A little of this, a little of that.

I've been having some trouble with my post office. I thought it was done, after finally visiting the PO, putting in writing, as suggested by the postmaster, that my mail could go in my tiny little mailbox, but that packages needed to be left at my door. The box is so small, I've had magazines, books, and other things ruined while trying to get them out of the box. Or when they shoved them in the box. I told all of this to someone at the national level, and to my postmaster. 

A couple of weeks went by just fine. Packages on my door step (It's upstairs, one flight), mail in my box. And then, again, packages in my box. So, I put a note on the delivery side of my mailbox (one of six, each about 5 X 5 inches) that packages were not to be put into the mailbox, but delivered to my door. The next day, scrawled on the back of one of my incoming mail, was this note:

"We put packages were (sic) it's best for our time. We are on a schedull (sic) so if putting in mailbox is better that't what we have to do."

Hmmm. So, my postal service is at the convenience of the delivery person. News to me. Especially since the postmaster of my local post office and told me that the note I gave him would solve the problem. 

So, once again I call the USPS, since I can't call the postoffice. (Well, I can call, but no one ever, ever answers the phone there, not between 7:30 am and 5:30 pm). I get some guy there who says he can't help me. That it's up to the postmaster of my local PO to handle it. And remember, the PO is understaffed!.

You know, I commiserate with this guy. The PO is being killed by the jackasses in Congress (but then, who isn't?). I know theyre understaffed. I know it's hard when money is tight. I still don't think that's an excuse for rude behavior and failure to do their job. So, once again, I'm off to my semi-local local postoffice, to ask, again, for them to stop smashing my packages into a mailbox designed to hold only letters and such.

Another high point this week was watching Marco Rubio explain how his "knowing about abortion" meant he could deny climate change. Right. Or Karl Rove, explaining how he didn't say Hilary Clinton had brain damage when he questioned her mental fitness for office because she was wearing "those glasses that are only for people with traumatic brain injury". Right. (I loved Jon Stewart's take on it, Brainghazi!) And nearly every Republican mocking the #Bring back our girls poster held by Michelle Obama. 

My father was a Goldwater republican. Conservative really meant something to him. But today? He'd be deeply ashamed of Republicans, and angry at what they are doing to the country he so loved. Thank God he didn't live to see the mockery they've made of this.

The seas are rising, the poor are villified, women are fighting to be treated as equal, again, to have charge of our bodies, our lives, our work, again. Money is the key to political success, and our Supreme Court seems to favor oligarchies, not democracies. 

Our Congress seems to have lost its way. Or been hijacked by idiots, at least. And yet, the public, which so strongly disapproves of Congress, keeps voting the idiots back into office. I'm lucky, I guess, to be living in a progressive state, California. My senate and house reps usually fight the good fight. Not always, but usually. But, you know, where you live in these United States should not be the determining factor in what government does for you and to you. The federal government should level the playing field, not put up roadblocks and blow up dams to make it harder. 

I retired this year from teaching, after 25 years. I was tired of it by then. Sure the kids were less well-mannered and more needy, but what tired me out so much was the  policies and programs foisted on teachers by every Tom, Dick, and Koch around. In the 23 years I was at the same school, I had 7 principals. A couple of whom were truly awful (one was terminated in April after we revolted and she committed a crime, one was returned to the classroom at the end of his third year), but most of them truly wanted to be good. And were handicapped by the central office, who was handicapped by the state and federal government. And so, each year, more and more days were spent out of the classroom, being "taught" a new trick to success. Our kids spend 180 days in class. Tell me how having a substitute for 15 to 20 of those days leads to success. I retired because I realized, even with the Common Core, which I liked, it was still, forever, going to be a circus of unending new programs, new policies. And one-day seminars were never going to be enough, but were too much time to be missing from my classroom. 

