POWIP Piece of Work In Progress

Another Fed Porndoggle, Christie to Teachers’ Union, Daleytopia Redistributes [UPDATED with delicious schadenfreude]

Surber:

First it was those 33 workers at the Securities Exchange Commission who spent their days watching porn instead of doing their jobs while the economy melted down. Now it is the Department of Interior whose workers watched porn on the job while an oil rig melted down. Fire them.

Christie says boo hucking foo to aggrieved public school teachers:

He then opened the floor to questions. A few were softballs, including the declaration by Clara Nebot of Bergenfield that Christie is “a god” to her relatives in Florida.

But borough teacher Rita Wilson, a Kearny resident, argued that if she were paid $3 an hour for the 30 children in her class, she’d be earning $83,000, and she makes nothing near that.

“You’re getting more than that if you include the cost of your benefits,” Christie interrupted.

When Wilson, who has a master’s degree, said she was not being compensated for her education and experience, Christie said:

“Well, you know then that you don’t have to do it.” Some in the audience applauded.

Christie said he would not have had to impose cuts to education if the teachers union had agreed to his call for a one-year salary freeze and a 1.5 percent increase in employee benefit contributions.

“Your union said that is the greatest assault on public education in the history of the state,” Christie said. “That’s why the union has no credibility, stupid statements like that.”

More redistributionism in Daleytopia:

If ever there was a community in need of economic development, it's West Englewood.

It's riddled with vacant lots. Those that aren't turning to swamps or being used as fly dumps are littered with rubble, broken glass, plastic bottles, and piles of soiled clothes. Since the beginning of 2008, more than 1,300 properties have been foreclosed on here, and countless homes are boarded up, vacant, or clearly occupied by squatters. The roads and sidewalks are crumbling; on the side streets you can hear cars rattling over potholes a block away. On the major thoroughfares, like Damen or 63rd, most of the storefronts still standing are boarded up, gated off, or both—even the liquor stores and churches. At the corner of Damen and 62nd, an abandoned car is parked at an abandoned service station.

The city of Chicago has a program to eradicate blight and stimulate new development. Between 2004 and 2008 it spent about $1.5 billion in property tax dollars on communities Mayor Daley and his aides designated as needing a shot in the arm.

Yet only about $33,000—or 0.002 percent of that $1.5 billion—went to the 15th Ward, which includes most of West Englewood. It ranks 49th out of 50 wards on the list of communities receiving those funds, just ahead of the middle-class 41st Ward on the northwest side. The 41st Ward didn't get any of that money because its longtime alderman, Brian Doherty, is opposed to the program. But the other wards not receiving much in the way of TIF funds include depressed communities such as Ashburn, Roseland, Little Village, Auburn-Gresham, and West Pullman.

On the other end of the spectrum are the three wards that encompass downtown Chicago. They shared roughly $626 million of that $1.5 billion, or about 43 percent.

click to enlarge

We're of course talking about Chicago's tax increment financing program, which collects more than $500 million a year.

From Right Scoop via JWF:

Sisters, Patriots, Daughters…

I received the call from Fishman some years back - it was Friday, April 9th, 2004. I believe it was Good Friday that year. It was mid-evening when I got the call. A friend's sister had just been killed in Iraq. Fishman suggested this would be a good time to step-it-up and do what I could to make sure our friend didn't spin out in the wake of the news that one of his sisters had been killed in action. At the time, Tim, the brother of Pvt./Medic Michelle Witmer, was working for me (having survived working for my brother, Fishman). I was in a particular role as his boss and friend to keep an eye on him so to speak. He was still young - 23/24 yrs of age - and young men don't always know what to do with themselves in times of traumatic life events (not that old men necessarily do)... As it turned out, Tim proved himself incredibly strong and of a character and maturity far beyond his years. This is not to say that Tim was not deeply impacted. He was. But I wasn't surprised with Tim's resiliency because Tim's family was and is made up of very solid, salt-of-the-earth people. People of deep faith and kind hearts. People of honesty and integrity. People of the sort that are very, very rare in this world.

