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Aliens and Republican Candidates

  • Posted on May 29, 2011 at 8:12 pm

Whew!  I just finished my two online courses today!  It’s been hectic and it’s been difficult to find the time to post here.  Working on the courses has kept my weekends busy and my school days are filled with the end of the year art shows that I put up.  However, school is almost over but don’t fret I am taking two more courses, so I will still be busy!

Lately, I’ve been wondering what is up with the Republican Party?  It seems to me they can’t find a decent candidate to run for the presidency.  I almost feel like this is all part of the “plan”.  They will put up the worse candidate, so we are all left with a vote for the other poor candidate, President Obama.  It’s like a continual game plan between the Republican and Democratic Parties of “good guy, bad guy” politics.  Maybe as I get older I become more cynical, but it sure seems strange that in a country this size the candidates that we see running most of us wouldn’t want to put in charge of anything, let alone the presidency.  Looking at the ever shrinking list of potential candidates makes me wonder if they really are going to pull out Jeb in the end.  It’s just a thought and I have written about this before.  Lately those potential candidates have been dropping like flies.

Gerhard-Kozissnik from the World Body Painting Festival

So, the other day I came across these pictures from the World Body Painting Festival and I was thinking what weird alien figure will be next to grace the stage of the Republican Party.  So many of the Republican would be candidates have been dropping like flies out of the race.

Of course we all were drawn into the Trump drama which probably secured him many viewers for his finale on Celebrity Apprentice.  I never really took that one seriously anyway.  The list is ever shrinking and the two that remain at the top are now Romney and Palin.  Please excuse me while I gag at the thought of either person at the helm of this big ship.  Romney can’t stand up without flip flopping on some issue and Palin does absolutely the same thing.  When I first read about her she was holding those oil companies “feet to the fire” in Alaska.  My how times have changed since she made a little money.   Now it’s all about keeping taxes down and helping big businesses out.  There is nothing left for the little guy with these two scammers.  We’re left with that “trickle down” theory of bullshit left over from the Reagan presidency.

Another interesting aspect to all of this is the candidacy of Jon Huntsman.  I find it mildly entertaining that there are two people with connections to the state of Utah running to be president.  Since our budget director was imported from Utah, I’m not remotely interested in either Romney or Huntsman.  The budget in Michigan was recently decided in record time.  It was decided in record time to screw the little guy, and of course the education of other little guys.  I find this letter to our governor interesting because I have noticed that here in Michigan we would rather spend lots of money on prisons and prisoners than on schools and education.  It seems a superintendent wrote this piece.  http://bigthink.com/ideas/38573 It’s well worth reading.  I had planned at one time to do a piece on just this very subject but there has been so much I have written about and just ran out of time.  However, this pieces touches on what I have been thinking about for some time now.  http://www.freep.com/article/20110505/NEWS06/105050518/Michigan-House-budget-cuts-cops-aid-poor-arts

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Mr. Prince Goes to Dubai

  • Posted on May 16, 2011 at 8:55 pm

Erik Prince

Our own, Michigan grown, Eric Prince is off to bigger and better things in Dubai.  It seems that business is good since September 11, 2001 for mercenary soldiers.  His business was Blackwater.  Now that Blackwater has its problems, he has changed the name.  It seems he didn’t like that word, mercenary, back in the day.  I grabbed this from Wikipedia.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Prince

When the term “mercenaries” was used to describe Blackwater employees, Prince objected, characterizing them instead as “loyal Americans”. (According to Pelton, who interviewed Prince on his military vision, Prince sees Blackwater’s role in American affairs as similar “to that of Baron von Steuben, Kościuszko, Rochambeau, and LaFayette” — soldiers of fortune who helped fight in American War of Independence. He also compares them to the Flying Tigers, World War II-era fighter pilots who fought for pay in the Pacific theater.[64])

Of course now, that’s exactly what his team of soldiers is currently in Dubai.  This article in the New York Times is quite interesting.  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/15/world/middleeast/15prince.html?pagewanted=4&_r=1&hp

You have to wonder about everything from the technology he is using to the knowledge that he knows about American affairs and think about how he is applying all of this in Dubai.  Of course Wikipedia has all of these silly ideas about what he may be up to.  One of them is to be a high school teacher.  That is laughable except for the fact that he is a major contributor to the Mackinac Center by way of the back door version of the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington D.C.  Teachers in Michigan should be well aware of the Mackinac Center as that organization has been breeding contempt for public education and teacher labor unions for years.  I remember getting pamphlets in my school mailbox that were not exactly public school teacher friendly.  http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/03/mackinac-maddow-conservative-koch-prince

You may recall this segment of the Rachel Maddow show:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eAJzTXyczM

From the New York Times article I found this:

The United Arab Emirates — an autocracy with the sheen of a progressive, modern state — are closely allied with the United States, and American officials indicated that the battalion program had some support in Washington.

