Put aside partisan politics. Translation: Do it my way now!

This preznit is the eternal campaigner. But he is robbing the country blind and leaving it unprotected. His organizations are ineffective. His friends plunder the treasury.

He had a great line in his speech tonight about proving the pessimists wrong. I heard a wonderful program on optimism and pessimism several years ago on "The Infinite Mind." It's on National Public Radio and is often led by doctors from the National Institute of Health. I've found that I land in the pessimistic camp often. That seems to put me in the minority. I listened ruefully about the optimists, how they won elections, how they were better liked. The whole program glowed about optimists. The pessimists were losers. Near the end of the program, the worm turned. In a survey of leaders who had been optimistic and leaders who had been pessimistic, someone asked THE question, which was "Who turned out to be correct in their thinking, the O's or the P's? There was no beating around the bush. The answer was clear and unassailable. The pessimists, despised, rejected, turned out of office, and considered losers, were right in almost every case. While we like optimism better, the optimists are usually wrong.

You know I have been wondering for years about the rise of educated workforces overseas. How long could we keep jobs in the United States? Our standard of living has been high. Our unions have negotiated a fair portion of the profits of industry for our workers. But in today's international markets, American companies increasingly have made an end run around unions by closing American plants and opening plants in no minimum wage economies. The bottom line of these companies has grown to the advantage of equity owners, but American workers are losing their jobs by the hundreds of thousands.

This has led to the dissolution of American dreams like health care, pension plans, and a living wage. The government is supporting companies who default on contributions to pension plans, and businesses are transferring health care costs to employees. We have not yet seen across the board decline in wages, but is that on the horizon? Passing along health care costs is in fact a decline in wages. Eliminating pension plans is a decline in wages. Is there any doubt that the American standard of living is under assault and may in fact be declining? The American dream realized by many, may be increasingly at a distance for workers in the future.

As China rises as an economic power are American workers the ones who will suffer?

Okay, I've been swamped. We went down to GMEA in Savannah last weekend.

Doesn't it seem to you that if the country is having a difficult time with oil costs that the oil companies should be making little or no money? Instead they make record profits for any company, ever. Is there something fishy going on? Windfall profits?

If you don't watch "The Medium", it is cool. The story lines are hard to figure.

I can't watch the lying preznit any more. His administration is a sham, rotten to the core. The Contract with America of the Republicans in 1994 has been totally corrupted. Smaller government? Ethical government? Rather, rape and pillage the country.

You know I have a really good job to offer to people and I can't get a qualified person interested. Had about 10 turn downs so far. Now people that I don't want for the job. They are interested. I'm due for a break here. It seems that it is always safer to stay where you are than to try something new. Even if you think the something new is great.

The Davidson Fine Arts School in Augusta has one of the finest high school mixed choruses in America. Top 5 I'd say.

Some things that I like.

Kids that come through for you and do what they are supposed to do. I'll have 26 of 27 who made it through the second audition for all-state chorus. They did the work mostly on their own, though we made ourselves available to help. One was totally unprepared and I've checked on him several times to have him tell me he was doing fine on it. Twenty six spectacular musical soldiers.

I love hot showers. Aren't they the best on a cold morning. I like flowers of most kinds. I bought five primroses the other day in five different colors. I've heard of primroses, but had no idea what they actually were. They look to be kin to african violets, so they are probably no relation. Any how, I repotted them in bigger pots and they are thriving this week in hot pink, white, burgundy, YELLOW, and violet.

We love our new home. The sun room, which we call the beach house with its ten-foot, A line ceiling and paladium window, ceramic tile floor and peppermint couch and chairs and the boston rocker, the walls covered with ships and beach pictures, and its antique phone, is a great hangout. I love the crazy wurlitzer clock with the neon light in it that was my Christmas present. I don't spend a lot of time in the foyer, but it is beautiful too. Two stories high, twelve feet wide and 35 feet deep. Now that's a foyer. It's not quite round or we could call it the rotunda.

Our bedroom with its gas logs has proved to be a haven. We close the door and make the room toasty on cold evenings, cut the heat down in the rest of the place and ride out the night in our "apartment" within the house.

I like walking to the pharmacy or the grocery store, or to work in the mornings.

I love my women's choir. They sing so consistently and so well, not like high schoolers at all. We have a concert tonight for a group that is not our usual audience. Boy will they be surprised.

