A Classical Education: Back to the Future

From the New York Times online Opinionator column:

Martha Nussbaum, philosopher, classicist, ethicist and law professor, starts from the same place. She critiques the current emphasis on “science and technology” and the “applied skills suited to profit making” and she argues that the “humanistic aspects of science and social science — the imaginative and creative aspect, and the aspect of rigorous critical thought — are . . . losing ground” as the humanities and the arts “are being cut away” and dismissed as “useless frills” in the context of an overriding imperative “to stay competitive in the global market.” The result, she complains, is that “abilities crucial to the health of any democracy” are being lost, especially the ability to “think critically,” the ability, that is, “to probe, to evaluate evidence, to write papers with well-structured arguments, and to analyze the arguments presented to them in other texts.”

And

Diane Ravitch, noted historian and theorist of education, writes as someone who once strongly supported the promise and goals of No Child Left Behind but underwent a de-conversion in 2007: “Where once I had been hopeful, even enthusiastic, about the potential benefits of testing, accountability, choice, and markets, I now found myself experiencing profound doubts about these same ideas.”

Her conclusions, backed up by exhaustive research and an encyclopedic knowledge both of the literature and of situations on the ground, are devastating. The mantra of choice produced a “do your own thing” proliferation of educational schemes, “each with its own curriculum, and methods, each with its own private management, all competing for . . . public dollars” rather than laboring to discover “better ways of educating hard-to-educate students.” The emphasis on testing produced students who could “master test taking methods, but not the subject itself,” with the consequence that the progress claimed on the basis of test scores was an “illusion”: “The scores had gone up, but the students were not better educated.” A faith in markets produced gamesmanship, entrepreneurial maneuvering and outright cheating, very little reflection on “what children should know” and very little thought about the nature of the curriculum.

More here.

Well, that's what I've been saying.

No, seriously. In so many words. My ongoing assertion that the schools are, contrary to conventional wisdom, far more about indoctrinating children into a culture of obedience and authority than they are about learning is pretty much what the education critics cited in the above linked essay are saying. I mean, they don't frame it in quite the same way, don't use words like "authority" or "obedience," but it amounts to the same thing: the underlying philosophy guiding educational decisions made in America runs counter to the goal of creating a deliberative, contemplative, and well informed population suitable for democracy.

Indeed, this notion of educational philosophy, that is, what it is we're trying to accomplish with education and how we do it, is rarely part of public discourse on the topic. Everybody agrees that education is important somehow, but rarely do people talk about what that means exactly. People vaguely mention careers, or being economically competitive as a nation, or understanding the need to vote or to be engaged in various civic responsibilities, but don't really discuss the best ways to achieve that, or even what it looks like in finished form. In other words, to most Americans, "education" is defined by the institutional experience they had as children and teenagers: critiquing that experience is, by and large, off the table. "Education" is what we grew up with, and, therefore, all discussion is in terms of good old fashioned American schooling, and variations thereof. Hence, the emphasis on test scores, discipline, attendance, and graduation rates.

It is almost as though participating in "education" is an end in itself. It is no wonder that most of the national conversation about "education" is in terms of "what worked for me when I was a kid" and how to replicate that down home experience for today's children.

Frankly, I don't think "education" worked too well for anybody when they were kids. We've got a pretty stupid, docile, self-involved population, one that was utterly duped into supporting a pointless war by clumsy post 9/11 White House lies that were easily disproven by any and all skeptical minds. Most people don't vote or participate in the political process. We've got a de-unionized work force, easily pushed around, with maxed out credit cards. We've lost any semblance of civil society and community--what happens to the people across the street has nothing to do with me because they're the people across the street. In short, we have one majorly fucked up country. No, "education" hasn't served us too well at all. Getting back to the good old days, "what worked for me," is just not a good idea--it did not work for you.

The solution proposed in the above linked essay, a return to the classical model of education, is one I can support, as well as several other alternative approaches. I'm not so particularly concerned with how we get there as much as I am with the outcome: the creation of students who have intellectual skills which can be applied to multiple aspects of life in our cosmopolitan society, who are well suited to understanding, analyzing, and critiquing the many arguments and persuasions continually rammed down our throats in this era of public relations and mass media, who are, in short, good and forward-looking citizens for a democracy. If you've got a nation full of people like that, everything else, economic competition, civic engagement, career, should take care of itself. That is, such an education makes people who are imminently capable of mastering any subject or field they choose, all the while maintaining a layman's expertise on everything else.

This is totally do-able. All it takes is the will. But until we start having a meaningful conversation on education in this country, one that is not guided by people's expectations based on their own shoddy educational experiences, it won't happen.

Nonetheless, I'm hopeful.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

THE STAR TREK CALENDAR PICTURE OF THE MONTH IS...



...Mr. Scott!

Two thoughts:

1. Since revisiting Star Trek for my Wednesday episode reviews, I've become much more of a Scotty fan that I ever thought I would be. He really is cool.

2. I've recently learned via Facebook stalking that my buddy Shane, who often comments here, has the exact same Star Trek calendar that I have this year, which is also cool.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

CONFESSION
Bush's Glib Waterboarding Admission Sparks Outrage

From Dan Froomkin's blog:

George W. Bush's casual acknowledgment Wednesday that he had Khalid Sheikh Mohammed waterboarded -- and would do it again -- has horrified some former military and intelligence officials who argue that the former president doesn't seem to understand the gravity of what he is admitting.

Waterboarding, a form of controlled drowning, is "unequivocably torture", said retired Brigadier General David R. Irvine, a former strategic intelligence officer who taught prisoner of war interrogation and military law for 18 years.

"As a nation, we have historically prosecuted it as such, going back to the time of the Spanish-American War," Irvine said. "Moreover, it cannot be demonstrated that any use of waterboarding by U.S. personnel in recent years has saved a single American life."

More here.

If I have to explain to you why this is so significant, you'll never understand.