It was a very sad time. To have to watch helplessly as this wonderful family endured the loss of one of their own beloved members. It makes me shudder even to this day to contemplate the degree of sadness that was thrust into their lives. As a friend, I was heartsick for Tim. As a human, I was heartsick for the family. But as a father... as a father, I was at a complete loss as to how Michelle's father, John, could recover. I feel sick when I entertain the thought of a parent having to bury any child. But a father losing a daughter?

But this is not my story. This is John Witmer's story. He has released a book entitled "Sisters in Arms" -

The story of three sisters, all Wisconsin National Guard members, going off to war together brought local media attention—when Michelle Witmer became the first female National Guard member to be killed-in-action the story brought National attention.  When her parents went public with their request to have their surviving daughters taken out of harm’s way, the story went round the world.

Sisters in Arms is a twenty-first century war story – the Witmer family’s personal war story. The Witmer family’s struggle with the complex issue of family members serving side-by-side received world-wide media attention and Michelle Witmer’s story would later be included in the HBO documentary “Last Letters Home.”

Using the letters, emails, and phone calls received during their deployment, John Witmer describes his daughters’ experiences in Iraq and provides insight not only into the lives of female soldiers, but into the lives of families who wait for soldiers. Sisters in Arms illuminates the changing roles of women in the military while sharing the deeply personal story of a family’s struggle to come to terms with profound loss.

I would encourage all of you to pre-order John's book here. I have not read this book yet, but I do know he is a very good writer. I have read many of his pieces about his childhood (he used to have a blog too). So, I know the quality will be outstanding. He is also a deeply Christian man, so I know he will treat about spiritual matters as well. He is a loving husband to Lori - who is, like John and all the members of Michelle's family - a wonderful, caring, compassionate, wickedly-smart and 100% authentic human being.

John's book should make it onto your Summer reading list.

Hey Teachers – Leave Them Kids Alone

Troubles with the Public Government Education Complex... continue for the O'Coileain Family.

In recent weeks I have had the distinct displeasure of "face time" with some of the staff, teachers, and administrators of my 3rd child's grade school.

Very early on in my life I developed a deep distrust of - a healthy contempt for - authority. Authority of any sort... but in particular teachers. When I say "early on" I mean that by the time I was in 2nd or 3rd grade I had come to realize that a teacher's smile could mean many things. I learned that teachers could encourage a child with words while slandering him in the teachers' lounge. I was young, so my understanding of the politics of schools was necessarily limited. But I was keen enough to pick up on the fact that teachers were alien creatures - they said all of the right things, professed high-minded motives and repeated the mantra that their sole desire was to see me "succeed." Yet, some were better actors than others. Very often I could tell the smiling faces they offered to us children were poorly-constructed facades. That what they presented us and said to us rang empty. That is, that they said one thing while harboring another. This is protocol of course - a kind of Civility Now... but it is dishonest.

I doubt I was a unique case. I doubt I was somehow more perceptive than many of the other kids that were in my classes. Children are nothing if not perceptive. And just because they cannot express what it is they perceive, they often know (sense?) hypocrisy and dishonesty when they see it. They can discern with incredible accuracy those who actually have their best interests in mind from those who simply entertain them by saying so. What this suggests is that far from being a unique experience, I would bet my life that many of my age group felt very much the same frustration: instructed by very clever adults whose insincerity was often extremely apparent - who expected honesty but would abandon it when push came to shove.

I think things have gotten very much worse for kids these days. I would suggest that there are more bureaucratic, me-first, check-taking, low-IQ, poorly-read teachers than ever. Hard to imagine, but I believe this to be the case.

In dealing with the staff at my son's school in the recent weeks many feelings have been reawakened. Feelings I have not felt since perhaps grade school. I hate to say it, but the healthy contempt for teachers I have always felt - since the earliest years of my scholastic career - is still there. They have unearthed it. Their busy-body allegiance to zero tolerance policies that afford no adult to employ reason... that remove objectivity, context, and circumstance from judgment. The need these fu**ers have to make each unique creation of God fit into a tidy little box.

