Bad Dream

 I guess that I shouldn't be surprised that the goof that wants to close up the Department of Education is continuing his efforts to make my job more difficult. 

The Tariff King made an executive order that struck down the work being done to limit the disparity between races when it comes to school suspensions. That order is modestly titled, "Reinstating Common Sense School Discipline Policies." The preamble goes a little like this: "The Federal Government will no longer tolerate known risks to children’s safety and well-being in the classroom that result from the application of school discipline based on discriminatory and unlawful 'equity' ideology."

If you didn't flinch a little at the phrase "discriminatory and unlawful 'equity' ideology," you might not want to read any further. 

I am one of those bleeding hearts who has experienced the reform of equity ideology and seen the effects. The positive effects. The work being done to shift from punitive discipline to restorative justice in our nation's classrooms has not been easy. The idea that there are "bad kids" flies in the face of everything that I have experienced as a teacher, parent, and a kid myself. It was my father who, back in the earliest years of conscious parenting used to announce that "there are no bad kids, just bad behavior." This coming from the man who helped raise me and my brothers carries some weight. 

How we treat those kids is the key. If they show up in our schools and neighborhoods as damaged goods, it becomes increasingly likely that they will adopt that persona. If we close one eye to the dangers of reinstituting this "color blind" approach ordered by a convicted felon, we run the risk of pushing kids farther away from the education they so desperately need to try and escape their circumstances. 

Let's not pretend for a moment that this is the racist pendulum swinging back after years of trying to correct the inequity that exists in our nation's schools. In our nation. Giving those backward enough to believe that somehow our kids will be "safe" because we "get rid of" the ones who are causing the trouble aren't looking at what the trouble really is. 

Imagine a world where orange people were looked upon with fear and derision. Instead, let's look at the content of their character. 

We can dream, can't we. 

Am I Blue?

 Maybe it's not arrogance. 

Maybe it's ignorance. 

The suggestion has been made, for some time now, that the former game show host and convicted felon cannot read. Those who know him best sometimes suggest that "he doesn't care to read." Little things like memos. And the United States Constitution. This might be why he could sit there with an orange craggy face and insist that he had no familiarity with Project 2025. Because he had not read it. 

Not because he didn't.

Because he couldn't. 

My most recent clue to this lack of reading ability comes from last Saturday's gathering of world leaders saying farewell to the recently departed Pope. If you look at a photo of the event, it is ridiculously easy to spot the adjudicated rapist and twice-impeached "president" of the United States. He's the one in blue. Not a dark midnight shade of blue, but rather the kind of blue that you would wear in front of a crowd if you were going to "dance" to a Village People song. Not the traditional black that the rest of the crowd at the memorial service in Saint Peter's Square seemed to favor.

Because they had read the invitation. 

Even Melania managed to pull it together and wear something fashionable but subdued. 

Because she can read. 

But not our former game show host. After insisting that he be given a seat in the front row of mourners, after having argued with Pope Francis for years, the King of Tariffs dressed all in sapphire and stood out like a big fat sore thumb. Oblivious. 

Waiting for someone to cue up YMCA. 

Glitch

 Convicted felons and serial liars should not be allowed to hold public office. 

They should be in jail. 

This was the message sent to a concerned citizenry this past week when former United States Representative George Santos was sentenced to eighty-seven months for what Judge Joanna Seybert referred to as "flagrant thievery." Careful readers may also notice that I used the term "former" to describe the end of a political career, rather than its continuation. 

Mister Santos cried when the sentence was handed down. The sentence came down in spite of the letter he wrote to Judge Seybert. A letter that read, in part: “Every sunrise since that plea has carried the same realization: I did this, me. I am responsible. But saying I’m sorry doesn’t require me to sit quietly while these prosecutors try to drop an anvil on my head.”

It should be noted here for the sake of accuracy that at no time was an actual anvil employed in some Tom and Jerry-like example of justice. This was a punishment meted out to make a point: an "arrogant fraudster" like the former congressman should not be allowed to skate free with a slap on the wrist. George was just the sixth member of the United States Congress to be expelled in our nation's history. Lying to bolster his unlikely rise to political fame, including fraud and identity theft, was a crime that George admitted to, believing perhaps that he would receive a lighter sentence. 

