.

Issue #1: In most jurisdictions schools are seen as a community based facility where school grounds are used for local functions when classes and school activities are not in session. This would include fundraising efforts for local needs whether it is charitable organizations, volunteer fire departments, scholarship funds, or neighborhood celebrations. Baltimore County Schools enforces policies inconsistently and often in such a heavy handed fashion that such things as crafts fairs at Ridgely Middle School and Loch Raven High School, a local fair at Perry Hall High School, and a recycling drive at Hillcrest Elementary are all threatened. The event at Ridgely had been held there for 29 years. The ultimate absurdity comes from Catonsville where the system would not allow Catonsville High School to hold its own PTA’s craft fair at the school. The result was that what had been a very successful fund drive took in $7000 less than the year before.

Catonsville also faced the curtailment of one of the region’s great local events of the year, the Catonsville 4th of July Celebration which starts with a parade down its main street, grows into an all day picnic and carnival on the high school grounds and ends with a glorious fireworks display.

For whatever self-serving or paranoid litigious reasons, Baltimore County schools have hidden behind policies they’ve created to destroy what small traces of community spirit exists in Baltimore County, a huge suburban sprawl with no incorporated towns or more local authority, where schools often with the most obscene gerrymandered boundaries where a kid could go to school in one community for elementary, another for middle, then go miles away to another for high school.

The school system cloaks themselves behind the self-righteous boundary of their grounds should not serve for-profit enterprises and since many of these events might hire some outside contractors who in turn share profits with their organization or add value to their events like hot dog and refreshment vendors, their sanctimonious stance is to screw everybody even if it’s their own PTA!!!

Baltimore county schools must be subservient to the communities they serve. Their property belongs to the community for the community. The taxpayers who pay for this property should get the maximum return for their investment. The communities deserve to hold events that increase the communities’ cohesiveness and involvement.

However, in Baltimore County, the last thing in the world the school system would want is cohesive communities that have leadership and the ability to pursue issues and concerns of their locality. Surely, part of their concern would be how the schools manage themselves. Clearly, it’s not to support the local community nor their children they are charged with teaching.

Issue #2: Baltimore County School Board members are appointed by the Governor of Maryland and thus become patronage appointments for political cronies. The Governor, in turn looks to reward those who have rewarded him not consider the localities involved particularly if they’re ones who aren’t particularly supportive of his election. There can be no question that two out of the last three governors, Glendenning and O’Malley have been tightly connected with the State NEA chapter, the Maryland State Education Association, whose former long serving President, Pat Foerster, is the governor’s top education advisor with a history of union activism of over 30 years. Given the huge amount of money union PAC’s contribute to not only O’Malley, who does somersaults at the snap of a finger for union demands, but to state senate and house of delegate members who often are made or broken by a teacher’s association endorsement, the local communities which might have middle schools and high schools in different communities far apart, where’s the commitment to the communities? Who articulates local concerns at the county level? What input do county residents have in the operation of their schools?

Once upon a time, there were at least local school board nominating committees who’d draw up recommended candidates from which governors would chose, but for the last quarter century, it’s been all about politics and except for Bob Ehrlich’s brief tenure, it has all been staunch representatives of Democratic party interest with the unions’ influence supreme.

This year, some Baltimore County legislators are attempting to support a measure that would create a “hybrid” school board consisting of elected and appointed members. It should be no surprise that the sitting board voted unanimously to oppose any change in the current system.

The school board, of course, appoints the school superintendent. Clearly examining the history of such appointments – the system’s leader is chosen for blatantly political considerations not what value a person has to lead a complex, diverse, and enormous school system.

One can’t help but see the irony of the teachers’ union opposing an elected school board for fear that “special interest” groups might gain leverage in setting school priorities which begs the question, what is a teachers’ union? Of course they’ll stir up fears that the locals might get hijacked by a hardcore Christian fundamentalist faction that would insist on banning teaching evolution, teach creationism, and seek to indoctrinate kids to be Jesus loving gun toting fanatic right wingers.

Where a system run like this leads couldn’t be clearer than what we’ll see in the next issue.

Issue #3: Institutional Corruption at the Highest Level

Baltimore County Schools are required to create request for proposals and conduct an opening bidding process for major expenditures. Over the past ten years, during the reign of superintendent Joe Hairston who was appointed for explicitly political reasons having a track record of failure in his previous posts including a system with a high minority population in suburban Atlanta, the system has paid a software company four million dollars to a Georgia software company owned by a former Hairston colleague.

Since November, 2000 EduTrax owned by Steve Holmes who served as Clayton County’s technology officer when Hariston was the subdivision’s school head has provided its product and profited substantially by the size of the Baltimore County account. This arrangement was setup by Hairston only four months after taking the Baltimore county position.

Hariston argues that the software EduTrax provides is proprietary and that no other company even now makes a comparable product. So what is it about this product that is so essential for Baltimore County Schools? What public input was solicited? How were the needs established and what needs assessment hearings and open meetings were held?

In 2002 and 2006, not only were contracts renewed but the vendor also was able to sell the county additional products. The software is designed to help the county manage and assess student test data. Hmm, have they ever heard of Microsoft Excel? How and when has Hairston ever demonstrated that EduTrax software is so unique that it is necessary to buy database management software outside of what is commonly available in the open market? In the turmoil of today’s economy surely it is a risky proposition to purchase vital products that are only available from a single source. Where would the county be if EduTrax went out of business? Technology firms have a funny way of doing that.

The superintendent’s office cannot offer any iron-clad rational for why only Edutrak was required. When asked if the county had considered other products Hairston boldly asserted such consideration was not necessary. Digging his hole deeper he went on to say, “"First of all, there is no school system over 100,000 students that had anything operating and if they did it was off the shelf. And if there had been, I can guarantee you I would have known about it,” oh really. Baltimore county citizens are supposed to take his word for that. Show us the data. Show us the money!!! With no cost/benefit analysis without the appropriate personnel and data involved, any statement regarding the worthiness of this product is nonsense. Such a process takes time, up to a full year, and should never be done at the snap of a finger on somebody’s say-so. Anne Arundel County uses software and services from IBM. While they did not issue their own RFP, they based their purchase on similar requirements for which Charles County when through the whole process. At very least, options were considered and due-diligence was exercised.