Suffice it to say that torture is deeply immoral, worse than murder, and any nation that willingly engages in torture as official policy is evil. Consequently, America is evil. Both Cheney and Bush have now publicly admitted to ordering the torture of prisoners of war--this was never, as they claimed back in 2004 when the Abu Ghraib scandal first hit the headlines, a few bad apples; this was always United States policy as dictated by the White House, ordered and directed from the very top.

Our former President and Vice President must be put on trial immediately for crimes against humanity. Anything less constitutes endorsement of their heinous acts. But it won't happen because America has lost its moral compass. President Obama's failure to act has made him every bit as responsible, and therefore every bit as evil, as his predecessors.

I mourn for my country.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

John Boehner Demands Paul McCartney Apologize For Bush Jab

From the Huffington Post news wire:

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) is demanding that Paul McCartney apologize for expressing his gratitude that America again has a president "who knows what a library is," Human Events' Connie Hair reports.

"Like millions of other Americans, I have always had a good impression of Paul McCartney and thought of him as a classy guy, but I was surprised and disappointed by the lack of grace and respect he displayed at the White House," Boehner said in a statement.

More here.

Silly Boehner, and that's pronounced "BAYnor," rather than "BONer," although in my mind I always think "BONer," for obvious reasons: Sir Paul was, after all, a member of the Beatles. You know, the "All You Need Is Love" band, hippies from the 1960s, who did drugs, engaged in free love, and opposed the Vietnam war. You know, the guy who got a half credit for writing the song "Give Peace a Chance," even though his buddy John wrote it all by himself. I do indeed believe all these things help make McCartney "a classy guy," but I'm not sure what the fascist Boner is talking about here. From his psychotic right-wing erectile perspective, being a dirty fucking hippie Beatle ought to make Paul the opposite of "classy."

I guess this is along the lines of how Christians call Jesus "the prince of peace" while forgetting about the numerous acts of genocide in which His Father took part back in the Old Testament. Good old Orwellian doublethink. Calling it an insult to reference President Bush's infamous lack of intellectual curiosity, and penchant for reading only works such as "The Pet Goat" and the Bible, which for many years the far right celebrated and treated as a down home virtue, is probably also an act of doublethink. Stupid Republican.

As for me, Sir Paul's remark actually raises him a notch or two in my esteem, not an easy thing to do at this point because I already practically worship him and continue to follow his career. I know that John ended up being the political guy when the Beatles embarked upon their solo careers back in the early 70s, writing songs such as "Working Class Hero" and "Power to the People," but it's nice to know that Paul's low key left wing politics continues to find manifestation here and there.

Here's another nicely articulated manifestation of Paul's politics, "Peace in the Neighborhood" from 1992's very underrated album Off the Ground. It's simple, to the point, and very pleasant, much better than Paul's clumsy and hastily written post 9/11 ode to America, "Freedom," which was, as Paul says, "hijacked" by "militaristic" war mongers. Be sure to check out the groovy guitar soloing toward the end:



$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING

Reine and Dash



Be sure to check out Modulator's Friday Ark for more cat blogging pics!

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

BP Disaster Caused by a Nasty Mix of Government Impotence and Corporate Rule

From AlterNet, my favorite Texas liberal Jim Hightower meditates on the on the story behind the story:

As the ruinous gulf oil blowout spreads onto land, over wildlife, across the ocean floor and into people's lives, it raises a fundamental question for all of us Americans: Who the hell's in charge here? What we're witnessing is not merely a human and environmental horror, but also an appalling deterioration in our nation's governance. Just as we saw in Wall Street's devastating economic disaster and in Massey Energy's murderous explosion inside its Upper Big Branch coal mine, the nastiness in the gulf is baring an ugly truth that We the People must finally face: We are living under de facto corporate rule that has rendered our government impotent.

Thirty years of laissez-faire, ideological nonsense (pushed upon us with a vengeance in the past decade) has transformed government into a subsidiary of corporate power. Wall Street, Massey, BP and its partners — all were allowed to become their own "regulators" and officially encouraged to put their short-term profit interests over the public interest.

And

Obama should personally take charge —-cancel all of his social and political events, convene an emergency response team of the best scientific minds in the world, announce a clear plan of clean-up actions, install all relevant Cabinet officials in a Gulf Coast command center to direct the actions, make daily reports on progress to the public, fire a mess of failed regulators and go to Congress with sweeping legislation to replace America's oil dependency with a crash program of conservation and renewable energy sources.

More here.

Sure, we vote. Some of us, anyway. And the news appears to be continually delivering important information that we need to know to make important decisions about how our nation functions. But how much control do average ordinary citizens really have over the affairs of our nation? How much do we really know about what's going on?

If you're honest with yourself, the answers to those questions are, in all probability, "none" and "virtually nothing." That is, average rank-and-file Americans neither control the government that ostensibly acts on their behalf, nor do they have any idea what that government is actually doing, ostensibly on their behalf. In some ways, that's probably just as well: it is impossible for any one citizen to have the time to devote to governance or collecting enough information in order to govern effectively. But that's why the US is a republic, which uses elected representatives to govern, instead of a true democracy, where citizens literally double as legislators.

Indeed, the affairs of our nation are near infinite, and greatly sophisticated. It is a no-brainer that we have a professional class of citizens who devote their lives and careers to managing the country. Supposedly, through the ritual of election, this class of citizens enacts the people's will, responding to what the people appear to be saying they want, but also trying to rise above the rhetoric in order to figure out what the people need. Not quite democracy, but probably as close to it as we can get in such an enormous and complicated world.

It has been evident for some years now that this republican system has become ineffective, if not downright malevolent. If you're conservative, you believe that government has become an entity unto itself, enriching political players at the expense of the citizenry; if you're liberal, and I mean to the left of the Democratic mainstream, you believe that government has become hijacked by numerous concentrations of vast wealth acting in concert, enriching political players and the already rich at the expense of the citizenry. From either perspective, conservative or liberal, it is clear that our system of representation is no longer concerned with the will of the people, in spite of the electoral theater in which we participate every other year.

I'm sure you can guess what my personal perspective is: corporations have used their money and access to do an end run around the electoral system, seizing control of the machinery of government for their own benefit. And if you're paying any attention at all, the evidence for this is simply falling off the trees.