My road has not been easy as it relates to my dealings with self-interested bureaucrats. And I suppose my children are having and will continue to have problems with accepting instruction from people less capable, less talented, less intelligent, and less honest than themselves.

In my dealings with these intellectually-challenged, small-minded union check-takers, I feel very often like I speak a very different language than they do. They look at me as if I am an alien. But I am not an alien. They condescend. They miss the point. They cannot read between the lines. They are skewered and they are ignorant of it. That is, they are for the most part incredibly dense.

I do not like them, Sam I am.

I do not like them on a truck,

I do not like them with a duck.

Not with a fox.

Not in a box.

Not on a plane.

Not on a train.

I do not like them.

Sam I am.

So, next year we will not be sending any of our children back to the public schools. \

Is it too much to ask them to do their jobs? Yes. Why, yes it is... there are pensions to amass, benefits to be had, policies to be written! Damn the children.

My wife asked me the other night, "Who will defend us in the days that lie ahead for this nation? If boys are to be girls and girls to be boys and "boy boys" to be boys who are just like girls?"

Here is the truth of the matter: My children will be adults who will lay down their lives for what is right. My children will be the heroes you thank for diving in the water to save the drowning child, who refuse to rail-road others, who would rather die than suffer the fool or be taken advantage of. And they won't have learned any of it from the smarmy, intellectually-lazy, union check-takers who will no doubt attempt to take the credit for it.

I don't want the village to raise my child. I want educators to educate. I don't want them to "psychologize"... I don't want their petty "analyses"... I don't want them to offer their "help." I want them to educate. But for the most part, I want them to leave my kids be. To limit their interactions to teaching. Anything beyond that is unwelcome... until I see them demonstrate mastery of their core responsibilities... I will not be interested.

Hey Teachers... leave the kids alone (and keep your hands off of them while you're at it). Take your interloping asses to the nearest teachers' lounge and bitch and complain to one-another about how you feeeeeel about this or that, how teachers are under-appreciated and underpaid. Bitch about the O'Coileain spawn of Satan thrust upon you - you know the one. The "boy-boy" who, well, acts like a boy, behaves like a boy, and who (like his father, his grandfather, his great-grandfather, ...) refuses to kneel to the likes of you... insisting (with insubordination!) on justice.

God Almighty - Please provide each child the strength and moral constitution to make it through the murder hole alive.

UPDATEx1 the tough choices adults must make in the gubmint sector - an excerpt...

It has been and remains, an excellent year. Our achievement has again been record setting, discipline is at an all time low, and improvements to our practice, profession, and facilities are continually being made. We recognize that we are all working hard
to meet the needs of our students, and we are proud of these accomplishments.

[emphasis Root... bwahahahahahahaha!!!!!]

Then there's this... you know, to back up the claim. Who's minding the store?

Hmmmm. maybe this is why they've been so piss poor in performance and distracted from their core duties.

Updatex2 while I must in fact congratulate the board of education in my town for standing firm against the special interests of the teacher's union and agree with the following sentiment wholeheartedly...

As our taxpayers face high unemployment and economic instability, we feel that it would be unreasonable to ask the taxpayers of New Berlin to shoulder the burden of significant compensation increases for District teachers without the Union also supporting strategic reductions to costs of compensation.

... I do take exception to this quote from our Superintendent:

The Board has been very careful with the resources provided by the taxpayers, and over the previous
seven years the Board has only increased the tax levy once.

[Emphasis Root]

Maybe this is why they don't like to teach Civics any longer... erm... there's that little thing called the Constitution.

Ye Olde Barn Razing

In case you're wondering where I've been, I've been doing some work. The old barn, partly obscured by Mary's hair in this photo, has to come down. It would be $100k to fix it (it's partially collapsed), and the insurance company are making noises about it, so I've been emptying it out.

We had a yard sale on the 15th, and there's going to be another this weekend, but we didn't do very well, perhaps because we're a little off the road, or perhaps because people's enthusiasm for old barn stuff is more hypothetical than transactive.