This is no isolated incident by the corrupt superintendent. Software developed by a high ranking county school employee, the Articulated Instruction Module, a grading tool, was awarded a legal agreement by the Superintendent granting ownership to the copyright for the software. If this product was developed primarily on school system time by an employee who was responsible for software development and implementation, rights to that software should have remained with the school system and not to provide a substantial financial reward for a favored employee.

The bottom line is even not considering the superintendent’s personal relationship with the head of the software company involved, absolutely irresponsible procurement decisions were made making any kind of determining whether or not the county purchase was a sound investment. “Because I say so” doesn’t cut it in any professional environment where the decisions of one are made committing the funds of others – shareholders, taxpayers, or other stakeholders. Such conduct in the private sector gets people fired and if such a move were conducted with an elected school board in place (that never would have hired a person of questionable credentials like Hairston in the first place), the community would be likely to discipline such a superintendent promptly.

In Baltimore County schools, special interest groups guide the decision making process and unless a school board decision runs contrary to the mighty MSEA goals and objectives,, they could care less. If they were shown such outrageous expenditures took money out of where MSEA wanted money to go, things would be different.

What we’ve reported in this posting only scratches the surface and deals with three huge issues that bring the focus on how the very heart of the system is corrupt. There are dozens of issues from student discipline policies, to insane multicultural and political correct propaganda being interlaced into the instructional program, to plenty of horrendous over expenditures of taxpayer money that show the forces who sit atop the mansion on the hill are self-serving thieves with nothing but contempt for the children and families they are empowered to serve.

What will be the breaking point for County parents many of whom are pulling their kids out to attend private school, moving out of Baltimore County to Carroll County, Harford County or Southern Pennsylvania where schools are more responsive to their needs? Many deal with the problem by exiting, but if they remain in Baltimore County or for that matter stay in Maryland as much school money flows from the state, the task of reforming their local schools is daunting. If the governor does not see the Baltimore County vote as essential to his election, the pursuit appears futile.

Parents can and must attend school meetings and raise a huge fuss. Sadly, much of the real decision making is conducted in executive session so that they only report what they’ve already decided to do to the public. Civil disobedience, loud noisy demonstrations on Greenwood property, at large high schools, in Towson and Annapolis might be the next step.

Hairston must be investigated thoroughly perhaps even requiring a grand jury and surely has no business running a school system he is not competent or ethical enough to manage. The future of the kids in the 3rd largest system in Maryland, 23rd largest nation wide, with over 143,696 potential students with only 30,000 fortunate enough to opt out for private or parochial schools is what is at stake here.

Parent/voters cannot be misled by issues such as teachers’ salary. County teachers are compensated EXTREMELY well. Nor can arguments about having enough teachers to do the job holds water either for where there are too many students in a given class, there is another class that is being rewarded in the other direction. The teacher to student ratio in Baltimore County is excellent.

The issues are management issues. What’s in the curriculum, how discipline is handled so an honors student doesn’t get expelled for a nail file, and stuffing abhorrent political and moral values down children’s throats are the kinds of issues that should ignite the passion for community involvement. County residents pay a premium for a product that is mediocre at best.

Baltimore County schools are at a crossroads. If the deterioration continues, the county as a whole will erode into a huge largely urban mess. The appointment of Hairston might be just such a ploy to make that happen as such a population would serve the status quo in Annapolis nicely. Given the quality of the vast majority of county communities, the potential for Baltimore County schools could be exceptional if the county citizens could forge a school board that represents their character and values not the slimy, cynical calculations of an opportunistic governor hell bent on serving self-serving special interests who fight real reform at every turn.

REFERENCES:
Issue #1:
http://towson.patch.com/articles/school-officials-defend-controversial-facilities-rule

Issue #2:
http://www.wbal.com/absolutenm/templates/story.aspx?articleid=67206&zoneid=2

Issue #3:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-county/bs-md-county-software-contract-20110208,0,171096.story




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Good Student Expelled in North Carolina Victim of Idiotic Zero Tolerance Discipline

Dangerous Weapons????

Any parent whose child attends a school that boasts of a zero tolerance discipline policy should be scared, VERY SCARED, what could happen to his or her children as there is no rhyme or reason, only bureaucratic intolerance guiding how school rules are administered in today's politically correct, morally bankrupt public schools. Terrorist suspects are accorded far more legal protection and due process than honors students through out the nation.

Here's the latest. A girl in North Carolina grabbed her father's lunch box by mistake. In in was a small pairing knife. The school decided to subject students to search for drug possession -- what happened to the presuption of innocense and 4th amendment rights for the crime of being a good student.

For more details, here's a link to the report from the local Raleigh-Durham TV station, WRAL-TV:

http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/8845676//

Local superintendent indicated such procedures are aimed at what's good for the students stating, "Bottom line is we want to ensure every student feels safe on campus."

Oh really, when a kid makes a minor, very undertandable mistake the kid is subject to being treated like a criminal, THAT'S FASCISM.  The outcome would surely be making kids paranoid.

It's time that we as the taxpayers who support these public institutions for their cruel, insensitive behavior toward the next generation of America. We must show them the same kind of zero tolerance for their incredibly stupid conduct they show our kids.

Who Says There Isn't Room to Cut School Spending in Baltimore County

(from The Baltimore Sun, 11/3/2010)

If Baltimore County can afford to erect signs like this on Charles Street for the new West Towson Elementary School and the Ridge School (a school for students with special needs), there is certainly room for examining and cutting the school's enormous budget. Consider this is truly a "sign of the times" erected during a time when the economy is not healthy and many citizens are facing hardships in their home budgets. Yet the Greenwood gang can see fit to spend thousands of dollars on an elaborate vanity sign for its schools.

