Bob Chanin, the head counsel of the NEA, received a rousing send-off for his retirement the other day.
In his farewell speech, he clarified the political depravity of his organization:
We are not paranoid, someone really is after us. Why are these conservative and right-wing bastards picking on NEA and its affiliates? I will tell you why: it is the price we pay for success.
On the *effectiveness* of the NEA - which is not to be confused with literacy, numeracy, etc.:
....not because of our creative ideas, it is not because of the merit of our positions, it is not because we care about children, and it is not because we have a vision of a great public school for every child. NEA and its affiliates are effective advocates because we have power.
"And we have power because there are more than 3.2 million people who are willing to pay us hundreds of millions of dollars in dues each year."
The whole stomach-turning speech is below:
What on this over-heated Earth is more disgusting than that continual, raucous applause???
These are the
Thanks to my MIL for alerting me to this one.
If you care about your children....get started with John Gatto if you haven't already. Failure to do so by any literate parent is rank child abuse.
3 comments:
C,
I stopped by our city's brand spankin'-new public library to see if I they had any good investment books in stock (I really want to find a copy of Faber's Tomorrow's Gold). This place was 2-3 times larger than the old library, sleek, modern. However, it had roughly half as many books, and was essentially a giant, air-conditioned free internet cafe.
I also realized that librarians are no different than any other public bureaucrat. The level of disservice and incompetence I encounted in ONE MINUTE at the library was enough to discourage me from visiting ever again (is this how they encourage rationing?)
First, I asked a woman, whose only clue that could lead a person to realize she worked there, was the fact that she was moving books off a trolley and onto the shelves, how the books were organized. From my quick perusal, they didn't appear to be alphabetical by author, the normal way books are organized at libraries and bookshops.
She looked at me, first quizzically, then, when I said, "Alphabetically" in an attempt at clarification, she got a disgusted look on her face, gestured to the sign on the end of the bookshelf -- as if I were the one too stupid to know what was going on -- and said, "Well, I mean... they're organized by section code... and, uh... you know within that, by author"
Oh, yeah, except, the sign on the bookshelf end didn't specify what the codes mean, so without a "librarian's knowledge" of the Dewey Decimal Point System, you'd be totally clueless where in a shelf of "340.62 - Investing, Economics, Politics" the Investing ended and say, the Economics began. And the books clearly WEREN'T organized alphabetically by author, which is why I was initially so confused.
I eventually found what looked to be the econ section (found a copy of Freakonomics as well as other fluff, pop-econ type works) and noticed no Mises. No Hayek. No Rothbard. Two books ON Adam Smith, but no Adam Smith. Not even any Keynes!
So I thought, hmm, maybe I'll be an altruist and donate a couple of good books in the hopes that someone would accidentally find them and enlighten themselves.
I go to the front desk and apparently startled the living daylights out of the old hag standing there, who ignored me until I said, "Excuse me, miss." She had a worried, pained look on her face... it was apparently a struggle just to sum up the courage to interact with me. I asked what the process for donating a book involved. I again got the quizzical followed by the disgusted-with-my-obvious-stupidity look. She replied, "Well, you just bring it here and we'll take a look at it."
I asked, "Well, do you have some kind of approval process or something to decide if it's appropriate or can I just bring anything?"
Lips pursed, "I... I don't know. You just bring it here and then we take it to the bookstore and they handle all of that."
Wha......t?
I said thanks and walked out... I was over trying to do anymore good deeds.
Taylor,
Librarians might very well be the nuttiest demo in America.
You know they, as a group, wouldn't even condemn Castro when he summarily jailed Cuban librarians?
Wow. Has it really been three years since I covered that?
Marginalizing Librarians And Other Usual Suspects
C,
I was wishing and hoping you had marginalized these losas... man I was just completely overwhelmed. One minute of being exposed to that and I was ready to do a little "book-burning"!
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