Why Are Things As They Are?

It’s the Twenty Tens! On to The Twenty Tens!

On the Little Rouge School Front This Week:

The Rouge Forum News Latest Edition is Now Available At: www.therougeforum.blogspot.com

The Call For Papers for the Next Edition of the Rouge Forum News:
therougeforum.blogspot.com/2010/01/call-for-papers-rouge-forum-news-issue.html

Louisville Education Dean To Plead Guilty; Those of us who have followed this case wish the dean every bad year he deserves. “…Bryant Stamford, a former faculty member who worked at U of L for more than 30 years and who has joined other former education faculty in criticizing the university for its handling of Felner, said Monday he had “mixed feelings” about news of a plea agreement.… It was good that he was finally caught and held accountable for his actions, but I think all of us still sort of default back to: How is it possible that this man was allowed to operate in such a manner for years? He wasn’t operating in a vacuum.”    http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20100104/NEWS01/1040344/Attorney-Robert-Felner-to-plead-guilty-to-siphoning-millions-from-Louisville-Rhode-Island-universities

The Detroit Federation of Teachers’ Contract–the Worst Ever? “The core issue of our time is the rapid rise of color-coded social and economic inequality and the promise of perpetual war, challenged by the potential of mass, class-conscious, resistance. Will we win? The best news is: we do not know. We might if we form trusting communities of care and resistance. If we do not, we can wind up alone disappearing like Johnnie Redding. It is a choice. Community or barbarism.”    http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=1063&section=Article

Detroit Reading Corps Gears Up (Old South African Saying, “Before the missionaries arrived, we had land but no bibles; now we have bibles and no land”): “Soon the Detroit Public Schools could be overrun with thousands of retirees, former teachers, grandparents, stay-at-home moms, corporate employees and even a student from Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills.”
www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091231/NEWS01/912310429/1001/News/Theyre-ready–to-help-kids-read&template=fullarticle

Charters Blossom in LA: “ Even now, there are those who believe that charter schools are private (they aren’t), that they are run by for-profit companies (rarely in California), that they primarily serve affluent communities (the opposite is true) and that they are better than traditional public schools…Nearly 9% of Los Angeles public school students now attend charters, which offer great variety. Ocean Charter, a predominantly white, middle-class school on the Westside, emphasizes “experiential learning” based on the Waldorf model. The Alliance for College Ready Schools, whose 16 schools south and east of downtown mostly serve low-income black and Latino students, use a strict and structured adherence to state curriculum standards.” www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-charters10-2010jan10,0,5522248.story

No Charges Filed in Attack on UC Boss’ House: “Eight people arrested after protesters vandalized the campus home of the UC Berkeley chancellor have not been charged with any crime and may never be, according to the Alameda County district attorney’s office.
There is insufficient evidence…”
latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/12/no-charges-filed-in-vandalization-of-uc-berkeley-chancellors-campus-home.html

Dan Perstein on Attack on UC Boss’ House: “I believe that the university administration not only set the stage for a violent turn in protests by acts which have repeatedly raised tensions and undermined belief in its good will, but actually engaged in most of the violence that has occurred… “ www.reclamationsjournal.org/issue01_dan_perlstein.html

Walton’s, Broad, Fund Top Brass in LA United: “Private money is paying for key senior staff positions in the Los Angeles Unified School District — providing needed expertise at a bargain rate, but also raising questions about transparency and the direction of reforms in the nation’s second-largest school system.”
www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lausd16-2009dec16,0,298804.story

Michigan Signs Up For Ratt: “Gov. Jennifer Granholm on Monday signed into law a sweeping series of education bills that give the state new power to close failing schools, dump bad teachers and administrators and measure if students are moving ahead… legislation also expects more from students, requiring them to stay in school until age 18, starting with the class of 2016. Students now can leave school at age 16. It allows up to 32 more charter schools to open each year but gives the state the power to close poorly performing charter schools. It also gives professionals from areas other than education an alternative way to become teachers and allows merit pay for excellent teachers and cyber-schools for students who have dropped out.”
www.battlecreekenquirer.com/article/20100105/NEWS01/1050313/State-takes-power-over-schools

The Perpetual Wars and Booming Inequality Front:

Logistics: More Powerful Than the Silly UFPJ “Peace Movement” : Senior White House advisers are frustrated by what they say is the Pentagon’s slow pace in deploying 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan and its inability to live up to an initial promise to have all of the forces in the country by next summer, senior administration officials said Friday.
www.nytimes.com/2010/01/09/world/09military.html?hp

Obamagogues Backers Betrayed Again on Health Care: “now labor leaders are fuming that President Obama has endorsed a tax on high-priced, employer-sponsored health insurance policies as a way to help cover the cost of health care reform.”
www.nytimes.com/2010/01/09/business/09union.html?emc=tnt&tntemail1=y  

