Hattie's Web

Someone to watch out for: Paul Vallas, school "reformer."
The Progressive Mag ‏@theprogressive

Education “Reformer” Makes Pitch in Madison | By Rebecca Kemble: http://goo.gl/aQgaU

The trend is toward turning schools into "boot camps" to drill kids in math and science, with "frills" like art and music and sports provided by community volunteers, i.e. people who work for free, and a lot of education online. This, I think, is the only model of public education that could make big profits for educational companies. They can sell teaching materials, computers, uniforms, etc. etc. everything as cheaply made as possible to issue to the masses of kids who are destined to work in non-professional jobs or join the military or end up in prison but who have to be dealt with until they can be slotted into their adult roles. This is a huge market, now that the birthrate is going up again. A vision to gladden the rich and put the poor in their place once and for all. Discipline!!!!
Another disturbing trend I see developing is charter schools that are dominated by religious groups, where it "just so happens" that the kids all attend the same school. You can imagine how resource poor a school of that nature would be: serving K-12 with a handful of teachers. Little "exclusive" charter schools are not preparing their kids for higher education and the students certainly are not learning to rub along with all kinds of people. And I would not expect AP English classes, foreign languages or advanced calculus in those schools! Another wrinkle is the educational co-op movement by people who don't want their kids in public schools but can't get them into private schools because they can't afford them or because their kids have behavioral problems. What visions parents of these children have for their futures escapes me.
My vision of public education is of well staffed and equipped schools which serve all the children who walk in their doors, schools like the ones I went to. Since children are people (a fact often overlooked) they need a lot of care and attention, not regimentation. That is where I would like to see the taxes I pay going.

4h Democracy Now! Democracy Now! ‏@democracynow

National and Global News Headlines for Tuesday, May 29: http://www.democracynow.org/2012/5/29/headlines

J Smooth and a nice cat, too, on Cory Booker

From Melissa's blog. This sounds about right.

 

A good  piece about Romney and his role in the destruction of the middle class. This is a man who does not care. Thanks to Z for this.

 

Mary and Jim

 

Mary and Jim at Jim's birthday party at their place in Puna, with a live country-western band and everything.   We're going to Macchu Pichu with them.

But I worry. Can we trust them?

Also, we enjoyed Jim's special roast coffee from his own coffee trees.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here is a very nice pic of them, too.

We are so lucky that they are our friends. I love their joyous outlook on life and great sense of humor.  Happy Birthday to you, Jim!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Can't get permalink or embed code from today's Democracy Now, but it is full of urgent news.

Before picture: cinnamon rolls

Before we ate them, that is. I used this recipe, from Sarah of Adventures in Mediocrity. For obvious reasons there is no "after" picture. I appreciate the recipes and tips I get from bloggers who know how to bake, because my mother was not a good baker, and neither am I. I did not frost them, because I have to watch my suger intake, but with enough butter that was not a drawback.

Hmm.

http://www.silversea.com/life-onboard/magical-evenings/gentlemen-hosts/

This sounds "amiable," but I don't think Terry would approve. Thanks, Queen Mediocretia, for finding this.

Democracy Now Memorial Day Special

 

Talking Points Memo ‏@TPM

Gallup: Veterans still going big for Romney and GOP http://tpm.ly/MWUBSP

Happy Memorial Day

Medea Benjamin in front of Mayor Emmanuel's house.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The most important news you never heard: The Chicago NATO demonstrations and the show  of force against demonstrators.

Think of the jobs and profits going into "security."  Paid for with our tax money and the profits going to corporations.  And, as the young protester says, all that training and weaponry will be used against already criminalized  poor youth of color.

Welcome to Occupied America.

Chris Hayes is under vicious cyberattack for what struck me as rather mild comments on the nature of America's military, past and present.  Some tweets:

jeremy scahill ‏@jeremyscahill

Here is the segment on @upwithchris that sparked the attacks (and some criticism) on @chrislhayes: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46979738/vp/47581623#47581623
View video


5h jeremy scahill jeremy scahill ‏@jeremyscahill

For those also ad hominem attacking @chrislhayes, he is one of the smartest, most independent & principled people allowed on corporate TV
Expand


5h jeremy scahill jeremy scahill ‏@jeremyscahill

The hordes are descending on @chrislhayes for daring to discuss contradictions/complexities of "heroism" & unjust wars.
Expand


6h Christopher Hayes Christopher Hayes ‏@chrislhayes

Sure this won't stop the twitter hate, but ask people to watch this and see if we were being insufficiently respectful msnbc.msn.com/id

I have to admit I did not watch the whole discussion on Up With Chris. It is hard for me to listen to such young people talking about WW II, Korea and Vietnam. The dissonance between how I lived those times and the way they think of them is too great.