I like grown children. They are getting more entertaining all the time. When they are teens you wonder if they will make it to adulthood without someone killing them, but if they do make it, they are nice to know and to eavesdrop on. Their friends can be nice to know too.

I like it when students are doing well, long after they have left you behind. They seldom think of you and in actuality they have made their way without much help from me. Nevertheless I know that I played some role, perhaps formative or inspirational, but a role, in helping them become someone significant. I have made some singers. People hear them and think they are "talented." Actually I taught them to make those sounds, or rather, I insisted that they make those sounds. Emily, Talia, Kaitlyn, Bryan, Diana, Pedro and so many others are singing so well. I saw Kaitlyn on TV this week, singing opera. There is a great delight too in seeing their faces when they make that change in their vocal technique that produces their first really beautiful sound. One girl once said . . . "was that me?" Margaret made a breakthrough this week. Her face showed such surprise. It makes me laugh.

I like birds on my feeder. Not enough of them here at the new place. But there were goldfinches in the spring and they are spectacular.

Tivo is cool. If you want to watch television there is always something stored up and waiting for you. We watched the "Best of Antiques Road Show" the other night. "I found this in a house I bought with some trash and debris. I almost put it out for garbage but decided to save it for the frame." "That's good," said the appraiser, "because this old needlework is the finest example of its kind from the mid 1800's that we have ever seen. You have a museum quality textile worth $50,000. Congratulations." The guy responded. "I nearly put it in the trash." I like antiques roadshow. The ugly green vase worth 20,000 is also cool. I like resting more than I used too. Rest is good.

I like good movies. Each one is like a doctoral dissertation for about 25 people: the producers, directors, some of the primary actors, the cinematographer, the set designers and dressers, the costume department. In a great show those people earn a graduate degree every time. There are a lot of smart people in the world.

I am mystified by walking home and seeing the full moon hanging over the road. I don't understand the solar system with gigantic hunks of rock, gas, and ice, whirling round and round a huge ball of flame. How can gravity be so powerful that 2 billion miles away from the sun stuff is out there circling? Yes, I've been watching Nova again on Tivo.

From CNN:

BLITZER: Well, on that specific point, Steve Forbes, I'll put up on the screen a comment that Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the House of Representatives, made on January 6. She said, "Middle class Americans' paychecks are flat or dropping, while health care costs continue to rise and home heating costs are skyrocketing. And yet the Bush administration is cheerleading policies that help the wealthy while doing nothing to address these fundamental problems." You want to respond to Nancy Pelosi and Gene Sperling?

FORBES: Well, the fact of the matter is, incomes are rising in America, which is why for several years retail sales have beaten expectations across the board. And the fact of the matter is, the economy has created millions of new jobs and the tax cuts are the prime reason for it. Before the tax cuts of May 2003, this economy was stalled after the bubble burst in 2000-2001. The tax cuts got the economy moving, just as they always do when you have rate cuts across the board, which makes it passing strange that the Democrats would hesitate about extending the tax cuts. They worked.

BLITZER: Well, and I want to press Gene Sperling on that.

SPERLING: Yeah. Please press me.

BLITZER: Four million new jobs in the last few years. That's better than zero new jobs, right?

SPERLING: That's exactly right. If you want to look at this economy as a football team that was 0-16 and say have they gone to 4- 12, yes. But, Wolf, if you put stuff in any form of historical perspective, I'm sorry, the president's cheerleaders can't respond. Here are the facts.

When you look--Labor Department statistics--average hourly wages and weekly wages are down in the last four years, down in the last two years. If you look at the census, poverty has gone up each year, even in an economic recovery. And the job growth, let's take that, for example. That is what they're bragging about, 4.6 million over the last 2 1/2 years.

What was the average under Bill Clinton over a 2 1/2-year period? About 6 1/2 million. So they're bragging about their tax cuts having job growth, 2 million less over a period than we had in the Clinton era, wages down, poverty up. If that's what they want to say the tax cuts caused, I'll give them all the credit.

Thank you very much George Will. George, a right-wing columnist faces the music today. He quotes Jeff Flake, Arizona Republican saying, [brackets are mine]:

"With the number and dollar value of earmarks [pork spending], more than quadrupling over the past decade, pork-barrel spending has become an unfortunate hallmark of our Republican majority."

