[Photoshopped their sign just a lil' bit. Original here.]
Last night I attended an open house for the grade 6-8 magnet school for my children's school district. This is a terrific school. Every single kid in the school gets their own MacBook with their textbooks embedded to take home. The kids, as evidenced by the "student ambassadors" hosting the open house, are well-spoken, confident, learning dynamos.
There were about 250 parents and kids there in the crowded auditorium, being sold on the idea of applying to this magnet school. It's like selling water in the desert. Five hundred fifth-graders are expected to apply for approximately 100 available spots in this school. The sales pitch was completely unnecessary except to provide some eighth-graders with some public speaking "enrichment".
And we all sat there like sheep. No one shouted out in rage that the other option, one many of us fear and four out of five of us will be forced to consider, is sending our kids to the assigned residential school for our address. You know, the MIDDLE school that gets occasional good reviews because the SHERIFF'S DEPUTIES that roam the hall are really nice people.
That access to decent public education, right here in our own community, is rationed by a completely arbitrary lottery.
The children in my school district, a district I expect is typical, are poor and getting poorer by the year:
Crooks and Liars posted a story this week that half of all kids in America are, not will be, on food stamps sometime in their lives (full disclosure: my kids are, and free lunch too), and for black kids the statistic is 90%. This is not based on projections, but on historical evidence collected for a pediatric organization. Pediatricians know that children on food stamps are more likely to be malnourished. It's a national health concern and, memo to John Kyl, should be a homeland security concern as well.And what comes to my mind as I take the long route home, my hands shaking on the steering wheel, is all this talk about rationing and "hands off my healthcare" from a generation of people who are going to receive a check from Barack Obama for $250.00 in the next year. Am I to assume the teabaggers will be tearing up the check and returning it to the US Treasury with their own stamp, out of concern for the deficits they protested in DC yesterday? Or will they apply that money to their hotel bill from last night, might as well stay an extra day so we can see the Air and Space Museum, seeing as Dick Armey gave us free bus fare into town.
Dick Armey, who considers healthcare reform, but not the Bush tax cuts, "generational theft."
Theft for WHOM, Dick?
Keeps you in line, doesn't it?
ReplyDeleteOne of your best, BG.
When you speak from the heart . . . .
Where's the link to best blogs?
S
That access to decent public education, right here in our own community, is rationed by a completely arbitrary lottery.
_____________________
When I worked in low-income housing in the mid to late 1990's, almost everyone living in subsidized housing were women and children (followed by the elderly).
ReplyDeleteAnd that was under Clinton, who was open to funding social programs. I can only imagine what is happening now after 8 years of BushCo. Talk about robbing future generations!
Last night I played poker with my usual group. We've discussed the health care issue before; they don't like it.
ReplyDeleteLast night, one of them announced that Tufts has canceled her Medicare Supplemental policy. They told her they are canceling everyone in this town because "your doctors don't take Tufts". She unsuccessfully argued that HER doctor is in another town; Isuspect the real reason is that there have been some unusual cancer rates here in recent years (probably from a chemical plant that was here during WW II).
Anyway, the mood seemed to change. Suddenly people were saying we NEED a health care bill.
Funny how people change when it's THEIR ox being gored, isn't it?
They won't understand rationing until someone takes the supersized combo out of their sweaty hands and replaces it with a half-bowl of watery oatmeal, and says to them:
ReplyDelete"Now, since you pulled the lever again and again for giving all the tax money destined for education, job creation and infrastructure back to corporations and firms that hoarded their loot until the falling exchange rate made it worthless, out of greed and being shit-scared that the ROI they promised to the shareholders not hip to the Ponzi scheme was verifiable hot air - All because you bought the hokum about 'pulling yourself up by the bootstraps' from rich movie stars and trust fund grifters, or maybe because Reagan's hair was perfectly groomed at all times and he was just the daddy you always wanted or Bush was a straight-shooting man's man who you could have a beer with - and now here we are in the 21st century wasteland, just like every other time the Right wing got into power and opened the vault for their cronies while they urinated on the poor and called it God's sweet rain...Here is your sustenance, what you have contributed is now returned to you.
The next gruel truck might be delayed, lots of dirty-faced marks like you on the route now, so make it last, enjoy your lunch and have a nice day.
Step away from the gate now."
;>)
Is the "magnet school" a charter school, or just a regular public school that is subject to a lottery?
ReplyDeleteHow many Macs can you buy with the money that pays the sheriff's deputies?
One other thing:
ReplyDeleteFor many years we lived in a wealthy town. It had the lovely status of having the highest tax rate in MA more than once.