Perhaps the system needs an audit to determine how much other money is going to noninstructional purposes or those which provide a safe and healthy environment for learning to take place.

When career teachers at the top of the pay scale can earn over $80,000 a year for 10 month employment whether they are effective teachers or not, there's much room to give to provide for students who are getting shortchanged while teachers scream poverty and demand ever more from the taxpayers they are employed to serve.

This is sort of like the Robert F. Kennedy Los Angeles fiasco in miniatureeee. It springs from the same kind of arrogance and sense of entitlement.

For more about this outrage and how the neighbors react, please consult the following article from the Baltimore Sun.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-county/bs-md-co-school-sign-20101102,0,5729196.story


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Governor Chris Christie Bold Demands for Educational Reform

No longer will teachers' unions contnue to roadblock effective teacher management under governor's proposal to overhaul teacher compensation and tenure.


Governor Chris Christie: Large and in-charge in New Jersey.

Who would ever imagine what is going on in New Jersey traditionally one of the highest taxed states where union, public employees and state bureaucrats run wild? Previous governor, Jon Corzine’s corruption, arrogance, taxing and spending pushed New Jersey to the breaking point. Welcome Republican Governor Chris Christie who is one tough character. His target #1, the teachers’ unions!
In what can amount to political suicide going against the teachers’ unions whose deep pockets and ability to run attack ads that make their adversaries look like they are molesting children and throwing teachers into poverty and the unemployment lines, where many politicians even conservative Republicans tread softly not wanting to draw any fire, Christie is going right after them as part of his attempts to control runaway expenses for public employees and to reform wretchedly failing public schools.

As public school systems have grown into huge bureaucracies, the teachers’ unions have used their numbers to build a huge bully pulpit with a tremendous war chest supporting an agenda which is pure industrial style unionism which completely destroys the professionalism of public education. Between more and more government control and union manipulation, teachers are trained to function as drones to simply focus on process and procedure rather than be autonomous highly skilled professionals dedicated to the education and well-being of their pupils.

Governor Christie understands this is and is working to reinvent the process in New Jersey. Teachers are paid on the basis of seniority and blocks of advanced educational credits earned from a master’s equivalency and beyond. It is not unusual for teachers in northeastern school districts to earn $80 to $100 thousand a year at the top of the pay scale in addition to a fully-funded pension, health care for life which generally includes dental and vision care. The myth of poorly paid teachers is getting pretty flimsy for those who do their homework. Those lavish salaries are also for ten months of work. Whether a teacher is a compassionate great motivator of young minds or a lazy slug pilling up the years to retirement, teachers are paid the same. Ever since the first whispers of pay for performance surfaced in the late 70’s in the very early days of public education decline, there has been no issue that NEA and AFT affiliates have fought more vigorously than “merit” pay. Closely attached to merit pay is the concept of tenure which essentially means once a teacher has completed a probationary period, usually two years, dismissing a teacher for unsatisfactory work can become nearly impossible under some systems’ contracts.

If governor Christie is to have his way, New Jersey could soon become a model for the nation on how to take the first major steps toward breaking the back of the union shop mentality in public education and move attention to quality teaching by paying for performance. More effective teachers will be paid according and the ones who aren’t cutting it will be fired.

Watching Christie in action is a sight to behold.. In public forums he stands his ground unapologetically even suggesting to a teacher who spoke up about the miseries of her employment situation (clearly not focused on teaching issues) that if she was not happy with her teacher’s position she was free to find another job.

Once the public realizes exactly what kind of perks teachers have and see how much of their hard earned money going to schools through taxes, the public will quickly not buy the myth of the poor teacher any longer but will instead focus on getting rid of poor performing teachers. The New Jersey unions are able to offer little more than how can he be doing all this without teacher input. Well, as the representative of these public employees the New Jersey Educational Association has already established its position. The time for action is long overdue.

Here’s an article from the New York CBS affiliate on Governor Christie’s efforts.

.http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2010/09/28/christie-announces-sweeping-n-j-education-reform/

Let us hope that New Jersey's program will set a model for the rest of America to consider. The time for this is long overdue.


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America's Most Expensive School Ever - Los Angeles

Every picture tells a story, and here's part of what tax money is paying for. These are pictures from inside the Robert F. Kennedy Community School, the $578 million fiasco. Wait until the vandals and their spray cans go to work on this.

CONSIDER THIS: Nearly 3000 teaches have been laid off from the district in the past two years according to the Associated Press. Further, the district faces a $640 million budget shortfall and is among the nation's lowest performing school systems. Meanwhile, ABC news reports the cost to be $250,000 per student attending the school for the total cost of the school.

CH-CHING: Want to bet Obama-Bucks are on the way.

First, the school's namesake is portrayed as deity or like the grand dictator in totalitarian countries in library murals.

In the second mural, Kennedy is shown breaking bread with Mexican-American Union Leader, Chesar Chevez. How would a Republican student feel in the shadows of this?

Imagine "High School Musical" being staged at this school. Maybe this would be a great performing venue for the "Glee Club." This is the auditorium entrance.  Does your town have ANY theaters this lavish?

Teaching is a tough job. Don't teachers deserve a nice place to mingle with their colleagues and enjoy a hearty meal?  Here's the faculty dining facility. Gee, why would those teachers be in such a hurry to retire on their lavish California pensions if they have facilities like this?

The school is scheduled to open on September 13th. Who will be involved with the dedication ceremony? Who wouldn't love to hear those speeches and hear the self-righteous elites justify ripping off the public for this palace of excess at a time the state is starving for money.

Every person who is being forced to accept lesser services, has lost a job, or no longer has access to state facilities in California should be absolutely outraged. Any school that is scrounging for supplies or demanding students bring in their own supplies should be hopping mad.  California taxpayers should revolt, but there is Federal money involved too so this is every American's business.

