Author: floridagal

I have a feeling this will be a big event.   If you are in this area of Florida, show your support for teachers who are fighting Jeb’s education machine in this state.   As a retired teacher, I take very personally what they have done to our public schools.  They are giving tax money to private religious schools whose agendas are not monitored.  They are planning on more vouchers, even though the courts have consistently ruled against their tactics.

This event in the ad is primarily about the FCAT, but I hear there might be more to come.

I have seen no article about it, just this ad paid for with hard-earned teachers’ salaries by members of the county teachers group.  

They have tied teacher pay to how students score on the FCAT.   Just imagine the field day frustrated students could have with that.   I talked to some the other day who said that “Christmas-Treeing” was becoming more common as the frustration mounted with their ability to score well on a test not commensurate with their abilities. “Christmas treeing” is hurriedly filling in the bubbles using various designs, not even bothering to read the test.  Trust me, for some it becomes a mind game.  

Here is an article from the Washington Post about this new merit pay system.   Happily,  locally most people see through this as a stupid and uninformed move.    Most see it as dehumanizing students to fit into a corporate mindset.  I have been pleasantly surprised at the reaction to it overall.

Florida to link teacher pay to test scores.

HIALEAH, Fla. — A new pay-for-performance program for Florida’s teachers will tie raises and bonuses directly to pupils’ standardized-test scores beginning next year, marking the first time a state has so closely linked the wages of individual school personnel to their students’ exam results.

This appears to fill in the category of turning schools into factories, and as the WP says it is being viewed as a landmark in the movement to restructure schools.  If Jeb’s legislative machine succeeds here,  other states may be looking at the model.

The effort, now being adopted by local districts, is viewed as a landmark in the movement to restructure American schools by having them face the same kind of competitive pressures placed on private enterprise, and advocates say it could serve as a national model to replace traditional teacher pay plans that award raises based largely on academic degrees and years of experience.

But teachers unions and some education experts say any effort to evaluate teachers exclusively on test-score improvements will not work, because schools are not factories and their output is not so easily measured. An exam, they say, cannot measure how much teachers have inspired students, or whether they have instilled in them a lifelong curiosity. Moreover, some critics say, the explicit profit motive could overshadow teacher-student relationships.

I have no way yet of knowing if other counties are fighting this openly.   I hope you will support these teachers in Florida if you are nearby.   Maybe you could email the PEA :

Polk@Floridaea.org

Or write the education editors at the paper in which the ad was published:

Julia Crouse

Education Reporter

Dept.: Metro Desk

(863) 802-7536

julia.crouse@theledger.com

 Andrew Dunn

Education reporter

Dept.: Metro Desk

(863) 802-7588

andrew.dunn@theledger.com

Or write a letter to the editor:

http://theledger.com/…

I taught for many great years, but I am glad I am out of it now.   They are trying to treat schools in a corporate friendly manner, but they have forgotten about all the warm bodies in the classrooms who depend on human caring and understanding….and who depend on our schools basing their agenda on the premise that we are all different and have different ways of learning.  

On March 7, 2006, David Lindorff wrote this in an article at Counterpunch.  He was totally wrong on this, and Howard Dean emailed him to please correct it.  Dean’s answer below.     Lindorff implies it makes him get noticed as a journalist.  

Groundswell for Impeachment

“While researching our book on impeachment (The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing George W. Bush from Office, St. Martin’s Press, due out in late April), my co-author Barbara Olshanshky and I have found that members of Congress-even firebrands like Maxine Waters (D-CA) and Cynthia McKinney (D-GA)-have been strong-armed behind the scenes by the Democratic National Committee not to introduce an impeachment bill in the House. Rep. John Conyers, the ranking minority member of the House Judiciary Committee, where such a bill would be considered, has submitted three bills that relate to impeachment-a proposal for a special committee to investigate possible impeachable crimes by the administration and bills to censure both the president and the vice president for refusing to answer questions from Congress on impeachment-related issues–but that’s as far as the Democratic congressional leadership is willing to go.”

Then he gets a letter from Howard Dean, and he gives a snip of it in this article, also at Counterpunch.  He lost me at “it’s nice to be noticed as a columnist.”

Howard Dean Tells CounterPunch:  DNC No Foe of Impeachment Drive

I got an personal email from Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean today. On a Sunday morning, the DNC chief wrote me to take issue with what I wrote on March 7 in this space. I said that pressure from Democratic party leaders was the reason not one member of the House has filed a bill of impeachment against our president for trashing the U.S. Constitution.

