Making babiesIt’s official now! The baby is adopted, and is gurgling and spitting up, but will soon be up and walking. The US has adopted Somalia! Add that to Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Colombia and Libya; add to that the loving glances we cast at Syria, Venezuela and Iran, and we are the Pitt-Jolie of the warmongers!
These are, of course, just the ones we know about.
Drone strikes, as I understand it, are managed from Texas. I sincerely doubt that President Obama has any control or any say over these matters. It’s above his pay grade.
The post down below led to an exchange with Polish Wolf that programmers might call the “endless loop.” My point was that we are subject to tyrannical rule by lifetime-appointed judges, and that their decisions are so hard to overturn that few even try. Impeachment is a futile enterprise – just ask the John Birch Society. This is his last comment partly redacted:
Well Mark, we don’t know who Gore would have chosen, that’s true. But here’s the thing – on most of the decisions you hate the most, there are two sides, and justices on both sides. Not one justice who voted in favor of Citizen’s United was appointed by a Democrat. Thus, the idea that Gore would have appointed two justices who voted with justices appointed by Reagan and Bush, rather than justices appointed Carter and Clinton, is absolutely absurd and kills your entire contention that Presidential election aren’t important. George Bush holding office created a situation wherein Citizens United was possible – thus, the election of 2000, far from being ‘Kabuki theater’, was instrumental in increasing the power of the wealthy in the United States. … People who voted for Nader or stayed home that day allowed Bush to be elected.
One, I did not say that the 2000 election was Kabuki Theater. The current “debate” about the debt ceiling is that. The 2000 election was rigged, for sure, and the outcome tilted to elect the Bush cadre, and part of the infinite loop is our incessant bickering about whether we are better off with weasel Democrats or self-assured Republicans. The larger point contained in the post is that the United States Supreme Court acts as a Guardian Council, just like those who are the real government of Iran, unelected, robed, mystically imbued with profound wisdom, and completely submissive to the oligarchy. Jefferson angrily complained after Marbury v Madison that decision had turned the constitution to “wax.” Until we alter this system to remove tenure for judges and/or make is feasible to quickly and easily overturn corrupt decisions like Citizens United, we are a fake democracy.*
But we were fake anyway, as even the pre-CU campaign finance system used to support the “two” parties assures that outsiders like Nader are kept out of power.
But your contempt for Nader exposes you in ways that you do not intend. LB spoke of the fear factor – that Democrats are simply afraid of leaving the playground because the task of imposing real change on this screwball system is daunting. Nader brings your fear to the surface, and you react with bitter disapproval not of the corrupt system in which you participate, but of Nader.
Finally, to the more mundane matter of the failure to elect savior Gore, a man who refused to take leadership on progressive issues, who ran a weak and uninspiring campaign, and who, in the face of the James Baker-led theft of the office meekly backed down, Sam Smith reminds us that while Nader got only 3% of the vote, exit polls showed that 9% of blacks; 46% of those under 30; 49% of the college educated; 37% of the poor; 39% of working mothers; 11% of Democrats; 34% of union members; 13% of self-described liberals; 25% of gays and lesbians; 15% of Clinton voters in 1996; 25% of those supporting abortion … all voted for Bush. That is the percentage of those who actually voted. Most eligible voters seem to recognize that it’s a rigged system, and don’t bother. Gore did not reach that segment either.
Those are people who by your imperial standard should have voted for Gore! They betrayed you! And yet, your focus, your anger and indignation, is directed only at Nader.
What gives, Polish Wolf? Eh? Eh?
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*A third aspect of our screwball system that needs change is ten-year redistricting. As one Englishman observed, our system is odd in that we allow voters to elect office holders, but then turn around and allow office holders to select voters.
Justice John Marshall: Marbury v Madison gave the Supreme Court unbridled authorityOne of the arguments for supporting Democrats even as they wallow in mush is that we get better judicial appointments with them. I have copped to that point on numerous occasions, and see some merit in it. If only there were other reasons to support them, but let’s take a look at that one issue:
Thom Hartmann, an Obamabat who believes that his guy is just in learning mode, has been making a good point lately that bears repeating: There is nothing in the constitution about judicial review. That power was usurped by the court for itself in Marbury v Madison. The essence of that decision is that we live under a ruling body that is not accountable to the electorate. We can only remove Supreme Court justices by impeachment, or they have to die. John Roberts and Sam Alito* appear to have perjured themselves in their confirmation hearings, and there is nothing to be done about it.