I am 61 years old, and I have been a liberal (only now I guess I'm called a progressive instead, since the Repugnacans killed "liberal") I have been active throughout my life ~ participating in protests, donating to causes and candidates (not just local ones, but progressives where ever they ran for office), signing petitions, calling representatives, phonebanking during elections. I don't regret a single moment of it, but really, after more than 42 years of it, I have to ask, why wasn't it enough? Why is the country worse today than it was when I was a kid? Sure, we've made serious progress on civil rights for blacks, Hispanics, and gays. But women haven't made much progress at all. We're fighting the same abortion fight I fought in my 20s. Corruption in government is higher than ever, and apparently doesn't even disqualify you from serving a member of Congress. (When did become okay to put criminals in office?) The "good ole boy" network is running strong all across the country, welfare daddys are raising armies of thugs with guns to protect their public mooching. 

What in the hell happened to us?

What is wrong with America?

I've been reading the news for quite a long time, and each day it seems as if another crazy Republican says something incredibly stupid and/or offensive. And Fox News(? Is it really news when they apply an extreme bias to how it's told?) can't seem to stop cheering for people who are at best dangerous lunatics.

What else can you call a person who threatens to shoot Federal employees for doing their job, because he doesn't want to pay the Fed what he owes them? I mean, seriously, he spouts absolute drivel, is engaging in armed insurrection, and is totally insane. And Fox News and Republican reps and senators hold this a*&hole in high regard? (Oh, wait, once Bundy began to sound wackyracist, the praise for him began a slow decline, but his armed insurrection continues to be praised.

If Bundy doesn't want to pay the government for the land he is using, fine. Let him find some other rancher who would let him graze for free. (Only you can't, you know. Private lands cost money when you want to eat off their land.) But when you've already spent 20 years freeloading off public lands, you can't seriously believe you have a right to defy the government over collecting the fees you agreed to pay 20 years ago.  And public land doesn't belong to Bundy. It belongs to me, and you, and you, and you. We pay through our taxes to help support the public lands. We pay fees that help support the public lands when we use them.  We all pay to hire people to protect the land, and the people using them, from all sorts of dangers. Those public lands are held in trust for our children, their children, and their children's children. Not for Bundy.

And frankly, I am appalled by the media apparently coddling this traitor. The Constitution does not include the right to violently overthrow the duly elected government. No where. Yet, here is a man who, after using the government for his entire life, has decided to round up a bunch of highly unstable, trigger-happy, delusional bully boys to defend his right to mooch off the public. And those bully boys are now putting up checkpoints on public roads, and demanding proof you have a right to be there? Oh, and let's not forget their first plan. To put their wives out in front, so that if shooting began, seeing those women die would be the most effective propaganda for these idiots. What in God's name is going on that all of America sits here twiddling its thumbs while a blatant insurrection is happening? 

I do agree that the embattled BLM agents did the right thing, and backed away from this traitorous action. I don't agree, however, that the best policy is to do nothing. Freeze all their assets. Make sure they don't have the funds to buy more guns and ammunition. Call out the National Guard and blockade the Bundy ranch. Arrest anyone trying to enter the ranch on charges of treason, for participating in Bundy's attempt to overthrow the legitimate government. ( Just listen to his demented demands to confiscate the guns of federal agent and deliver those guns to him. To "free" all the parks by demolishing their Service buildings and entrance gates. To basically set himself up as the new government.)

Unfortunately for Bundy, he is a citizen of these United States, and not the state in which he resides. Citizenship is a nation's designation, not a state's. The fact that he doesn't "believe" in the federal government speaks to his insanity, and not to his defense. He has no legitimate defense. He's just a whiney, despicable man, with delusions of grandeur. And in armed rebellion against the United States of America. All those pundits and broadcasters who "admire" his stand against our government are supporting a violent overthrow of our government. They should really think twice about what they are saying, and what they are supporting. Giving aid to the enemy isn't smart. Or legal.

