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Thank You Rachel Maddow and What’s Happening with Michigan?

  • Posted on April 22, 2012 at 3:21 pm

The Alien Take Over by Dana (Just click on this to see it larger.)

A lot can happen while you’re sleeping and going through the routine of everyday life so to speak.  If you haven’t been paying attention here in Michigan, much has been going on with politics and governing.  While the national focus was busy on Wisconsin, here in Michigan all manner of craziness has been taking place through the passing of legislation stealthily under an emergency provision.  The only national figure that has made much of a fuss about what is happening in Michigan seems to be Rachel Maddow.  For this I thank you Rachel.  I didn’t know about the over five hundred bills that have been passed with this emergency situation.  I knew about the emergency manager law that installs a little “dictator” in the place of people that have been voted into their positions, essentially denying voters their voted choice.  I did not know the manner in which the bulk of legislation has been passed this past year, through an emergency bill that doesn’t even take a roll call vote.  How 73 votes can be counted in a few seconds by a human being is beyond me.  Rachel has a video here that shows how this is being done.  I haven’t read about this in any local Michigan paper and I have been wondering why the Democrats have been so weak.  Well, now I know!  Please watch this video all the way through.  It is radical what is happening in my beloved state.  This is not democracy!

As a teacher here in Michigan, I feel like I have a target on my back.  It is all related to the fact that I am part of a teachers’ union more than anything else.  The Snyder government is swiftly doing whatever it can do to destroy any teacher union in Michigan by passing legislation that essentially disrupts the bargaining process.  The Republicans will say it is about money but it really is about the politics of it all.  They recently passed legislation that will not allow schools to deduct my union dues from my pay.  Now I have direct deposit and money is taken out for a lot of different things including United Way and the Sturgis Foundation.  It just doesn’t make any sense that my union dues couldn’t work the same way as the United Way.  This is just a way to make it more difficult for me as a teacher.  I will protest this and it may be through things like the United Way.  This legislation needs to be stopped.  As a teacher I haven’t been a part of a team that is just concerned about money and insurance.  Class size is an important issue.  It’s difficult to get around to students if you have a large class.  Our advanced math class has 37 students in it.  That is just too many students for one teacher to really get around to every student, no matter how great a teacher he/she is.  The issue of class size is basically a dead issue.  Nothing is going to happen to improve this situation with the current legislative body in Lansing.  I encourage everyone to please get involved and find out about these issues.

The pressure for teachers is very great right now.  They have to produce some kind of result based on a test students take.  If you think this is not going to have any kind of affect on your child, you must be kidding yourself.  Emotionally, your child might be feeling beat up by a system that tells him/her that they just aren’t good enough.  In other ways your child might be denied exploratory classes that might help him/her develop special talents.  This is a frustrating time for educators, but I think it is apt to be even more frustrating to the child that can’t seem to fit into the square peg when they might be more like a circle.  Just as we, as adults, aren’t all the same, children learn and develop at different rates as well.  In my seventh grade art class, I recently had a child create a comic strip called “The Alien Take Over”.  Just so you know, MEAP stands for the Michigan Educational Assessment Program….you know, THE TEST!  Now for the child that is brilliant, this may not have a big effect on him/her.  However, if your child gets stressed out easily, lacks self esteem, needs more time, or is a perfectionist, he/she just might get even more stressed out with what’s happening in education today when they just don’t quite “measure” up!  In the comic strip the student is abducted and taken to the MEAP.  I really wouldn’t want my child’s memories of school to be about some big test.  I remember one big test when I was in school and that was the SAT.  I certainly wouldn’t want that test to be the only thing I remembered in my K-12 experience.  I remember good and bad teachers the most.  I remember the kindness of my second grade teacher, Mrs. Smith, when she gave me a brief case to hold my books because we were moving.  Above all else that stands out in my mind.  I hope you can remember some teacher that made you feel special, not one that made you feel stupid because you failed to pass the MEAP.

By the way, Rachel Maddow, keep it up!  I appreciate all that you do to shine a light on what is happening in Michigan and for that, I thank you!

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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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The Despot Lives or What’s the Matter with Michigan?