Ayatollah RobertsThe Supreme Court operates like the Iranian Guardian Council, exercising naked power. The Citizens United ruling is an abomination that does not stand up under even modest scrutiny, and is by decree the law of the land. (Obama said in a SOTU address that that decision needed to be overturned, and has since done and said exactly … nothing.)
The essential problem is not the appointment of good judges, but the lack of accountability of those we appoint. It’s always a crap shoot. We are not a democratic republic, but rather, a fake democracy. Behind the scenes lurks the oligarchy, and right before our eyes a council of nine that rules by decree.
All that aside, is our only chance at improvement of our lot to elect Democrats and hope that they appoint kinder masters? Is that our lot?
Yes. That is our lot. Excuse me if I elect not to participate in this foolery.
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We had opportunity to visit with Ladybug on our recent trip, and I never leave an encounter with him without marveling at his insight. He cuts to the quick. We had a delightful visit, toured his property with all of its original artwork and rustic charm. I took away a lot from that encounter, but these points stand out:
Journalists are trained by use of what he called “shock collars,” and so know exactly how far they can go before they will endure pain. In all of my thousands of words about that profession over the years, LB’s one thought sums it all up.
The other point – why do Democrats behave as they do, reflexively staying within the fold even as they are time and again betrayed? Fear. Simple fear. The party offers them a safe playground. Outside is scary.
Thanks LB
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*It should be noted here that the Democrats had it within their grasp to block Alito’s nomination, and backed down.
Got uppityWe returned from vacation and away from news to learn from Swede in comments down below that Hugo Chavez was dead, and that he had died in a Cuban hospital. I had no way of checking that out at the time, but was deeply saddened. I’ve since followed up, and don’t know his status. It does appear the the jackals of the Venezuelan oligarchy, supported by the US, are circling the camp down there. The grand experiment in representative democracy might soon end, and the oil giants will once again control that country’s oil.
Chavez’s greatest offense was to offer assistance to other Latin American countries by use of oil wealth. He offered loans and direct assistance without strings, allowing some countries to get out from under the jackboot of the IMF.
Swede loves to run on fumes, assertions without evidence stated with arrogant assurance. That’s a long-winded way of saying he’s a right winger. The Cuban hospital quip was meant to say, in his way, that Cuban health care is inferior to American health care. He has no way of knowing that, of course. If he is an insider here, that is, one who actually has access to our health care system, he might have a point. If he is an outsider, and has access only through emergent care, he’s full of shit.
This much I can say with some certainty: Chavez was surely better off in a Cuban hospital than an American one. The US government, which tried to overthrow him in 2002, still wants him gone gone gone, and American health care might well have been his demise. He surely knew this.
Interest on public debt is 2/3 now of what it was when Reagan left office. All things being relative, if this is a crisis, then was a worse one. But this is no surprise – the current “fiscal crisis” is manufactured for political purposes. Unfortunately, both parties are doing the business on us, the debt ceiling “standoff” mere Kabuki Theater.
Obama will back down, as he always does, not because he is weak, but merely because he is a player on a stage, playing his part.
Sarah Palin’s recent gaffe regarding Paul Revere’s midnight ride struck me as one of those journeys into a “Fun House.” We’ve all had that experience – at the annual carnival or fair we get in a boat or a little train and prepare to be shocked by creatures jumping out at us. We know it’s coming, but all the same, it’s scary.
But who cares. I sat through quite a few history classes in my time. Who is to say that Sarah’s rendition is not as credible as the official one. Remember that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was a mere seventy years ago, and is so decked in patriotic streamers that the real history of that time is hard to know. Likewise with the dropping of atomic bombs on Japanese cities – real events have been replaced by official narratives which are now taught daily in our schools. History is indeed bunk.
Getting “good grades” is important, we are told, so that regurgitation is considered meritorious behavior. The best way around this dilemma is simply not to teach history in the schools. It’s all bullshit anyway, overseen by patriots wearing blinders and taught by people who know no better. Imagine if the real motive behind the Texas Revolution in the 1830’s, that the Texans were rebelling against Mexico’s outlawing of slavery, were taught for just one day in one Texas school – there would be another Texas rebellion and that teacher would be summarily fired.
Charter schools are a good idea, as I see it, because they can free us from the doldrums of education – the factory bells and whistles, the competency testing and regurgitation. I do not beleive that kids are naturally lazy or disinterested, or that we need this system of negative reinforcement to get them to perform well in their studies. Bright kids will shine in any system, even in spite of those systems. But average kids, or kids who could do a whole lot better than they do are turned off by our factory system of teaching.