Bloomberg: Geithner’s Scam With AIG: “ The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, then led by Timothy Geithner, told American International Group Inc. to withhold details from the public about the bailed-out insurer’s payments to banks during the depths of the financial crisis, e-mails between the company and its regulator show. AIG said in a draft of a regulatory filing that the insurer paid banks, which included Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Societe Generale SA, 100 cents on the dollar for credit-default swaps they bought from the firm. The New York Fed crossed out the reference, according to the e-mails, and AIG excluded the language when the filing was made public…”
www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aXIvW4igKV38

Seven CIA Agents/Mercs Blown Up:” One former senior intelligence official said the bomber was being courted as an informant and that it was the first time he had been brought inside the camp. An experienced CIA debriefer came from Kabul for the meeting, suggesting the purpose was to gain intelligence…”
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/31/taliban-cia-agents-killed-afghanistan

Times Reveals Names of Spies and Mercs: www.nytimes.com/2010/01/07/world/asia/07intel.html?hp

Blackwater Mercenary Shooters Skate: “Urbina’s ruling does not say whether the shooting was proper, only that the government improperly used evidence to build the case. After the shooting, the State Department ordered the guards to explain what happened…unclear what the ruling means for a sixth Blackwater guard who turned on his former colleagues and pleaded guilty to killing one Iraqi and wounding another.
www.latimes.com/news/la-na-blackwater1-2010jan01,0,3833151.story

Estate Tax Vanishes For A Year, Not Long Enough For the Rich To Die Off: “THE RICH and ailing might want to post guards outside their hospital doors this year. Thanks to a provision of the Bush tax cuts, the tax on inherited estates will phase out completely in 2010 before springing back to life in 2011 at its old, higher levels. This means that the rich could save their families millions or more by dying in 2010.” www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2010/01/01/as_estate_tax_drops_to_zero_congress_should_take_action/

The End of the Coalition of the Willing: “There’s no difference, even if they change the name,” said Mohammed Abdul Jabar, 40, a furniture salesman in Baghdad. “The main enemy, the ones who destroyed the country, who disbanded our military, it’s the Americans. If I see a fighter jet loaded with missiles, do I wonder whose it is? No, it’s always been the Americans.”
www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/81544.html

Financial Times on Unfreeing the Free Market: “We made a mistake in the closing decades of the 20th century. We removed restrictions that had imposed functional separation on financial institutions. This led to businesses riddled with conflicts of interest and culture, controlled by warring groups of their own senior employees. The scale of resources such businesses commanded enabled them to wield influence to create a – for them – virtuous circle of growing economic and political power. That mistake will not be easily remedied, and that is why I view the new decade with great apprehension. In the name of free markets, we created a monster that threatens to destroy the very free markets we extol.” www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1959f72c-fa2f-11de-beed-00144feab49a.html

NATO’s Top Intel Officer on US Intel: “’These analysts are starved for information from the field — so starved, in fact, that many say their jobs feel more like fortune telling than serious detective work,” said the report. ”It is little wonder then that many decision makers rely more on newspapers than military intelligence to obtain `ground truth.”’
www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/01/05/world/AP-AS-Afghanistan.html?_r=1

On the History is Not Just The Propaganda of the Victors Pedagogy Front:

The Siege and Commune of Paris, 1870-1871: This site contains links to over 1200 digitized photographs and images recorded during the Siege and Commune of Paris cir.1871. In addition to the images in this set, the Library’s Siege & Commune Collection contains 1500 caricatures, 68 newspapers in hard-copy and film, hundreds of books and pamphlets and about 1000 posters.
www.library.northwestern.edu/spec/siege/

The Economist Map of Global Tinder-boxes: “poverty alone does not spark unrest—exaggerated income inequalities, poor governance, lack of social provision and ethnic tensions are all elements of the brew that foments unrest.” www.economist.com/daily/chartgallery/displayStory.cfm?story_id=15098974&source=most_commented

The Rouser Front: Wayne Ross’ Fave Hits of the Music Year: blogs.ubc.ca/ross/

From the Can’t Make This Stuff Up Desk: www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20100105/FREE/100109977#
A human skull that once apparently belonged to Yale’s mysterious Skull and Bones society is now for sale. Christie’s auction house believes the skull was used as a ballot box around 1872. It has a hinge on top and is surrounded by crossbones.

and the best line of the year so far...

“While we’ve been running around playing whack-a-mole with the Taliban and “investing” billions each year in the corrupt Karzai government,” China has been investing in things that might actually be of some value, like a big copper mine. ”
walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/12/30/making_the_world_safe_for_chinese_investment

Thanks to MrJ, Amber, MrZ, Lloyd, JT, Joel, Steve, Sandy, Sally, Elvira, Bob, Ruthie, Jen, MT, Adam and Gina (on to a new adventure), Nancy, Vera, Irene, Doug (hey were is that book?), Wayne, Colin, Sandra, Shelley, Betty, Don, and Bill A.

Good luck to us, every one. r