Or spewing up from the Gulf of Mexico, as the case may be.

This Jim Hightower essay comes the closest I've ever seen to a manifesto that I can support. I mean, it's not really a manifesto in the nineteenth century sense, but it does lay out some basic principles for making sense of current events, while making some simple proscriptions for what government officials ought to be doing. And it really is pretty simple: corporations run the country; get them out and do what you're supposed to be doing, ruling on behalf of the people, putting their interests above all other concerns.

Go read the essay. Hightower is always as amusing as he is poignant.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Comedy Central Mocks Jesus...Again

From the Houston Chronicle reader blog A Pentecostal Perspective:

Just months after bowing to Muslim concerns and heavily censoring an episode mocking Mohammed, Comedy Central is back on track in its efforts to offend religious people. Christians are the target this time as Comedy Central once again mocks Jesus Christ in its proposed new series, JC.

The animated series focuses around Jesus who wishes to escape the shadow of his "powerful but apathetic" father and live a normal life in New York City. Comedy Central is no stranger to mocking Jesus and offending Christians, with South Park being the offender-in-chief.

More here, with a really funny, or deeply offensive, montage of anti-Jesus South Park moments.

I don't even know where to start.

Comedy Central didn't censor the South Park episode "201" because they were worried about offending Muslims; they did it because of the death threats. It seems to me that if fundamentalist Christians like the one who penned the above excerpted blog post were really serious about keeping South Park from mocking their god, they'd break out the pipe bombs and gasoline. Fortunately, we haven't gotten to that point yet, but this kind of insipid religious whining deserves a response.

When Christians tell me, a non-believer, that I am so worthless and evil that I am deserving of nothing short of eternal torture, I am deeply offended. I mean, I don't believe in Hell, so it's not like I take it as a threat or anything, but the implicit elitist notion that I'm scum because I'm not part of the tribe pisses me off. In short, Christians are telling me that they're better than I am, even though they "love" me, whatever that's supposed to mean.

But from their perspective, it's perfectly fine to offend non-Christians in this way, desirable, even. All they're doing is trying to save us from damnation. Fine, whatever, fuck off. This is America. They have a perfect right to tell me I'm scum. I'm fine with that because I think they're all fools. Being insulted by a fool isn't much to write home about.

Why, then, do so many fundamentalists get so touchy when people insult Jesus? I mean, we're going to Hell, anyway, so why does it matter what we say? Look, I'm not suggesting that non-believers ought to offend believers just for fun, although it is fun. I'm saying that the iconography and symbolism of Christianity loom over Western civilization so intensely that they are fair game for any and all writers, artists, and thinkers. That is, Jesus, as an idea or symbol, cannot be claimed solely by Christians. As a cultural concept, he belongs to everybody, whether you believe in him or not. That means that, from time to time, the Lord will necessarily be portrayed in a very unflattering light, and fundamentalists are just going to have to deal with it.

This is, after all, the land of the free.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Deadly Israeli Raid Draws Condemnation

From the New York Times:

Israel faced intense international condemnation and growing domestic questions on Monday after a raid by naval commandos that killed nine people, many of them Turks, on an aid flotilla bound for Gaza.

Turkey, Israel’s most important friend in the Muslim world, recalled its ambassador and canceled planned military exercises with Israel as the countries’ already tense relations soured even further. The United Nations Security Council met in emergency session over the attack, which occurred in international waters north of Gaza, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel was flying home after canceling a Tuesday meeting with President Obama.

With street protests erupting around the world, Mr. Netanyahu defended the Israeli military’s actions, saying the commandos, enforcing what Israel says is a legal blockade, were set upon by passengers on the Turkish ship they boarded and fired only in self-defense. The military released a video of the early moments of the raid to support that claim.

Israel said the violence was instigated by pro-Palestinian activists who presented themselves as humanitarians but had come ready for a fight. Organizers of the flotilla accused the Israeli forces of opening fire as soon as they landed on the deck, and released videos to support their case. Israel released video taken from one of its vessels to supports its own account of events.

More here.

Have you ever felt like the Israel/Palestine saga makes absolutely no sense?

I mean, it's been going on for some twenty years longer than I've been alive, and it shows no sign of resolution. None. It looks like the conflict will continue for decades after I'm dead, longer even, maybe centuries. Why?

There are some popular answers in the West.

One is that Jews and Arabs have been in conflict for thousands of years and the modern version is just more of the same. Of course, this isn't true. Biblical descriptions of Arab/Jewish antipathy, the whole Abraham and Ishmael thing, are ancient, and most likely not even true. Really, today's conflict exists solely because of the establishment of the modern state of Israel back in the 1940s in what was once known as Palestine: whether or not it was fair or reasonable for Zionists to create an ethnically Jewish nation where there had been none for a couple of millennia is now a moot point because Israel today is a nation state, for better or worse, but, unsurprisingly, the majority Arab population that had been living there during the period of Jewish absence objected and continues to object. So it's the existence of Israel, not religion or ancient ethnic feuding, that lies at the heart of the conflict.

Another answer is that Palestinians, and Arabs and Muslims generally, are crazy and evil. From this perspective, which dovetails very nicely with American post 9/11 anti-Muslim hysteria, there is no appeasement, no accommodation, no negotiation, no diplomacy that will please the bloodthirsty and psychotic Palestinians. Of course, this makes the Palestinians out to be comic book villain caricatures. The reality is that Palestinians are human beings, in most ways just like you and me. Some of them are, indeed, bloodthirsty and psychotic, just as some of us are. But most of them are simply trying to make a living, just like most of us.

Despite the shortcomings of these two explanations of the Israel/Palestine conflict, political discourse in the US, as well as corporate news media coverage, by and large, rely heavily on them. That's why the conflict appears to make no sense: the overall narrative in which individual events are contextualized is just plain wrong. Jews and Arabs have not been fighting for thousands of years. Palestinians are not crazy and evil.

So what's really going on?