The Republicans are the party of small government when they are the opposition, but they are for four times as much government as the democrats when they are the majority. I'm glad people are beginning to see that. Wasn't the budget balanced when Mr. Clinton was president?

It appears we killed more innocents in Pakistan yesterday. I guess we had "bad intelligence." How can we make it up to those people?

Let me know if you read this whole darn post and I’ll give you a dollar when I see you.

John Stossel’s program on ABC’s 20/20 entitled ““Stupid in America” a look at the failings of the U.S. educational system” made me want to puke. It was a hard-line Republican campaign pseudo-documentary about how terrible American public schools are. He advocated school vouchers, no teacher job security, “charter schools,” and merit pay for teachers. The journalism was wickedly one sided in presenting the Republican Party platform word for word. He even had talking points that were repeated over and over. Public schools are monopolies. [false] Monopolies are bad. [not necessarily true] Therefore, public schools are bad. He indicated that teacher unions are a major reason that schools are bad. He said that bad teachers and immoral teachers cannot be fired. He characterized teachers in many negative ways, having people use all the following descriptors of them: lazy, uncaring, and sexual perverts. He indicated that they work 6 hour, 40 minute days and that they demand and receive fantastic raises (15 % he said for New York teachers this year). He said that charter school programs were very successful and that students are excelling in charter schools. He said that starting a charter school in a neighborhood helps the other public schools in the area because of the competition.

As far as I could tell, everything in this program was a lie. Without doing any research, I had reasonably good information to refute every point he tried to make. John Stossel is a puppet of the right wing. The entire program was a Republican campaign commercial. I watched the revolting thing to the end in order to see what my enemies were saying.

Let’s be clear. American schools are the envy of the world. Everyone who can come here, does so. Every rich person in other countries hopes to have their children educated in America. We do not lag behind in math and science. Technology and creativity are the province of Americans, yesterday, today, and tomorrow. You can twist numbers to say what you want and so the naysayers of public education do that. But saying doesn’t make it so. Sorry folks but we are not going to hell in a hand basket. Neither the Japanese nor the Swedes have little robots on Mars. Not today anyway and not in the foreseeable future. Not to say there aren’t schools in miserable areas of the country that are failing. There are failing schools in blighted areas and this is an economic, not an educational problem.

Public Schools are not monopolies. If there weren't a million different school districts and no private schools they would be, but there are lots of districts and lots of private schools. Like our national defense, our public school system is everyone’s responsibility. Even if you don’t have children, it benefits you so much to have educated children in your community that we all pay taxes (well maybe not the uber rich), to educate America’s children.

John Stossel's hour-long tirade about public schools was put on to help out his Republican friends who already have their kids in private school. The Republicans want to go to private schools, in almost every case, for the following reasons. (1) They don’t want their kids in schools with blacks, Hispanics, or poor and uncultured children, or (2) they want religious indoctrination in their children’s schools. In a nutshell they want resegregation and dogma. No matter what they say, there are no other reasons. And they want taxpayers to fund their segregated religious schools, just like they did before Brown vs. the Board of Education. Sorry boys, it is just unconstitutional. Even if you ram it through the legislature and pervert the courts so they allow it, it is still wrong.

Stossel says teachers can’t be fired. The truth is teachers don’t have tenure and they get fired left and right. Anyone who tells you that they can’t be fired is lying. There may be a few places where it is annoyingly difficult to fire a teacher, but that is the exception, not the rule. Worse than that, their pay is so low and their working conditions so difficult that the average teacher quits work in less than 5 years. The good thing about that for the school system is that they system pays no retirement benefits for the average teacher. They never get vested in the system.

And let’s talk about their pension for a minute. Did you know that teachers can’t draw their retirement AND draw social security? It’s considered double dipping on a government pension, so all they get is their pension, even if like me, they have worked at other jobs most of their lives and paid in a gozillion dollars into social security. Sorry teachers, your pension means you just lose your social security and in most cases you lose survivor benefits as well (if your spouse is drawing social security, you can’t get benefits when they die.)

Stossel made a big deal about New York teachers being able to retire at 55. “55?” he said in a loud quizzical tone? I don’t know much about NYC so I’ll talk about Georgia, the 9^th largest state in population, 18^th best in pay, a couple of thousand below the national average. (Proposed salary increases this year, an election year raise, will not bring us back up to the national average). You can retire after 30 years service in GA. That could be around age 53 or 54! You would get 60 % of your salary in retirement, let’s see, 46 thousand average salary, times .6, equals 27,600 dollars. Have a nice retirement! I hope you invested your big salary well throughout your career because you are going to need some help. There are always those Wal-mart greeter jobs.