What I really want to know is what does that mean?  Is this just one more way that we are funneling more money to military exploits and war profiteering businesses?  I am left wondering about these things.  I found this article during my search today.  If you read nothing else from the links that I have given you today, read this article.

http://blackstarnews.com/news/135/ARTICLE/7358/2011-05-14.html

We are in a cycle of never ending war created by the war profiteers who are continually fed by our government.  Life as we know it is over unless we stand up and demand changes in Washington D.C.  We cannot sit silently and watch our public schools system continually chastised as “broken”.   Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid also considered “broken”.  Our government, through the use of a media with a penchant for just making money and politicians who also like that good old lobbyist money, keeps telling us that government can’t do anything right.  Everything must be privatized because private companies are better than government.  Erik Prince is a part of all of that private company meme.  We have given the war profiteers the keys to the kingdom and now they rule everything.  They will even decide what your kids are going to learn in school.  I love this video because this guy, Will Richardson, says it like it is.  He says, “Life prep is not test prep.”  In the video he is appalled at the constant use of testing our students are faced with.  At one point he has a Tweet from a parent that bemoans the fact that her Kindergarten child is looking for ways to get out of school.  Richardson goes on to say, “This system is killing our kids.  It is taking all of the imagination, all of the creativity, all of the initiatives, all of the engagement right out of it.”

If we want to suck the life out of our children, let’s keep teaching for a test and test till the cows come home.  It seems to be what the war profiteers want this because it keeps everyone under control.  However, if we want an engaged society that knows how to problem solve and students that can think for themselves, let’s try a different approach.  You may think it is funny that I put this in here.  What, you are thinking, does all of this Eric Prince business, have to do with education.  Well, if he’s connected to the Mackinac Center, it speaks volume and you and I should all be alarmed!  It’s all about making money folks.  Everything is for profit, even your child’s education.

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Grandma’s Got My Purse or Senile Republicans on a Rampage

  • Posted on May 14, 2011 at 4:16 pm

Do you really want someone like the character Cloris Leachman plays on Raising Hope to be in charge of the federal government purse strings?

I was thinking about the House of Representatives recently.  The Republicans just keep blasting on and on about the budget deficit, even though they didn’t seem to care about it Christmas time when they extended the Bush tax cuts.  Friday morning when I was listening to the Morning Joe show I had this flash of the Republicans actually being a senile grandmother.  It’s like this.  You give your purse to your senile grandmother to hang on to thinking that’s a safe place.  After all what can she do?  Well, when you’re not looking, she hides the damn thing.  You’re stuck searching everywhere for that damn purse.  You’ve got these bills that are due and you are beside yourself wondering how you’re going to pay them.  When you ask her about it, she seems rather clueless, just like those Republicans.  They hold the purse strings and so now we have a do nothing Congress that seems to be doing quite a bit of damage to the middle class.

Rep. Duncan Hunter from California says, “It’s time to trim the fat.”  Yes, he’s talking about education, not oil companies or defense!  http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2011/05/house_calls_for_eliminating_mo.html?cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS1

Over in the Senate things aren’t much different as Sen. Mitch McConnel is busy attacking Medicaid and Medicare.  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-12/mcconnell-seeks-significant-spending-changes-in-debt-plan-1-.html

This morning I had to fill my car with gas at $4.13 99/100 a gallon.  I’m not complaining for me on this one because I haven’t been filling my gas tank too often this year.  I’m so busy with the online courses I’m taking that I don’t have time to drive any place special.  I can’t imagine the rest of you that are driving great distances to work with the cost of gas hanging over your heads and the stagnant paychecks.

For most of us, all of this is a no brainer.  With Bin Laden dead, it seems to me that we should get out of these three wars that we have found ourselves in.  Of course the “money makers” and those “job creators” want no such thing.  While major companies continue to profit off the wars, I find myself reminiscing about an old song that seems to fit today.  Take a listen and think about what we’re fighting for.  I’m so tired of that Bushism, “We’re fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them here.”  Another one we are always told basically is that “freedom isn’t free”.  As we continue to give up our rights in this country and go down that rabbit hole of confusion about what’s really important in our lives; we should stop and think about what all of this is doing to our country, our way of life and our standard of living.  It seems the rich just keep getting richer and the poor; well you know what’s going on there.  The rest of us are holding onto our jobs by a prayer and a whim and hoping this too will pass.

