It's nice to see some 0ne other than the tea baggers start coming out into the streets to protest the economic situation.
A surging movement of tens of thousands of students, teachers and public education staff -- centered in California but spreading now into more than 30 states--will be out in tomorrow defending that nice, old idea notion of decent public education. You know, the kind of schools we are spending a trillion dollars to supposedly build in Iraq and Afghanistan.
At our USC-based
Neon Tommy publication we will be field a dozen or so reporters and photographers throughout the day and aggregating reports from across the state and country. Make sure to follow us.
Here's
some maps we have posted on events around SoCal and across the country.
Here's our
round-up of students gearing up for the protests including a live Twitter feed from the activists.
And as we used to say in the Old Days, this could also be
A Field Day For The Heat.
Stay with us through the day and night tomorrow. And follow the
Neon Tommy twitter feed as well.
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March 3rd, 2010 at 6:52 pm
Just finished watching the astonishing documentary They Killed Sister Dorothy.
HBO
It is relevant to EVERYTHING…particularly to virtually every post in this blog.
I really, really recommend y’all try to rent it if you don’t get HBO.
The trial scenes in a Brazilian court and footage of the Machievellian and theatrically evil–in this case–DEFENSE attorney make Pacino in Devil’s Advocate seem insipid.
An extraordinary documentarian Daniel Junge is the magician.
Get it. Watch it.
March 3rd, 2010 at 6:53 pm
Thats Dorothy Stang. I was not familiar with the case. I presume many of you are.
March 3rd, 2010 at 6:54 pm
The community colleges will also have rallies. Santa Monica College will have rally March 4 11;15-12:30 and De Anza Community College will have |March 4 events. I’m sure other community colleges in California will have March 4 activities.
March 3rd, 2010 at 8:10 pm
sounds chaotic rather than productive. not sure what smashing a SUBWAY window on Telegraph Ave proves. I have never understood why these actions don’t target the people responsible for the bad decisions rather than this willful desire to stampede off a cliff. It all just seems like its going to be a TWITTER off the cliff exercise. A variation of shuffle off the Buffalo. Then the obligatory footage of Orwellian riot police bashing heads…its all going to be so predictable.
After the bank bail outs followed by egregious bonuses someone organized a load of people to stalk one of the CEO’s house. It worked. The fucker gave back the bonus. And so did some others as a result. Now thats going to where the rubber hit the road.
on the 16th, in my state, we have a referendum to vote for re eduction. I was amazed at all the lawn signs FOR IT.
March 3rd, 2010 at 8:16 pm
Why isnt this an action targeting the Gov or the UC honchos? Why waste the energy with people lighting fires in trash cans and breaking fast food chain windows?
March 4th, 2010 at 8:25 am
Marc: “It’s nice to see some 0ne other than the tea baggers start coming out into the streets…”
Do you mean “tea partiers?” But, I suspect that you’ll find quite a few “tea baggers,” in the literal sense, in the crowds that you support.
Colleges get enough money, but don’t use it effectively, as the administrations know that they can always go back for more. Tuition goes up more than insurance premiums do, but I don’t see liberals upset at “greedy universities.”
Before asking for more money, colleges could cut back on huge speaking fees to left-wing and communist speakers on campuses.
March 4th, 2010 at 8:54 am
“Standard & Poor’s on Wednesday cut its rating on California’s $64 billion in general-obligation debt to A-minus from A and warned that the outlook was “negative,” meaning another reduction could loom.”
“California suffered a painful snub by investors Thursday as the state’s attempt to sell $4.5 billion in general obligation bonds failed to attract enough demand to raise the full amount.”
“California stumbled badly in its latest venture into the municipal bond market — a sign that investors are overloaded with the state’s debt.
Borrowing $1.9 billion on Tuesday via bonds that mature in June 2013, the state was forced to pay a 4% annualized tax-free yield to lure investors.”
Etcetera , etcetera , etcetera. A small sample for the LA Times.
The tea baggers take to the streets to protest government confiscation of their credit cards to continue to pay for unsustainable and unrealistic government size, salaries, and in CA alone, 50 Billion in unfunded employee benefits, the largest being $300,000 a year for life retirement.