Those responsible for this should be prosecuted and thrown in jail. Of course the California voters did pass a multibillion dollar school construction bond issue; however, is this what they had in mind?  An examination of other public schools in other communities would surely be revealing.

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Los Angeles Opens the Taj Mahal to What's Wrong with Public Schools while California is Bankrupt

There is no excuse for this. In one of the nation's worst school systems were failure is widespread and the graduation rate is an embarassment, Los Angeles opens what is by far the most expensive public school ever constructed. Absolutely nothing in this investment serves to advance student achievement; instead it is a gaudy opulent palace of Hollywood excess at a time when California can least afford it. How can any sane person justify this?  How can this have survived the approval process?  How is it no one has yet to be held responsible for this?

The first paragraph from the Wall Street Journal says it all.

MUST READ LINK....
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703959704575454013855538920.html

Wait until the Federal Government bails out California and we get the bill.

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Baltimore County Schools Attempts to End Catonsville 4th of July Celebration

Catonsville is used to being treated as second class to Towson, but a decision by Baltimore County Public Schools, no stranger to arrogance and neglect of the spirit of county communities, has made a move to rip the heart and soul out of Catonsville’s spirit of the community, it’s 4th of July celebration.

Baltimore County has no incorporated towns, no government below the level of the county government. Even worse, the school system is not locally led. Board members are political appointments made by the Governor of Maryland having no allegiance to the community they have been appointed to serve.

For generations, Catonsville has had a glorious small town 4th of July celebration which is not only an event enjoyed by members of the Baltimore western suburb and its surrounding communities like Arbutus, Westview, and Ellicott City, it is also a rare phenomenon in Baltimore County that truly promotes a true sense of community.

The annual events include one of the region’s most festive parades but then additional activities: games, concerts, picnics, and even a (gross!) hot dog eating contest culminating with a fireworks display. The event has been held on the campus of Catonsville High School campus a few blocks south of Fredrick Avenue, Catonsville’s Main Street.

Alas, the potentates of Greenwood high on the hill in their west Towson mansion have decreed a new land use policy which would exclude school property being used for such community events. Somehow this unwarranted decision hits especially hard since it destroys a community’s celebration of something as all-American as Independence Day, but given the political leanings of the radically leftwing school system, this should come as no surprise. Look at their curriculum and see how “all-American” it fails to be.

How typical this is of Baltimore County Schools whose gerrymandered boundaries can have children attending an elementary school in one neighborhood being shipped elsewhere for Middle School where most kids would feed into one high school only to be sent some place else for high school. The attitude to parents, local businesses, and even the county government smacks of arrogance and elitism at every turn.

It’s time not only the residence of Catonsville who have long suffered as a second class community in the eyes of the Towson elites rise up and challenge the school board, not only on this horribly insensitive decision, but many other issues that the school system stuffs down the throats of Baltimore county students and residents.

By the way, this writer has spent most of his life in the York Road corridor as a matter of full disclosure.

Radical Idiots in Massachusetts School District

Unpatriotic, Pathetic – Public School District No Pledge, No Flags

What do we universally see present in our classrooms?

An American flag of course; however, as if protests about The Star Spangled Banner were not enough for its being to militant with images like “bombs bursting in air” and sending kids home for wearing American flag decorated shirts on Cisco de Mayo in California while it was perfectly okay for Mexican kids to wear Mexican flags, the Arlington Massachusetts school board not only does not display flags in its classrooms, it prohibits the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance even if voluntary. Officials argue it would be hard to find teachers willing to lead the recital.

A brave student, Sean Harrington protested that matter and got flags installed, but still no pledge.

Public education is service to our country. Regardless of where teachers stand politically and way too many of them have sided with their radical unions which support extreme social engineering and anti-free enterprise policies, they are part of the vital institution which guides students to appreciate their rights and responsibilities as Americans. The flag symbolizes our freedoms.

It’s comforting to note than this school system’s radical stand is even opposed by left-wing Senator, John Kerry.

Those responsible for these ridiculous policies should be subjected to severe public ridicule for their blatant irresponsibility, poor judgment, and subversive values.

For more background please read: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/06/29/ma-school-officials-wont-let-students-recite-pledge-allegiance/

In Modern Public Education: Best Friends Forever Should Be Best Friends Never

What scares schools most!

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Few things in life are a more god-given gift that that of a close friend, a person who has been there for a lifetime starting in schoolyard days or earlier, a person with whom one shares so many common bonds, great experiences, the good times, and the bad. As a child ventures out from the family unit, among a myriad of contacts in school and other activities, what a wonderful blessing it is to find a special friend and if life situations work out will be there for perhaps an entire life time. A best friend is someone with whom one can share his or her most intimate fears and weaknesses, dreams, schemes, and over time lots and lots of laughter.

Leave it to the ideologues who work in child sociology and psychology to want to interfere with one of life’s most precious gifts. What’s next, they’ll make official what the nanny state and Hollywood seem to suggest, marriage, life’s other big bond outside of the family of birth is not such a good thing?

The New York Times, June 17, 2009, “A Best Friend, You Must Be Kidding,” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/17/fashion/17BFF.html?scp=1&sq=camp%20couselors,%20teachers,%20friends&st=cse reports on efforts of schools and even camp counselors to start keeping tabs on children’s relationships and to separate kids who they deem as being too close. Before we go into any more details, what the hell makes it think that a child’s friends are their business unless the two kids are engaged in destructive behavior?

Among the assumptions these nanny state fascists articulate is a sense that real tight friendships encourage a kind of exclusivity which is contrary to their desire to create a climate of great inclusion. They weasel around what they are doing by arguing their efforts aren’t designed to discourage tight friendships but rather to encourage students to have respect for the dignity of others. This measure idiotic notion is supported by officials from The National Association of Secondary School Principals but also extends to summer camps where the Times reports that in recent years the Timber Lake Camp in Phoenicia, New York employs friendship “coaches” to help all kids become friends with all other campers.

