It looks like I’m gonna have to redesign this thing again. My problem is I don’t want to just lackadaisically post willy-nilly. I’m going to do this shit in digests to access in bundled archives which means, as cute as I made this first design… it’s going to change again. I hope it’s not going to be such a technical pain in the ass like the last one was but while this thing just sits here, enjoy my few updates to keep it from being completely stagnate.

I am deleting this post as soon as I can get this site strategically figured out but I did leave a handful of things up to click around on.This site is going to be a combination of satirical opine and honest investigative work. I’m interested in breaking some balls and if I get paid in the process fine. If not, sorry about your luck because I’m breaking your balls on actual issues and not based on pay to play rules.

I spent a while building this off the original Tarski theme and it fits for now. I’m in the process of transferring previous opines, articles, research, and fluff that I feel fits the ball breaker and satire theme. When I get that figured out then I’ll work on the logistics of how to structure the publication without turning it into clutter. It’s a big task. One that is taking a back seat to a few other endeavors at the moment. Anyway – there is more to come. Thanks.

The First Americans

The Grand Council Fire of American Indians

December 1, 1927

To the mayor of Chicago:
You tell all white men “America First.” We believe in that. We are the only ones, truly, that are one hundred percent. We therefore ask you, while you are teaching schoolchildren about America First, teach them truth about the First Americans.

We do not know if school histories are pro-British, but we do know that they are unjust to the life of our people—the American Indian. They call all white victories battles and all Indian victories massacres. The battle with Custer has been taught to schoolchildren as a fearful massacre on our part. We ask that this, as well as other incidents, be told fairly. If the Custer battle was a massacre, what was Wounded Knee?

History books teach that Indians were murderers—is it murder to fight in self-defense? Indians killed white men because white men took their lands, ruined their hunting grounds, burned their forests, destroyed their buffalo. White men penned our people on reservations, then took away the reservations. White men who rise to protect their property are called patriots—Indians who do the same are called murderers.

White men call Indians treacherous—but no mention is made of broken treaties on the part of the white man. White men say that Indians were always fighting. It was only our lack of skill in white man’s warfare that led to our defeat. An Indian mother prayed that her boy be a great medicine man rather than a great warrior. It is true that we had our own small battles, but in the main we were peace loving and home loving.

White men called Indians thieves—and yet we lived in frail skin lodges and needed no locks or iron bars. White men call Indians savages. What is civilization? Its marks are a noble religion and philosophy, original arts, stirring music, rich story and legend. We had these. Then we were not savages, but a civilized race.

We made blankets that were beautiful, that the white man with all his machinery has never been able to duplicate. We made baskets that were beautiful. We wove in beads and colored quills designs that were not just decorative motifs but were the outward expression of our very thoughts. We made pottery—pottery that was useful, and beautiful as well. Why not make schoolchildren acquainted with the beautiful handicrafts in which we were skilled? Put in every school Indian blankets, baskets, pottery.

We sang songs that carried in their melodies all the sounds of nature—the running of waters, the sighing of winds, and the calls of the animals. Teach these to your children that they may come to love nature as we love it.

We had our statesmen—and their oratory has never been equaled. Teach the children some of these speeches of our people, remarkable for their brilliant oratory.

We played games—games that brought good health and sound bodies. Why not put these in your schools? We told stories. Why not teach schoolchildren more of the wholesome proverbs and legends of our people? Tell them how we loved all that was beautiful. That we killed game only for food, not for fun. Indians think white men who kill for fun are murderers.

Tell your children of the friendly acts of Indians to the white people who first settled here. Tell them of our leaders and heroes and their deeds. Tell them of Indians such as Black Partridge, Shabbona, and others who many times saved the people of Chicago at great danger to themselves. Put in your history books the Indian’s part in the World War. Tell how the Indian fought for a country of which he was not a citizen, for a flag to which he had no claim, and for a people that have treated him unjustly.

The Indian has long been hurt by these unfair books. We ask only that our story be told in fairness. We do not ask you to overlook what we did, but we do ask you to understand it. A true program of America First will give a generous place to the culture and history of the American Indian.

We ask this, Chief, to keep sacred the memory of our people.

]]> http://www.candidtam.com/not-the-sort-of-distractions-that-pass-as-politics/opportune-take-whats-not-yours-day/feed/ 0 http://www.candidtam.com/not-the-sort-of-distractions-that-pass-as-politics/economic-darwinism-really/ http://www.candidtam.com/not-the-sort-of-distractions-that-pass-as-politics/economic-darwinism-really/#comments Mon, 21 Jun 2010 23:23:02 +0000 admin http://www.candidtam.com/?p=292 I wonder what Darwin and Thornstein Veblen would have to say on this topic of “Economic Darwinism.”

I had someone say they favor Wal-Mart because it represents “Economic Darwinism” which got me thinking about wtf this even means. Here’s my take…

If the definition of “Economic Darwinism” is survival of the fittest business then by that definition where does Wal-Mart fit in to the definition of survival when compared to all sectors?

To survive is to live or exist in spite of danger or hardship. What sort of danger or hardship does Wal-Mart suffer from? What exactly constitutes for hardship and danger for the elite world population/resources exploiting billionaires?