The article clearly hit a nerve.

“The DNC is not in the business of telling Congress to go easy on this President,” Dean wrote. “I’d be grateful if you could correct the report.”

It’s nice to be noticed as a columnist, and I will clarify my point. I agree with Dean that the DNC as an organization is not telling Congress anything.

Good for Howard for standing up for himself.   Too bad he must fight the left and the right to do his job.   We have a long way to go in this battle for the party’s soul.   Not everyone will get everything they want.  Life is just not that way.   Honesty is always the best policy.   You got noticed, Mr. Lindorff,  because you told an untruth, not because you did a good job on that particular article.  

About 3 years ago a book was published called The Faith of George W. Bush.   It refers to the fact that George says he believes God chose him to lead this country.   The way he is leading this country into one disaster after another says a lot about his perception of God’s guidance.   The God I worship would never condone torture, lying into war, leaving people to die on rooftops as Katrina hit, and then more lies.  

That is not the God I know.  

The Observer UK had a good article about Bush and his religion.  It was published in late 2003.  

Bush says God chose him to lead his nation

President George W. Bush stood before a cheering crowd at a Dallas Christian youth centre last week, and told them about being ‘born again’ as a Christian.
‘If you change their heart, then they change their behaviour. I know,’ he said, referring to his own conversion, which led to him giving up drinking.

Behind Bush were two banners. ‘King of Kings’, proclaimed one. ‘Lord of Lords’, said the other. The symbolism of how fervent Christianity has become deeply entwined with the most powerful man on the planet could not have been stronger.

The book also shows that in the lead-up to announcing his candidacy for the presidency, Bush told a Texan evangelist that he had had a premonition of some form of national disaster happening.

Bush said to James Robinson: ‘I feel like God wants me to run for President. I can’t explain it, but I sense my country is going to need me. Something is going to happen… I know it won’t be easy on me or my family, but God wants me to do it.’

I had forgotten this article, but it really let him off light back then.   He has committed what I consider crimes to humanity, this so-called Christian man.    I don’t profess to be a very religious right now,  our church’s hijacking by Falwell types drove us away.  But I know in my heart that though I have not been in church for a while, that I have acted more the way God would expect than this man named Bush has acted.  

And these two paragraphs make me most uneasy.  

In another incident, Mansfield recounts how, on Palm Sunday last year, Bush was flying back from El Salvador aboard the presidential jet Air Force One and seemed to be destined to miss church.

However, knowing that Bush hated to miss a service, some officials suggested they worship in the air. Bush agreed, and soon 40 officials were crammed into the plane’s conference room. The service was led by National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, while the lesson was read by close Bush aide Karen Hughes.

Maybe God needs to save the country and world from Christian presidents like this one.  

I never ceased to be amazed at the agility of Florida’s governor and legislature when it comes to getting around court rulings.   They are so very good at it.  Jeb is going to keep his vouchers, come hell or high water.

I find myself wondering just how much the private schools, particularly religious ones who are getting public school money, will really like being regulated by the public school system. That should really go over in a big way.  

Bill would expand corporate program, increase regulation of private schools.

TALLAHASSEE — About 700 children in a voucher program that the Florida Supreme Court has declared unconstitutional could remain in private schools at taxpayer expense under a bill that cleared a House committee Friday.

The measure also would increase state regulation and accountability for private schools that take voucher students under two remaining state programs, including a requirement for fingerprinting and criminal background checks of teachers and other staff.

The Republican-dominated House Education Appropriations Committee approved the bill 164. The opponents, all Democrats, praised the accountability standards but objected to letting students receiving unconstitutional “opportunity scholarships” shift to another voucher program for poor children.

Here is more about the previous court ruling.

The Opportunity Scholarship Program, a keystone of Gov. Jeb Bush’s 1999 school accountability overhauls, provided vouchers to students from public schools graded F by the state for two years out of four.

The Supreme Court ruled the program violated a provision in the Florida Constitution that requires a uniform system of public schools, and that it must cease at the end of the current school year. The justices found it created a separate system for voucher schools that are exempt from many rules and requirements that public schools must meet.

Jeb and his friends recently had a voucher rally in Tally.  Here is a picture.  It is rather blatant in its attempts to appeal.  He is shameless.  

Now if the judges had just ruled that giving public school money to private religious schools was wrong, this could not happen.