The real essence of the matter is expressed in the following paragraph from the article:

Most children naturally seek close friends. In a survey of nearly 3,000 Americans ages 8 to 24 conducted last year by Harris Interactive, 94 percent said they had at least one close friend. But the classic best-friend bond — the two special pals who share secrets and exploits, who gravitate to each other on the playground and who head out the door together every day after school — signals potential trouble for school officials intent on discouraging anything that hints of exclusivity, in part because of concerns about cliques and bullying.

Anyone who does not live in an ivory tower vacuum knows these concerns are absurd! Tight friendships do not lead to cliques and bullying. They promote loyalty and mutual respect. Cliques are more a result of kids not having positive relationships and developing a followers or a herd mentality exactly what the schools efforts would produce interfering in a child’s relationship.

What’s also implicit in the schools’ intrusive nanny nose poking into manipulating friendships is their continued pursuit to micromanage all aspects of a child’s life. For years, schools have been ostracizing parents and rejecting their input and interest into the affairs of schools with the attitude, “We’re the ones with degrees in education. What do these meddlesome parents know?” How often are schools fighting the exact values often concerning morality and religion that parents attempt to provide at home?

Tight friendships also create another problem for the nanny state fascists. While most kids tend to have at least one really close friend, what about the kids who don’t? In the brave new world of promoted by the intellectual elites, the notion that there could be “have’s” and “have not’s” is unacceptable so just like the same mindset that seems to increasingly hate and tax the rich, it is consistent with that kind of thinking to go after the “have’s.”

Close friends tend to reinforce each other’s values and outlooks thus this is yet another area where schools feel compelled to extend further their control so all kids who complete their public education will be a bunch of compliant politically correct left-wing leaning zombies.

One has to wonder if there’s still some paranoia how school officials missed what the infamous Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris were up to leading up to the Columbine mass murder/suicide spree. Punish the healthy friendships for the sake of the possibility of a dangerous duo. If schools pursue such nonsense, they should be careful of possible unintended consequences.

While taken in isolation, many issues of what goes on in public schools today can be minimized and dismissed, taken in their totality and looking at the extent to which curriculum decisions have become grossly politicized as shown recently by the Texas statewide social studies text book madness where the battle focused on the desires of the extreme right versus the extreme left engaged in a death match for which side would prevail while true traditional academics and normal families’ concerns were ignored.

Student achievement continues to deteriorate where proficiency in reading, math and science fails to measure up. Test scores only tell part of the story since it has been common practice that when tests don’t tell the happy story state boards of education desire, they change the tests to something that temporarily boosts up the scores. The history of testing in Maryland shows the issue well. For decades, the Iowa test of basic schools was the statewide standard, in the late 70’s, test results plummeted, thus the California test was adopted. When the California test results wouldn’t work, Maryland attempted to adopt its own tests which have been subject to ridicule and scandal ever since.

It’s long past time that schools butt out of social engineering, from banning kids eating cookies at lunch, to destroying all reference to anything with religious connotations, to now messing around with how kids form friendships. Message to school boards, mind your own business and worry about TEACHING!

Of course the way schools have a long history of caving into the demands of teachers’ unions which have developed a union shop mentality in the school house where teachers are no longer allowed to be thinking professionals but rather job description droids, the structure which facilitates true learning is impossible.

American Flag Dispute in California Middle School: Everything is Upside Down

Five California middle school students were sent home for wearing T-shirts with American Flag artwork on Thursday, May 5th out of fears that wearing such was not appropriate on Cinco de Mayo, the celebration of Mexican independence where students would be wearing Mexican colors much as many wear green on St. Patrick’s Day for its Irish heritage. For grown ups, the Mexican holiday is becoming another excuse to hit the bars and get drunk like its November counterpart, but that’s a discussion for another day.

Since when is ever wearing something that salutes our country wrong? Why should anyone have any concerns about the American flag? Quite honestly, if wearing the flag would make some uncomfortable or incite any problems, the attention should be directed at those who would be aggravated. While it’s fashionable to knock traditional patriotic symbols and the left has a strong anti-American, anti military view point, the rest of us know better.

Fortunately the Santa Cruz school board did not stand behind the idiotic decision of Morgan Hill Middle School’s cowardly and defensive administration, but the damage had been done, the students were sent home, and the battle lines were drawn that polarized the school community causing students considering themselves pro-Latino to walk out the following day.

The bottom line is it seems in today’s world, kids would be totally free to wear clothing depicting Che Guevara or any revolutionary movement but something that’s patently all-American, look out!

Schools are so paranoid and their political correctness and extreme adherence to Nanny State abuse are completely out of control. Such a climate makes spineless administrators do stupid things. It’s happening right now at public school near you. Accommodate the cry babies, attack the longstanding traditional values which have served our civilization so well.

Display the flag proudly. It’s a symbol of freedom around the world, a lesson somehow forgotten by too many close to home.

Mindless Bureaucrats in Baltimore County: Hereford Cross Country Champ Disqualified by a Thread!!

INSANITY: Hereford High School Runner’s Championship Run Disqualified for Minor Uniform Violation

His undergarment was supposed to be solid. There was a thin white pinstripe. That’s all. It had no effect on competition. It was barely noticeable but in the spirit of “Zero Tolerance,” the bone-headed philosophy that school officials hide behind because any kind of intelligent assessment of student behavior is beyond their bureaucratic grasp, the infraction violated the governing rules adopted by the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association. A bulletin from the state association made this issue clear and that there is no room for discretion stating, “officials do a disservice to the sport and competitors when they set aside rules that apply to illegal uniforms ... because they don't want to be 'too picky.'"

Okay, flagrant violations are one thing. If a uniform manipulation gives a competitor an advantage, that’s one thing. Surely, no one wants to encourage athletes sporting a lot of silly “bling.”

For institutions that are supposed to be setting good examples and helping young people learn how to apply reasonable judgment, what do insane policy enforcements like this one teach? Doesn’t the Bible teach us to turn the other cheek for matters far more serious than a stupid piece of thread?