Gun Insanity

It has been 243 days since Newtown. In that time, 7,199 people have been killed by gunshot. That isn’t just the number who have been shot, it is the number that have been shot and killed. It works out to 30 (29.6) people per day. Per day! At that rate, my school could be wiped out in just under 10 days. And the NRA sees nothing alarming about that. They, in fact, want to make more guns available, make more “concealed carry” laws, make it mandatory for every place to allow guns in their place of business. The NRA, as I have said before, is a domestic terrorist group.

I started reading the NYTimes Joe Nocera blog, with his Gun Tracker column months ago. I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of gun-involved crimes listed there.  By how widespread they were ~ there are very few states that haven't appeared in that column. And surprised to see how few of these incidents were either drugs or gangs related. And horrified by the number of children, 14 and under, who were shot and/or killed, often by another child, often under the noses of adults. (and positively incensed that all too often, the parents who left a loaded gun available to their children are not legally held responsible. Yes, I know that the loss of a child is a horrible event, but that isn't any kind of excuse for not holding that negligent parent responsible.)

More than 7,000 people have died since last December, by gun. Thousands more have been wounded, had their lives destroyed by a bullit.  Handguns have no place in the home. I don't want to take rifles and shotguns away from farmers and ranchers, or hunters. I want handgun ownership severely limited. I don't care what the NRA says (we do not negociate with terrorists, remember?)

If guns were banned, there would be no drive-by shootings. Children wouldn't be able to pick up a gun carelessly left in the open and shoot themselves, their siblings, or their friends. Women would be safer from spousal abuse, and some men, too. (Women are the majority of who gets abused, and so shot, but some men are on the receiving end of that as well.)

If America was to begin teaching common sense about guns, and not this hysterical, "my constitutional right" nonsense, eventually, anyone being shot and killed would be a rare event.  As it should be.

I'm Still Alive and still just as mad about what's going on

It's been months since I posted anything on this blog. Not because there was nothing to post about. I've just been really, really busy, with work and health issues. I'm just now recovering from a really serious pneumonia/sepsis/hypoxemia/anemia bout that very nearly killed me. (Don't wait so long to see a doctor!)

At the end of May, I came across this incredibly stupid comment:

State Senator Glenn Grothman defended Scott Walker's repeal of pay equity protections by explaining to reporters that women aren't paid the same as men for the same work because "money is more important to men." Of course it is. I'm a single woman, self-supporting. Of course, I don't care about money that much. Just that it means the difference between being self-supporting and being on the dole.

There seems to be an entire generation of old white men who feel free to spout the ugliest, most misogynistic nonsense about women whenever they feel like it. Betty Friedan never got the same freedom when she was spouting nonsense about men. She was constantly attacked, viciously attacked, both by men and by the women who will never understand that women are not inherently inferior to men.

So we have Congressional hearings on contraception, to which no women are allowed. Not as members of the committee, not as witnesses to the committee. We have the Texas governor saying that he just can't understand why that woman who fillibustered his pet abortion bill didn't learn from her own experience as a teenage unmarried mother. The governor who crows about executing more people than any other state, who insists that every life is important. Yeah, right.

We have old (and middle-aged, and even some young) white men, in state houses around the country, who are trying their best to take away as many rights from women as they can sneak past their constituents.

And the really sad thing about this is, it is almost universally Republican men who say these things. Sad, because the demise of a a formerly great party is sad. Really sad, because the Republican Party of the past was a much better party than it has devolved into. (Also, sad that a spokesman for Republicans could seriously say that the Party would be more appealing if they just didn't say offensive things. Duh.)

My father was a life-long Republican. I'm glad he didn't live long enough to see what that party has become. He would be a Democrat, today. Possibly an independent. Just definitely not a Republican. I don't know anyone, these days, who identifies as Republican, or who is thinking of joining the Republican Party.

