The rantings of a teacher who retired from the classroom but not from education.
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Sunday, October 05, 2014
Thursday, February 13, 2014
De Blasio-A Bloomberg Clone?
CBS news was great. While he rambled on about how the city was up and operating fine, they kept showing stalled trucks, cars sliding all over the place, parents struggling to get to school and a jackknifed bus on Queens Blvd.
The arrogance he and Farina showed was no better than the arrogance Bloomberg and Walcott showed during their reign of abuse. If this is any indication of what the next four years will be like, the city is still in trouble.
Monday, September 03, 2012
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Bob Friedrich For City Councilman
Hard as it is to believe, I actually met a candidate for public office that I not only liked, I am going to do what I can to help get him elected.
Bob Friedrich is running for the City Council (23rd District, zips 11001, 11004, 11005, 11040, 11362, 11364, 11365, 11366, 11423, 11426, 11427, 11428.) He spent his Saturday going from door to door introducing himself to voters and answering questions. He should have gotten nervous when he met me, but he didn't.
The first thing I asked Mr. Friedrich (I'll call him that here, although I will use his first name when we meet again) was his position on Bloomberg's third term try. He said the right thing. He is opposed. I then asked him his position on mayoral control of the schools and and I could see from his face that he wasn't expecting me to like his answer. He favored mayoral controls with many checks and balances and does not want to see the old system return. While I disagree with mayoral control, I respect his honest and straightforward answer. I then went on to question him about what he would like to see happen at the DOE and I was impressed with what he said. (He lives in the Glen Oaks community and is very involved with the schools although he has no school age children.) I asked about his opponents and when he mentioned Mark Weprin as one of them, he got my vote. I told Mr. Friedrich about the town hall meeting that turned my stomach and he remembered hearing me speak there.
Bob Friedrich is running for the City Council (23rd District, zips 11001, 11004, 11005, 11040, 11362, 11364, 11365, 11366, 11423, 11426, 11427, 11428.) He spent his Saturday going from door to door introducing himself to voters and answering questions. He should have gotten nervous when he met me, but he didn't.
The first thing I asked Mr. Friedrich (I'll call him that here, although I will use his first name when we meet again) was his position on Bloomberg's third term try. He said the right thing. He is opposed. I then asked him his position on mayoral control of the schools and and I could see from his face that he wasn't expecting me to like his answer. He favored mayoral controls with many checks and balances and does not want to see the old system return. While I disagree with mayoral control, I respect his honest and straightforward answer. I then went on to question him about what he would like to see happen at the DOE and I was impressed with what he said. (He lives in the Glen Oaks community and is very involved with the schools although he has no school age children.) I asked about his opponents and when he mentioned Mark Weprin as one of them, he got my vote. I told Mr. Friedrich about the town hall meeting that turned my stomach and he remembered hearing me speak there.
Mr. Friedrich spent quite a while at my house and left me with some reading material which I promised to look at. Look at it I did and and now he has my support (I even sent a donation) and my vote. I even promised him a shout out on this blog (but I wouldn't give him its title.)
Good luck Bob Friedrich. The city needs a councilman like you.
Monday, September 01, 2008
Vice In Go-Go Boots?
Vice in Go-Go Boots?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/31/opinion/31dowd.html
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: August 31, 2008
The guilty pleasure I miss most when I’m out slogging on the campaign trail is the chance to sprawl on the chaise and watch a vacuously spunky and generically sassy chick flick.
So imagine my delight, my absolute astonishment, when the hokey chick flick came out on the trail, a Cinderella story so preposterous it’s hard to believe it’s not premiering on Lifetime. Instead of going home and watching “Miss Congeniality” with Sandra Bullock, I get to stay here and watch “Miss Congeniality” with Sarah Palin.
Sheer heaven.
It’s easy to see where this movie is going. It begins, of course, with a cute, cool unknown from Alaska who has never even been on “Meet the Press” triumphing over a cute, cool unknowable from Hawaii who has been on “Meet the Press” a lot.
Americans, suspicious that the Obamas have benefited from affirmative action without being properly grateful, and skeptical that Michelle really likes “The Brady Bunch” and “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” reject the 47-year-old black contender as too uppity and untested.
Instead, they embrace 72-year-old John McCain and 44-year-old Sarah Palin, whose average age is 58, a mere two years older than the average age of the Obama-Biden ticket. Enthusiastic Republicans don’t see the choice of Palin as affirmative action, despite her thin résumé and gaping absence of foreign policy knowledge, because they expect Republicans to put an underqualified “babe,” as Rush Limbaugh calls her, on the ticket. They have a tradition of nominating fun, bantamweight cheerleaders from the West, like the previous Miss Congeniality types Dan Quayle and W., and then letting them learn on the job. So they crash into the globe a few times while they’re learning to drive, what’s the big deal?