What do college professors and their students do? Deny the reality of years of a tiring, sickly, and abused goose that just can’t lay enough of those golden eggs anymore. That just can no longer sustain the demands of its spoiled, demanding, and oh-so-needy dependents .
Spoiled and needy dependents it created over the years by ‘giving away’ all its golden eggs the minute they were laid, raising the needs and expectations of its dependents to keep them happy. Saving none for the lean times, because, well, who wants to face disappointed children ‘dependent’ on you? You want to make them happy, you want to be a good mommy.
Well kids. It’s time met your daddy time, and this ain’t your weak and compliant American daddy. It is time your very strong and very demanding Chinese daddy. This Chinese daddy is going to expect something from you. This Chinese daddy is going to expect you to get out of college and go to work. This daddy is not interested in your demands, your disappoints, your professor’s royal public benefits to be paid for 40 years after they retire.
If you cannot get out of college with the knowledge to actually make something, create something other than ‘social change’, then you can stamp your feed, cry, throw all the tantrums you want, but this new daddy is going to demand YOU change, not him.
This is not your mommy’s goose. It’s grow up time……and blame your mommy, not her goose.
March 4th, 2010 at 9:07 am
The first test your new daddy is going to give you, and it must be past to show you have graduated into adulthood, is “Who would make the best Governor of California? Another mother or a new daddy”
March 4th, 2010 at 10:30 am
Gov. Reagan knew how to handle wacko students who disrupted California universities. Ask Marc.
March 4th, 2010 at 12:00 pm
“But, I suspect that you’ll find quite a few “tea baggers,” in the literal sense, in the crowds that you support.”
Oh, like this guy!
“CBS affiliate CBS13 reports that Roy Ashburn, a married, Republican state senator from Southern California with a history of opposing gay rights was arrested for allegedly driving drunk after leaving a gay bar with another man in the car.”
You couldn’t make this stuff up.
March 4th, 2010 at 12:10 pm
“your professor’s royal public benefits to be paid for 40 years after they retire”
I am a professor in the sciences, I work 70+ hours a week, and I don’t plan on retiring until I’m physically or mentally unfit to do my job, both because I love my work and because it’s a financial necessity. My grad school advisor is 65, still teaching a full-time load and publishing peer-reviewed research. My former professor died at the age of 81, and came in daily as a professor emeritus to do research, teach, and help train future researchers and industry workers, including your children and grandchildren. He also surfed on weekends until his final year of life, so I suppose he got lazy in his old age.
You obviously are painting with a broad brush, or have no idea what you’re talking about. Or both.
March 4th, 2010 at 12:15 pm
“You obviously are painting with a broad brush, or have no idea what you’re talking about. Or both.”
Or all three.
March 4th, 2010 at 1:34 pm
The majority of college professors are part-time and will never get a full-time job. Part-timers lack benefits and don’t get much retirement. In my department it is about 3 part-timers to 1 full-timer. That is typical of colleges around the country. Part-timers are called freeway flyers because one rushes from college to college on the freeways to make some kind of minimal living. Right now most new PhDs won’t even come close to getting a full time tenure track job– there simply aren’t jobs out there. Part-timers are the last hired and first fired in layoffs now across the country.
March 4th, 2010 at 1:42 pm
and if this shit keeps hitting the fan having a Phd will soon become a punishable offense.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/04/us-surge-rightwing-extremist-groups
March 4th, 2010 at 1:47 pm
The trolls are out in force today…
March 4th, 2010 at 1:51 pm
No, just the outpatients.
March 4th, 2010 at 2:07 pm
“tea party like it’s 1999!,” you mean like this guy?
Hey, how about that Charlie Rangel guy and his replacement?
March 4th, 2010 at 2:26 pm
Your words to Marc, not mine:
“in the crowds that you support”
Your “crowds” appear a little confused. You might need a finer-toothed comb.
Also, I’m not a card-carrying member of the morality police, so you’re wasting your time. The hypocrisy is your burden.
March 4th, 2010 at 4:15 pm
Woody, in that thing you call a mind, is a
tea bagger a guy who goes to a bar and has a male
strip dancer put his testicles on his forehead (are
there a lot of these in ANY crowd?) or is “tea bagger”
now the same as any homo?