Imagine that information flow were reversed and that school was about students teaching teachers. I don’t mean that kids would rewrite history or reinvent math – I mean something more basic. Teachers would explore the inner workings of kids, looking for their special interests and talents. Kids would be engaged alongside the teachers. There’d be no bells, no regimented schedules. Kids would explore various fields of knowledge and skill. When they hit upon something that gave them a psychic jolt, they’d follow that path. It might be mechanical engineering, art, music, study of the past, business or even, sigh, accounting. Something will get their attention. Being “smart” is the result of being interested and applying oneself to something. We’re all smart enough to do one thing well.
Rather than handing out bad grades for subjects that kids do not excel at, they would simply find out that they do not have those aptitudes without negative fallout. Artistic kids would not be taught bookkeeping, mechanically adept kids would not be immersed in horticulture or Emily Dickenson. Education would be fun, and a prelude to an exciting life of exploration of the self and service to others as one’s talent dictates. If education is not about making life more interesting and fulfilling, if it is only about turning out workers and keeping up with other countries, then don’t complain when kids don’t respond to the bell.
We do need basics, of course. Kids need to know how to read and write and parse a sentence, add and subtract and do compound interest and think critically. We should be taught at least a second language, perhaps a third, when we are young and our minds soak up that stuff with ease. That can all be done in elementary years. But a good portion of each day ought to be left for individual immersion in subjects of interest.
Whatever we’re doing now, it’s not working. Charter schools offer a pathway to change. We can experiment a bit, let the kids off the hook for not working hard on things that do not offer positive feedback. By the time a kid leaves his twelfth year of schooling (if that many years are even needed), she should have some idea of her talents and passions and be about her life’s work. From there we could have post-secondary schools or apprenticeships, colleges and even graduate school for the really gifted ones. But those first twelve years were for me mostly a waste, and I’d bet for many others too.
Just a caveat or two about charter schools: They should be non-profit. The profit motive instantly puts a school at odds with its mission, as quarterly results encourage fudging of results, selection bias towards apparently brighter kids, and budget cutting to satisfy investors. Education, like health care, should be a not-for-profit enterprise. And, we should approach them with conservative caution – treat them as test laboratories, only expanding when something is shown to work. Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey wants to privatize that state’s schools all at once without any regard to what already works or caution about what might not work. He’s fooking crazy.
Lloyd Blankfein worked tirelessly behind the scenes for Iraqi freedomFrom Politico:
FIRST LOOK: WALL STREET IN IRAQ? – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Deputy Secretary Tom Nides (formerly chief administrative officer at Morgan Stanley) will host a group of corporate executives at State this morning as part of the Iraq Business Roundtable. Corporate executives from approximately 30 major U.S. companies – including financial firms Citigroup, JPMorganChase and Goldman Sachs – will join U.S. and Iraqi officials to discuss economic opportunities in the new Iraq. Full list of corporate participants: http://politi.co/kOpyKA
This is what the Iraq war was about, beginning, middle and someday, end. All the rest was lies. Always keep in mind, as we watch American policy makers at work, the maxim that has guided me through the past 23 years: “They lie, they lie, they lie.”
We are witnessing an interesting phenomenon going on right now – the first phrase that comes to mind is “selective indignation,” but that really doesn’t cover it. The focus on Anthony Weiner is not merely hypocritical. It’s indicative of the selection system for high office. Weiner has been found unqualified, and it has nothing to do with his sexting.
First, the supposed “crime:” I’m speculating based on personal experience here, but Weiner is young and attractive. Monogamy is not in the nature of a man – it is a learned behavior. He’s in a new marriage, and is slowly coming to grips with the notion that he is confined to one vagina for the rest of his life!!! It’s the first year of marriage, and not the seventh, that is hardest for most of us. But also, for most of us, there are not a lot of alternatives. We’re happy that even one woman wants us.
But Weiner has other options. He’s in Washington, DC, a sexual playground. Like Hollywood, it is hard to maintain a normal relationship with all the distractions. He is either going to settle into this marriage and find out its true meaning, or he’s going to Clintonize. He might also go through a divorce, which is unfortunate when a child is involved.
All of that is none of our business.