 No one has to join the military these days, but for some reason too many of the military don't feel they should be held responsible for their actions as soldiers. Well, some are taking responsibility, but it's rarer than it should be that they do.*

Also, I was annoyed in Chris's  program to hear many of the myths that have become embedded as truths in the public mind. Vietnam vets were not reviled when they came back; on the contrary,  they got a lot of sympathy. In fact, they got so much sympathy that a lot of men claimed that they were in Vietnam and/ or had seen combat when they hadn't. The VA had to crack down on the many impostors who were getting benefits, some of whom had not even served in the military! The classic on that is Stolen Valor, by Vietnam Vet B.G. Burkett.  Burkett, a conventional person, was annoyed mostly because the Vietnam vets have done better overall in life than men who were not in Vietnam and resented the picture of the PTSD guy with the drug problem living on the streets that is such a cliche. This is the cliche that is now what we hear about Iraq War vets that Rachel Maddow and others are pushing. Is this true or is this an exaggeration? All kinds of people are traumatized and commit suicide, and their woes go pretty much unnoticed.

How can the current wars be compared to the fight for survival that was WW II, which engaged everyone in the country?  I remember how that was! The wars today are strictly limited, commercial ventures, although we pay for them with our tax money, and they are fought by volunteer armies, people who are basically in the employ of megacorporations who supply them with goods and services that the public pays the corporations for; the goal is to help secure profits in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. There isn't even the pretense that there's a "cold war" going on that was the rationale for Korea and Vietnam.

It's strictly business and has nothing to do with "the people," except that we pay for it, although we can avoid being directly involved. It's a bad thing, and Democrats here have capitulated because they fear the wrath of the military and of the people who make a living off the military occupation of these islands.

*Here are some military people I respect

Ehrin Watada

Aiden Delgado

PEACE!

Songs of the Cheddar Revolution. Very nice beat. Love that good old rock 'n' roll.

http://www.wisconsinprotestsongs.com/

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/27/the-jersey-comeback/?smid=tw-NytimesKrugman&seid=auto

Sunday extra: Puna adventure

Yesterday my friend Rosemary and I went down to the Makuu Market  in Puna to a fund raiser for prison parolees. For a ten dollar donation we got stew, rice, potato salad and poi.  I love poi the way they served it here: slightly fermented and on the thick side. Hmm. I should eat it more often; I like it and it's not fattening;  you can't eat much of it since it's so filling.

 

 

 

 So there was  was good conversation, good music (if, as always so loud it made the conversation difficult), good food and splendid weather with the trades keeping us cool and refreshed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dwight Kondo (below) is a native of Oahu and a Vietnam veteran who really opened up to Rosemary and me about his experiences in Vietnam, where he had a non-combat job but saw a lot of what was going on. Rosemary went to Vietnam not so long ago, too, so I just buttoned my yap and listened.  I wish I could remember more of what they said, but in this kind of situation taking notes does not seem very sociable. Dwight was very much opposed to the Iraq War, and he and Rosemary have worked together for a long time in the peace movement and for the Palestinian cause.I did have to intervene at one point, though, when Dwight started talking about the Jewish bankers and how Jews own the media, yada yada and how 9-11 was an inside job. This is an annoying aspect of pro-Palestinian activism which keeps me from being whole-heartedly in support of it.  That and the remoteness of Israel and Palestine from this island and the many local matters that need seeing to.

 

 

Local politician and mayoral candidate Dominic Yagong showed up, the only one there of the numerous candidates running for local office. I had been planning to vote for him anyway, and that clinches it for me. He is dedicated to this island and the people here.He pays attention.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, although not that many people attended because there were so many things going on  on the same day, including a Native American pow-wow (!) this was quite a successful event.

Pix

 

"Before:" L to R Norfolk pine, breadfruit, soursop, coconut.Tree trimmers coming today.