One of the things our taxes went to was education. I had no problem with that, but I did have a problem with the hypocrisy. When people would call for another tax override, they'd get all teary and bleat about "the children".
B.S.
They didn't care a twit about "the children" in Roxbury or Brockton. They cared about THEIR children. Many of them moved into town as their first child approached school age and left as soon as the last graduated.
For those of us who lived there before and after our children went through the admittedly wonderful schools, that behavior seemed more than a little selfish.
That's the true sadness and ugliness of the Teaparty boobs: pure self-centered focus. Nary a glance toward any other poor s.o.b.
At first, I thought-these people were just horribly misinformed, or really dumb. Now, I think, while many of the teabaggers are plain old ignorant, some of these people are just flat out racist, mean-spirited thugs who really don't care for our country's well-being. I think they want to make themselves out to be the epitome of middle American charm but there is a dark underbelly. They're really just looking out for themselves and their family.
ReplyDeleteBest to the LBGs in the drawing. How lucky we were; no need for police in the public schools.
ReplyDeleteYou should go to a casino to see how the $250 will be spent. Atlantic city is like daycare for old people.
ReplyDeleteYou DO speak from the heart. Don't stop.
ReplyDeleteWhen did these SOB GOP teabaggers suddenly become fiscally responsible???
ReplyDeleteAfter Bush left office did they only THEN notice that there was an $11 trillion dollar Ntl. Debt???
But the spinners that they are, have decided it is Obama's fault. I think he was in office one day, before they had even swept up the inaugural parade confetti & the talking heads were saying Obama created this financial ruins.
While Bush embraced the ECONOMY- IGNORE IT & IT WILL GO AWAY philosophy, the thing fell apart just before the election. Luckily, McLame had been saying the economy was not his strong suite. Whew! Timing is everything.
So while billions were pissed away in wars of choice we are still fighting, school funding went sour, and worse the no child left (with a ) behind act, had a kind of witch hunt mentality going on... with threats of no federal funding & even worse, a forced teaching to the tests.... a sure fire way to kill real education.
My own son, now a College aged young man, applied for College funding & get an offer from the Feds for 14.9% VARIABLE RATE COLLEGE LOAN!!! (I shit you not).
We could barely scramble fast enough to feed that offer into the shredder.
Thank you George Bush.
They did however begin to send him military recruitment flyers starting at age 15.
Every branch of the military recruited him- even though we signed the official Do Not Recruit paperwork every year.
They also had recruiters roaming the halls, and in classrooms (captive audience).
At first I wanted to burn the recruitment mail.... but instead I created a file, saved it.
Made a rather large collage out of it, and titled it "Nightmare".
It hung in a local art gallery for a while.
You ain't seen nothing yet.
You can bet that a lot of the town hall protesters were getting payoffs from the HMOs.
ReplyDeleteAlso speaking in the spirit of full disclosure, I received the $250 check in the mail a month ago. Predictably, most of it went for groceries. None of it was spent for frivolous pursuits.
ReplyDeleteWhat really gets under my skin is having to deal with waves of these trust fund hippie kids whose parents forked out thousands upon thousands of bucks for them to attend Quaker school, and they take it all completely for granted. I try my best to be tolerant, but listening to these kids gripe about petty crap when so many people are hurting right now really enrages me.
I attended a similar event- a lottery for kindergarten at a charter school in Brooklyn. 900 children applied for about 80 seats and we arent talking about free computers just the promise of a decent school instead of the failing schools in the neighborhood.
ReplyDeleteI hope your child wins the lottery. Mine didn't.
ReplyDeleteSome of my $250 went to http://home.teleport.com/~sistersp/index.html
Hey there, BG.
ReplyDeleteYou know, I probably shouldn't have been the least bit surprised that these people outside my bloody window were a) all white b) all well-fed and able and c) well-off enough that they could take the afternoon off work to stand on a street corner and wave signs on a busy city street-corner.
But still, I was. They totally embody the "I got mine; fuck you" mentality common to all such teabagging festivities, common to all protests against even the tiniest social program to help mothers, children, the working poor, the unemployed poor...
They make me sick, they truly do. I don't know what I'll do next time they stage a protest--and you know there will be a next time--but the husband has already drawn up a plan to gather some fellow "anti-pro-freedom" folks (big, strong, imposing ones, too) and get right in their faces with video cameras and do everything within the law to intimidate, frighten, and shout down these selfish, racist assholes. We won't be caught unaware next time.
That such people would deny food and books and healthcare to children, for the love of God, well, that says all that anyone needs to know about the content of their collective character.
Selfish, ignorant, racist, and utterly un-Christian dregs. And that's what they are: dregs. Lower, even, than scum, which floats to the top. Dregs.