We condemn the actions of the appropriate county bureaucrats in the strongest terms and hope that they will get one hell of a public earful for their stupidity.

Further disclosure indicated that officials at the track meet noted other teams with non-compliant uniforms and were given the opportunity to correct the problem before competition.

Alas, the state regulations conform to the latest ruling from the National High School Association in Indianapolis who just in the past year made a ruling undergarments must be only one color. So much for black Spandex with white stitching. Yes, it all comes down to white stitching.

Steve Smith, an MPSSAA bureaucrat responsible for interpreting the rule stated, "The [uniform] rule has no bearing on the race, but it's in the book - which makes it one of the regulations that we have to follow." How’s that for the typical mindless bureaucratic response.

We firmly believe that all measures should be taken so that the athletes compete in a fair environment where skill and performance determine the outcome. While each team should have uniforms that clearly identify their identity and flagrant attempts to show-up such a policy are unacceptable, this episode reflects the disturbing “zero tolerance” scourge sweeping public education and is nothing more than enforcement for enforcement sake.

It’s yet another black eye for a school system that has a long history of bureaucratic insanity on so many levels and could care less about what’s good for students and their families.

WHAT LESSON IS LEARNED BY A VICTORY EARNED BY A TECHNICALITY?

CALL FOR ACTION: Demand Justice of Matthew Whalen, Eagle Scout Booted Out of School for 2" Knife Locked in His Car

Mr. Zero Tolerance has nothing to smile about. Get Involvedx

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Thursday, we reported about Matthew Whalen, 17 years old, an Eagle Scout and a student suspended from at Lansingburgh High School in Troy, New York because he had a 2” pocket knife, a gift from his grandfather, a police chief in a nearby community, as part of a survival kit locked and stored in his car. Intends to attend the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and this blemish on his high school record could affect his chances of admission.

The suspension was the result of a “zero tolerance” discipline policy which exceeds the state guidelines. Clearly, the student was not using the knife as a weapon. There was no intent to do harm. He did not have the knife on his person. It was locked in his car. However, the policy was said not to leave discretion. Regardless of this young man’s exemplary behavior, the school system would not budge stating his punishment was “appropriate and fair.”

Here’s an article updating this horrible fiasco:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,567700,00.html

We are therefore urging our readers to speak out against this outrageous conduct which is attacking the reputation and credentials of an obviously stellar young man.

WRITE THE SUPERINTENDENT:
George J. Goodwin
Superintendent
Lansingburgh Central Schools
576 5th Avenue
Troy, NY 12182
(518) 233-6850

You might also send an email:
ggoodwin@lansingburgh.org

Firmly but politely point out the extent to which you are alarmed a young man of good character would be subjected to such institutional abuse by an ineffective and heavy handed policy. Personalize your note; perhaps ask the Superintendent, as a parent, how he would feel if his son were so penalized.

Be sure your letter demands action. Anything less than rescinding the penalty against this exceptional young man is unacceptable.

As American citizens, we must support making sure our public schools represent the values of our communities. We will not let school bureaucrats bully our children or indoctrinate them into accepting beliefs we cannot justify.

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How Dare They!!! Obama Nation Brainwashing School Children

Mm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

He said that all must lend a hand
To make this country strong again
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

He said we must be fair today
Equal work means equal pay
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

He said that we must take a stand
To make sure everyone gets a chance
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

He said red, yellow, black or white
All are equal in his sight
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

Yes!
Mmm, mmm, mm
Barack Hussein Obama

Students at a New Jersey elementary school, B. Bernice Young Elementary School, are shown on a YouTube video singing this song.

As Larry the Cable Guy used to say, “What the hell is this, Russia?”

In a free society we do not force our school children to sing songs of exaltation of our national leader. Further in looking at the lyrics to this song, Barack Obama is being portrayed as a mythic heroic figure around whom great values are associated with explicitly political themes associated with left-wing politics are expressed. We've heard some of the lines as leftist organizing slogans in the past.

Every person in the decision making process that allowed this to happen needs to be disciplined and as public employees working in a public capacity, the public should know who they are and what the consequences will be.

This is absolutely unacceptable.

Imagine if a group of Texas elementary school kids sang,

“George Bush, George Bush,
Look at him kick terrorists tush”

The media uproar would be deafening.

Okay, for young black students there should be some concession to the historic accomplishment of having an African American president represents but would children at an early age realize that Barack Obama is a bogus African American in so far as he has no lineage to the historic struggle the children of slavery endured. Unlike Condoleezza Rice who was a child during the legendary struggle and brutal response to the Birmingham Alabama protests in the 1960’s, Obama’s roots go to a Kenyan father marrying a Kansas white woman with no connection to the historic conflict that still continues today.

Obama is nothing more than a media created artifact, a bogus facsimile, a fraud. Obama is a radical politician steeped in left wing ideology whose entire political and intellectual universe has been molded by outrageous American haters and fervent ideologues with a blind hatred of free enterprise and the profit motive.

Put that in a song and sing it.

For more information on this inexcusable episode, please read the following:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/09/24/elementary-school-students-reportedly-taught-songs-praising-president-obama/

Surely the mainstream media will never cover the danger this represents.

Who Are the Real Bad Guys?

Who Are the Real Bad Guys?

Over the last two weeks, America has seen a lot of posturing and moralizing about Olympic Gold Medal Swimmer Mike Phelps’ being caught in a photograph puffing from a marijuana bong. Next came the revelation of steroid use by baseball’s arguably greatest talent, Alex Rodriguez. Capitol Hill figures like Chris Dodd and Barney Frank are up to their ears in responsibility for factors which helped bring on the current financial collapse. Wall Street big wigs and corporate executives who made faulty deals and ran their companies into the ground with little or no consequences and often gloriously rich far parachutes with little more than hand-wringing in reaction. How about a President who resorts to sheer demagoguery, threatening impending catastrophe, to justify support for the so-called stimulus package laden with pork, special interest handouts, and simply inexplicable wastes of money like funding for Frisbee golf courses!