In the end, this is what all international conflicts are about: land and resources. Long ago, Israel won the military aspect of the conflict, gaining control of all the land and resources they need. Later, they made peace with Egypt, taking away the only real threat to their existence as a nation. But they still had that persnickety Palestinian population with which to deal, and they've never figured out how to do it. They can't just kill them all. Never mind the moral implications; there's no fucking way the world would allow it, and Israelis wouldn't have the stomach for it either, what with the Holocaust and all. Nor can Israel simply drive the Palestinians out: there are already massive Palestinian refugee camps in surrounding Arab countries that have been there for decades. There's just no place for the Palestinians to go. Allowing them political power within the state of Israel is unacceptable to the people of Israel. Allowing them an actual state of their own is also politically unfeasible.

In short, given the political reality within Israel, there is no solution to the conflict. I mean, you know, no solution short of what is unthinkable to Israel, either sharing power, or actually allowing a Palestinian state with enough land and resources to be viable. Sadly, Israel appears to believe that there is a solution, very much like the one I mentioned above, forcing them out, but indirectly.

The great Israeli general and leader Moshe Dyan said this at some point in the early 70s, after it had become clear that Israel was triumphant:

We have no solution, you shall continue to live like dogs, and whoever wishes may leave, and we will see where this process leads.

And that, in a nutshell, describes official Israeli policy toward the Palestinians for the last forty years or so. Forced expulsion, in spite of the fact that there's literally no place to put the Palestinians, would greatly diplomatically harm Israel. But if the Palestinians leave of their own free will, no problem. I mean, they can't leave because there's no place to go, but Israeli foreign policy brains apparently haven't entirely thought it out, for whatever reasons. But, for better or worse, mostly worse, this is the plan. Make them live like dogs until they leave.

That's why life in the occupied territories is so brutal and harsh, with periodic raids by the Israeli military, periodic denial of resources and supplies, and daily humiliations manifest by strip searches, arbitrary imprisonment, torture, assassinations, and whatnot. That's why the Gaza strip is under military blockade. It's also why teenage Palestinian boys throw rocks at tanks; it's why Palestinian women sometimes strap bombs to themselves and blow up buses filled with Israelis.

Making the Palestinians live like dogs is the official policy of Israel. Unfortunately for Israel, it's doomed to fail, doomed to do nothing but make the Palestinians ever more desperate, ever more violent. And the Israelis, in turn, become ever more violent themselves. I've written about this cycle before in terms of our own "war on terror." It's a no win situation. Actually, it's a lose/lose situation. That the US supports Israel in this evil folly is shameful.

This vicious attack on human rights activists in international waters near Gaza, related in the article excerpted above, can only be understood in the "live like dogs" context.

Israel continually cracks down on Palestine, continually ups the pressure and violence, and has necessarily descended into a state of hardcore militancy concerning the Palestinians. The massacre may have been a dreadful mistake, or it may have been ordered from the highest levels of Israeli government. But given the Israeli mindset on how to deal with Palestine, it comes as absolutely no surprise. If you're a friend to Palestine, you're an enemy to Israel, so the gloves are off, whether it comes through official channels or not.

Just ask Rachel Corrie's parents. They know.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Hopelessness in the Workplace

From CounterPunch:

But the steep decline in worker satisfaction is traceable to more than hard work and long hours. It derives from a lack of a sense of empowerment. It’s no coincidence that the dramatic increase in dissatisfaction corresponds directly to a drop in union membership. Whether or not people realize it, belonging to a labor union provides a great deal more than the higher wages and generous benefits typically associated with union affiliation.

In addition to better wages and bennies, a labor union offers a built-in and reliable means of problem-solving. You have a bad boss? You’re tired of being harassed or held to arbitrary standards? You’re getting all the crappy assignments? A union rep can help. He can file a grievance; he can go over the boss’s head; he can go over the boss’s boss’s head; he can yell and scream with total immunity; in short, he can wage a Holy War on your behalf.

And

And even in those cases when the union rep can’t “remedy” the situation—even when, in truth, it’s the employee himself who’s contributing to the problem—having the union as a Father Confessor or shoulder to cry on is a critical safety valve, a way of blowing off steam and, hence, minimizing on-the-job stress. With a union representing you, you’re never alone.

Conversely, when you have no union, it’s every man for himself. Being stuck with a bad boss in a non-union setting means you’re at the boss’s mercy. Dr. Samuel Culbert, a UCLA psychology professor cited in the Conference Board’s finding, maintains that too many Americans work in “toxic” environments. Consider: other than quitting or internalizing the problem until he grows a tumor, what can he do? Without a union, he has no lobby, no support group, no safety net.

More here.

Yeah, I'm working in one of those toxic environments right now.

I mean, it's almost nothing compared to the rank toxicity of the public school environment where I used to work as a teacher, but definitely toxic, and it's a real drag because it doesn't have to be that way. Without going into a long diatribe, the long and short of my situation as a waiter at a corporate chain restaurant in the New Orleans area is that certain managers are extraordinarily petty, spiteful, and unreasonably punitive. Demeaning dress-downs are common, for the slightest transgression. These same managers also tend to play favorites, using different standards for workers they like, who take full advantage of the situation, which is noticed by other workers, increasing the overall level of demoralization.

For the most part, I'm treated well by management. I work hard and intelligently, and know whose asses to kiss. But it's depressing, at best, simply to be in such an environment. I stay there because the money is good, and I like the work itself, but I'm not excited to be there, which definitely affects the quality of my service.

If we had a union, we could fix this, making a better work environment, thereby increasing the restaurant's overall profitability. But like most American workers, we have no union. So the situation will remain as it is until these crazy asshole managers move on to greener pastures.

That is, unions, contrary to what has become the conventional wisdom in the US, can increase productivity, and therefore the bottom line, simply by getting management and workers all on the same page. I know, I know: union corruption, union greediness, union overreach forcing companies into bankruptcy, all these things happen from time to time. But let's not forget that whatever transgressions for which unions are responsible are nothing compared to the transgressions of business. Economics is messy. If we're willing to put up with Enron, WorldCom, subprime mortgage fraud, millions of gallons of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, and on and on, then surely we can put up with some relatively insignificant union corruption.