George received the maximum. 

Meanwhile, there are other convicted felons who have done much worse things out there in a world that is being shaped by their actions. Some convicted felons have not only been voted out of office, but by some strange twist of fate found their way back to the same place where they caught and sat in stony silence as judges have recounted their crimes. Only to be let loose on what can only be referred to as a glitch in the system. 

This glitch needs to be fixed. This glitch needs to be sent to prison. 

Full stop. 

Those Days

 I don't remember hating school. 

I can remember being anxious about going to school. 

I don't remember faking being sick.

I can remember exaggerating my symptoms to get an extra day of ginger ale and crackers in bed. 

These days I work in a business that is built around kids not hating school. I don't want kids coming to school when they are truly "infirma," but attendance on Mondays and Fridays suggest that maybe moms and dads aren't as inquisitive as to their children's health as my mom was. 

On the one hand, we have a funding issue in which the filled seats help fund our school. Coercing kids who don't have a strong urge to be one of those seat fillers to show up for recess with their friends is a real thing. Finding the reason not to hate school is the challenge. 

On the other hand, since that's what the metaphor insists, there is the responsibility to keep the customer satisfied. If being at school has become drudgery, it could be that competing with the world of TikTok and all things found on cell phones is not a fair challenge. 

To wit: During a week of standardized testing that is done primarily on school Chromebooks, I chose to open up the vaults a bit when classes came to the computer lab for their regularly scheduled Media Arts Class. I told them that I had no specific plan for them and that they could choose from one of the dozens of applications found on our school's web sign-in page. This came as a direct response to the number of requests I field over the course of a year being asked if we could do this instead of that. 

Given this wide berth, most of the kids went after those things that had been out of rotation for most of the year. They found things to enjoy. To work at. But in each class, there were at least a few voices of dissent: "Can't we do YouTube?" Not on the menu. "Can't we do Kahoot?" Not on the menu. 

If you give a mouse a cookie, they'll want to stay in bed and have crackers and ginger ale brought to them. 

While they stare at YouTube. 

Allegiance

 To no one's specific surprise, the Oakland Unified School District chose to send Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell packing. This was done without a lot of public rancor or excessive drama, but it does put a great big question mark next to the "Unified" portion of the district. 

This action was made public at roughly the same moment that the Oakland Education Association, the teacher's union for this less-than-unified city announced that they "might" be gong on a one day strike on the first of May. To protest the firing of our superintendent? To show solidarity with the workers of the world on what is traditionally a celebration of the proletariat? 

Nope. The work action, which turns out to be more of a "non-work action" is being mounted because of "unfair labor practices." You mean unsafe working conditions like inhalation of chalk dust? Nope. We all have white boards now. How about the firing of a number of individuals whose only crime was that they came from diverse ethnic groups that make up Oakland itself? Nah. That's not it. The union, to which I belong, alleges that Oakland Unified School District leaders are not responding to OEA's requests for financial information about recent budget cuts. 

So here I am, once again set upon the brink of brinksmanship, waiting for the call to go out to all those affected. Keeping in mind this series of events unfolds in the wake of a highly contested mayoral election that itself happened in the shadow of a recall election that forced out the previous mayor and set the powers that be here in Oaktown at one another. The results of that election showed a less than unified city, with one side leaning to the victor, Barbara Lee while the other went primarily to her closest rival, Loren Taylor. When the dust settled, Lee had a sliver of an advantage and was awarded the prize of attempting to bring this contentious strip of land near the bay together. 

One of the things Taylor cited as a challenge to his campaign was "heavy spending" by labor unions. 

Uh, I guess that means me.