Our deck

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Coconuts which must be removed. They are right over the driveway and could hit people on the head.

 

Shade house. It is made of PVC pipe and shade cloth. It's more than ten years old and very sturdy.  The shade cloth is guaranteed for 20 years.

Shade house interior

Rocks our neighbor put out to stop cars and trucks from rolling into their house.

The latest Nation is a strange mixture of good and bad

First the bad: one of William Deresiewicz's baggy, self-indulgent literary reviews.  I stopped reading when, after much verbiage, he gives Vonnegut the diagnosis of PTSD. He apparently finds Vonnegut puzzling, his writing a mixed bag. I don't. I don't agree with his assessment of Vonnegut's work, not at all. The thing about Vonnegut is that you take him as he is, "an old fart with his Pall Malls and his memories," or you don't take him at all. Criticism is beside the point where Vonnegut is concerned.  The sentence that infuriated me most in all this was, "The novel's major weakness is also its greatest strength," in reference to  Vonneguts novel, Mother Night.  I guess as an academic he is worried about where Vonnegut fits into the canon of Great American Literature. I say, "Don't worry. Mark Twain is fine, and so is Vonnegut."

Here is what I have to say about Vonnegut.

On the other hand, there is a brilliant and informative piece by Holly Case on Christa Wolf, the chronicler of the lives of women in the former East Germany. Case explains many things about Wolf that had puzzled me, such as why she fled to the Getty Museum for a while. She spied for Stasi and was spied upon. She turned her back on West Germany because their soulless materialism disgusted her. At the same time, she was allowed to travel to the West, and she was permitted to critique the East German regime in her writing.  Her writing was popular both in East and in West Germany. She was a loyal Party member, but when the wall came down, she knew it was inevitable. She was full of contradictions but always true to her inner self. Nothing could touch that core of integrity.

And a short piece on the Wisconsin recall by John Nichols, which I can't seem to find. This page has updates on the evolving situation.

There is more to read here, too. Katha Pollitt on motherhood. More stuff about Romney, etc. but I'm in a hurry this a.m. and want to post some pix of the shade house and our trees. We're expecting tree trimmers soon, and I took "before" pix and will post "after' pix later.

 

Best campaign ad so far

I've shown you the worst: Walker's campaign ad.  This is the best campaign ad I've ever seen. From Melissa Harris Perry's blog.

 

Aren't they darling? These are the young feminists, all in their teens, that Melissa Harris-Perry interviewed on Sunday.

 

Success with African violets

I transplanted these after they bloomed. They were kind of ratty plants. Now they are very healthy and in bloom again. I repotted them in commercial African violet soil and put them out in the shadehouse, where they were very comfortable with the shade and natural watering from above, coming through the tree canopy and the shade netting.

 

Michael Moore ‏@MMFlint

RT @timcarvell The inventor of the TV remote control has died. He will be buried in the last place you think to look.

Bananas! Papayas!

We've been giving away bananas, because they ripen faster than we can eat them. There are ways to preserve them, but when they are so good fresh, why not just share the bounty?  There is no comparison between the way these bananas taste and the ones  you pick up at the supermarket. They are called apple bananas around here and are slightly tart. The papaya are volunteers that just sprouted out of the compost pit. They taste pretty good.

I'm still a little rocky from that bug I got a while ago but basically O.K. Yesterday I went up to the ceramic teacher's studio and did some glazing. We were driving the teacher nuts with our questions and demands for help, and she was showing rare displays of temper.  She's generally very easy to get along with. She's an amazing woman, actually. When I first met her I thought she was in her 40's but she's actually 60. She is very pretty and charming, even when she's mad at us. Darn those "local" Japanese women anyway! It's not fair that she gets to look like that at her age!

She is artistic rather than organized. My friend Mary organized everything once for her, but that was a while ago and now things are back to subnormal. And since then Mary has built her own studio, which is immaculately organized, but that's Mary for you! Actually, she is very creative, too, but seems to lack that temperament. She's not vague and dreamy, the way our teacher is.

The problem with ceramics is that work accumulates and can be hard to dispose of: like misfired pots, and there are the muddied glazes, etc. etc. and surfaces need to be cleaned all the time. Clay gets hard and has to be reworked, etc. etc. It's a headache, and then students come up and can't find things and everything gets even more muddled. I think we have hit a mini-crisis here that will resolve itself by the next time we meet.