Stossel blasts South Carolina for being dead last in SAT scores. Hey they tied with Georgia, so I felt especially insulted by the way Stossel made faces and harangued the SC state school superintendent. Never mind that she was a lady, he was rude to her. I’ll bet that John Stossel knows the following information, but he was just acting like an ass, because he IS an ass.

The center for public education (www.nsba.org) says [italics and underlines are mine]:

“The SAT, like the ACT, is not an indicator, especially by itself, of overall student achievement. It does not measure a student's knowledge of his or her school district's curriculum. The student population taking the test is not random or complete, it is a self-selected group of students who may be college-bound.

“The College Board, which administers the SAT, warns against using SAT scores to rank or make judgments about states, school districts or individual schools. “Aggregate results of (students’) performance on these tests usually do not reflect the educational attainment of all students in a school, district, or state. Useful comparisons of students' performance are possible only if all students take the same test.”

Furthermore:

““Average SAT scores are not appropriate for state comparisons because the percentage of SAT takers varies widely among states,” they note. For example, the average math score for Iowa topped 600 this year, almost 100 points higher than the average math score for New York. But, New York had a participation rate of 87 percent, while just 5 percent of Iowa's high school graduates took the SAT (it is an ACT-heavy state). Comparing the two states is an apples to oranges exercise.”

Stossel ridiculed the South Carolina superintendent for saying that things are going well in South Carolina. He practically laughed in her face, with a “nanny nanny poo poo, you’re last, yoo hoo!” attitude. I was surprised he didn’t point his fingers and dance. The SC executive remained professional in her demeanor and talked of improvements in her state. Stossel felt that no one cared if they improved. Being last was his big issue. By the way, South Carolina's average score of 993, was 35 points below the average for all students. Wouldn’t a cogent question here be, “Did more students than average for all the states take the SAT in SC?” You’ll find the answer to that question is “yes.” “Yes” for Georgia too.

As for fantastic salary increases and 6-hour workdays. . .Georgia teachers’ salary increases during the Perdue administration have lost ground against the cost of living. Oh well. And the workday. . . on average it is about 9 hours, though many work 10 and at times more. We can leave at 4. But at 4 our parking lot is full of cars. It has thinned out by 6. You realize of course that there is work to take home for most teachers.

I loved that Stossel characterized charter schools by showing students in uniforms silently taking a test. He characterized public schools by showing two students in gang attire running in a crowded hallway, one shouting profanity. That seems awfully unfair of Mr. Stossel. Statistics are actually very mixed for charter schools. Some have done well. Others have folded with dismal records. Why didn’t Mr. Stossel say this? The thing that astonishes me about charter schools is that they allow uncertified teachers to teach, pay them less money than regular schools, and the schools make a profit for investors. Should we be making money off student education? Do you smell a rat? Then my favorite part of charter schools. What do they do when a student is a discipline problem? Why they just let her/him go. Goodbye discipline problem. Where does the student go? Back to the local public school. See how charter schools help? They take the good kids and leave the tough cases for me to work with. Oh yes, they have reduced the money I had to work with that student. Oh well.

Public school problems are economic problems. Pay is low, thus there are teacher shortages. Large classes are poorly performing classes. Job security and working conditions are not the best, thus there is poor retention of experienced teachers. Blighted economic areas with underprivileged children have blighted schools. No one wants to work there. It makes you cry.

Ca ching. You earned a dollar.

Steven Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsberg were appointed to the Supreme Court by President Clinton back in 1993 and 1994. Many Republicans have been bringing up those nominations, saying that Republicans did not oppose those nominations, even though they appointees were liberal and Ginsberg was even an ACLU lawyer. What they do not say is that President Clinton conferred with the Republicans in congress and asked them to produce of list of "liberal judges" that they would find "acceptable." He wanted to know the names of judges that would go through confirmation without a threat of filibuster. The list came back with the names Steven Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsberg at the top of the list. President Clinton appointed those two people, right off the Republicans list.