The drumbeat that is going on now is not natural. It’s contrived and reserved for special cases. This is the “many could be called, only a few are chosen” phenomenon. On any given day, maybe a hundred members of Congress could be caught in flagrante delicto, but are not. (How do I know this? It’s elementary: Washington is a place where there is power, money, women, lobbyists, and intrigue. Duh.) The media, directed from above, can either focus our attention or allow it to naturally dissipate regarding Weiner. No matter the public’s interest, which is directed by television coverage anyway, Weiner’s indiscretion could easily fade into the background. But instead it’s being showcased, the ‘other’ party wants his scalp, and his own party is abandoning him.
Consider this: David Vitter was caught paying for sex with prostitutes. We know about it, but it was not put in our headlights, and he’s still in office. Without media focusing our attention on the matter with incessant coverage, the matter withered and died. Newt Gingrich is famous for serial affairs, but he tends to marry his concubines. Orrin Hatch is said to be a wild-hare penis on a perpetual scent trail. John McCain’s marriage is rocky at best, his wife the philanderer as his appeal diminishes with age. George W. Bush was a cocaine abuser and drunk who sponsored at least one abortion. These are some of the few we know about, and I only mention them because the media backed off, and no resignation was demanded of these powerful men.
Chris Lee did something similar, and quickly stepped down. Don’t know what to make of that, as I know nothing about him other than that he was new in office and not powerful.
Randomly caught - honest - randomly!I don’t care about sex, as random encounters simply don’t matter. It’s just sex. Men and women in marriages have to work this stuff out, privately. I don’t care about prostitution, as it seems a woman’s business whether she wants to sell her favors. Who am I to say that someone should be denied an economic opportunity due to mere prurience? So I don’t care about Vitter or McCain or Clinton or Bush or Gingrich or Gary Hart or John Edwards or Elliot Spitzer or Anthony Weiner in that regard. It’s none of our business. Men are men. Answer for yourself: Given opportunity and certain knowledge of not being discovered, would you? Would you? We who are happily married don’t actively seek what Charlie Sheen calls his “strange,’ meaning unfamiliar nooky, but don’t sit there and tell me that you, if you are a man, are immune to this stuff. You know what’s real here.
My only questions are these: Given that so many could be called, why are so few chosen? And why, with Gingrich, Vitter, McCain, Hatch and Bush and so many others, does the dog not bark?
____________ Footnote: Media managers (both in government and the media itself) are known to use stories as a distraction to avoid covering other stories, even to invade a small Caribbean island that grows nutmeg, for example, to distract the media from marine deaths in Lebanon. (The Obama White House used this tactic in December of 2010, inviting Bill CLinton to a press conference to deflect attention from House Democrats rebelling against his tax deal.) So the Weiner story could be a mere distraction, in which case the question becomes: What else is going on? Yemen is the only story that comes to mind. It is big, but not as big as the Weiner story, obviously.
Information in the US is tightly controlled, an amazing feat given our perceived freedom of the press and easy access to information.
The means by which this is accomplished appear twofold: a media environment where even the incurious are overfed with useless information, and journalists who are rewarded for servile behavior.
Americans are no more or less intelligent than anyone else in the world, but we are provided with an abundance of distracting information daily. Even if we are naturally curious there are discouragements in place: Subversive information is not easily available. We have to know what we are looking for. We’re not going to stumble upon it in USA Today. And anyway, there are a thousand other interesting things going on in media. Distractions abound. It’s easy not to know anything and still be busy as hell about it.
Mainstream media outlets are rigidly controlled. Naturally curious journalists are dispatched over time. They leave either by outright dismissal or or for perceived failings such as “lack of objectivity” (code for natural curiosity). It’s easy to predict that the editor of the local newspaper will be the least intellectually curious person there, and the most willing to submit to the dictates of the publisher or owner. Mediocrity is the trait that leads to advancement – it’s the “Russert syndrome.”
You’d think that the Internet would solve these problems and free us up to know anything we want to know. It has indeed, and those who are naturally curious can now surf the world. It’s a glorious revolution. But the Internet is mostly a source of distractions. It is dominated by cheesy entertainment, pornography, gambling, social networking, music and movie piracy. People scanning the globe for information are relatively few. The Internet has introduced the naturally curious to one another, and that is revolutionary. It’s a hard thing to manage – the only real threats I’ve seen to Internet freedom are government and corporate hacking to shut down pesky websites, “net neutrality” battles, and routing of massive amounts of data through a few outlets, which allows for shut-down of service when there is a threat to entrenched power.
A correspondent whom I only know because of the Internet forwarded an AlterNet piece by Rania Khalek called “5 WikiLeaks Hits of 2011 That Are Turning the World on Its Head — And That the Media Are Ignoring.” That tone … “and that the media are ignoring,” is a tiresome cliche’ in left wing journals. It implies a failing in the American media. But in not covering the stories in Khalek’s piece, media are merely doing their job.