In his usual practical manner, Howard Dean lays it on the line. He tell us how much the DNC needs, and he tells us where it will be going.  Clear, pragmatic, building from the grassroots.  

In the history of our nation, no group of lawmakers has dodged its responsibility to the American people more than the current Republican Congress.

Instead of doing the people’s business, the Republican majority on Capitol Hill operates in a secretive culture of corruption that lets special interests and right-wing lobbyists write our laws in backrooms and behind closed doors. There’s no accountability, no oversight, and the American people are paying the price for a Republican majority only concerned with expanding its political power.

With control of the House, Senate and a number of key governorships up for grabs, I don’t need to tell you what’s at stake in the November elections.

We cannot wait. Already organizers are on the ground in states working towards building a permanent Democratic infrastructure. At the same time, we cannot let an opportunity like the 2006 elections slip by.

Help take back Congress in 2006. Make a contribution to the DNC now by visiting:

http://www.democrats.org/…

When voters head to the polls they will decide whether our nation continues to pursue the extreme, right-wing agenda of the Bush Republicans, or chooses principled, Democratic leadership that will make us strong and safe at home and a respected voice for freedom around the world. That said, it’s no secret the American people are tired of and worried about the Republican culture of corruption now rampant in Washington.

All the signs point to this being a big election year for Democrats. But if we want to win in November, we’ve got to fight for our victories by taking our message into communities all across America and by mobilizing millions of voters who will surge to the polls and support Democrats running at every level of government.

Our Party can’t afford to wait until the final months of the 2006 campaign and hope for a burst of energy to carry us to victory. Starting right now – and with your help – we’ve got to work every day in every state to tell voters about our Democratic values and our vision for America.

Support the Democratic Party’s 2006 efforts by visiting:

http://www.democrats.org/…

$8,000,000 is the minimum we need to raise so that we have the necessary resources to:

Conduct ongoing grassroots trainings for Democratic precinct captains who are essential to building our Party’s strength on the ground.

Support the work of Democratic Party field organizers making sure they are on the ground early in critical precincts.

Run phone banks so we can locate and mobilize Democratic and independent voters that are critical to our success on Election Day.

Train canvassers who will take our Party’s message right to voters’ doorsteps.

Support these efforts:

http://www.democrats.org/…

State-by-state, precinct-by-precinct, door-by-door, vote-by-vote, we are going to take this country back for the working Americans who built it.

Thank you,

Governor Howard Dean M.D.

Thanks for hanging in there, Governor.  Thanks for trying to make the party more inclusive.  

I am reading the Crashing the Gate.  I am rereading You Have the Power by Howard Dean.  I am trying to make peace with the fact that our party has taken womens’ issues off the table.  I am trying to understand.  I am perusing the NARAL website, and sure enough what I heard was right.   Ten states, including Rhode Island, are planning to join South Dakota in outlawing abortion.  

I began to wonder, just how long are we supposed to not be single issue people.   I know we are supposed to ban together with other single issue people, I know that.  But we don’t have a leader.   When someone speaks up on that issue now at most progressive forums, it is not popular.  

Our Democrats understandably are being cautious on this issue.   So I am putting my armor on and pointing out just what trying to compromise with these guys is getting us.  

Here are the ten states:
Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, Rhode Island, South Carolina,  Tennessee, and West Virginia.

You can verify it all here at the map of states at the NARAL website.

State Bill Tracker

Just for an example, Rhode Island will amaze you with the vast amount of anti-choice legislation it has going.  I never thought of Rhode Island as being so conservative.  Take a look.

Abortion Bans Throughout Pregnancy

Affiliation Ban

Anti-Choice License Plates/Anti-Choice Clinics

Biased Counseling and Mandatory Delay

Counseling Ban/Gag Rule

Insurance Prohibition for Family Planning Coverage

Physician-Only Requirements

Protection Against Clinic Violence-Anti

Public Facilities and Employees Restriction

Refusal to Provide Medical Services

Restrictions on Low-Income Women’s Access to Abortion

Separate Legal Status for Embryos and Fetuses

You really need to go through a lot of the states.  Amazingly one of the best is Florida.  There is quite a bit of pro-choice legislation pending, and no anti-choice.

And there is more.   I read at another forum just how bold some of the extreme religious right in some states are becoming.   It is alarming.  I don’t think our Democrats, who are trying to stay neutral on this, truly get it.   We have no one on our side on this issue. And the other side is not about to compromise.  They have been planning this for years.

I will just post the links and the topic.  