Obama may have been president of The Harvard Law Review, but Palin graduated from the University of Idaho with a minor in poli-sci and worked briefly as a TV sports reporter. And she was tougher on the basketball court than the ethereal Obama, earning the nickname “Sarah Barracuda.”
The legacy of Geraldine Ferraro was supposed to be that no one would ever go on a blind date with history again. But that crazy maverick and gambler McCain does it, and conservatives and evangelicals rally around him in admiration of his refreshingly cynical choice of Sarah, an evangelical Protestant and anti-abortion crusader who became a hero when she decided to have her baby, who has Down syndrome, and when she urged schools to debate creationism as well as that stuffy old evolution thing.
Palinistas, as they are called, love Sarah’s spunky, relentlessly quirky “Northern Exposure” story from being a Miss Alaska runner-up, and winning Miss Congeniality, to being mayor and hockey mom in Wasilla, a rural Alaskan town of 6,715, to being governor for two years to being the first woman ever to run on a national Republican ticket. (Why do men only pick women as running mates when they need a Hail Mary pass? It’s a little insulting.)
Sarah is a zealot, but she’s a fun zealot. She has a beehive and sexy shoes, and the day she’s named she goes shopping with McCain in Ohio for a cheerleader outfit for her daughter.
As she once told Vogue, she’s learned the hard way to deal with press comments about her looks. “I wish they’d stick with the issues instead of discussing my black go-go boots,” she said. “A reporter once asked me about it during the campaign, and I assured him I was trying to be as frumpy as I could by wearing my hair on top of my head and these schoolmarm glasses.”
This chick flick, naturally, features a wild stroke of fate, when the two-year governor of an oversized igloo becomes commander in chief after the president-elect chokes on a pretzel on day one.
The movie ends with the former beauty queen shaking out her pinned-up hair, taking off her glasses, slipping on ruby red peep-toe platform heels that reveal a pink French-style pedicure, and facing down Vladimir Putin in an island in the Bering Strait. Putting away her breast pump, she points her rifle and informs him frostily that she has some expertise in Russia because it’s close to Alaska. “Back off, Commie dude,” she says. “I’m a much better shot than Cheney.”
Then she takes off in her seaplane and lands on the White House lawn, near the new ice fishing hole and hockey rink. The “First Dude,” as she calls the hunky Eskimo in the East Wing, waits on his snowmobile with the kids — Track (named after high school track meets), Bristol (after Bristol Bay where they did commercial fishing), Willow (after a community in Alaska), Piper (just a cool name) and Trig (Norse for “strength.”)
“The P.T.A. is great preparation for dealing with the K.G.B.,” President Palin murmurs to Todd, as they kiss in the final scene while she changes Trig’s diaper. “Now that Georgia’s safe, how ’bout I cook you up some caribou hot dogs and moose stew for dinner, babe?”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/31/opinion/31dowd.html
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: August 31, 2008
The guilty pleasure I miss most when I’m out slogging on the campaign trail is the chance to sprawl on the chaise and watch a vacuously spunky and generically sassy chick flick.
So imagine my delight, my absolute astonishment, when the hokey chick flick came out on the trail, a Cinderella story so preposterous it’s hard to believe it’s not premiering on Lifetime. Instead of going home and watching “Miss Congeniality” with Sandra Bullock, I get to stay here and watch “Miss Congeniality” with Sarah Palin.
Sheer heaven.
It’s easy to see where this movie is going. It begins, of course, with a cute, cool unknown from Alaska who has never even been on “Meet the Press” triumphing over a cute, cool unknowable from Hawaii who has been on “Meet the Press” a lot.
Americans, suspicious that the Obamas have benefited from affirmative action without being properly grateful, and skeptical that Michelle really likes “The Brady Bunch” and “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” reject the 47-year-old black contender as too uppity and untested.
Instead, they embrace 72-year-old John McCain and 44-year-old Sarah Palin, whose average age is 58, a mere two years older than the average age of the Obama-Biden ticket. Enthusiastic Republicans don’t see the choice of Palin as affirmative action, despite her thin résumé and gaping absence of foreign policy knowledge, because they expect Republicans to put an underqualified “babe,” as Rush Limbaugh calls her, on the ticket. They have a tradition of nominating fun, bantamweight cheerleaders from the West, like the previous Miss Congeniality types Dan Quayle and W., and then letting them learn on the job. So they crash into the globe a few times while they’re learning to drive, what’s the big deal?
Obama may have been president of The Harvard Law Review, but Palin graduated from the University of Idaho with a minor in poli-sci and worked briefly as a TV sports reporter. And she was tougher on the basketball court than the ethereal Obama, earning the nickname “Sarah Barracuda.”
