Thursday Open Thread [1.31.13]

Filed in National by on January 31, 2013

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  1. Jason330 says:

    NOT COOL ROBERT FROST!

  2. Andy says:

    Developer Mike Zimmerman was indicted the other day for Bank Fraud and Money Laundering. Also one of the many cogs in the failure of Wilmington Trust

  3. cassandra_m says:

    This is a great video, DD. Are we supposed to guess which one of these daredevils is you?

  4. liberalgeek says:

    Yeah, I could never do these sorts of tricks. I’d end up like this guy:

    http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-xgames-caleb-moore-dies,0,6038738.story

  5. Jason330 says:

    You can’t play volleyball without breaking your arm.

  6. liberalgeek says:

    so true. This is why I don’t try 720’s on my dirt bike… I’d likely end up only making 630 degrees.

  7. Mike Matthews says:

    I attended a Caesar Rodney Institute forum last night that pretty much called for vouchers in public schools and any other way to get kids out of public schools and into private, parochial, and charter schools. It was a fascinating evening with the right-wing, to say the least!

  8. Roland D. Lebay says:

    I guess I have an NRA landlord. I’ve lived in the same apartment for 3 + years. No deadbolt on either entry door & most of the windows don’t lock properly. A child could break into the place, and they (my own teenage children) have.

  9. pandora says:

    Mike, They are nuts and so are all those parents who think Tower Hill and Archmere want their kids at voucher prices. They don’t want them at non-voucher prices either. Believe me, these schools are already giving scholarships to who they want.

    FYI: Tower Hill costs 19,500.00 to over 25,000.00 a year while Archmere costs over 22,000.00 a year. How much would a voucher cover?

    Truth is… all the “good” private schools won’t participate. They won’t want the strings that will come with vouchers. And what makes anyone think that private school parents, who pay tuition and school taxes, want the voucher program?

    What vouchers will create is “The Voucher School of Creationism” and “The Voucher School of Grifters”. These “schools” will spring up over night. And how does one justify public tax dollars going to religious private schools?

    Vouchers and charters are all about destroying the teacher’s union and privatizing public education for profit.

  10. Roland D. Lebay says:

    I agree, pandora.

    The “good” schools won’t court “voucher” students. Why on earth WOULD they? They’ve already got a sizable population willing to pay full price.

    We’ll end up w/ a bunch of shitty “private” schools that seek nothing more than to profit from providing a substandard education to the poorest children.

    See University of Phoenix and the other 8 million “universities” and trade schools that have sprung up in the last 15 or so years. The mofos who run these places are getting rich on the backs of the taxpayers and uninformed students.

  11. Roland D. Lebay says:

    As for the teachers’ union, it really wouldn’t hurt my feelings if they took a good hard beating. They deserve it for protecting AWFUL teachers for DECADES.

    I had this same gripe when I was a union member. In general, unions are a good thing. Unfortunately, the NEA sucks on both ends of the spectrum. They protect the incompetent and fail to protect good people.

    My 7th grade math teacher was amazing. Good man, great teacher.
    He’s no longer a teacher…last I heard he was selling shirts at a local department store.

    He was fired for smoking weed on his own time. He was caught entirely by accident.
    The union did exactly JACK SHIT for him, yet they managed to keep shitty, insane, and incompetent teachers in their jobs for my entire public school career.

    So we have the right wingers who hate unions because they (seemingly) cost them money. Then we have the moderates and lefties who like unions in theory, but don’t like them in reality.

    I’ve gone on about my personal union experience in the past. I’ll spare you all a rehash of that BS & leave you w/ the experience of a former 7th grade math teacher:

    His name is Harold. He was a fantastic teacher. He’s no longer a teacher because he was caught by the police smoking pot on his own time in his own (parked) car. Fuck that. RCCSD screwed their employee and their students when they fired him.

    BTW, this was in the late ’80s/early ’90s when what seemed like 50% of the population was snorting or smoking cocaine. It’s apparently ok if a student has a $700/wk coke habit, but NOT ok if a teacher smokes a little weed on his own time.

    GFY, Red Clay School Board, for that, and your utter incompetence in every single area other than self-promotion.

  12. Tom McKenney says:

    The Red Clay board has always been incompetent and a bunch of self-serving political hacks. The reason we had forced bussing in Delaware was the RC school board would not make unpopular decisions. The students from the wealthy areas abutting Wilmington High were sent to A.I. , while the rest of the city was sent to Wilmington High.