So, the latest Ann Arbor Public Schools spending of taxpayer money is a campaign to ask for taxpayer money. The flyers came in the mail. One  implores us to vote on May 6th to give this dysfunctional administration more money to waste.

The other talks about “exceptional Accomplishments.” In the blurb about “Accessible Schools,” it says, “At Huron and Pioneer accessibility improvements were made to the curb ramps, sidewalks, parking areas and the routes of travel to and from both schools.” Of course, it leaves out the phrase, “under court order.” If it hadn’t been for the hard work of an Ann Arbor civil rights law firm,  the ADA would have been ignored. The AAPS was dragged kicking and screaming into doing the right thing.

After the AAPS gets so-called security cameras installed at Pioneer (because they can, because the community lets them), perhaps they should move on to terahertz cameras. Read about them here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7287135.stm

It just keeps coming.

George Fornero left quite a legacy to this town. And everyone on the board helped him do it. And almost everyone in the community let him do it.

Ann Arbor News 2/6/2008, Schools Face $6 Million shortfall

Can this be happening in hip Ann Arbor? Surveillance cameras on kids at Pioneer High School? Sure it can because the AAPS administration is clueless. Let’s not talk about the financial, ecological and demographic fiasco that is the new high school and the concocted lies and painted smiles that backed it up.

But let’s do talk about how the administration can actually think it’s okay, in this day and age, in a town that was once fairly progressive, to set up Big Brother cameras to watch over kids in high schools. Student Safety is the local politics version of National Security: the excuse to remove privacy from your life.

Besides, the community is clueless. Cameras were put in Huron quite a while back.

Besies, the district is “getting a good deal” (only about $80,000). When the same contractor who did up Huron, the district had some equipment left over. Instead of having the contractor buy it back, it’s now the explanation of why we’re getting such a good deal.

Clueless. And just plain bad.

Recently while checking out at the grocery store, the cashier began a nearly sub-vocal, somehow laid-back diatribe about how one shouldn’t vote for a person simply because they’re black or a woman. Hmm. So that’s what this guy, and all the people he is representative of, think. A nice example of how folks lie to themselves to be able to vote against the thing that scares them but feel they can’t, in polite company, air. With all the important issues hitting this society over the head with a baseball bat, he chooses to explain away to himself and a stranger his multi-sided bigotry. Aside: Alluding so subtly to what I assumed were this guy’s political leanings, I replied that people shouldn’t vote for someone simply because they are complete and utter idiot either. Not sure he got the reference.

So, will Americans vote for a black man or a white woman first? Or a white religious man? No surprise if it’s the white religious man. After all they voted for the afore-mentioned idiot. Twice. And in large numbers. But if Americans, with their tradition of prejudices, surprise us by electing either of the first two and if there is any way to separate the personal from the historical and look at the winner as icon, which of those two will they let have power first?

So, Stephen King told a reporter that someone in the Bush family, e.g., Jenna, should be waterboarded so she could tell the president [Ed: lower case intentional] whether or not waterboarding constituted “torture.”

That’s just plain silly. If you asked George if his daughter could be waterboarded, he would answer, “No need. She already knows how. She took lessons on a beach in Maui.”

It seems, in retrospect, we were lambs to the slaughter: all of us who gathered in the theater I was in last night to watch Lions for Lambs by Robert Redford. It’s been over 10 years since I had a violent urge to walk out of a movie, but this one gave me that urge. I always try my best to give a film another few minutes to redeem itself, just another few. It’ll pull it out somehow. And having gone with a couple of other people, there was extra inertia not to bail. I wish I had, I wasted 90 minutes of my life. The only moment reaching 3 on a scale of 1 to 10 was a part of the scene in which Meryl Streep talks to her boss.

However, about 15 minutes in, it was clear there was nothing going to save this one. Confused, preachy and smarmy. And trying so hard to be relevant and clever and smart and failing, failing, failing. The government lied. The media fell down on its job. We can’t trust the government on any new “strategy”. We can’t trust the media since it keeps bringing us Britney news. We get all this. And we get that the rest of us are complacent, unconcerned with doing something about it all. But, OMG, is this the best Hollywood can do? Intellectual doggerel.

I understand that Americans are dumber and shallower than I could ever imagine. Perhaps doggerel is the only thing that Americans understand (they did re-elect Bush and Cheney after all), but this can’t be expected to convince Americans to get involved.

We are doomed.