And here's the thing that I really, really just don't get. The Republicans (and all thier subgroups) insist on smaller government, insist that there are too many regulations, too many rules, too much intrusion into the personal lives of our citizens. And it is the Republicans, who nearly every day, extend themselves to regulate a woman's body. Regulations on men are bad, but are good for women? How antiquated is that mindset? How seriously harmful is that mindset? Do they really think that way? Or do they just not think at all, simply spew out their bile and their hatred of women without considering it at all? And what about Republican women? Do they agree? Do they indulge in such self-lothing that they can merrily go along with depriving women of their basic rights, without batting an eye? Or are they so brainwashed by the men in their lives that they don't dare speak up?

 

Republicans need a wake up call. They are speeding into extinction, and there doesn't seem to be anyone awake at the wheel to stop them, or turn them aside. Maybe that's for the best, but it's still sad.

I don't really have much to say. I'm having trouble thinking up a coherent and polite way to express the anger and outrage I feel over the way this Congress is acting, the way the Republican party is acting, even the way my president is acting.

I mean, seriously, Paul Ryan's *new* budget? What's new in that outline to destroy the social safety net and French kiss the wealthy? I guess the Republican House members don't remember that Ryan's budget, along with Ryan, were soundly defeated in the last election. You know, that one we had back in November, 2012? In fact, the House republicans seem to have completely forgotten that election. And they seem to be heavily into ignoring all the public polling ~ at least all the polling not designed and paid for by them ~ that shows they are clearly out of step with the rest of the country.

And Harry Reid, bless his heart, just can't believe the Repubs would fillibuster anyone, since he believed them back when he could have gotten rid of the fillibuster, but the Repubs promised to behave nicely and not use it. Of course we should believe them, right? And Harry, again, deciding not to try to pass an assault weapons ban, because he wanted only the one he thought could pass. Really?

And Obama? Even though trashing Social Security isn't in the Ryan budget, Obama is promising to put it on the chopping block anyway. Huh? I'm not a mathematical genius, but I do understand that the chained CPI he's offering hurts retirees, a lot. (I am not a retiree, btw, but I will be in the next 5 or 6 years.) It would be lovely if just once, Obama's rhetoric and Obama's actions matched.

That's it. All I can say right now without ranting and spewing ugly language and thoughts.

On Sandy Hook

 

 

I was devastated to learn Friday that yet another massacre had happened, this time at an elementary school in Connecticut. I teach in an elementary school in SoCal, so this tragedy had a special intensity for me.

 

 

Of course, my district instituted new policies today. All the gates are locked shortly after school begins, now. Classroom doors must be locked at all times (but then our principal told us we could leave our doors open, as long as they were locked. ??). To get back on campus from lunch, we now have to open a gate ourselves, instead of using one door in the cafeteria. (You can't unlock, or lock, our padlocked gates without using two hands, so lunches have to be put on the ground to unlock it, picked up and brought inside to be put down again, to lock the gate up.)

 

 

While I am horrified at what happened at Sandy Hook, I don't care much for the knee-jerk reaction of my district. Schools in CA are much more open. My school has large windows on one side of every classroom, which reach from the ceiling to about 3 feet above ground. One row of our classrooms face a street, separated by a chainlink fence about 10 feet away. (Anybody could walk up to that fence and start shooting, and those classrooms would be under fire.)

 

These fences aren't tall enough to prevent a determined person from simply jumping over them to gain access. My school backs up to a housing project, and my classroom is in the row that exposes one wall to that project. (The windows on that side of my room are up high on the wall.) There is no part of my classroom that could be used to shelter kids if a crazed gunman was wandering the halls in search of innocent victims to kill. It's just a big square, no corners, nothing to hide behind or under.  I've never felt unsafe in my classroom, nor have any other teachers at my school, and until today, neither did my students.

 

America is a little like my district. After a tragedy like this, at the same time we're sifting through the gunman's past so we can thoroghly blame him, people start spouting off about what we can do to keep our kids safe. So now we hear that schools should have armed police officers on campus. Some states are suggesting that the staff of the schools should be armed.  Great. Let's put up chainlink fences all around the school, and hire armed guards to patrol the grounds.