At the DFA blog I saw an article posted about an article/opinion piece written by a woman in Kansas.   Here is the link.   It is just unbelievable.  

Birth Control Prevents God’s Work

By using contraception, you prevent God’s creative power in bringing forth new life. Sex is a complete self-giving love you pledge to your spouse within marriage, and contraception destroys the unitive and procreative qualities of sex. Pleasure is not the purpose of sex — it’s the motive or consequence.

And I saw this at Democratic Underground, about a Tennessee Democrat, a woman,  with a bill to ban…..well just read the article.  

The Dire Problem of Dildos in Tennessee

I have tried to believe that if these people so far on the right of the religious spectrum just kept on being more and more outrageous that they would self-implode.  It does not seem to be happening.

And since there is more important stuff going on like the selling off of America, and the caving in on the Patriot Act renewal,  I guess issues like this come last.    Not really being too critical, I do understand that our Democrats are trying not to allow these issues to be issues at all.   The intent is just not to address them.  

Trouble is, the other side is just keeping on.  And they don’t seem to be slowing down.  

I say good for him.  We need to build the party throughout the country.  Sounds like he took a stand.  

Democratic Leaders Question Whether Dean’s Right on the Money

Democratic congressional leaders aren’t happy with the way Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean is spending money. At a private meeting last month, they let him know.

Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) challenged the former Vermont governor during a session in Pelosi’s office, according to Democratic sources. The leaders complained about Dean’s priorities — funding organizers for state parties in strongly Republican states such as Mississippi — rather than targeting states with crucial races this fall.

Neither side was willing to give ground, according to several accounts of the meeting. Dean argued that his strategy is designed to rebuild the party across the country, and that he had pledged to do so when he ran for party chairman. Reid and Pelosi countered that if Democrats squander their opportunities this year, longer-term organizing efforts will not matter much.

Dean has won friends among state party leaders for his efforts to underwrite the hiring of organizers in states where Republicans have been winning in presidential races. Dean campaigned for the DNC chairmanship by pledging to make Democrats competitive in all 50 states, not just in the 16 to 18 presidential battlegrounds. One congressional Democrat responded: “Nobody’s suggesting they do 16 states, but not all states are equal.”

Pelosi was particularly insistent in pressing Dean to keep focused on 2006, but Dean is reluctant to give congressional colleagues anything approaching a blank check, preferring to stay on the course he began a year ago.

I had some figures, can’t find them now, that the DNC outraised the DSCC and DCCC in January of this year.  Pretty impressive.  Dean said he put the money back into the states as he promised.  

I hope he stands his ground.  

I was reading earlier today the post here by howie in seattle which referred to the MSNBC piece on Jerome Armstrong.  
Blog pioneer maps political strategy for 2008

There was a lot of criticism by people who have not read the book.  I don’t think that is really fair. There are some very good parts, and it is overall a good analysis of where we are and what we need to do.

I am not surprised Jerome is for Warner, he is a Virginian.  He also worked for Kaine, and maybe others in VA.  I am touchy on that situation with him, because my friend was banned from that blog for posting about Kaine’s religious views.  But I stand for his right to support and work for whomever he pleases since he discloses that.  
I would be wrong to discount the book’s message because Jerome supports Mark Warner.  I don’t like a lot of stances Kos takes either, but the book has too many good things to discount it like some here are.   There are things I agree with and things I disagree with.  

As to Hackett, that is a situation that is interpreted different ways.  The party is constantly screwing people.  I know someone they royally screwed who went on to become party chairman.   That guy held his head up high, ignored the ridicule, and went to do what he intended in the first place….find a way to change the party.  Hackett could that also, and maybe he will.  

I would read the book first.  They are very critical of the DLC and the party committee heads.  It is a good book, and they do see the hazards we face as a party.  They spend a lot of time on the special issue groups who demand their way.  Some of it I agree with, some not.  But it is a good presentation of the problem.  

They cover the way the DCCC has been targeting races for years ineffectively.  Not only do they target just certain ones with money and press, but they totally ignore the others.  The book advocates that this has to change.  The authors agree with Dean that we have to run someone against every Republican.

One part really sticks with me, and I posted on this earlier elsewhere.   It is the glee with which the DLC leaders greeted Dean’s loss in Iowa.   Just a reminder of a little from the book.   I did not know about the high five.

A lot of it I knew, but a few parts slapped me in the face.   I try to dwell on the future of the party and bringing change, but now and then I allow myself a look back.  