How does demanding decent education make you
more likely to be a fruit? Please explain…
March 4th, 2010 at 5:40 pm
tp like 1999, I can’t make sense of what you’re thinking.
March 4th, 2010 at 6:54 pm
Here the one about the RNC finance boys who admit their base are reactionary knobs motivated by fear, wannebe access and ego?
Its in Power Point for all to see. Pretty much proves there is no such thing as a Republican Party anymore just a group of Machievellian mavens using the stupid to finance their agenda.
March 5th, 2010 at 7:32 am
Gavin Newsom was on Maddow last week and he was very impressive. Articulate and substantive and energetic.
I used to think he was too pretty to be of any use and seems he has been a very innovative mayor who actually got things done.
Jerry Brown seems totally out of it.
Too bad Newsom got slimed by the Brown nostalgia that is going to be for naught.
March 5th, 2010 at 8:28 am
Yes Gavin for Governor. Just what CA needs to bring it back from the brink of bankruptcy.
Those employers that left and took their employee with them, because of crushing taxes need to provide a literal buffet of free stuff for anyone who crossed its borders from any direction, will rush back in when Gavin is elected. It will become a real magnet again for winners, not losers.
Mr. Gavin has never run a business. Never actually produced anything. Never created a real job. Never had a real job himself. But he does have a big heart just waiting to burst blood all over a state budget already in intensive care.
Just what CA needs, another fucking heart attack caused by an irresponsible over mothered boy child.
March 5th, 2010 at 8:32 am
Hey CA. in case you hadn’t noticed, your real daddy wears a skirt, and she means BUSINESS!
March 5th, 2010 at 9:08 am
Mr. Gavin has never run a business.
Allow me to factcheck you yet again, Jim.
Honestly, failure to even read his Wikipedia entry or do a modicum of basic research, just makes you look, well, dumb.
March 5th, 2010 at 9:09 am
BTW,
I’m not carrying water for Newsom, I just care about the truth. You might want to consider doing the same.
Just sayin’
March 5th, 2010 at 1:07 pm
As your sole criteria for fitness to serve in office appears to be having started and developed a successful business (Meg Whitman did not start E Bay, btw) and I have demonstrated the fact that Gavin Newsom did just that, are you going to support him now?
March 5th, 2010 at 2:04 pm
Newsom just seemed so PRESENT and he has succeeded with getting serious social works implemented. Brown just seems a creepy bozo and his record in Oakland underwhelming.
My guess is because Newsom is too pretty and genuinely energetic and effective he is one of those the dem old guard will work at tearing down cause I think the guy has shown to have ideas and be able to carry them out.
Just guessing at what the diss machine on him was all about and I was guilty of falling for it a few years ago when still in SF.
And who is the idiot thinks Newsom is not a successful entrepreneur? Its what was being held AGAINST him as Democrats are supposed to be fiscal numb nuts.
March 5th, 2010 at 2:12 pm
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/22/MNL118S5QA.DTL
Chron flyweight assessment of Newsom’s accomplishments vs ‘facts’
Who knows…will be interesting to see if the Rethugs manage to get another one of their own in to fully put California back into the stone age. My guess is mucho dinero will go into crushing any Dem contender. I would like to be in the boiler rooms about now.
March 5th, 2010 at 6:21 pm
Sorry but Newsom strikes me as a Left-Coast version of John Edwards.
As for woody he is just a pervert peeing hisself via his rants and jim r is nuts to believe the lies China puts out. They ain’t the future, boy. They are grossly over-valoed, and when their bubble bursts, it will make September2008 look like a burp.
March 6th, 2010 at 7:02 am
I like Gavin Newsom – Jim’s characterization is, as has been show – way off, but Brown is a much better choice now. Both were good mayors, as mayors go – Oakland is MUCH better off after Brown’s tenure – the downtown finally started coming to life and West Oakland is on the brink of revitalization after years of languishing. Newsom made a smart move in considering going after Lieutenant Gov – it’ll give him the necessary state-wide exposure and experience. I can’t really imagine a better person than Jerry Brown to return to the governorship right now. I’m afraid Newsom would get eaten alive by the guys in Sacto on all sides.