 

When did schools become prisons? When did I sign up for guard duty? Parents have to check in to the office, sign a document, and wear a badge? At least they can see their "inmate" without a glass wall between them.

 

The solution to the increasingly violent world we live in isn't in imprisoning people for their own protection. It's in stepped-up mental health programs. It's in much tighter regulations on guns. It's in having the states supply the feds with their lists of mentally unstable people, so they can update the database that gun merchants use in background checks. It's in mandating that every single gun sold has to have had its purchaser undergo a background check, and a mandatory waiting period of at least 48 hours. It's in the absolute and complete ban on assault weapons and semi-automatic guns with bulk loaders.  It's in all of us, every American, finally realizing that we don't have an absolute right to own a gun, but we do have an absolute right to life and liberty.

 

It's in the NRA, which I consider a terrorist organization, backing off of its ridiculous stand on guns. More guns in more hands don't make us a polite society. It makes us a fearful society. A society that no longer feels safe enough to voice an unpopular opinion, no longer safe to disagree with someone. That's not polite. That's oppression.

 

And for that tired old saw that NRA members spout ~ Guns don't kill people, people do ~ well, think about this. Just a few hours before this young man, Lanza, burst into a school and killed 20 first graders and 6 adult staff members, another young man, Chinese, burst into a school in China and attacked 22 students. Not one of those students died, however. Their attacker didn't have a gun. He had a knife.

 



I am just so tired of the business world bashing unions. The latest, Hostess, is blaming its union for its decision to file bankruptcy and close down.  What Hostess failed to say, however, is that even as it was readying the bankruptcy filing, it boosted the CEO and other executives salaries an amazing amount.

This is from Nation Of Change, at the following address:

http://www.nationofchange.org/hostess-blames-union-bankruptcy-after-tripling-ceo-s-pay-1353255416

"At the time, creditors warned that the decision signaled an attempt to “sidestep” bankruptcy rules, potentially as a means for trying to keep the executive at a failing company. The Confectionery, Tobacco Workers & Grain Millers International Union pointed this out in their written reaction to the news that the business is closing:

BCTGM members are well aware that as the company was preparing to file for bankruptcy earlier this year, the then CEO of Hostess was awarded a 300 percent raise (from approximately $750,000 to $2,550,000) and at least nine other top executives of the company received massive pay raises. One such executive received a pay increase from $500,000 to $900,000 and another received one taking his salary from $375,000 to $656,256."

I'm sorry, but crying poverty while spending millions on a handful of executives just doesn't fly.

Unions are responsible for some of the best improvements in a worker's life. A 40-hour week? Thank a union. Sick time? Thank a union. Bloated CEO salaries? Thank (or not) a corporation. Lavish salries for top executives? Thank (or not) a corporation.

Without a union, you get places like Walmart. There, horrible working conditions have led to worker strikes, including the ones planned for next Friday, Black Friday. No healthcare, very small wages, working hours kept deliberately low, and shifting from week to week, working conditions unsafe at any time. And how has Walmart responded? Retaliation for any worker speaking out. The Walmart family (The Waltons) are multibillionaires. And it's the low-paid workers who have made them so wealthy. Walmart is such a bully that the suppliers to them adopt the same attitude towards their workers, just to meet Walmart's demands.

An attack on unions is an attack on the middle class. As union membership dwindles, so do wages and benefits. Companies place unreasonable demands on their employees, and the employees have no right to say no that doesn't include them losing their jobs.

I am not saying that unions are 100% good. They aren't. And yes, some unions have built themselves into such a power that they can bargain for, and receive, incredible benefits and wages for their workers. But the companies play a part in that, as well. They acquiesce. Strikes that don't find popular support fail. 

And really, how can a company that pays its executives exhorbitant salaries, even when they don't do a good job, say to its workers, who do a great job, that they can't pay them  a living wage? Don't blame the unions for bankruptcies. Blame corporate greed.