In the span of just a few days, the Democratic party led by Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi with Harry Reid riding shotgun in the Senate as the pathetic whiner to reign in rivals for Senatorial control like Dick Durbin and Chuck Schumer are pushing through a massive transfer of wealth from the private to public sector while tightening the grip the Federal government holds over private interests some of which have acted miserably and irresponsibly that perhaps would be better off left to their own devices to sink or swim rather than to have all the rest of us as individuals and corporations who have performed successfully give up our hard-earned assets to reward the incompetent, corrupt, and greedy.

Something’s rotten in California that doesn’t directly involve politics but it demands the nanny state come to the rescue, but how will it respond? Will it support the cult of victimology rewarding the irresponsible or will it look out for those most in need of help while seeking justice against the guilty?

We are referring to the Nadya Suleman fiasco and what will become of her multiple litters of children. Any right thinking person who saw clips of her interview on “The Today Show” could hardly help but feel a horrible sense of disbelief while at the same time experiencing vicious anger toward the insane and totally self-absorbed answers this sick, deranged woman provided. She spoke with conviction that once she finished her college degree she would have the means to provide for all of her children without any sense of just how much responsibility and attention such child care involves. Meanwhile, commentator after commentator couldn’t help but see a chilling attempted resemblance to Angela Joile, a mother of multiple children through adoption and natural birth who has the millions to hire all the resources necessary to care for those children, many rescued from wretched circumstances. Good old Angela! Why Brad Pitt would have dumped Jennifer Annison for the sake of this post-modern cat woman is another strange perversion of "me-ism" though we don't think we're smart enough to figure that one out. Where did Ms. Soleman get those big fat collagen enhanced lips for instance. Those artificial looking lips alone make this woman look like a pathetic freak as they are far beyond anything that could be perceived as looking natural. This is yet another sign of the woman’s extreme vanity and inability to deal with the real world and her circumstances as they should exist naturally.

As each day goes by, more and more is being reported about the life this pathetic woman has lived and the needs of her children. It is gut-wrenching beyond believe and how one’s self-centered “me” generation attitude pushed to its ultimate extreme can create a situation so tragic and cruel pushes the limits of human tolerance. Three of her six, half of her existing children suffer disabilities. Whether this are birth defects or the result of improper care and/or nutrition has not been determined yet. Second she has driven her parents, bankrupt. Additionally, while receiving disability income for an alleged back injury while working for a state mental facility where it seems now this woman should have been a resident not a worker, the state’s welfare system is her source of income to provide for her children. Meanwhile, they reside in a small modest three bedroom house, this sickly breeder of suffering children, the children, and her two parents. This is where the eight children will live once their incubator care is completed. The children currently at home haven’t adequate living space.

Cruelty and destructive behavior can wear many faces. We recognize that which is born from outwardly aggressive and angry behavior, but that which is self-centered or pretends to be motivated out of kindness is possibly more dangerous as many cannot recognize the danger until the damage is already done. Nadja Soleman was not able to produce fourteen children on her own. The medical system broke down to enable this. Just as the Obama “stimulus” is cloaked in all kinds of language being designed to help the needy and the public at large.

The Suleman tragedy demands quick, decisive action. First, all fourteen children must be taken by the state. They are already being financed by the state so custody should be transferred as quickly as possible. All the children need careful medical evaluation and observation. The possibility of lifelong problems grows substantially for children born well short of coming to full terms. The state should then find loving parents who would joyfully adopt these children and provide them with the nurturing environment we’d hope society would feel all children deserve. Second, Nadja Soleman’s conduct and finances need to be investigated thoroughly while she is given exhaustive intellectual capacity and emotional stability tests. She speaks with significant language skills with considerable conviction, but what drives a person to such totally irrational behavior? Is she totally nuts or is it more a matter of how she has assimilated signals from society which justify the extreme applications of the doctrine of self, support excessive individual indulgence and vanity, and have plenty of structures that can act as enablers for those who aren’t motivated to take care of themselves. That this would happen in the Los Angeles area should come as no surprise, the home of the Hollywood culture where vanity and excess rule supreme. Just a glimpse at the local morning programs which air before “Good Morning America’ and “The Today Show” show a community with a very different orientation than those of us who live in "flyover country." KTTV, the local Fox station, presents network slut best known as the dim-witted weather girl for Fox NFL pregame shows, Julianne Reynolds with co-anchor status where she presents weather but also celebrity gossip which commands equal if not more attention than the soft news generally shown on such shows elsewhere.

Meanwhile, we return to the scene of another media circus, South Carolina, where Michael Phelps was photographed taking a bong hit. Sheriff Leon Lott is on a rampage to play tough guy showing just how tough his version of law enforcement can be in his jurisdiction arresting eight people, seven for simple marijuana possession, and one for apparent distribution, as he seems hell bent on leaving no stone unturned in his warped sense of pursuing justice. His grasp of reality is just as distorted as that of Nadja Suleman’s. Either this is a Podunk district where the law has nothing better to do than pursue such a farcical endeavor or vital resources are being diverted from much more pressing problems which might include such real human tragedies including child neglect and spousal abuse but such prosecutions don’t make headlines and require a lot of intelligent hard work. The way marijuana enforcement is conducted amounts to little more than small timey fascism as the force of the law far exceeds any possible damage to society the perceived crime could possibly cause. In South Carolina, simple possession is punishable by no more than 30 days in jail or a $500 fine. One more thing, eureka!!!, apparently the Barney Fife/Heinrich Müller hybrid and his deputies having the smoking gun, er uhm, bong in their possession. We’re not accusing all those who might be involved in this marijuana case as geniuses, as apparently the fellow who had the bong attempted to sell it on eBay for $100,000. How’s that for cheesy but utterly stupid opportunism?