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Sturgis Middle School Art Show

  • Posted on May 13, 2011 at 9:39 pm

I have been ill this week and also very busy at school.  It’s been a difficult week.  I have many pressing things to do at the end of the school year.  I put up the Sturgis Middle School annual art show on Monday with four sixth grade volunteers.  I am so thankful to the young students that helped me as it would have been a nightmare to do on my own, especially feeling the way I do this week.  The art show will be up through the school day of May 23rd.  If you are in the Sturgis, Michigan area, check it out because it showcases some awesome talent!  I will also be putting more artwork on display at the middle school for this coming Monday when we have our sixth grade open house.   I am going to showcase the talent of my students on my blog today, so enjoy it.  Over the year we have done many different types and styles of art.  Students have worked with pastels, oil pastels, scratch art, papier mache, clay, collage pattern, line, color, watercolor, acrylic paint and mixed media.  They have had many different opportunities to work with art materials.  It is a pleasure to work with middle school students.  If you click on individual pictures, you can see the work in detail.

On Thursday my 8th grade class took a field trip to the Kalamazoo Institute of Art.  We had such a fun time.  Earlier in the week my students tie dyed t-shirts for the trip.  Don’t they look great?  We were able to take the trip because I was awarded a bus grant for this trip from the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs.

At the KIA we were able to see the West Michigan Area Art Show and it was fun to see all of the local artistic talent.  We also saw the Young Students of Kalamazoo County exhibit.  This was a K-8th grade exhibit.  If you are in the Kalamazoo area, you should check out the KIA.  We were greeted with such happiness by the KIA.  It’s a wonderful place to take students and visit!

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Governor Granholm and Cheesy Portraits

  • Posted on May 7, 2011 at 12:25 pm

Governor Granholm

Former Governor Granholm has just had her portrait revealed to the world or at least to the state of Michigan.  I could mention all of the forced symbolism that seems to have been so important for her to include in this painting, but I think I will focus on the complete lack of emotion I feel when I view it.  This is of course the woman/man that was our first woman governor here in Michigan.  I always find it so interesting that women in politics feel they must look like men to govern.   This portrait of Jennifer shows us nothing of the soul of the woman that was our governor.  I have no feeling for this person.  It has been stylized to essentially make us feel that she has her pulse on the world and she has done everything she can to keep Michigan moving.  Of course while she has to look like a man, she did it wearing pumps that make her somewhat superior to any man.

http://www.freep.com/article/20110507/NEWS06/105070334/Former-Gov-Jennifer-Granholm-s-official-portrait-full-symbolism

I’ve been disappointed with all of our past recent governors.  They all profess so much love for Michigan, but they just can’t leave our state fast enough once they are finished “governing”.  As you can see, Jennifer now resides in the state of California.  Michigan is just a distant memory, something she can simply add to her resume.  Like her predecessors, she will probably become a part of that revolving door of corruption that is the politician/lobbyist.  Looking at OpenSecrets reveals our last two former Governor’s penchant for making money and using their political clout.  Here is John Engler firmly enmeshed in the world of business.  http://www.opensecrets.org/revolving/rev_summary.php?id=32185

Here is also former Governor Jim Blanchard also exerting his political clout in Washington D.C. as a lobbyist.  http://www.opensecrets.org/revolving/rev_summary.php?id=13806

You may think I am just being critical and these guys have to work.  My feeling is this.  If you thought enough of Michigan to want to be governor, why would you ever leave it?  Truthfully, Michigan was just a stepping stone in their resume life.  There are those of us that love Michigan and will do everything we can to promote it, educate it and live in it and there are those that will just use it and go on to their next job.

As for that portrait of Jennifer, I find myself looking from that left hand firmly planted on her hip to those shoes and all I end up thinking about is Napoleon.

How did that come into my head?  I think it is because they both have that look of pomposity that is supposed to tell us, the “little people”, just how important they really are to history.  If Governor Granholm wants us to remember windmills, cars, shovel ready projects, education and the global impact of Michigan, maybe she should have left us with the feeling that our young people could stay and live in Michigan to work all of those new found jobs.  Unfortunately, mine, like thousands if not millions of other young people, have fled our state making us look like an uneducated society.  The statistics imply that proportionately few people here have a college degree, just 24%.  We are 37th in ranking with the other states.  We educate them here in Michigan.  We have great schools and universities. http://www.statemaster.com/graph/edu_bac_deg_or_hig_by_per-bachelor-s-degree-higher-percentage

Trust me, our colleges are not just educating out of state people.  Our young people get their degrees.  Once they get that sheepskin, they leave the state for greener pastures, just like Governor Granholm recently did.  Imagine that!

