Our governor is facing calls for his resignation because he got free tickets to a NY Yankees World Series game (valued at $450 per ticket). Yankee tickets? Really? That’s the best you can do? Now, I’m not exactly a huge David Paterson fan, but, come on now. Maybe it’s against “the rules” but on the NY State scale of political corruption (aka, the “Boss Tweed Scale”), this doesn’t even register. Look, I’m not a Blinky apologist or anything, but the guy’s already not running for a new term, and on the list of things that need fixing around here, the Blinkster’s pretty much at the bottom.
I actually feel bad for Paterson. I mean, here Eliot Spitzer comes a-callin’, saying, “yo, Dave, I need a black guy on the ticket. Plus the whole blind thing doesn’t hurt, either. So, you up for it or what?”
And Dave’s like, “hmm, let’s see. Lt. Gov. you say? That sounds like a pretty cushy do-nothing job with no real responsibilities. I bet I can even get free Yankees tickets out of it. Sounds good to me, El. Just don’t make me drop the opening puck at some backwater shit hole Upstate.”
Then Spitzer turns out to be one of the dumbest smart guys in history, and BAM! Paterson gets stuck with a multi-billion dollar deficit and a dysfunctional state legislature (that he was pals with just a few month ago). He’s supposed to be going to baseball games and opening shopping malls, and now he’s stuck with this big pile of crap. And while he seems like a nice enough guy (though a little on the goofy side), he’s just not up for the job. But, hey, at least he isn’t out driving drunk.
Speaking of which, California State Senator Roy Ashburn (your typical married, father of four, all-American family values Republican gay basher) got pulled over and charged with DUI on his way home from a gay bar the other night. While the dude that was with him wasn’t charged, he no doubt went home very disappointed.
Thank goodness Prop 8 passed in California. Otherwise, the sanctity of Ashburn’s marriage might be in doubt.
Just one question: what does a blind guy do at a baseball game?
Usually, he’s the umpire.
In fact, it is a great experience for the visually impaired to attend sports events. Just imagine all of the other sensual stimuli (and calling balls and strikes!). Plus you can sell some of those ‘view obstructed’ seats. Candlestick has a big area of seats that are blocked a field view when the bleacher seats are pulled out for football. I always thought they should be given out to the blind. With $8 beer and $6 hot dogs and $30 parking, it just has to help.
Speaking of Candlestick and free sports tix, I used to have a friend who would occasionally get me passes to sit in the Mayor’s box at Giants games. An FPPC question/objection came up about local pols getting this perk and the giveaway went away. I asked my friend if I had to worry about anything and she told me that I was OK but that when they looked at the log for the comps that season mine was the only name that had been recorded.
btw, if you enter “You’re Blind Ump” on YouTube you get a bunch of Blink 182 videos.
And speaking of the Giants and bobbleheads
Since things have started off with a sports theme today, thought pj might be interested in some new sneaks-
http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_14507361
“Anthony wouldn’t let go of an orange-accented version of the shoe, which basketball team members of his alma mater, Syracuse University, will wear during their Big East tournament appearance next week.”
Afterwards you could get your haircut at the barbershop that Anthony owns ,15 Studio in LoDo, for about $75.
By the way, there’s just a stunning amount of Syracuse sweats and jackets I see everytime I go to Boulder. Who knew?
Nujood Ali is a Yemini girl who was married at 8 to a 30 year old man. Not surprisingly the marriage was not a happy union and so Nujood managed to sneak outside, hail a cab, and find a judge whom she asked for a divorce.
At 12, she is not only a divorcee but an author with a best seller,“I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced†published, this week, in the US.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/04/opinion/04kristof.html?em
Diane Ravitch, the education historian who built her intellectual reputation battling progressive educators and served in the first Bush administration’s Education Department, is in the final stages of an astonishing, slow-motion about-face on almost every stand she once took on American schooling.
Once outspoken about the power of standardized testing, charter schools and free markets to improve schools, Dr. Ravitch is now caustically critical.
snip
In 2005, she said, a study she undertook of Pakistan’s weak and inequitable education system, dominated by private and religious institutions, convinced her that protecting the United States’ public schools was important to democracy.
She remembers another date, Nov. 30, 2006, when at a Washington conference she heard a dozen experts conclude that the No Child law was not raising student achievement.
These and other experiences left her increasingly disaffected from the choice and accountability movements. Charter schools, she concluded, were proving to be no better on average than regular schools, but in many cities were bleeding resources from the public system. Testing had become not just a way to measure student learning, but an end in itself.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/03/education/03ravitch.html?em
Of course any teacher could have told her this, but, if one is reforming education one must stick to the #1 rule: Never ask a teacher.
I was just given a copy of last year’s 3rd grade math test for NY State. This is the test Bloomy uses to tout how well his ed reforms are going. The test is astoundingly easy. That’s why the kids do better and better on them each year as each year the test gets easier. And, there is a grammatical error.
The sentence reads, “What fraction of Devin’s T-shirts are white?”
It should read, “What fraction of Devin’s T-shirts IS white?” because the subject of the verb is fraction, not T-shirts. If you’re going to set standards and set yourself up as an expert, at least have a good proofreader on staff.
I believe it should be “what fraction of the people who wrote this stupid test is white?”
…there’s just a stunning amount of Syracuse sweats and jackets I see everytime I go to Boulder.
Oh, we’ve got reach.
Uh-oh. Turns out that the relentless quest for statistics in the NYPD is causing the arrest and harassment of innocent people…mostly (oh I’m shocked) minority kids.
This was Ghouliani’s thing. He called it comstat. All the precincts had to turn in monthly statistics of crimes, arrests, tickets etc. Now yet another police officer has come forward to complain.
http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/investigators&id=7305356
By “stunning” I mean three or four at a time but I mean come on, this is Boulder.
They travel in packs!
:omg:
Sue- I heard Ravitch on NPR- came across as a former conservative who had really experienced a “come to Jesus” moment. Good interview.
If:
2 + 3 = 10
7 + 2 = 63
6 + 5 = 66
8 + 4 = 96
Then:
9 + 7 = ????
Obama is making many changes in various agencies and in other ways (I know… I’m dissatisfied with many BIG things, too, but I don’t think we hear about many things that actually do make a difference in our lives.) Here is one tiny thing, but I love it. Republicans are old nasty Styrofoam.
144?
0 + 1 = 0
1 + 0 = 1
OK, got it. I used to be good at that stuff. Knock it off! :rofl2:
The statements neglect to follow the commutative property of addition. :bong:
youse guys are schmat