And anyway, Alternet is part of the media, and the information is there for us. Only a few seek it out.
KhalekHere are Khalek’s five WikiLeaks-driven events of 2011:
1) The Arab Spring*: Information is power. It all started in Tunisia, where existing unrest was exacerbated by WikiLeaks revelations of government corruption, well known. Add an immolation, and presto! Uprising.
2) The ‘worst of the worst’ included children, the elderly, the mentally ill, and journalists. These are Guantanamo detainees, horribly abused, most guilty of nothing even beginning to justify their treatment. (Terror and torture are never justified anyway.) Since our perceptions are carefully managed in the US, most of us think that Guantanamo detainees are both guilty and well-treated.
3) US allies are leading funders of international terrorism. These would be Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. It is not surprising if one understands that the US itself is engaged in terror and torture, does not care about – even fears – democratic governance.
4) World leaders practically lighting a fire under the Arctic. Far from having any concern about the consequences of global warming, The US, Canada, Russia, China, Norway and other countries intuitively understand that the Arctic will be the source of resource wars in the coming decades. (I’m having a hard time conjuring up a Norwegian demon to justify bombing that country. Will we learn to hate the scourge of the Norseman as we do Muslims? Will we be told that Bjørnstjerne and Sonja are forming cells?)
5) Washington would let them starve to protect US corporate interests Hugo Chavez has control of oil, and uses it to promote relief of hunger and poverty and to free Latin American countries from the oppressive interference of the International Monetary Fund. The rotten son of a bitch. Venezuela and Haiti had an agreement whereby the latter saves $100 million a year, a tenth of its budget, on the cost of oil. Haitians getting uppityExxon and Chevron were pissed about that, and as the little lamb followed Mary, the US State Department has intervened and interfered in that agreement. WikiLeaks also exposed how the US interfered in Haitian government attempts to raise the minimum wage there from 24 cents to 61 cents per hour. This, according to a US official, did not reflect “economic reality.”
It’s not hard to understand the dynamics here, why Julian Assange is under house arrest in England, why the US (via Sweden) is trying to bring him here for a show trial which will be followed by imprisonment, even death. He’s committed a crime that is rarely seen here in the land of the free: Journalism.
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*How’s that Arab spring going? Egypt is out of the news, but the US must be making some progress in restoring the old order. For a brief period of time, Egyptians were letting Gaza’s de facto prisoners escape via the Rafah border into the Sinai, but the gates have shut again. Bahrain is subject to brutal and violent suppression, with aid from Saudi Arabian troops trained by the UK. It is, after all, home of the US Fifth Fleet, so the revolution is not being televised. Libya is under attack by NATO, supposedly to aid the rebellion, but more likely to merely get rid of Gaddafi’s government and replace it with one friendlier to US oil companies.Yemen’srebel forces are currently being bombed by the US, as we open up a fifth war, four of them against Muslims. (The fifth, Colombia, is also not televised.) The US has long wanted regime change in Syria, so that revolution is being televised and widely covered here, even in Time Magazine! Abuses, which are real, are routinely exposed. I watched with horror a couple of days ago to the news that there are refugees leaving Syria. Then I remembered that the US caused some two million refugees to flee Iraq, not covered here, and then remembered too that all US news is bullshit read from teleprompters and transcribed in newspapers by toadies and lackeys.
ht/lb (PS: Woke up with an extreme case of attitude today.)
Never earned a dime, wants to be presidentThis is a comment I made below which exhausted my allotted effort for thinking [sic] today. It’s all I got.
I am struggling with an even deep[er] anti-Reaganian ideal – that beyond a certain natural limit, it is impossible to “earn” money. It’s an invitation to totalitarianism, I know. But the primary means of earning large sums of money are due to inheritance, scaling, and mere proximity.
Scaling is the ability to take a product sold one-on-one, and repeat the act of selling that product without additional effort. Effort is involved in writing a computer program, scaling comes about when you have the ability to market it by merely putting up a web site . If you are a writer you can read your writing to someone and charge a fee, read it to a large group and collect a number of fees at once, or get it published, like Dan Brown, and watch the public engage in a crap-feast.
Hard to quantify, but pure luck has a lot to do with rewards in that type of activity. How many authors better than Dan Brown never get published?