And yet, I do not recall at any point being asked by the leadership of my union whom I might ask them to endorse on my behalf. As it turns out, I did vote for the former United States Representative, not because Barbara Lee is thick with the labor unions, but because she was the lone voice of dissent against that rush to war after September 11, 2001. And she ahs the same first name as my dear departed mother. Which may not seem like a reasonable motive for making choices like this, but it worked for Batman and Superman. 

If it worked for Metropolis, why wouldn't it work for Oakland? 

Without A Clue

 When the contractor you hired packs up his truck with all his tools, leaving the much bigger hole in your foundation than the one he was brought in to fix, and exits in a huff insisting that he just can't work with "you people." 

After he has cashed the check.

This is how I feel Elongated Mush is responding to the hole he has been creating in our country over the past several months. This is a person for whom a billion dollars is an expense has suddenly confronted what he considers a crisis: Seventy-one billion dollars. That is how much profits of his electric car company have plummeted forty-four percent since January. Suddenly it's time to rethink that super-sweet government job he has that involves laptops and chainsaws alternately. 

Math is hard, but if the Wall Street Journal is reporting that the Second Trumpreich is spending more than the Biden administration, then I'm with the wonks over at the newspaper without comics. Spending more and losing billions at your neglected and mismanaged electric car company is sending a pretty clear message: Get out of D.C. Even if you have to drive one of those "futuristic trucks" of yours. 

And, while you're busy packing your bags, make sure that you point fingers at all the folks you believe let you down. Mush told analysts during an ironically named "earnings call" last Tuesday, "The actual reason (for the downturn in profits) is because those receiving the waste and fraud wish to continue receiving it; that is the real thing that’s going on here, obviously. The protests that you’ll see out there, they’re very organized. They’re paid for that.”

Obviously.

Or maybe the fact that even though you gave away million dollar checks to voters in hopes of convincing Wisconsin to elect a Republican to that state's Supreme Court, his candidate still lost. In addition to the two separate million dollar checks he handed to the lucky/gullible individuals who signed Mush's petition, he also dumped an additional twenty million dollars into that state's judicial campaign. And lost. 

So this foreign billionaire is showing up to elections in Green Bay wearing a cheddar cheese hat and making excuses for all the reasons that his grand scheme is failing to create efficiency has lost track of the business that helped make him one of the world's richest men? Time to pack up the Cybertruck, Mushie. We, the people, can take it from here. 

Without you. 

Regrets, I've Had A Few

 Karaoke.

This is my solution to the woes of the world. Since the 1970's singing along with a pre-recorded music track has been keeping human beings safe and happy for more than half a century. My own experiences with this quasi-art form have been nothing but joyful. 

But - 

Have you ever heard of any trouble brewing as a result of folks getting together to warble along with pop hits of today and yesterday? 

Well, I have. 

In the Philippines, where many believe Karaoke found its roots, there are a great many stories about how one particular song has caused all sorts of chaos. Back in 1998, a string of incidents connected to the song "My Way" occurred in that corner of Southeast Asia, culminating in the shooting death of one very sad crooner who lost his way and the tune and was summarily killed by a bouncer at the establishment.  A few years later, an alleged drug kingpin was gunned down during his performance of the Frank Sinatra standard. This one might have had more to do with the drug thing than the choice of song, but we can't rule it out. 

In 2018, just as he was about to launch into his version, a man was stabbed to death by his neighbor. This lead to the ongoing belief that "My Way" should be excised from the song list of any and all Karaoke bars and portable machines. The furor was so great that Japanese rock band Kishidan released an up-tempo version of the ditty as a single, with the accompanying video featuring the lead singer being shot numerous times. 

Get it?

Maybe it's the mobster/Sinatra affiliation. Or maybe it's Sid Vicious' fault. Before his death in 1979, Sid recorded a "solo" version of the chestnut originally written by Paul Anka. At the end of his version, Sid pulls a gun out of his white dinner jacket and begins shooting into the crowd. This would pre-date the incidents in the Philippines by a couple decades. The lesson here might be that if you're somewhere and somebody breaks into song, "And now, the end is near..." Duck. Or shoot back. 

So maybe Karaoke isn't the best plan for world peace.