You know, I've never understood the free-marketers point of view on unions. Okay, I get that businesses don't want anything or anyone interfering in any way with how they make money. That part makes sense. I'm talking about how, on the one hand, they insist that it is a violation of various rights and freedoms for business to suffer any and all regulation, while, on the other, they believe it is just fine to use government to violate freedom of association as expressed in the collective bargaining that is the union's meat and potatoes. It makes no sense. If you're free to use your money to establish a business, then you must also necessarily be free to organize with other workers in order to improve the terms under which you are employed.

Markets are for goods and services, not people. That is, the entire notion of labor as a market, which is the conventional view of both economists and businessmen, where people are literally bought and sold as employees, runs counter to the very notion of freedom itself. People are not products. People are human beings. Free men. And from that perspective, unions are as American as apple pie.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

‘Top Kill’ Fails to Plug Leak; BP Readies Next Approach

From the New York Times:

In another serious setback in the effort to stem the flow of oil gushing from a well a mile beneath the Gulf of Mexico, BP engineers said Saturday that the “top kill” technique had failed and, after consultation with government officials, they had decided to move on to another strategy.

Doug Suttles, BP’s chief operating officer for exploration and production, said at a news conference that the engineers would try once again to solve the problem with a containment cap and that it could take four to seven days for the device to be in place.

“After three full days of attempting top kill, we now believe it is time to move on to the next of our options,” Mr. Suttles said.

The abandonment of the top kill technique, the most ambitious effort yet to plug the well, was the latest in a series of failures. First, BP failed in efforts to repair a blowout preventer with submarine robots. Then its initial efforts to cap the well with a containment dome failed when it became clogged with a frothy mix of frigid water and gas. Efforts to use a hose to gather escaping oil have managed to catch only a fraction of the spill.

More here.

They really have no idea what they're doing, do they?

Never mind, for the moment, anyway, that BP obviously had no pre-existing plan for dealing with such a disaster, or that the federal government, under both Bush and Obama, allowed them to proceed drilling this failed well without such a plan, which is required by law: the argument that BP ought to be in charge of the disaster response is based on the notion that BP, and not the government, is much more familiar with the science and technology of deep water drilling.

Well okay. But that doesn't in any way alter the fact that they really have no idea what they're doing. That is, the argument that puts BP in charge doesn't hold up. It's way past time for Obama to federalize this, and I'm really starting to think that the reason he doesn't has more to do with his pro-establishment deference to corporate power and authority than it does with who best understands the science.

Obama is well aware that his real bosses are not the American people.

But even from that perspective, this is totally fucked. Obama was allowed to rise to power by a corporate establishment that tapped him to clean up the mess made by the Bush administration. It was implicitly understood that part of the job was reining in some of the grosser examples of corporate power run amok, which is bad for business. But Obama isn't doing his job. This is way out of hand. And the same forces that got him into the Oval Office will just as surely kick him out if he doesn't get his shit together ASA fucking P. And then we'll have yet another psychotic demagogue Republican calling the shots.

I don't know if this country could survive another four years of that.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING

Roi



Be sure to check out Modulator's Friday Ark for more cat blogging pics!

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

House Votes to Allow Repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Law

From the New York Times:

The House voted Thursday to let the Defense Department repeal the ban on gay and bisexual people from serving openly in the military, a major step toward dismantling the 1993 law widely known as “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

And

Representative Mike Pence of Indiana, the No. 3 Republican in the House, accused Democrats of trying to use the military “to advance a liberal social agenda” and demanded that Congress “put its priorities in order.”

More here.

A few random observations:

This has been a long time in coming. I remember being shocked back in '93 when arrogant Senate Democrats went off on President Clinton for trying to lift the ban on gays in the military resulting in the fucked up compromise "don't ask; don't tell" policy, which actually increased the number of homosexual military personnel drummed out of the service.

The homophobes' reasoning back then was all that bullshit about "unit cohesion." As if the most formidable fighting force in the world was going to be creeped out by a few fairies in the ranks. Before that, it was the whole blackmail thing: Soviet spies would find out who was gay and threaten to out them if they didn't turn over vital state secrets. I suppose the new "unit cohesion" argument needed to be crafted in the early 90s because being outed wasn't quite the big deal it was back in the 1950s. Whatever. "Unit cohesion" was as bogus an argument in 1993 as it is today. The troops are not frightened of homosexuals.

Anti-gay Republicans, and like minded Democrats, talk about this as though it will turn the military on its head. "Social experiments" they call it, or a "liberal social agenda." The reality is that gays have always served in the military. It's just that they've always had to be wary of weirdos finding out and reporting them--most comrades didn't and don't care one way or the other; what soldiers really care about is if you're dependable, if you're a good soldier, gay or straight. It's only the true homophobes you've got to look out for.

In many ways, this isn't even much of a civil rights issue. I mean, sure, it's a civil rights issue, but since 9/11, the military has trounced out dozens of Arabic translators because they were gay. That's just fucking stupid, and it makes gays in the military into a national security issue. That is, in order to keep the world safe for democracy we need gays in the military.

I hope everybody realizes that the most badass fighters in the history of Western Civilization, the Spartans, were also some of the biggest fags in the history of Western Civilization. For them, homosexuality and "unit cohesion" were one and the same. I mean, literally. Now who's going to tell me that gays made the Spartan military less effective? Huh? Who?

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

STAR TREK
A Private Little War

From Wikipedia:

"A Private Little War" is a second-season episode of Star Trek: The Original Series, first broadcast February 2, 1968 and repeated on August 23, 1968. It is episode #48, production #45, with the screenplay written by Gene Roddenberry, based on a story by Jud Crucis, and directed by Marc Daniels.

Overview: The crew of the Enterprise discovers Klingon interference in the development of a formerly peaceful planet and joins them in what becomes an arms race.

More here.

Lamely executed lame story pushing a lame philosophy. But it is pretty funny.

"A Private Little War" was produced at the height of the Vietnam War: this is apparently Star Trek's endorsement of what may have been one of the worst foreign policy failures in US history. Always nice to be on the wrong side of history, I guess, but given the way things turned out for us over in Southeast Asia, it's kind of difficult to get on board with the point of view Roddenberry's pushing here.