So, Rudy Giuliani has gotten the kiss of death, an endorsement from Pat Robertson who overlooked Rudy’s stance on abortion. Good to know that Pat is not a one-issue voter. He’s also thrown the baby Jesus out with the bathwater. Remember him agreeing with Jerry Falwell when he said that the abortionists, among others, helped bring 911 on the US? (see below) Remember who was mayor during that time?

Let me get this straight: Pat is not only saying that Giuliani, who by virtue of being pro-choice, helped bring God’s wrath down on the very city he was mayor of, but is also saying that he approves of him. Doesn’t that, in Pat’s own eyes, make him accessory after the fact to the the murder of 3000 Americans?

JERRY FALWELL: The ACLU’s got to take a lot of blame for this.

PAT ROBERTSON: Well, yes.

JERRY FALWELL: And, I know that I’ll hear from them for this. But, throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way–all of them who have tried to secularize America–I point the finger in their face and say “you helped this happen.”

PAT ROBERTSON: Well, I totally concur, and the problem is we have adopted that agenda at the highest levels of our government. And so we’re responsible as a free society for what the top people do. And, the top people, of course, is the court system.

Color me disappointed. I’ve usually liked what I’ve read of Andrew Sullivan’s blog. But I followed this link:

http://www.beliefnet.com/story/209/story_20904_1.html

a back and forth between Andrew Sullivan and Sam Harris, author of The End of Reason.

and after reading the entire exchange (I can’t believe I read the whole thing…), I will in the future have to try very hard to keep Sullivan’s words separate from his blind Catholicism and demonstrated inability or unwillingness to confront Harris’ questions and points.

Admittedly, I start in Harris’ camp when it comes to religion, and while we’re at it, I basically agree with his position on the danger of religious “moderates”. But for someone as intelligent and articulate as Sullivan to step fully, and it seems unknowingly, into every last bear-trap of irrational argument in trying to explain why reason doesn’t hold; why various positions along a spectrum of irrationality are implausible, save his; why all religions’ views, each of which denies the others, all of which are as unjustifiable as his, save his, are wrong, is unfathomable.

There are other manifestations of the unfathomable in there and it’s an interesting read if you have the time.

I know that Mr. Sullivan writes well and writes good things but, as I read them and agree with nearly all of them, I’ll be shaking my head.

The Guardian, October 22, tells of a report about oil running out by 2030 and the several nasty problems that will lead to.

And just yesterday, I heard a report on NPR’s Marketplace, very upbeat, about the amazing strides being made to genetically engineer algae to manufacture biodiesel, gasoline, jet fuel and such. The ideas mentioned included keeping Pentagon costs down (they said a $1/barrel increase leads to an annual increase of $120 million in the Pentagon budget…), avoiding the tradeoff between ethanol and food production. An idea not explicitly mentioned was oil independence. Wonderful.

But the thing that was not at all mentioned was that just as Mother Nature is giving us a deadline for fossil fuel consumption to help us avoid a more drastic Dead-line of global warming (2030 is a bit late, but nevermind), we’re busy devising ways of getting around that too. Cool. Ain’t nothin’ gonna get in our way.

So, looks like Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has won the election in the first round. Seems most are saying that this means a continuation of the current political and economic situation in Argentina. A cousin of mine, L, who I talked to last week, was afraid that Cristina would win and that things would continue or get worse. From what I’ve experienced during my visits since 2001, I see a slow but steady general improvement for the majority of poor and lower middle-class.

Though even for middle class folk, things are not great, I think she is not as badly off as many, many people in Argentina, She told me that her son, M, who according to her knows more about this sort of thing, predicts a collapse in 2008 or 2009.

Argentina is interesting in that everyone there complains about the current state of affairs, the corruption, the dog-eat-dog nature of day to day living, that everyone is working an angle. Just consider the lyrics of the famous Tango Cambalache. The basic philosophy is since everyone else is doing it, you better get good at doing it yourself. Only way to make your way in the world. So, if things are so bad, why vote for the same? I know too little about Argentine politics, but I suppose other choices may not be so great, the devil you know versus the devil you don’t, all that. Actually, that happens in the US too, no? With the illusion of choice we have in the US in all realms of life, from the supermarket aisles to our politicians, we “get to” choose between slightly left of center and slightly right of center. (Of course, there are periods in history, like Viet Nam and the current Bush regime, where things are ever so slightly more polarized, but considering the spectrum of all possibilities, its a small range). I digress.

We’ll see if M is right. Though Argentina can and will surprise, I’d be surprised.

Just saw this.

Bert Krages’ pamphlet on “The Photographer’s Right.

Very useful. Helpful when trying to document the corporate and government absurdities (and worse) of life.