The legacy of Geraldine Ferraro was supposed to be that no one would ever go on a blind date with history again. But that crazy maverick and gambler McCain does it, and conservatives and evangelicals rally around him in admiration of his refreshingly cynical choice of Sarah, an evangelical Protestant and anti-abortion crusader who became a hero when she decided to have her baby, who has Down syndrome, and when she urged schools to debate creationism as well as that stuffy old evolution thing.
Palinistas, as they are called, love Sarah’s spunky, relentlessly quirky “Northern Exposure” story from being a Miss Alaska runner-up, and winning Miss Congeniality, to being mayor and hockey mom in Wasilla, a rural Alaskan town of 6,715, to being governor for two years to being the first woman ever to run on a national Republican ticket. (Why do men only pick women as running mates when they need a Hail Mary pass? It’s a little insulting.)
Sarah is a zealot, but she’s a fun zealot. She has a beehive and sexy shoes, and the day she’s named she goes shopping with McCain in Ohio for a cheerleader outfit for her daughter.
As she once told Vogue, she’s learned the hard way to deal with press comments about her looks. “I wish they’d stick with the issues instead of discussing my black go-go boots,” she said. “A reporter once asked me about it during the campaign, and I assured him I was trying to be as frumpy as I could by wearing my hair on top of my head and these schoolmarm glasses.”
This chick flick, naturally, features a wild stroke of fate, when the two-year governor of an oversized igloo becomes commander in chief after the president-elect chokes on a pretzel on day one.
The movie ends with the former beauty queen shaking out her pinned-up hair, taking off her glasses, slipping on ruby red peep-toe platform heels that reveal a pink French-style pedicure, and facing down Vladimir Putin in an island in the Bering Strait. Putting away her breast pump, she points her rifle and informs him frostily that she has some expertise in Russia because it’s close to Alaska. “Back off, Commie dude,” she says. “I’m a much better shot than Cheney.”
Then she takes off in her seaplane and lands on the White House lawn, near the new ice fishing hole and hockey rink. The “First Dude,” as she calls the hunky Eskimo in the East Wing, waits on his snowmobile with the kids — Track (named after high school track meets), Bristol (after Bristol Bay where they did commercial fishing), Willow (after a community in Alaska), Piper (just a cool name) and Trig (Norse for “strength.”)
“The P.T.A. is great preparation for dealing with the K.G.B.,” President Palin murmurs to Todd, as they kiss in the final scene while she changes Trig’s diaper. “Now that Georgia’s safe, how ’bout I cook you up some caribou hot dogs and moose stew for dinner, babe?”
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Indication?
We were at a street fair near Union Square today. There were plenty of Obama buttons and tee shirts for sale. I could only find one little button for McCain.
Street vendors want to make money. Is this a sign of who the city will vote for? Is this an indication of who our next president will be? Or, is this wishful thinking on my part?
Sunday, August 03, 2008
Political Idol
NYC has all kinds of great stuff going on. Right now, the Triad Theater, on west 72nd St is showing Political Idol, the story behind the primary and the search for a vice-president for each of the candidates. It is hilarious.
Although the show is supposed to spoof both candidates (which it did), the Republicans take the brunt of the hits. Most of the audience support Obama and I'm happy that my first political check ever--made out to the Obama campaign, went out yesterday.
Unfortunately the show closes August 13 but the cast says they will reopen somewhere in the fall with a whole lot of new material. I'm going to watch for them. They are great.
Although the show is supposed to spoof both candidates (which it did), the Republicans take the brunt of the hits. Most of the audience support Obama and I'm happy that my first political check ever--made out to the Obama campaign, went out yesterday.
Unfortunately the show closes August 13 but the cast says they will reopen somewhere in the fall with a whole lot of new material. I'm going to watch for them. They are great.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Baynard Rustin
I came across Justice and Not Just for Us from a comment on my blog. This blog is written by a teacher who has been U rated and is not being given a chance to defend himself. The following is a direct reprint from his blog. Nothing could say my feelings about the way we teachers are being treated than this:
"When an individual is protesting society's refusal to acknowledge his dignity as a human being, his very act of protest confers dignity on him.”
Bayard Rustin ...
I INSIST ON MY DIGNITY AS A HUMAN BEING AND AS AN EDUCATOR!
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Don't Argue Politics With a New Yorker
I met a guy on one of our trips who was determined to talk politics and tell me how smart George Bush was. When I proudly told him I voted for Clinton and would probably vote for her again, he said “Well, at least she is cute.” I promptly told him that at least my candidate could spell “cute”. That shut him up pretty quick and he walked far away from me.
Later on in the trip I waited to use the bathroom and I walked in right after Mr. Big Mouth Republican walked out. Guess what? Mr. Big Mouth Republic did not flush the toilet. I bet he couldn't figure out how the flusher on the boat worked or maybe he came from a place where they don’t have inside plumbing. He avoided me the rest of the trip and probably kept politics out of his conversation.
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