Wal-Mart doesn’t operate to “survive.” They operate to saturate and to intentionally monopolize. Who then operates to survive? I guess that would be the small business. Mom and pop businesses are in business designed to promote survival, to feed a family, to pay a mortgage, to send some kids to school.

On another note Darwinism is the study of biological beings and a change in their genetics. It’s something you have no control over and you have no choice but to cope with it.

“Economic Darwinism” sounds like some fundamentalist’s fabulously concocted excuse to be greedy without having any remorse. Business is not a biological thing and therefore it can be controlled. Darwinism describes a biological change “Economic Darwinism” describes what? A feeling of entitlement? They’re not even the same damn thing!

Saying Wal-Mart V. small business is an acceptable example of “Economic Darwinism” is like saying, “It’s perfectly acceptable to wipe out a whole community because I like money.”

What a despicable thing to be arguing for.

Thanks China. I love this cheap-ass philosophy of profit over existence. It seems you’ve figured out the quickest means to killing everything living that would be there to pay you your $60 bn contracts. Maybe when no one is alive enough to pay you, you’ll see the error of your ways. Assholes.

Australia, you’re not off the hook either. You’re just lucky no one’s publishing any names to add to the shit list yet.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/06/great-barrier-reef-ship-aground

The Queensland premier, Anna Bligh, has said the ship’s owner, Shenzhen Energy – a subsidiary of the Chinese shipping giant Cosco, which has allegedly been involved in three major international incidents in four years – could face a fine of up to $A1m (£600,000) for straying from a shipping lane that is currently used by some 6,000 cargo vessels each year.

Additional info on the turd buckets: Shenzhen Energy

Whois query for sec.com.cn…

Results returned from whois.cnnic.net.cn:

Domain Name: sec.com.cn
ROID: 20021209s10011s00100526-cn
Domain Status: ok
Registrant Organization: 深圳市能源集团有限公司
Registrant Name: 李遒
Administrative Email: liqiu@sec.com.cn
Sponsoring Registrar: 北京新网数码信息技术有限公司
Name Server:ns.xinnetdns.com
Name Server:ns.xinnet.cn
Registration Date: 1997-12-17 00:00
Expiration Date: 2012-12-17 00:00

This is one of my favorite Strong Bad shorts but most importantly, my all time favorite Children’s Boooo’k.

SFW mainly depending on if your boss is or isn’t a dick .

click the pict. for the short

Mr. Duncan’s professional life started playing Ivy League basketball, you know – he endeavored to be a super privileged jock but ended up in education when he (I think) injured himself, says a lot about his ability to prioritize responsibly. Privileged jock dreams transferred into political administration and all.

A co-worker pointed out the bright side to the man’s career – at least he did manage one of the top three largest school districts in the nation… but now that he’s gone, what’s really changed? And what’s he going to do with the nation’s education? Yay for more out of touch Ivy Leaguers running our country into the dirt.

http://www.examiner.com/x-3865-Chicago-Public-Education-Examiner~y2009m8d30-Chicago-Arne-Duncan-presided-over-a-schools-grade-changing-scandal

Duncan is a Ponzi-class con man. In light of the bubbling scandal in Chicago Public Schools I have to give U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, more credit for his Machiavellian life story than I have. Unlike his basketball buddy, President Obama, who grimaces and honestly tells you to your face that he is going to blow up your country and rebuild it with a broken chainsaw. Duncan misleads, manipulates, and lies through his oversized Colgate smile, uttering educations generalities that any novice PTA president can produce. What else can you conclude after months of revisionist reports have come out refuting, denying, and negating the phony school reform that catapulted this sociology major into the White House as an ‘education expert?’ He never taught school, and you cannot get a principal’s certificate in Illinois without teaching a minimum of two years; so he has never run a school. But Mayor Richard Daley can anoint you anything he likes, and he will in order to destroy bad schools for Negroes and wipe out good schools for Hispanics to replace them with bad schools for everyone except the prodigal sons returning from self-imposed, ‘white flight’ exile in the suburbs. That way he makes room for repatriated middle-class families that can afford to pay the additional taxes he will have to impose to bring in the 2016 Summer Olympics, and also takes care of his real-estate cronies at the same time. True efficiency in urban evil.

I confess that I’ve been sardonically amused by the fairy tale ascendancy of Duncan, and admit to marveling (a euphemism for jealousy) at his good fortune in choosing the right parents and making the best of growing up in proximity to poor black children like John Rodgers who also chose his parents wisely. Rogers is the African-American founder of a successful money management firm who hired his boyhood buddy, Arne, to run his company’s education outreach organization. John’s father was a judge, and his mother, the late Jewel Lafontant, was a civil rights crusader and an U.S. Ambassador. Perhaps one day I will tell you the story about the time John called me when we were both struggling young stockbrokers, he for William Blair and myself at Merrill Lynch. But that’s another story.