The setting for this one is a pre-industrial planet of pacifists, a sort of analogy to the third world nations used like so many chess pieces by the United States and the Soviet Union during the 60s. The Klingons, or should I say the Soviets, are secretly arming the planet's urbanites, urging them to make war on their rural nomadic counterparts, using the promise of power to break their taboo against violence--the clandestine nature of the Klingons' activities is because both they and the Federation are treaty bound to not directly interfere with planets in this particular sector. Kirk, or should I say President Johnson, will have none of this, and finally decides, after much agonizing over the Federation's non-interference Prime Directive, that the best course of action is to emulate the Klingon approach, arming the rural nomads in order to fight their city cousins.

Ordinarily, I would greatly enjoy the politics here. But it is impossible, at this point, to forget that such diplomatic philosophy failed us utterly in the real world, killing millions by the Cold War's end. That is, as a piece of patriotic propaganda, "A Private Little War" is sad at best, and sick and twisted at worst. Anybody who knows history simply can't get behind the story.

On the other hand, the infamous Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will is engaging and interesting, in spite of, you know, all the pro-Nazi shit. "A Private Little War" had the opportunity, at least, to make for some interesting Trek. Unfortunately, it is poorly executed, in many ways as bad as "The Apple."

For starters, a creature called a mugato figures prominently for several plot points. That's all fine and dandy, of course, except for the fact that this is one of the funniest aliens in all of Star Trek, not much more than a guy in a bleached white gorilla suit with pointed horns glued onto his back, running around menacingly, screeching and growling.

Ironically, for this episode, screeching and growling isn't such bad acting. The two main guest characters, country dweller and Kirk's old friend Tyree, and his wife, the Kahn-ut-tu, or witch woman, Nona, are just awful. Tyree is as boring as dishwater, and Nona, while being one of the hotter babes of the second season, goes after it like a high school sophomore in a one act play contest. That is, she's laughably bad. And this stuff is funny. The scene where she uses her mystical knowledge to sexually enthrall her husband moves into Fantasy Island or Love Boat territory.

But Tyree and Nona aren't the only awful guest characters. The Klingon comes off like a History Channel narrator, while the leader of the villagers with whom he deals, Apella, also boring, looks like a cross between Edward James Olmos and Carlos Santana, and not in a good way.

But special scorn should be heaped on Kirk for this episode. In addition to just looking stupid for seriously embracing failed twentieth century diplomatic philosophy, Kirk is played badly. I mean, Shatner is at his least honest as an actor here, inauthenticity oozing from his pores. He's laugh-out-loud funny when poisoned by the mugato. He's as romantically awkward as ever when Nona turns her sex magic on him. And his longstanding friendship with Tyree is so fake, he might as well be a sorority girl figuring out how to get rid of the fat chick who shows up for rush. Classic bad Shatner.

Put him together with both Tyree and Nona, however, and we hit the trifecta. The healing ceremony, utterly hilarious, is just the warmup. The rape scene, seemingly drawn directly from Reefer Madness, is the main attraction. I mean, you know, it's not a bad fight, but Tyree's bloodlust is just funny. Actually, it's all funny.

On the other hand, there are a few good elements in "A Private Little War," and they deserve mention. First and foremost is the unexplained appearance of Doctor M'Benga, a member of Doctor McCoy's staff who we've never seen for what is at this point nearly two years of the show's run, apparently, or perhaps a visiting physician. Whatever. His inclusion is welcome. Especially because he's an expert in Vulcan biology. There's a nice moment reminding us that Nurse Chapel is still in love with Spock. Doctor McCoy shoots his phaser at some cave rocks, which is always fun to see, in order to warm the poisoned Kirk. Scotty's always good when he runs the bridge.

In the end, however, the good stuff is strongly overshadowed by all the bad. In short, "A Private Little War" sucks. But like I said, it is pretty funny; perhaps that's the attitude with which you should watch it.


Look at me! I'm acting!

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Klan film project puts Georgia teacher's job on line

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle

A North Georgia teacher is on administrative leave and could lose her job after she allowed four students to don mock Ku Klux Klan outfits for a final project in a high school class Thursday, administrators said.

The sight of people in Klan-like outfits upset some black students at the school and led at least one parent to complain.

And

She told The Associated Press Monday that students were covering an important and sensitive topic — but one that she might handle differently in the future.

"It was poor judgment on my part in allowing them to film at school," Ariemma said. "... That was a hard lesson learned."

The incident happened at Lumpkin County High School. Ariemma said her students spend the year viewing films and later create their own films to watch in class. She said the students brainstorm and pick topics to cover. This particular class decided to trace the history of racism in America.

Click here for the rest.

The year after I graduated, my high school produced a play called The Foreigner; years later, when I was teaching theater at another school, I helped direct a production of the same script. The play, a very funny comedy, takes place in the South, and uses, to hilarious effect, the KKK as comedic villains. So when I read the above excerpted article, I did not automatically assume that something racist was afoot--from time to time, believe it or not, there are legitimate reasons for dressing up high school students in white sheets and hoods.

And if everything related in the article is true, this is one of those rare occasions. Indeed, if I understand correctly, these students were engaged in an anti-racist film project. Film is a visual medium: if you are taking on racism as a subject, visually depicting actual racists is necessary and desirable. In concept, this teacher did nothing wrong, and I hope she isn't sacrificed on the alter of political expediency like so many copies of Huckleberry Finn.

On the other hand, we live in a culture where some white students are willing to hang nooses from trees in order to intimidate and oppress their black peers. That is, people dressed in Klan garb is an inflammatory image, which can work extraordinarily well for anti-racist artistic purposes, but, when haphazardly flung about, such an image can be extraordinarily dangerous. That's where this teacher fucked up. She should have been waaaay more careful. Shooting this scene at school, where the rest of the student body would see these Klan suits out of their filmic context, was fucking stupid.