In one of the DLC’s monthly staff meeting, From explained his fears of a Dean candidacy—-his angry tone, his borrowing of the Wellstone rhetoric, his “weakness” on national security issues and his opposition to the brewing Iraq War.  From believed that Dean’s use of Wellstone’s “Democratic wing of the Democratic Party” line was directly aimed at Clinton’s centrist policies and therefore at the DLC. From took it as a personal affront, saying that “Dean would undo everything that Clinton had stood for” and put the Democratic Party permanently back into minority status……At one point, the normally reserved From pounded the table and said that “the DLC was there to protect the Democratic Party from itself”–said a source who was present.  

And this part after Iowa makes me ill.  I had heard rumors of this, but just reading the words is awful.  This is speaking of a party at the DLC after the Iowa Caucuses.

At the DLC, the day after the Iowa caucus was a joyous one.  At a pizza party celebration, Bruce Reed and Will Marshall were giddy with excitement.  So giddy in fact, a partygoer informed us, “they engaged in the dorkiest high-five ever, and an effort toward a chest bump.  It was sad.”  Snips from pages 142, 143, 145

I could say no harm done, but that would not be true.   The harm was in Al From’s arrogance,  and in the attempted “chest bump” of Marshall and Reed.  They did not win, they lost.  A lot of harm was done to the new enthusiasts in the party in 04. The goal of taking back this party from those “dorks” is well worth it.   It is worth reading this book with an open mind and not judging so quickly.  

You had to hear the song again, or part of it to get your head cleared?   I will give my age away, but my grandkids won’t care.   I not only had one song stuck in my brain, but I had another as well.  

The first one was Uh Oh I’m Falling in Love Again.    It was sung by Jimmie Rogers late 50s or early 60s.   The second one was one of his as well….on the top ten charts forever it seemed.  It was called Honeycomb.  

Not this Jimmie Rogers.

This Jimmie Rogers, who sort of disappeared in the 60s.

I remember driving back to college with friends and listening to his songs.  He sang an Australian ballad called Waltzing Matilda.   He sang Ring-A-Ling-A-Lario and Child Of Clay.

Every single one of his songs was so clear-voiced, easy,  calm.  It was real music, sort of folksy and sort of pop.   Then he just sort of disappeared.  I remember something about his getting head injuries during a traffic stop.    It was in the 60s, which is so long ago it is hard to find out more about what happened to him.  

I feel better because I got a chance to listen to two of his albums today at Amazon on their preview section.  I ordered two CDs.  I had forgotten how beautifully he did the Rod McKuen song called Today.   (Today while the roses still cling to the vine….)  and a song called Windmills of Your Mind.  

Some of the previews are here at this link.
Music of Jimmie Rogers

I remember there was something about a highway trooper stopping him on the freeway or something.   And blows on the head.  To those of us who adored his music, something like that did not seem compatible with him at all.    Whatever happened, the world lost a great musician then.   He had a quality that others lacked, a voice that rang clear, and and easy rhythm.    We who grew up in the 50s and 60s had a lot changes in our music.  Jimmie Rogers was like a bridge between the rough edges of Elvis and the quieter folk singers.  

So I feel better having found a way to hear those songs.  It was a nice day of remembering.  

I have been estranged from a family member for a few years.  Actually several of them.  I guess there is a turning point for everyone.   The two I am most estranged from are a brother and an uncle, both career military, both officers, both college educated.

Both totally supportive of Bush and his agenda until lately.  I got a note in my Christmas card from one which said if they had hurt me they were sorry.  Then another called to drop by and talk things over.  I said yes, if you can respect me for being a Democrat. So we had a sort of nice visit.  

I found out that this brilliant man and his family did not even watch news, were just learning of the events going on as other radio came into this area.  

We talked but nothing definite.  Today the one who sent the note in the Christmas card sent me an email with the subject line Crow for Lunch:

“I never thought I’d be saying this, but more and more I have come to regret voting for our current president (although I would probably also regret voting for any of the other candidates available at the time).  I have contacted both of my senators and my congressman and strongly voiced my disagreement with the latest idiotic move by the White House (the east coast ports operations) urging them to do whatever they can to bring the port management under United States company control.

…..Just thought you might want to know that I can eat crow now and then.”

Maybe we are on our way to some family healing.  This is why I have heartbreak at seeing so many say the Democratic Party is not relevant anymore.  I say these diehard former Republicans really have nowhere else to go.