It’s clear to anyone who understands this issue clearly who the real dopes are in Columbia, South Carolina and its not the kids who were doing what college students have done since Socrates gathered with his pupils in ancient Greece, PARTY! Sure, the fellow who tried to strike it rich by selling the bong on email is a dope, but that’s not for marijuana, it’s for the same unbelievable doctrine of self that corrupts society in so many ways.

Apparently South Carolina governor, Mark Sanford, one of the bright stars in a vapid Republican field in 2009 has no use for the actions of Sherriff Lott, telling Fox news intrepid expert on the joys of self, Geraldo Rivera, offering a mild rebuke, "I don't see what it gets at this point.."

Socialism is a system of heavy-handed state control where the individual cannot be trusted to make decisions for himself or accept the consequences of his actions. How fascinating it is how those in the American system most closely allied to the nanny state, and socialist reforms are revealed time and time again to be the most miserly when it comes to charitable contributions as tax data on Joseph Biden and Al Gore have so shamefully revealed. Further, from the political party that believes taxing wealth is the answer to society’s ills, and the basic tenant of socialism is state managed distribution of wealth, we’ve seen numerous nominees who have cheated on their taxes.

The basic ideals on which our Constitution and Bill of Rights were founded demands and rewards personal responsibility, but given the perverse decisions which have reinvented constitutional notions to fit their liberal dogma and public education has completely turned upside down and ignored the teaching of American history and the origins and meaning of the Constitution to the extent that students for at least the last 35-40 years since the leftist rewriting of curriculum has taken hold, how can anyone clearly understand what the structure of our society is all about?

From the foundation on which the role of government is defined in the establishment of the United States in the Declaration of Independence, “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” the concepts of the first and second amendment provide the structure of law to provide such. Article upon article in The Constitution establish the rights and implied responsibilities of the individual. Providing the means for reckless procreation of fourteen children leaving the state to pick up the tab and the heavy handed reach of the law for something as simple as marijuana is a horrible perversion of those core ideals. Does anyone think Thomas Jefferson gave a damn about whether someone puffed on a little bit of a naturally grown weed?

How things have changed. We have a president who is a serial liar and a casual sophist, a congress full of extreme vested self-interests, and a court system that routinely oversteps its bounds time and time again. When dishonesty and irresponsibility runs wild at the top both in Washington and on Wall Street, we see the effects of trickledown immorality as it filters down to Main Street and how individuals develop such a perverted warped sense of self as demonstrated by Nadja Suleman and Sheriff Leon Lott.

Are Nadja Suleman and Sheriff Lott the bad guys or only the duped pawns of bigger players far more powerful and perverted in the highest center of power could provide for lively debate, but when reads the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, The Bill of Rights, and the Bible even just a passing review of the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule, all of us should know better. More so, all of us should demand better. As the words of Jesus Christ so often offer guidance in so many human dilemmas, perhaps we should consider, “Let who among us is without sin cast the first stone.” To some extent to the extent that we keep our outrage private, we condone the indefensible, and don’t speak out with outrage when we see gross public displays of immoral, inhumane, and oppressive behavior, “everyman” USA, each one of us, is the real bad guy.

Let’s get with it before that which soldiers have died and many have fought paying extreme costs to defend erodes right before our eyes. What is happening in California with the Nadja Suleman children and Columbia, South Carolina with the fascist tactics of the local sheriff show so clearly because we don’t have a grip on the affairs of state, the state is running amuck whether it is our tax dollars paying for a stupid insane woman to deliver a litter of eight babies when she already has six fatherless children with no means of support or a pompous self-serving sheriff overstepping any sense of legal sensibility in the Phelps case. That we have elected a radical extremist ignoring every aspect of his detestable background as our supreme leader shows how out of touch we are.

The bad guy can be seen looking back at each one of us when we look in the mirror.

In a Politically Correct World, Public School Teachers Don't Have Second Amendment Rights

Betsy Ramsdale , a middle school teacher, was fired, “put on administrative leave,” for posting a picture of herself aiming a rifle straight at the camera. School Superintendent, Donald Childs, acknowledged that he was not aware of any “sinister” intent in posting the photo simply that it “appears to be in poor judgment.”

There are two little problems with this case, the first amendment, that nasty little document which guarantees free speech and press and that horrible second amendment that lets the people own guns. It looks like if a person is going to be a teacher in the Madison Wisconsin area, kiss your constitutional rights goodbye! University of Wisconsin, of course, is one of the bastions of political correctness and faculty infatuated with 9/11 conspiracy theories.

We will admit that had the teacher made this posting involve her teaching career and had a caption like, “You’d better behave in class or else?” or “Okay talk, did the dog really eat your homework?” that would be very wrong but as bad as even that would be, the correct action would seem to be a reprimand and an apology from the teacher. Such is not the case with the Ramsdale case.

Let’s be clear on something. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH GUNS. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH OWNING OR SHOOTING A GUN.

Killing people is wrong. Killing animals not permitted to be hunted is wrong. Using a firearm to intimidate others or destroy their property is wrong.

Tens of thousands of Americans own guns, use them recreationally, and have them to protect their homes as it is not the police department’s job in modern society, simply to enforce the law.

Not making light of urban violence where on any given night, the odds are better than not a young black man will be shot dead through the use of ILLEGAL guns, we are much more worried about politicians and the purveyors of political correctness shooting off their mouths than we are of the likelihood good working and middle class citizens will ever shoot a gun inappropriately.

Somebody owes this teacher an apology. She immediately removed the picture at the first hint of trouble. Why should she be denied her right to free expression? Is the discussion of the proper use of firearms taboo in schools today?

We’re afraid that in today’s public schools where political correctness and liberal ideologies run amuck, there is no room for intelligent discussions on responsible gun use. The NRA runs an outstanding educational program that can be utilized in schools that teaches gun safety and responsibility. Many of us are old enough to remember when high schools routinely had marksmen clubs and competitions. Now, not even ROTC’s are welcome on many campuses.

More and more, the public education experience is becoming institutionalized, government sanctioned, child abuse.