She wasn't teaching racism. Far from it, she was teaching the reverse. But her lack of care in doing so sent out inadvertent racist messages. Slap her on the wrist for her foolishness, but for god's sake don't fire her--I mean, she was trying to do the right thing, after all.

Then cancel all regular classes school wide for about a week in order to discuss the issue. This is definitely, as the President likes to say, a "teachable moment."

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Galena Park cheating scandal brings five resignations

From the Houston Chronicle:

Two administrators and three teachers resigned Monday from Galena Park ISD after district officials found evidence of staff-led cheating on the high-stakes TAKS test.

And

The district's investigation found evidence that staff changed fifth-graders' answers on the TAKS in April and helped students correct wrong answers.

More here.

Full disclosure: both of my parents are from Galena Park, and my grandmother lived there for many years, so I know the area well. But that doesn't really have anything to do with cheating on the TAKS, or any other kind of high stakes, all-in-one-basket test.

That is, standardized testing should play an important role in assessing a student's academic progress, along with portfolios of student work, special projects, writing samples, and various other forms of evaluation. Using standardized tests as the sole means by which we determine whether a student is or is not learning, however, not only gives a woefully inadequate picture of individual academic progress, but it also creates an institutional context wherein cheating is inevitable. Students are compelled to cheat because they will not advance to the next grade, or graduate, if they fail; teachers and administrators are compelled to cheat because their performance evaluation is directly tied to student test scores: we have created a system where so much is on the line with these tests that oftentimes people must cheat.

So why do we have everything riding on these must-pass tests? Politicians and journalists like them because they provide what appears to be solid data for political fodder. It doesn't matter that education experts are in lockstep with the assertion that such data isn't really as solid as it appears to be; our political structure demands that something as intangible as knowledge and thinking be numerically quantified. So we have a flawed system of academic evaluation that necessarily sets people up for engaging in unethical behavior. The worst part is that this system is generally bad for the students themselves. That is, the politics of education is more important than education itself.

Really, that's not surprising at all, par for the course, for both society and education. What a fucked up country we have.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

ROBERT HEINLEIN'S BRILLIANT CULTURAL ANALYSIS

From a 1953 essay called "Concerning Stories Never Written" included at the end of Heinlein's short story collection Revolt in 2100:

As for the second notion, the idea that we could lose our freedom by succumbing to a wave of religious hysteria, I am sorry to say that I consider it possible. I hope that it is not probable. But there is a latent deep strain of religious fanaticism in this, our culture; it is rooted in our history and it has broken out many times in the past. It is with us now; there has been a sharp rise in strongly evangelical sects in this country in recent years, some of which hold beliefs theocratic in the extreme, anti-intellectual, anti-scientific, and anti-libertarian.

It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics. This is equally true whether the faith is Communism or Holy-Rollerism; indeed it is the bounden duty of the faithful to do so. The custodians of the True Faith cannot logically admit tolerance of heresy to be a virtue.

Nevertheless this business of legislating religious beliefs into law has never been more than sporadically successful in this country--Sunday closing laws here and there, birth control legislation in spots, the Prohibition experiment, temporary enclaves of theocracy such as Voliva's Zion, Smith's Nauvoo, a few others. The country is split up into such a variety of faiths and sects that a degree of uneasy tolerance now exists from expedient compromise; the minorities constitute a majority of opposition against each other.

Could it be otherwise here? Could any one sect obtain a working majority at the polls and take over the country? Perhaps not--but a combination of a dynamic evangelist, television, enough money, and modern techniques of advertising and propaganda might make Billy Sunday's efforts look like a corner store compared to Sears Roebuck. Throw in a depression for good measure, promise a material heaven here on earth, add a dash of anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism, anti-Negroism, and a good large dose of anti "furriners" in general and anti-intellectuals here at home and the result might be something quite frightening--particularly when one recalls that our voting system is such that a minority distributed as pluralities in enough states can constitute a working majority in Washington...

...Impossible? Remember the Klan in the 'Twenties--and how far it got without even a dynamic leader. Remember Karl Marx and note how close that unscientific piece of nonsense called Das Kapital has come to smothering out all freedom of thought on half a planet, without--mind you--the emotional advantage of calling it a religion. The capacity of the human mind for swallowing nonsense and spewing it forth in violent and repressive action has never yet been plumbed.

No commentary from me needed. This speaks for itself.

Well, okay, maybe a little commentary.

First, I was obsessed with Robert Heinlein when I was in high school and read nearly everything he wrote that I could lay my hands on. I've recently jumped back into some of his stuff lately--I just finished his opus Stranger in a Strange Land, and it's been great fun realizing that a lot of the beliefs and attitudes about human existence I have today had their genesis with him. One Heinlein piece I didn't read when I was a teenager was the above excerpted essay, which I came across years later when I bought Revolt in 2100 at a used book store in New Orleans, but some years before I finally moved here. I re-read the essay last night, and decided it would fit in well with the themes I push here at Real Art, which is entirely appropriate given Heinlein's aforementioned role in my intellectual development.

Second, this essay excerpt is downright chilling when you think about the Tea Party movement. With its telegenic and charismatic leaders such as Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, with its tinges of racism and xenophobia, with its anti-science and anti-intellectual attitudes, all against the backdrop of this Great Recession we continue to experience, it is almost as though the Tea Baggers come straight out of a Heinlein story. But they didn't. This is real life. And, just by honestly observing the cultural currents in which he lived, the Grandmaster of Science Fiction predicted it nearly fifty years ago.

Pretty fucking amazing, no? At any rate, one thing we can learn from such a prophetic essay read in hindsight is that the writing is always on the wall. All we have to do is read it.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

OREWELLIAN CORPORATE NEWSPEAK

From the New Orleans Times-Picayune courtesy of Eschaton:

BP is sticking with its dispersant choice

BP has told the Environmental Protection Agency that it cannot find a safe, effective and available dispersant to use instead of Corexit, and will continue to use that chemical application to help break up the growing spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

BP was responding to an EPA directive Thursday that gave BP 24 hours to identify a less toxic alternative to Corexit -- and 72 hours to start using it -- or provide the Coast Guard and EPA with a "detailed description of the alternative dispersants investigated, and the reason they believe those products did not meet the required standards."