  • Posted on April 27, 2011 at 9:39 pm

Once again the mass media is working hard trying to get me to care about Will and Kate.  I want to just state this right now for the record.  I care about Will and Kate about as much as I cared about Jon and Kate Plus 8.  I’m not a fan of “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” or crappy reality shows, so I’ll pass on the up and coming nuptials.  No matter how I try to avoid this “Wedding of the Century”, it has had an impact on my daily viewing.  Every morning I like to watch a little “Morning Joe” before I go to school.  This is out of habit.  I used to watch Imus.  This show just replaced his show when he was dismissed.  I like the talk format.  Unfortunately, Morning Joe is doing the show this week in London.  They actually think their viewers care about this wedding.   What I want to hear about has more to do with the economy and civil liberties.

Recently, here in Michigan, Benton Harbor was taken over by our governor.  This means basically that the people that live there lost their local representation.  I look at this as taxation without representation.  This kind of behavior is what one might expect if we lived under a King’s rule like in the Will and Kate variety before they lost all of their real power.  Maybe this is why we are supposed to care about Will and Kate.  We are the little serfs looking up to the wonderful future King and Queen.  We should bow and bring our first born child to them for a special blessing.

Mr. Harris, an accountant, is now in charge of Benton Harbor.  The city must pay him $11,000 a month for his services.  He has the power to hire and fire.  The duly elected officials have no power.  Benton Harbor is a very poor community and they are struggling.  One thing I find very interesting is that Benton Harbor and Detroit are both fairly black cities.  These are the two cities that have been targeted thus far to be taken over by the state government.  While the city of Detroit has not been taken over the schools in Detroit have been taken over and are continually being cut back.

Mr. Harris claims he has the backing of the citizens in Benton Harbor.  I don’t know how he would know this because he is not an elected official.  He was appointed by the governor.  Rachel Maddow does a good job of explaining what is going on in Benton Harbor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1kxvT0cuws&feature=related

Since 2000 it seems more and more to me that no one really cares about our votes.  We had the Bush/Gore election decided by the Supreme Court.  The Kerry/Bush election still has questions about those votes in Ohio.  During the Democratic Primary here in Michigan in 2008, my vote and countless other votes, were stolen and given to Barack Obama.  Both parties are guilty of stealing our votes or just not counting them.  I am tired of being told I live in a Democracy only to discover that my vote doesn’t really count or has been stolen.

It feels like Governor Snyder believes in an Aristocracy type of government.  According to Wikipedia this is a form of government in which the best qualified citizens will rule.  These qualified citizens are usually privileged by birth and class, thus an elite aristocratic class.  How else can he explain “appointing” someone to run a city government?

The more I learn about “rule” under Governor Snyder, the more I believe we now live in Michigan under Despotism.  In this form of government a single entity, yes called a “despot”, rules with an absolute power.  Yes, this is what we have in Governor Rick Snyder.  It’s his way or the highway.  Everyone is in fear of what he will do next.  He has cut the public school budget, so he can give tax breaks to businesses.   When a group of Superintendents of Schools asked to meet with him, he refused to see them.  They might have had some good ideas but he didn’t want to hear them.

Today Governor Snyder gave a speech about reinventing education in Michigan.  He likes that word, reinvention.  However, much of the talk is the same old line the Republicans have been pushing for years in Michigan.  He wants more charter schools, students to spend up to two hours a day with online instruction, and he wants the money to follow the student which it kind of does now to a point.  However, tax payer money doesn’t go to private schools.  I suspect this is something that he will want to change.  Teachers can expect another year to wait to make tenure which would be five years instead of four.  Teachers can also pay 20% of their health care costs with less pay and more work time.  Many people don’t realize that teachers who are let go don’t get unemployment as they are contracted yearly.  If they are out of a job with all of these cuts, they are out of luck.  Governor Snyder says, ‘We will break down the status quo’.  I don’t know what he has been doing for the last ten years or so that he thinks there is some kind of “status quo” in education as education has been constantly changing.  All of us teachers have had to deal with No Child Left Behind and the constant use of assessment materials both good and bad.  At Sturgis we are constantly doing “whatever it takes” to educate students and raise test scores.   We are not complacent.  This is an ongoing process.  I suspect most schools are doing everything they can to raise their test scores.  With Governor Snyder he wants all of this magic to happen while making drastic cuts to education.  It’s that same old mentality that President Bush used, pay less and expect more.

Here is a video about what’s happening at a school in Detroit set up to educate pregnant teens.

We need to all be informed about what is happening around this country.  If this can happen here in Michigan, it can happen in your state as well.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/27/us/27michigan.html

According to Rache,l Michigan wins!  Yes, we have the most over reaching governor of all of the crazy Republicans that have been recently elected.  Lucky us!

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