 

The Progressive Mag ‏@theprogressive

Walker, Beware: Huge Early Voting in Madison | By Matthew Rothschild: http://goo.gl/HMOeA

Fascinating stats on union membership from Psilotum.

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/reports/size-and-characteristics-of-states-union-workforces?utm_source=CEPR+feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+cepr+%28CEPR%29&utm_content=FaceBook

The Progressive Mag ‏@theprogressive

"Barrett Gaining on Scott Walker: http://goo.gl/c9LI1

The Walker camp may have antagonized too many people. That is what brought down fellow Wisconsonite Joe McCarthy. If you attack teachers, for instance, that's a lot of people, and those people have connections to other people, too, for what the British call a knock-on effect. I sure hope he gets recalled, even though I think recall is, in general, a bad idea. But Walker is toxic.

Michael Moore ‏@MMFlint

Study Finds Fox News Viewers Least Informed Of All Viewers (Did we really need a study for this?) http://mmflint.me/KPewRg

Democracy Now! ‏@democracynow

Estimated 400,000 Protest on Quebec Student Strike’s 100th Day http://owl.li/b6xcl

Geriatric follies

This is my comment on a post on Nancy Nall's blog in response to an article on the topic of old age and death (although I didn't see that word used; it's always "end of life" or something like that. The poor Boomers are really creeped out about us oldsters, apparently.

At age 72, I've seen it all when it comes to death (yes, that bad bad word). Holding my MIL's hand while she breathed her last was pretty intense. She was 97.  And I say that one real problem and what really has elders worried is that medical care and long term care have gotten so expensive. I was with a group of peers yesterday and not a one of them had not had some horrendous medical procedure in the past 10 years or so. One woman was incredulous that her quadruple by-pass cost $250,000, and their co-pay was huge. It should not be this way. This rich society needs medical reform,badly. Right now my brother in law is in serious trouble with cancer. Does he want to die and graciously make way for others? Nein. Luckily he has good insurance to cover the radiation and chemo.
What we old people would really love from you youngsters is to be regarded as people,not "problems." If we are a drag on the economy with our needs for food, clothing, shelter and medical care, we are, of course, sorry. And if we get on your nerves, consider what a drag you were as kids.
So what is your vision of old age, anyway? Sick, demented, physically repulsive, right? And costing the earth to keep alive. How about an attitude adjustment?
You Boomers are next, ha ha. The youth generation gets old.
Maybe what I'm saying is, "Lighten up. We all gotta go sometime." Even if we weren't around taking up room and breathing the air, you would still have problems. Hey, some of us can even help you. Money, babysitting, wise advice...Don't be too hasty with the cyanide pie.
And for god sake, lighten up. You're depressing me.

Quick summary on Democracy Now of many of  the things we would rather ignore.

Wise words on the Corey Booker flap

From The Field Negro:

It's not like Flipper is going to do anything for Cory Booker and Newark, New Jersey if and when he becomes president. Bain Capital is fair game. If Flipper can defend their business practices that's fine, if not, the voters will decide. The same is true of universal health care and all the other policies Obama put into place. 

Yes, Booker needs to get real. I don't think Booker understands how Newark gets ignored. He is perhaps unaware that affluent white people can ignore anything they don't want to be bothered with, such as black poverty in Newark. It's amazing, really, to me, that Manhattanites and rich suburban New Jerseyites can behave as if this city is invisible. It's like Oakland vs San Francisco or Berkeley but way way worse. To imagine that Chris Christie or Mitt Romney would ever deal with Newark except to make things worse is a pathetic fantasy.

George Tierney of Greenville, South Carolina

I just love George Tierney of Greenville, South Carolina, sadly totally screwed over by the Internets and finding himself being mercilessly laughed at. He wants to be taken off the Google.

http://tbogg.firedoglake.com/2012/05/20/internet-man-does-not-want-to-be-on-the-google-anymore/

Ha ha!

My favorite among the many many LOL comments:

BettyCracker May 20th, 2012 at 5:15 pm

10

Boy, that George Tierney of Greenville, South Carolina sure doesn’t understand how the Google works, does George Tierney of Greenville, South Carolina? I hear there are online rep management organizations that could help George Tierney of Greenville, South Carolina if George Tierney of Greenville, South Carolina were willing to pay them thousands and thousands of dollars.