BP spokesman Scott Dean said Friday that BP had replied with a letter "that outlines our findings that none of the alternative products on the EPA's National Contingency Plan Product Schedule list meets all three criteria specified in yesterday's directive for availability, toxicity and effectiveness."

Dean noted that "Corexit is an EPA pre-approved, effective, low-toxicity dispersant that is readily available, and we continue to use it."

He did not directly address widely broadcast news reports that more than 100,000 gallons of an alternative dispersant chemical call Sea-Brat 4 was stockpiled near Houston and available for application.

EPA issued its directive amid complaints from some environmentalists and members of Congress that, as Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., put it, "BP had chosen one of the most toxic and least effective chemicals that were approved for use."

More here.

So, of course, I just don't have the scientific background to know who's in the right about this. Perhaps BP, which knows all about oil because, after all, it is an oil company, knows best. Perhaps the EPA, which is the federal agency charged with protecting the environment from toxic waste and pollution, knows better because, after all, this is their beat. I'd have to do some research to get even a layman's handle on this dispersant controversy. Knowing for sure is very likely entirely out of the question. I'd have to become a fucking chemist. And an environmental biologist. And an oceanologist. And maybe a geologist, too.

But here's something I do know right now.

When I first heard a BP spokesman on NPR a couple of weeks ago talking about how they were using dispersants in an attempt to break up the now massive oil patches in the Gulf of Mexico, I was very disturbed by how he used the phrase "just like the dish detergent you use at home" multiple times over the span of about a minute or so. It's like he was trying a bit too hard. Really, it brought to mind the kind of odd corporate propaganda that The Simpsons has satirized repeatedly over years. And now, it seems, the notion of weird-chemical-as-dish-soap has been picked up by lots of journalists. If this kind of language is, in fact, a sort of PR damage control thing, it appears to be having some success.

Here's something else I know. Corporations are motivated solely by profit, and nothing else. And that's not some liberal conspiracy theory: such legal entities are required by law to maximize their shareholders' profits. If corporate leaders behave in any other way, they are breaking the law. Unfortunately, when profit is your only motivation, morals and ethics are meaningful only in terms of how they help the bottom line. Consequently, if a corporation stands to lose less money by settling lawsuits over a dangerous product than they would if they recalled such a product, they'll take the litigation road, and too fucking bad for everybody else.

That is, concerning this environmental disaster, by law, BP's only concern is maximizing their shareholders' profits, not cleaning up their mess, or making restitution for it: we have absolutely no way of knowing if these dispersants are relatively safe, or if they even have a snowball's chance of doing what BP says they will. Indeed, for all we know, this is just an enormous PR scheme, or an attempt to get some leverage when it's all being figured out in court over the next twenty years.

Given this context, even though I'm not a scientist, I'm very inclined to be extraordinarily skeptical of everything BP says. And even though the ostensibly disinterested EPA has long been infiltrated by the influence of various polluting industries, or perhaps because the EPA is under such influence, I'm far more inclined to believe what they have to say.

That is, BP caused this fucking disaster; why do they have so much control over the response to it?

Anyway, here's some mid 20th century pro-nuke propaganda:



Not too terribly far from "Bovine University," huh?

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING

Frankie



Sammy



Be sure to check out Modulator's Friday Ark for more cat blogging pics!

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Holding Hypocrite Congressman Souder's Feet
to the Fire on Dangerous Abstinence Education

From AlterNet:

Yesterday, news broke that Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN) is resigning in the wake of an affair with a female aide. A “family values” conservative who’s sold himself as a proponent of “traditional marriage,” Souder repeatedly advocated federal funding for abstinence-only-until-marriage programs even after the programs were exposed as ineffectual and harmful to young people.

Shortly after the news of his resignation broke, a video surfaced of Souder being interviewed by the staffer with whom he was reportedly having an affair. In it, he attacks a 2008 hearing, chaired by Rep. Henry Waxman, on the efficacy of abstinence programs...

And

It remains the policy of the American government to treat youth sexuality as in itself bad, including holding young people to different standards than adults and assuming we’re unable to make responsible decisions about sex when our elected officials can’t manage the task. Almost unbelievably, funding for abstinence-only-until-marriage programs still remains under President Obama, slipped into health care reform. As long as the administration continues to view sex education as a method of avoiding a public health crisis – instead of an opportunity to teach young people the skills to be healthy sexual beings throughout their lives – the rates of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections will continue to rise

More here.

As for the rank hypocrisy displayed by Souder...well...these family values assholes are self-destructing so quickly these days, I'm almost getting tired of mentioning it. But that doesn't matter. It is extraordinarily important to call these people out for their self-righteous bullshit, not as some sort of fun "gotcha" exercise, even though it is fun, but because these Nazi sex-cops push a Puritanical sexual ideology that, in addition to simply oppressing people, causes real life physical and psychological damage.

Anti-abortion rhetoric causes the women who are drowning it no end of anguish when they suddenly find themselves with an unwanted pregnancy--some of them may eventually decide to get an abortion, but much too late for it to be a simple procedure, forced by their social setting, usually in the Bible Belt, to wait until all that's available to them is invasive surgery, and all the potential complications that come with it. Abstinence-based "sex ed," and I use quotes because such an ideological monstrosity isn't really sex education, is supposed to prevent such unwanted pregnancies, but doesn't because, you know, abstinence-based "sex ed" is so much stupid ass wishful thinking. And all the anti-gay shit? At best it results in self-loathing and risky sexual behavior; at worst it encourages violent homophobes to commit murder.

The worst thing of all is that the Puritanical Movement's leaders increasingly appear to not believe their own assertions. I mean, if not the "moral" leaders, who really does believe this shit? Suckers, that's who, and because the Puritans drape themselves in the American flag and pages from the Bible, politicians line up to suck their dicks. In the men's room at the airport, of course, where they won't be caught.

Fuck these people. They're trash. Time to throw them in the dumpster with the puke and soiled diapers. That's where they belong.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$