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Geronimo, Bin Laden and the Progressive Caucus

  • Posted on May 4, 2011 at 10:57 pm

I’ve been really busy this week selecting student artwork for our annual art show held at the Sturges Young Civic Auditorium.  I haven’t had a lot of time to process all of the Bin Laden stuff other than to think about the strange timing of everything, the gory details and how our country seems to be so strangely turned on by the thought of it all.  From my point of view, it is like we are an uncivilized society from the Old Testament.  I have no love for Bin Laden, but I know that our enemy was once our friend.  It seems to me, with Bin Laden dead, our troops should be able to come home and we can stop spending our money over there and start taking care of our fellow Americans here.  Another thing that has struck me as strange is the use of the word “Geronimo” in all of this.  That was so politically wrong by any standard.  Native Americans have been used and abused for years.  Of course with my strange mind, I was taken back to GW.  When I first heard that word I thought, “Oh, my God is Obama another cowboy like Bush?”  Then I got to thinking about why “Geronimo” seemed so odd to me as a choice and it wasn’t just about Native Americans.  If you will recall the Skull and Bones Society that President Bush belongs to you will remember that the skull of Geronimo is said to be at Yale in the “club”.  Now I know that Geronimo’s ancestors have tried to get that skull back but the club has always denied having it.  Here is a video from a few years back that will explain this.

Now who first decided on that code word Geronimo?  From my point of view, it seems like Obama has kept all of the programs alive that Bush started.  Was this name part of that?  I’m just wondering about all of this and of course I have my own unique perspective on things.  Maybe all of you think it’s just a coincidence, but it sure seems strange to me.

When I first started working on this post it was just prior to the White House Correspondence Dinner and I was left wondering why we have a government that is so closely tied to the press while the rest of us are left outside of this fish bowl of complacency.  There were many stars in attendance.  It really was the place to be even if President Obama was very boring to watch.  I watched this video, so you wouldn’t have to.  It’s bad and extremely boring.  If it was supposed to be funny, I guess I didn’t get it.  Watch if you must!  Yes, I know that the press said he was funny.  However, the press says a lot of things that turn out not to be true!

Isn’t it amazing that Hollywood gets a seat at this table?  I guess it is fitting because Hollywood does help produce the propaganda to keep us peons in check.   Since I don’t feel this dinner is really worth my time, I want to write about something that is much more interesting.  If you are like me, you may not have heard about “The People’s Budget”.  We have all heard about Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget proposal and President Obama’s proposal.  Why haven’t we heard about this other budget proposal?  Oh, that’s right; it’s put together by the “Progressive Caucus”.  I didn’t know this caucus even existed.  In my absolute disgust of both the Republicans and Democrats in Congress, I never realized that there really are some people in Congress that think more like me.  For years we have had to hear the proposals of Republicans and Republican “Like” Democrats.  We have been told those are our choices.  There isn’t any other “credible” thinking out there.  However, there is another plan and it’s definitely worth looking at.  Of course the war mongers and war money makers won’t like this plan because it means we would get out of the current wars.  We will invest in education and get a public option for health care.  Imagine that!  Rachel lets the cat out of the bag when she explains how this proposal isn’t covered by the main stream media for a reason.

If you are thinking like I do, you probably want to know more about the specifics of this proposal but you also are sick of what’s happening in Washington on a daily basis.  The two parties really go at it when they are in front of camera trying to convince us peons out in the real world that they are working so hard for us and that they just don’t get along.  Then the correspondence dinner comes around and you realize that they are really buddies and friends.  It’s the reason that James Carville can marry Mary Matalin and live happily ever after while the rest of us scratch are heads at the pairing.  You can read the basic proposal here.

http://grijalva.house.gov/uploads/The%20CPC%20FY2012%20Budget.pdf

On Sunday I actually heard Senator Marco Rubio say that the Democrats don’t have a plan and if they don’t like Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan; they should get one of their own.  His implication was that the only plans out there are the Ryan plan and President Obama’s plan.  I guess he didn’t know about the People’s Budget.  It seems to me that he should be more informed than he appears to be.   I found out about it online and I’m no senator.  I really think it is time to pressure our Congress and the President to bring our troops home.  I also would like to know what’s up with the CIA and what’s the plan for all of those Middle Eastern leaders?  President Obama says we aren’t against Islam and Muslims, but it sure seems like they are all in our gun sites.

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