Meg Whitman’s expertise is brand marketing – that’s it. She’s done it for toothpaste, toys and the eBay website (which doesn’t actually “produce” anything, unlike Newsom who is quite successful in several of the most competitive business in Northern California.) Now Whitman is trying to market her bland, opportunistic self, and my guess is it’s going to be a daunting task – given, as a non-voter, her lack of even the minimal political credential of having been a concerned citizen. Whitman’s candidacy is a largely self-financed joke – although given the history of CA politics that doesn’t mean she’s not viable in the GOP column and a threat to the state.
For laughs, and since all you hear about Whitman is “Procter and Gamble”, “eBay”, “Disney” and “Hasbro”, here’s one way the enterprising Whitman has made money during a one-year tenure with another one of America’s favorite companies, according to Wiki: She was appointed to the board of Goldman Sachs in October, 2001 and then resigned in December 2002, amidst controversy when congressional investigators revealed she had received shares in several public offerings managed by Goldman Sachs. Whitman earned approximately $1.78 million resulting from a practice known as spinning (IPO) whereby executives who did business with Goldman Sachs could reap profits by getting early deals before the public on hot IPOs offered by the bank.
Quite the entrepreneurial genius.
March 6th, 2010 at 11:09 am
Jim’s characterization is, as has been show – way off
Just another example of truthiness at work.
Not a peep from Jim sense then. I hope he has been researching.
March 6th, 2010 at 1:15 pm
Hair raising…America’s greatest export is its fundamentalism.
Conspiracy theorists unite:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/06/tory-madrasa-young-britons-foundation
March 6th, 2010 at 1:17 pm
Brit fascists in training are being sent here to learn to shoot machine guns.
Just a chip off the old block.
March 8th, 2010 at 8:51 am
“Not a peep from Jim sense then. I hope he has been researching.”
No Randy. I was in church.
OK. I am guilty of bias against a delicate looking guy with perfect teeth named Gavin. I mean the name Gavin alone and living in San Fran, of all places, was enough to make one assume over mothering.
Gavin does deserve some credit for have a real job and certainly would help in the skills needed to run the biggest losing business in CA, or any State for that matter, the Government’s Enterprise.
But since Meg didn’t have the son of Getty, and two billion dollars of his father’s fortune. to experiment on wine shops, of all things. It was Gavin’s father’s friendship with Getty, not Gavin’s that got, Gavin and Getty’s son in business together.
Meg on the other hand made her own fortune by increasing the success of every company she was hired to increase sells for, and there were many. Ebay was the last and by far her crown jewel of success. She made her own billion there, as well as small fortunes for the 50 employee ebay had when she started, to the 15,000 it had when she left.
CA is in desperate need of a top notch saleman with with a Masters in Business to sell and promote a desperately failing and sick business. Once the most successful State Business of them all, CA has been literally to death by a House full of losers. CA residents have an other important choice to make. Especially important given their rich Uncle Sam is now also beaten to death and cannot cover for their losing business choices made in the past.
It should be a very easy choice, but alas it won’t be for. People are known by the company they keep.
March 8th, 2010 at 9:09 am
No Randy. I was in church.
Wow for 48 hours. What order do you belong to?
March 8th, 2010 at 9:11 am
I am guilty of bias against a delicate looking guy with perfect teeth named Gavin.
Smacks of walth envy.
I mean the name Gavin alone and living in San Fran, of all places, was enough to make one assume over mothering.
Which was cleared up by ten seconds of googling. Best to get the facts, don’t you think?
March 8th, 2010 at 1:10 pm
Speaking of facts (off topic, I know), it seems Sarah Palin used to cross the border to Canada to get health care http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/08/palin-crossed-border-for_n_490080.html
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/03/palin-says-she-used-canadian-h.html?hpid=news-col-blog
Unfortunately, the Dumbocrats won’t be able to make much hay out of this because their allegiance to the private health insurance industry prohibits them from saying anything positive about single-payer or even acknowledging that it exists. It really is a shame that the Dems are so out of touch with and far to the right of their base.