Sunday, July 24, 2011

Online headline: "Chicago's Park Hyatt turns on heat lamps on picketing unionized employees" -- First, I thought I'd found my hotel of choice should I ever return to Chicago, but, then the Hotel apologized for doing so.
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What is the main difference between potus Clinton and Emperor O'Bozo? Clinton is a liar; Emperor O'Bozo is a manipulative liar. This past week, Emperor O'Bozo issued an op-ed piece saying that Bill O'Reilly agreed with him that any 'deal' on the debt ceiling needed to have tax increases. Bill O'Reilly responded in a manner that gave too much respect for the office that Emperor O'Bozo deserves. O'Reilly 'denied' his support of new taxes, but almost apologized for O'Bozo possibly thinking he'd said something he had misinterpreted. O'Reilly should have just stood up and yelled, "YOU LIE!".'
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Campus Crusade for Christ has changed its name. It decided to drop "Christ" from its name, and become just "Cru". Why? 'Cause the current 'leaders' of Campus Crusade for Christ felt some could be turned off because Christ was in the name. Maybe a better name for it would be "The organization of Doubting Thomases". Anyway, it won't be on my annual Christmas Card list of charities.
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L-E headline/story: "After poor AYP report, Muscogee County School District plans to ways to improve test scores * Ann Robison, principal of Hannan Elementary Magnet Academy, agrees. She said her students performed at the same level as last year, when they met AYP. This year, they did not. * “They just keep raising the bar,” she said." -- And it's right 'they' should! If the goal is to get every student qualified for a Hope Scholarship, 'the bar' MUST be raised early in student education, and pushed higher every year.
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Related item: "James Walker, a member of the Muscogee County School Board, thinks one way to improve scores might be to increase the observation of teachers in the classroom." * “We want to make sure that they are doing things the right way,” he said. “We need to do more mentoring of principals and teachers.” -- Oh, we already have too many MCSD employees compared to other systems (and compared to our own system of 20 years ago - we had 32,000 student & 5,000 employess in 1990, and 32,000 students and 6,200 employees last year), and board member Walker can only come up with adding more unnecessary employees to the payroll?
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From the L-E's "Council Agenda - Purchases": "In-service training workshop services for community school program (annual contract) – It is requested that council authorize the execution of a contract with Kennesaw State University (Kennesaw) to provide various required in-service training workshops for Parks and Recreation Community Schools Program personnel." -- Does CSU not offer the same service?????????
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From above: "Emergency purchase of air conditioning system at Tillis Gymnasium -- It is requested that council approve payment to Energy Savers of Georgia (Columbus), in the amount of $46,170, for the emergency purchase of an air conditioning system for Tillis Gymnasium." -- Huh? Seems to me that if it is an 'emergency', only a unit would qualify as an emergency. A system replacement should be processed normally and competitively bid.
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From WRBL report: "Opelika didn't consider 3rd minority council ward * Under the proposed ward map, wards 1 and 2 would retain their black majorities, while wards 3, 4 and 5 would continue to have white majorities." -- What has happened to Dr M.L. King;s 'dream' that people be judged on their character and not the color of their skin? Intentionally drawing wards/districts along color lines is modern day segregationism; it's like a return visit to the 19th Century when our Native Americans were relegated to 'reservations' (segregated districting).
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Under the chaos of the CRCT scores, it's ironic, no, comic, that Susan Andrews gives Mayor Mother Teresa Obamalinson a grade of "A" for a midterm grade. Now is that an "A" from the grading evaluation of the past, or an "A" based on current CRCT equivalencies?
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L-E story: "MACON — Law officers in central Georgia are training by opening fire on a robot that zigs and zags like an outlaw — and even shoots back at them. " -- 3 questions: How much? Who provided the funds? and Why?
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From the City Attorney's Agenda: "Second readings — Property at 5256 Armour Road is proposed for rezoning from NC (Neighborhood Commercial)/ LMI (Light Manufacturing Industrial) to GC (General Commercial) zoning district. (Gibson) (Councilor C.E. “Red” McDaniel). The proposed use is for a tattoo, piercing studio and dentist office." -- What kinda dental work...diamond implants?
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L-E headline: "Leaders seek agreement to calm fears of stock plunge " -- More Emperor O'Bozo 'scare tactics'. The 'market' being so aware of the situation would be making decisions to sell before the news, not after it. It's pretty much already built into the market.
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L-E headline/story: " It’s time to improve educational opportunities for all * If Britt David and Columbus High are such runaway successes, then why haven’t the academic programs been rolled out to other schools? " -- A 'big AMEN", brother Kieta. It's about time the L-E awakens from its normally hypnotic trance. School vouchers will be the quickest way to attain better public schools, and Principals being held accountable for their schools' progress (with ability to hire and fire teachers at the Principal's discretion) will determine the viability.
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L-E's "Quotable" : “Negotiations are a euphemism for capitulation if the shadow of power is not cast across the bargaining table.” - George Schultz Former U.S. secretary of state (1920- ) -- Hopefully, John Boehner has Schultz for a mentor.
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L-E editorial headline/content: "Where does whole school system get remedial classes? * People who insist that schools need to get back to educational basics and away from what they consider social engineering, are often the same ones who hold schools responsible for improving a community’s parenting skills. * None of which comes close to explaining or excusing a report like this. Public schools everywhere deal with underfunding, poverty and family dysfunction." -- The problem is not actually with the parents. Like our government, school officials are TRYING to take over being the parents. Busing takes the parents out of being responsible for getting their children to schools, and year round feeding programs absolve parents from being responsible for feeding their children. Then , these children grow up to be parents and the cycle continues.
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Additional comment: Bottom line is that no collapse of this sort happen in one school year. There needs to be an extensive audit/investigation of previous years' scoring to see if any scandal has gone unreported. Not too many yearts ago, the Principal at Rigdon Road School was championed because of her school's remarkable testing scores. Then, all of a sudden, she resigns, and there were quiet mumblings of maybe there was something askew with those scores, but nothing was done about it. The proof in the pudding is that if the scores she was credited with for achieving were real, the consequent years should have reflected that good foundation. That didn't happen.
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The main problem in the school system is that so many small problems have been bundled up into a 'ball of string' type holding pattern that no one knows how to unravel it to get to the core reasons. Time is now to literally "start over" from scratch. Make the MCSD Board and Superintendent draw up a new business plan, and then make all teachers/administrators/employees job descriptions be result focused, and then make all existing teachers/administrators/employees re-apply for a position within the MCSD system.
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Have you noticed that Emperor O'Bozo has been hesitant to throw out the word "investment" as a code word for taxes recently? Probably because "his investment" of our tax dollars in Chrysler have been recently acknowledged to be losing $1.3 billion dollars. Also of note, the Union portion of the ownership in FIASCO (Chrysler-Fiat) will not have to write off any of that loss.
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