And then there is proximity – this includes inheritance, but also banking, real estate – any type of transaction where you can place yourself at a bottleneck and charge for passage of that money from one set of hands to another. There’s a lot of calculating in that, but not what I would call socially useful skill. As a banker you are managing other people’s money, and charging a fee for taking from one group and lending to another. Whoopti-doo. That ‘skill’ would not amount to a dime’s worth of income were it not for the fact that the banker is close to the money.
There’s a whole class of people who are merely in the hunt for bottlenecks. We call them “entrepreneurs”, but that is something else entirely. These people don’t invent, they merely fence off goods or services and charge for use – wireless Internet or cell phones are a good example – the “skill” involved in those activities comes from lawyers who rope us into complex contracts of little benefit to us, but huge benefit to the people who stand at the bottleneck.
It’s a part of my justification for high tax rates on high incomes – the idea that for the most part, high income is due to clever calculating without much societal benefit in the outcome, or mere luck. From a moral standpoint, I can justify high taxes on high incomes if we allow people to avoid those taxes by doing socially useful things with their money, like investing in plants and equipment and people, or giving it to charity. You [know], like in the 1950′s, when we had a better system of shared prosperity than now.
Never earned a dime, wants to be presidentTo add just a bit: What about the people who perform valuable one-on-one services, earning a certain amount of income from each transaction? This would include lawyers, carpenters, prostitutes, even us accountants, but that’s all redundant, except for carpenters. I am talking about “earning” in the sense of sale of raw ability rather than harvesting the labor of others for profit, which is the true underlying nature of the employer-employee relationship.
There was a concept in play up until Reagan took office, a distinction between “earned” income (wages, self-employment) and “passive” income (interest, dividends, royalties, etc). Passive income was taxed at higher rates than earned income.
Republicans, tools that they are, are now promoting the idea that passive income ought to be exempt in total from taxation. It’s perverse, but a natural product of the idea that mere proximity is the same as earning, and therefore ought to enjoy privilege. Indeed there should be a reward for saving and setting aside for one’s future, but this should not be confounded with inheritance, luck, and proximity. God what weird times we live in.
The post down below led to an exchange with Polish Wolf that programmers might call the “endless loop.” My point was that we are subject to tyrannical rule by lifetime-appointed judges, and that their decisions are so hard to overturn that few even try. Impeachment is a futile enterprise – just ask the John Birch Society. This is his last comment partly redacted: 
Nader brings your fear to the surface, and you react with bitter disapproval not of the corrupt system in which you participate, but of Nader. 
Interest on public debt is 2/3 now of what it was when Reagan left office. All things being relative, if this is a crisis, then was a worse one. But this is no surprise – the current “fiscal crisis” is manufactured for political purposes. Unfortunately, both parties are doing the business on us, the debt ceiling “standoff” mere Kabuki Theater.
Sarah Palin’s recent gaffe regarding Paul Revere’s midnight ride struck me as one of those journeys into a “Fun House.” We’ve all had that experience – at the annual carnival or fair we get in a boat or a little train and prepare to be shocked by creatures jumping out at us. We know it’s coming, but all the same, it’s scary. 
Artistic kids would not be taught bookkeeping, mechanically adept kids would not be immersed in horticulture or Emily Dickenson. Education would be fun, and a prelude to an exciting life of exploration of the self and service to others as one’s talent dictates. If education is not about making life more interesting and fulfilling, if it is only about turning out workers and keeping up with other countries, then don’t complain when kids don’t respond to the bell. 
Just a caveat or two about charter schools: They should be non-profit. The profit motive instantly puts a school at odds with its mission, as quarterly results encourage fudging of results, selection bias towards apparently brighter kids, and budget cutting to satisfy investors. Education, like health care, should be a not-for-profit enterprise. And, we should approach them with conservative caution – treat them as test laboratories, only expanding when something is shown to work. Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey wants to privatize that state’s schools all at once without any regard to what already works or caution about what might not work. He’s fooking crazy. 
We are witnessing an interesting phenomenon going on right now – the first phrase that comes to mind is “selective indignation,” but that really doesn’t cover it. The focus on Anthony Weiner is not merely hypocritical. It’s indicative of the selection system for high office. Weiner has been found unqualified, and it has nothing to do with his sexting. 
Information in the US is tightly controlled, an amazing feat given our perceived freedom of the press and easy access to information. 
It’s easy to predict that the editor of the local newspaper will be the least intellectually curious person there, and the most willing to submit to the dictates of the publisher or owner. Mediocrity is the trait that leads to advancement – it’s the “Russert syndrome.” 
Piece of Mindful 