During this administration the Democrats in congress have were not asked to make any such list of acceptable candidates. Democratic leaders did come to the White House and ask one thing about the appointment of a supreme court justice. They said that likely any nomination would be approved except that of Samuel Alito. That name alone would be cause to filibuster. Appoint anyone else in the United States. Then the preznit appointed Samuel Alito.

It is undiluted arrogance and dictator or emperor-like behavior. The preznit deserves any bad thing that comes out of it. The Democrats are criminally weak if they do not bring the government to a halt over this.

I'm more aware of my mortality as I get older. Uncle Bunny died last night. He was in his mid-eighties and we heard at Christmas that he was not doing well, suffering from Parkinson's disease. But he is at rest now.

My students sang well today on their first attempt at Von Ewiger Liebe (Brahms arr. Raines). We are doing it in three classes. We spent some time in preparing the chromaticism, making notes before trying it, but they handled it well and got through about half the piece successfully.

I think about trying to run again. My feet are so much better than they were a few years back that I might be able to jog around a bit. Hmmm. It riases my blood pressure to walk uphill these days.

The preznit must be happy to have Alito hearings to take the heat off him for Iraq, gas prices, spying on Americans, torturing captives, no WMD's, FEMA, Abramoff conviction, DeLay indictments, widening scandals, and on and on. I can't remember this much angst about the government since Watergate. I guess Iran Contra was close to this intense. Has the congress ever sunk so low? Or the president been so dictatorial. I think that democracy seems close to failing, being overtaken by a totalitarian executive.

I walked to work today.

Okay I'm always stealing other people's stuff, but this is too good not to use. My little statement about the bank robbers was on the right track but of course someone sent in a vent that was way better.

Doesn't all the congressmen giving back the money remind you of the crackheads throwing their drugs out the window when the cops are chasing them?

That guy/girl has a way with words. Delay is stepping down. Like it is his idea. They should put him under the jail for the stuff he has done related to the Marianas islands.

It's cold cold cold here, but we are going to waffle house in the morning. It may not be too late for you to go to Kohl's for the clearance sales on Sunday afternoon! Bargins galore. We bought Christmas presents for next year. I wonder if we'll be able to find them next December?

We recycled the tree today. More tomorrow.

So when they catch the bank robber, he should just say, "Okay you caught me. But don't worry about it. I'll just give the money back and everything will be okay. Now everything is back to normal and I'll just go on my way."

The thunder and lightning of a January 2nd storm has got me up at 6:30 on this holiday. Lots of football today. The Christmas tree and decorations must come down. The tasks of my choir are looming up in front of me--trip to NYC, the choral workshop, hiring a new staff member for next year, GMEA convention, All-State auditions and then All-State itself, spring musical, spring concerts, awards, college auditions and reference letters. Throw in the everyday 5 choir rehearsals, auditions for 200 students and that about raps it up. No pressure. Oh yes, and to send or not to send audition tapes for men and women.

Some photos of what has been going on lately.

You let these things slip by you, one at a time. You don't count them and they add up after awhile. Since it's New Year's Day you probably think I'm talking about years going by, but I'm not. But here's the list.

What the current administration is failing to do:
Give us the truth about reasons for going to war.
Do their homework about Iraq, the people, the culture, what to expect.
They aren't keeping up with the money. Billions are missing. oops.
They aren't prosecuting war profiteering (treason).
They didn't provide troops with armor.
They aren't providing needed Veterans benefits.
They lied about Jessica Lynch's capture.
They lied about how Pat Tillman died.
They lied about who placed the "Mission Accomplished" banner.
They said terrorist attacks were at an all time low when they were at an all time high.
They aren't counting civilian casualties in Iraq (Johns Hopkins says now 100,000) resulting from operation Iraqi Freedom.
They aren't listening to military commanders who have asked for more troops.
They have lied saying that the commanders haven't asked for more troops.
They have planned ways to torture people, all the way up to Rumsfeld.
They have lied about torturing people.
Rumsfeld hasn't even signed letters of condolence to the families of those killed in action. He uses an "auto pen."
Rumsfeld lied about not signing the letters.
They send out the right wing media to say that anyone critical of the administration is a terrorist sympathizer.

Why has the Republican congress signed off on all this? We have to turn them out. We need checks and balances. We need investigations. We aren't going to get them.

Apologies to Al Franken for borrowing his list. Page 287-88 of The Truth with Jokes.