Anyway, my humorless amusement with Duncan ended today after I read the Sun-Times story written by Rosalind Rossi and Art Golab on: CHICAGO TEACHERS PRESSURED TO CHANGE GRADES. The headline was so innocuously pedestrian I almost didn’t read it. When I did, it blew me away. The Sun-Times and the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) conducted a joint survey this summer of 1200 teachers. For those of you who have neither been waterboarded nor forced to play with statistics, 500 is a large enough number for a statistically reliable random survey. The outcome of this ostensibly innocent exercise was the horrid revelation that one third of the teachers surveyed said they were pressured to change grades in the last year.

That’s a lot. In the five years I taught before going over to the dark side and becoming a principal, I changed one grade. The principal of Kennedy High School on Chicago’s southwest side rushed into my classroom after final grades were submitted and politely requested (euphemism for pleading like an indicted alderman) I change the failing grade of a graduating senior who’d attempted suicide the night before. I didn’t much like the girl but she did me a semester-long favor by constantly cutting my class, and she didn’t need the history credit. She was going to graduate anyway, so I returned the favor. Grade changing is a rare rabbit. Or was then.

Even if the CTU/Sun-Times study is wrong by half, the incidence of grade changing is pandemic. Sure, Simeon High changed Derrick Rose’s grade so he could win a national championship with Memphis State, who are we kidding? How many CPS teachers have the NBA’s rookie of the year sitting in their classroom? Must be a lot more than I thought. Worse (worst?), dozens of those queried report that grades were changed without their approval. That means they didn’t get paid, bummer, but it also means they won’t be subpoenaed .

Rossi and Golab wrote: Teachers reported pressure from principals, ’upset’ (euphemism for wild, crazy, and frightening) parents and even other CPS employees who were parents of their students. They said the squeeze was put on them to pass failing students, to give ill students a break or to help athletes. Some felt prodded to goose up grades to help kids graduate, avoid summer school or get into an elite high school (uh ho!). Such heat was twice as common among teachers in high schools, where the push is on to reduce failure rates. (Duncan reform scam at work) One teacher said her school lowered its grading scale and ’still we are pressured to change grades.’

Look, we are all adults here. Nothing in this materialistic, shallow American society that just happens to be the best place to live on the planet is even close to perfect. After all, this is Chicago where federal prosecutors feed of the dead weight in our city council and this is also the state that sends every other governor to prison. In a town with the likes of Rob Blagojevich, Jesse Jackson, Todd the Stroger, and the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, you gotta expect a grade or two to slip by the Integrity Police. But Chicagoans, we have to draw the line somewhere.

‘It’s in the culture of the schools,’ wrote one experienced high school teacher who raised numerous grades under pressure. You can’t completely be honest in grading students; otherwise the failure rate would be off the chart.’ (If you think that is an alarming quotation, fasten your seat belt and read the next one.) ‘While I am not crazy about it, I am sure it is necessary for a host of reasons,’ wrote another teacher. ‘As the grade coordinator at the school, I am the one that has to actually make the changes.’ (Poor baby, your subpoena is in the mail)

In true Chicago style, the president of the Chicago Principals Association, Clarice Berry, responded, ‘I can imagine teachers would feel pressure. Principals feel pressure. If you call any other city and any other state, you’ll hear the same thing.’ (Translation from unicorn-speak to straight-talk: Everybody’s doing it; you got a problem with that?) In true California speak, the president of the Chicago Teachers Union, Marilyn Stewart, said, ’It’s absolutely a ripple effect,’ Stewart said in response to the Sun-Times CTU survey on grade-changing. ’It causes more work for the next teacher.’ Uh, how about it’s dishonest, immoral, and wrong Ms. Stewart? CPS isn’t Enron or AIG, or Lehman Brothers where we pay people to lie, cheat, and steal; these are kids. They‘re in school, not Congress! But what can you expect from an institution that threw school prayer under the bus and replaced it with Hanna Dakota?

Mayor Daley has been in total control of schools for a decade and a half now, and Arne Duncan was his bagman for half of that time. Duncan either tolerated this practice or knew nothing of it. So he is either corrupt enough to look the other way or too inexperienced to know it was going on during his watch. Regardless of which answer is the most correct, either answer disqualifies him to tell anyone how to run their school systems. Apparently, the Duncan-Daley duo sat on top of a cesspool of CPS lies and intimidation whose contents are slowly oozing out under the federal light of magnet school indictments, inspector general investigations, and now corruption-inspired surveys. I hadn’t previously tossed in the University of Illinois admissions debacle downstate because I haven’t seen a direct connection between my alma mater and CPS, but if I weren’t writing this from Baghdad, I bet I could find one.

Oh, I almost forgot the public service announcement. Unindicted schools CEO, Ron Huberman, another Daley crony who has never taught school a day in his life, suggested teachers call the Chicago Schools inspector General at (773) 534-9400 or the I.G.’s anonymous hotline at: (773) 48-FRAUD. Really.

For anyone whose ever wondered how giant spiders make it to the top of all Chicago’s buildings and, what type of nasty bastards they are… I have three so far this season and will be “brooming” the hell out of their webs.

Unfortunately the Vitalic mix isn’t a sole music track on here – this isn’t a “video” video – but if you love the DGP then you need to “go ahead” on and play this loud!!!