There's a lot of stuff that's already been carted off.  The place had a varied history, including a stint as an auto repair shop, though it's clear that there was a whole lot of farming done.  There are bits of old draft tack, and lots of rusty iron.  Found a Model A spoked wheel in there, an old radiator fan, cast iron tools, some decorative tin that must have been removed from a ceiling some time ago, drying racks, old jacks and motors.  People seem to believe that there's a big market for the barn board and the beams, but we've gotten only nibbles.

Anyway, the landlord's lost patience, so I loaded a whole bunch of old Vermont farm life into the back of a truck to be sold as scrap metal, yesterday, which cost me some pangs.  I've saved a couple of old, probably 30s vintage car seats, and I'm going to put them out by the road, in case there's someone who can reupholster and use them.  Still do have some of the old tools, too, and I'm hoping that someone will wish to claim the timbers.

The earliest portion of the barn dates to Revolutionary times.  That's the part that's collapsed.  It appears that at some point the decision was made to tin over the newer portions, probably because that's all they could afford.  So, the shingled portion of the barn on the far right has collapsed, and there's a shed that's partially collapsed, too, with a little cupola for air.

So, if you know anybody . . .

Quarantine Guy Celebrates 150 Days in Hospital

And Bingley pans Lost finale.

Twain Memoirs To Be Published, Historian Has Daft View of How He’s Regarded

He asked that the 5000 pp of MS not be published for a hundred years after his death, and they are set to be published in three volumes.

Scholars are divided as to why Twain wanted the first-hand account of his life kept under wraps for so long. Some believe it was because he wanted to talk freely about issues such as religion and politics. Others argue that the time lag prevented him from having to worry about offending friends.

One thing's for sure: by delaying publication, the author, who was fond of his celebrity status, has ensured that he'll be gossiped about during the 21st century. A section of the memoir will detail his little-known but scandalous relationship with Isabel Van Kleek Lyon, who became his secretary after the death of his wife Olivia in 1904. Twain was so close to Lyon that she once bought him an electric vibrating sex toy. But she was abruptly sacked in 1909, after the author claimed she had "hypnotised" him into giving her power of attorney over his estate.

Their ill-fated relationship will be recounted in full in a 400-page addendum, which Twain wrote during the last year of his life. It provides a remarkable account of how the dying novelist's final months were overshadowed by personal upheavals.

"Most people think Mark Twain was a sort of genteel Victorian. Well, in this document he calls her a slut and says she tried to seduce him. It's completely at odds with the impression most people have of him," says the historian Laura Trombley, who this year published a book about Lyon called Mark Twain's Other Woman.

Really, Laura? Really?

For the record, I'd like to say that I heartily disagree with you, you egregious twat. [Dan Collins is author of Life Up the Mistress Hippie]

Legal Aspects of the Toledo Cheeseburger Stabbing

Yesterday, the internet was abuzz with the story that a 300-lb, 6' 3" ute stabbed his momma in the arm because she didn't bring him a cheeseburger. Elided in the latest versions was his mother's representation several days before that he's paranoid schizophrenic and off his meds, and a recreational drug user, to boot. I'm siding with her on the issue, pending other information that might lead me to take a different view, that he and society are both probably better served by his being in a mental institution rather than prison.

Even were the authorities disinclined towards leniency, though, the settled law is on his side. In 1973, writing for the majority in Momma v. Boy, Thurgood Marshall famously stated, "It is the Court's considered opinion that these unfortunate events could have been mitigated or avoided entirely by Plaintiff through the simple expedient of the bitch bringing [Defendant] a damn burger."

Buffett the Vampire Slayer

Wounded by an infected pop-top, Jimmy Buffett races against time to perfect the frozen concoction that helps him hang on . . . and gives him super-mellow powers. Slacker crooner by day, he leads his Parrot Head Army against the Forces of Harsh by night. PG 13.

I've seen only a few episodes of Lost, but I'm predicting that Gilligan will wake up and realize it was all a bad dream from eating too much poi.

Jeremy Irons. Doesn't do windows.