But I’m not even sure that would help George Tierney of Greenville, South Carolina since the name, “George Tierney,” and the location, “Greenville, South Carolina,” appear on high traffic blogs and popular Twitter streams. And people keep saying “George Tierney of Greenville, South Carolina.”

I think George Tierney of Greenville, South Carolina is shit out of luck. Unless he wants to change his name to something other than “George Tierney” and perhaps move away from Greenville, South Carolina. Maybe George Tierney of Greenville, South Carolina shouldn’t have been such a giant dick. Lesson learned, George Tierney of Greenville, South Carolina?

Too much news

The news cycle seems to be spinning out of control, so I'm just grabbing a couple of things:

Good lead article in The Sunday NYT:

How the Mormon Church Shaped Mitt Romney

 

Mormons have a long tradition of achieveing [sic] success by sharing secular versions of their tenets, said Matthew Bowen, author of The Mormon People, citing Stephen R. Covey's The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People," which he called the Latter-Day Saint Theology repackaged as career advice."

 

I glanced over at a summary of Seven Habits on Wikipedia, and I thought it was terrible advice unless balanced by notions of community and caring, whether religious or not. For sure you can't strip religion out of such a Machiavellian plan of action without sounding soulless. And this could be exactly Romney's problem. By operating in the secular world as a person who is perceived as 100% success driven he gives the impression of soullessness. I, as a secular person, do respect and favor the notion of religion as a private matter. But the Mormons are not just private: they are secretive. They worship at the altar of success and, as a chosen people,  expect god to favor them with riches.

Furthermore, if business and religion are the important things to Romney, where does that leave government? And that being the case, why does he want to be President?

Providing a contrast to this, I was with a group of Jehovah's Witnesses yesterday at a graduation party, and they touched me with their humility and earnestness. Most of them are not successful, struggling actually. Many of them were Spanish speaking. For them, material success is secondary to righteousness. And they are inclusive, welcoming people of all races and nationalities. To my way of thinking they are completely wrongheaded in their beliefs, but they avoid doing evil. They don't believe in government either, although they use government services like everyone else, and they don't vote. For which I am grateful.

This article,

Obama, Condescending to Women

in the NYT by Campbell Brown really chapped my hide, as Twisty would put it. (For those of you not in the know, nothing is classier than having a name that is two last names.)

She is pushing the meme that women care only about the state of the economy. Well, I'm a woman, and I care about a lot of issues that are not directly related to the  economy. She slams that  Obama campaign vid, The Life of Julia, which several young women on Melissa's Sunday show thought was highly relevant to their lives. They want to succeed, and they need government help reaching their goals. Not everyone has family to fall back on, let alone an affluent family, and family values based on making a virtue of necessity (a way of thinking that is constantly pushed on women ) don't move me much.

Her anecdotes about women making a go of it selling stuff on eBay and so on, getting by with the help of their families and "not wanting it any other way" made me think, "Campbell Brown is either a fool or a tool."  I for one am glad I don't have to struggle. And I am sure Campbell Brown doesn't have to struggle much, either. All she has to do is write a dumb article and the NYT publishes it and pays her for her "work."

 

Below is Melissa talking to these youthful feminists about the Julia vid and other matters.

I was also annoyed to see a picture in the NYT Kindle version I get of Medea Benjamin of Code Pink holding a sign protesting the NATO summit in Chicago that did not identify her or her organization. (Can't find it anywhere on the 'net, either.) I also saw a scurrilous web site I won't link to with a lot of Photoshopped or possibly staged pix of Code Pink Women supposedly carrying signs saying, "Kill the Troops" and so on. Some people are stooping so low these days they probably have to live underground.  I am hoping for a regeneration of the Peace Movement, but as Benjamin says, 9-11 really damaged it. The cause of peace is in trouble everywhere.  It's on the streets now, though, in Chicago, and we have a long, hot summer ahead of us, probably the hottest ever.

Well, I have to go to the SS office today to inform them that I am alive for the time being, so I can continue to collect my Swiss social security.

Have a lovely day, everyone.

 (Revised due to various Type Pad problems)

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy