Rouge Forum Dispatch: Happy Birthday Karl Marx!
We Say Fight Back!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtJnbJ_TfGk
www.facebook.com/NBCNews/videos/2538501276169887/
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Protest at Flint’s Southwestern Academy over lack of teachers
FLINT, Mich. – Protesters chanted …”overworked, understaffed, please don’t give them a pass.”
They carried signs outside Flint’s Southwestern Academy Monday.
They are upset over conditions and the lack of teachers.
About a dozen concerned residents say they’ve had it with conditions at Southwestern Academy.
They’re trying to mobilize the community to call for changes at the school that will become Flint’s only high school next year.
The group unfurled a large banner and carried signs to make their point.
Organizers claim teachers are overworked and understaffed, and the students are left to suffer. The group says they’ve been approached by students and parents about the problems.
So they’re calling for a county-wide audit of the G.I.S.D as well as a forensic audit of the lottery funds in Michigan.
Community activist Abel Delgado says “this is at least for the last 3 months, there have been 13 plus classes without any teachers. nbc25news.com/news/local/protest-at-flints-southwestern-academy-over-lack-of-teachers
Paris ransacked in ‘worst May Day riots since 1968’
Costa Rica: National strike and protests April 25 /update 1
National strikes and protests April 25 to denounce proposed budget; trains, hospitals, and schools may be impacted
Read all related news alert(s):
30 Apr 11:05 PM UTC —Costa Rica: March against proposed budget planned in San José May 1 /update 2
18 Apr 01:09 PM UTC —Costa Rica: National public sector strike April 25
Event
Various unions and other groups are organizing national strikes set to take place on Wednesday, April 25, to denounce a proposed budget being debated in the National Assembly (Asamblea Legislativa). The strike is expected to involve health workers, transportation workers, and teachers, among other sectors. As such, services will likely be limited hospitals and medical centers, with doctor’s appointments at risk of being canceled and non-emergency cases turned away. Trains operated by INCOFER, the country’s main rail operator, could face delays and cancelations, leading to increased road congestion in cities. According to some estimates, at least 90 percent of schools may also be closed across the country.
An associated march will be held in the capital San José; demonstrators will gather at the La Merced Park at 08:30 (local time) before marching to the National Assembly. Smaller protests are possible in other cities. www.garda.com/crisis24/news-alerts/113151/costa-rica-national-strike-and-protests-april-25-update-1
As Nicaragua Death Toll Grows, Support for Ortega Slips
MANAGUA, Nicaragua — It has been two weeks since lethal clashes between protesters and pro-government forces erupted in Nicaragua, and the number of deaths is still not clear. But this much is: It keeps climbing.
By Friday, the toll of students, counterprotesters, bystanders and police officers who died in five days of student-led demonstrations against President Daniel Ortega’s government had risen to at least 45 and was expected to climb further. In this Central American country of six million people, that tally makes this the deadliest unrest by far since nearly three decades of war ended in 1990.
Government agencies tightly controlled by Mr. Ortega and his wife, Rosario Murillo, have vowed to set up truth commissions and investigations. The question of whether anyone ordered the killings is poised to become a major issue in coming peace talks between the government, the Catholic Church, the business sector and the university students. The challenge is the most critical threat to Mr. Ortega’s presidency since he was re-elected in 2007.
“He has two options: dead or alive,” Rosa Díaz said of Mr. Ortega after her 29-year-old son’s dead body turned up at a hospital following a particularly brutal night of protests in the capital, Managua. “But he has to leave office.” www.nytimes.com/2018/05/04/world/americas/nicaragua-protests-ortega.html
3 unions, 53,000 workers to strike at UC hospitals, campuses in May
Roughly 53,000 health-care, service, technical and research workers are uniting to strike at all University of California locations May 7-9, as nurses and other health-care professionals join the labor action initiated by UC service and patient-care workers.
About 10,000 of the 53,000 workers represented in the strike work for the University of California, Davis, on its campus or in its medical center. The unions and the UC will negotiate the number of workers needed to ensure that hospitals can continue to serve patients during the strike.
“UC Davis Medical Center nurses support our fellow UC workers in their demands for a strong contract and justice in the workplace,” said UCD Health registered nurse Melissa Johnson-Camacho, in a news release Friday by the California Nurses Association. “As nurses, we know that in order to provide the safe patient care our communities need, we count on our co-workers, and they count on us.”read more here: www.sacbee.com/news/local/health-and-medicine/article210036144.html#storylink=cpy
50 years ago, Florida teachers walked off their jobs. Today’s union leaders are inspired
![Teachers picketed on March 4, 1968 in front of what then was Oak Grove Junior High (now Oak Grove Middle School) in Clearwater. It was part of the statewide protest during which thousands of Florida teachers walked off their jobs. A union protest this week hopes to draw inspiration from that long-ago stand. [Times | 1968]](http://www.tampabay.com/storyimage/HI/20180219/ARTICLE/302199991/AR/0/AR-302199991.jpg?MaxW=950&cachebuster=693056 "Teachers picketed on March 4, 1968 in front of what then was Oak Grove Junior High (now Oak Grove Middle School) in Clearwater. It was part of the statewide protest during which thousands of Florida teachers walked off their jobs. A union protest this week hopes to draw inspiration from that long-ago stand. [Times | 1968]")
Ulysses Floyd remembers February 1968 all too well.
Teachers by the thousands walked off their jobs across Florida. Among their concerns: low pay, poor funding, a lack of planning time, missing materials, and more.
“We were at the mercy of the School Board and what they wanted to do,” said Floyd, who started teaching in Orange County in 1958. “We had no say-so over anything.”
So they left — resigned, actually, because strikes weren’t allowed — to make their position clear. More than 25,000 educators in all participated at the peak of the movement, which lasted days in some counties, weeks in others. www.tampabay.com/news/education/teachers/50-years-ago-Florida-teachers-walked-off-their-jobs-Today-s-union-leaders-are-inspired_165549681
The Little Red Schoolhouse
Opinion | Want to improve literacy in Michigan? Restore school librarians
The Education Trust-Midwest report “2018 State of Michigan Report: Top Ten for Education: Not By Chance” provides a set of recommendations to improve education and literacy in Michigan. There is one significant recommendation missing from this report: Michigan must support effective school libraries staffed by certified school librarians to improve literacy.
There are multiple studies in over 20 states including Michigan which show that access to school libraries with a full-time certified teaching school librarian improves student achievement, regardless of socio-economic or educational levels of the community. In fact, at-risk students benefit proportionally more from the presence of a full-time certified school librarian.
A Michigan study found that schools with certified school librarians had 35 percent more fourth graders who scored proficient or above on the state reading assessment than schools without certified school librarians. Information about these studies including other detailed findings can be found here.
Yet, Michigan ranks 47th in the nation in the ratio of students to certified school librarians. Michigan schools have one certified librarian for every 3,077 students.
As pointed out in the Education Trust-Midwest report, Michigan also ranks 41st in fourth-grade reading based on the average scale score on the 2015 National Assessment of Educational Progress.
The Education Trust-Midwest report also points out that Michigan reading scores fell between 2003-2015. During this same time frame, Michigan lost more than 60% of its school librarians (media specialists) www.bridgemi.com/guest-commentary/opinion-want-improve-literacy-michigan-restore-school-librarians
Teacher Pay Is So Low in Some U.S. School Districts That They’re Recruiting Overseas
As walkouts by teachers protesting low pay and education funding shortfalls spread across the country, the small but growing movement to recruit teachers from overseas is another sign of the difficulty some districts are having providing the basics to public school students.
Among the latest states hit by the protests is Arizona, where teacher pay is more than $10,000 below the national average of $59,000 per year. The Pendergast Elementary School District, where Mr. Soberano works, has recruited more than 50 teachers from the Philippines since 2015. They hold J-1 visas, which allow them to work temporarily in the United States, like au pairs or camp counselors, but offer no path to citizenship. More than 2,800 foreign teachers arrived on American soil last year through the J-1, according to the State Department, up from about 1,200 in 2010. www.nytimes.com/2018/05/02/us/arizona-teachers-philippines.html
New Jersey ‘mystery pooper’ was schools chief, say police
Police hunting a suspect who relieved himself on school grounds “on a daily basis” in the US state of New Jersey have arrested a top education official.
Kenilworth school superintendent Thomas Tramaglini, 42, was detained after investigators set up a sting operation to snare the “mystery pooper”.
Police were called after students complained of frequent excrement near their school running track and field.
Mr Tramaglini is charged with lewdness, littering and defecating in public.
In a statement, the Holmdel Township Police Department said they opened an investigation after high school staff and sports coaches reported “they were finding human faeces, on or near the area of the High School track / football field on a daily basis”. www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43998174
‘The abuse teachers are expected to put up with is simply obscene’
Teachers have warned that violence and verbal abuse are on the increase in schools – and they blame the national inclusion policy
The angry hostility of those two words is as jarring in print as it must be when flung at a teacher by a pupil. Teaching is a caring, altruistic profession, and to be on the end of verbal abuse from someone you are trying to help can be hugely disheartening, not to mention stressful or even frightening.
And, according to many of the 1,079 teachers who responded to a survey by the Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association, these sort of incidents are on the rise. Many feel that aggressive swearing is now commonplace in school, with few if any sanctions applied when it happens.
One teacher summed up a widespread view about pupils’ behaviour in school: “I feel as though you are expected to be threatened in my council and you are expected to accept it. Even on a bus a sign says, ‘Any assault against our staff will be followed by legal proceedings.’ Teaching is the only job where any form of assault is not followed through.”
Other teachers made a similar point: in GP surgeries, in supermarkets, even on other council premises, there is zero tolerance of abuse to staff. So why is it different in schools?
Of course, now more than ever, schools are aware of the underlying issues that may be driving violent or abusive behaviour. A few years ago, at an EIS teaching union event on child poverty, a children’s charity boss recalled an incident in which a boy, after receiving a dressing down for not having his PE kit, exploded and told the teacher to fuck off. Later, the backstory emerged: the boy’s alcoholic father had come in late the previous night and eaten the boy’s dinner – a tin of tomato soup, the only food in the cupboard. www.tes.com/news/abuse-teachers-are-expected-put-simply-obscene
Why Are New York’s Schools
Segregated? It’s Not as Simple as Housing (but it is as simple as Capitalism and its state)
When asked about school segregation in New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio has said that schools are segregated because neighborhoods are: “We cannot change the basic reality of housing in New York City.”
Now, as a debate about plans to integrate middle schools has engulfed one Manhattan district, a report released on Wednesday undermines that notion. It found that a full 40 percent of New York City kindergartners do not attend the nearby school to which they are assigned. That’s a vast stream of 27,000 5-year-olds funneling through the city each day.
While parents of all races choose to send their children out of their zones, the overall pattern of their choices may make schools more segregated. It also concentrates the effects of poverty at zoned schools, the schools to which children are assigned based on where they live.
“I don’t think anyone realized that number was so big,” said Nicole Mader, the lead author of the paper, which was conducted by the Center for New York City Affairs at The New School. “If 40 percent of elementary school students aren’t going to school where they live, how can residential segregation be the only factor driving school segregation?” www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/02/nyregion/new-study-school-choice-increases-school-segregation.html
This principal will make you lose sleep.
Marie Desforges, the head of PS 328 in Brooklyn, suspended a teacher’s aide for five days without pay last week for “professional misconduct” — yawning.
In a disciplinary letter, Desforges told Edsheda Brown, “You yawned loud enough for me to hear you while I was walking down the hallway” outside a staff meeting.
What’s more, Desforges accused the aide of insubordination over the yawn.
When the principal told the aide the yawn was “inappropriate,” “you stated to me, ‘What, that is how I yawn,’” the letter says.
Teachers said Brown, aghast, asked the principal, “Are you trying to reprimand me for yawning? It’s a bodily function.” nypost.com/2018/04/28/principal-suspends-teachers-aide-for-inappropriate-yawn/
Douglas Todd: Whether it’s sex or yoga, Canada’s campuses increasingly divided
Canadian universities are being torn apart over gender, race and sexuality in ways that threaten their mission as forums for authentic discussion, maintains a new book by a noted dean of law and university president.
Peter MacKinnon’s book says the public is bewildered by explosive campus incidents involving allegations of sexual harassment, racial genocide, transgender phobia, bullying, trigger warnings, censorship and even the banning of yoga.
University Commons Divided: Exploring Debate and Dissent on Campus (University of Toronto Press) analyzes UBC disputes involving gender studies professor Jennifer Berdahl, as well as former creative writing department head Steven Galloway. It digs into showdowns at Dalhousie over sexualized Facebook pages and at Ryerson over a professor who exited an anti-racism forum. Amid the bitter turmoil, exacerbated by mainstream and social media, many have lost their positions.
MacKinnon, a former faculty association chair, dean of law and president of the universities of Saskatchewan and Athabasca, believes institutes of higher education are no longer debating over mere “differences.” They’re fracturing, with ominous implications for their traditional role as forums for discussion and collaboration.
The mission of the university – which MacKinnon says is “seeking truth through advancing knowledge, learning and discovery” – is endangered. Too many righteous academics and students are not willing to tolerate debate over important ideas, “even while contestation is inevitable, indeed, definitional, and with it comes unease, discomfort and dissent.” vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/douglas-todd-whether-its-sex-or-yoga-canadas-campuses-increasingly-divided
Drama at School Board: Superintendent says teacher, “LIES!” for asserting decimation of teachers’ salaries ~ Who’s really lyin’?
May 4, 2018|
This was at the Miami-Dade County Public School Board meeting which took place on August 2013 – almost 5 years ago!
Watch the juicy footage in the two videos below! “School politics is boring,” said no activist teacher – eva! Yes, some of us have been fighting the good fight for some time now. So, it is awesome that teachers are coming out of the woodwork to join us! Are you thinking of coming out to the school board meeting?
Well, put on ’em boxing gloves! And, teacher, Thais Alvarez, isn’t kiddin’! Start watching at 1:04 approximately.
Study: Florida ranked one of the worst states for teachers
In a study published in September by WalletHub, analysts observed categories including average starting salary for teachers, average teacher pension, and pupil-teacher ratio.
Out of 51 states including the District of Columbia, Florida ranked 47th, with one being the best and 51 being the worst.
WalletHub collected data from sources including the U.S. Census Bureau, the National Education Association, and the Learning Policy Institute.
“It is a stressful situation. The salary, when compared to other professionals, does not measure up at all in education. In education, you’re not there for the salary,” Sandra Davis, Deputy Superintendent for Bay District Schools, said.
Davis said the school district is aware of the situation and the district’s bargaining team made an offer during contract negotiations to increase the starting salary for teachers.
To read the complete study, you can click on the link attached to this article. www.wjhg.com/content/news/Study-Florida-ranked-one-of-the-worst-states-for-teachers-450837023.html
Chula Vista school mural depicts severed, speared Trump head
A Chula Vista school mural that depicts the bloody, severed head of President Donald Trump on a spear sparked a controversy that prompted officials to cover it and issue a response distancing themselves from the work.
The statement also said the artist will alter the painting.
“We understand that there was a mural painted at the event this past weekend that does not align with our school’s philosophy of non-violence,” read the statement from MAAC Community Charter School director Tommy Ramirez. “We have been in communication with the artist — who has agreed to modify the artwork — to better align with the school’s philosophy.”
The event Ramirez referred to was the annual Battlegroundz, a scholarship fundraiser held during the last weekend of April. www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/education/sd-me-trump-mural-20180504-story.html
The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhqLn1wKJAw
US Army Special Forces Secretly Sent to Fight Houthis in Yemen
Green Berets are helping Saudis locate and destroy Houthi missile caches
The US military is more deeply involved in the Saudi War in Yemen than officials ever admitted. In fact, new evidence suggests the Pentagon lied to Congress during the March debate about US involvement, presenting the US role at present being limited to targeting and mid-air refueling of Saudi warplanes.
The New York Times is reporting on Thursday that there are actually a small number of US special forces on the ground at the Saudi border with Yemen. Those troops have not only been on the ground since late 2017, but are there on a mission to help the Saudi military fight Yemen’s Shi’ite Houthi movement.
No public debate took place with respect to this deployment. Indeed, the Pentagon appears to have gone to great lengths not to tell the American public or the Congress about the Green Berets they sent to the border. The Green Berets are intended to help the Saudis “locate and destroy” Houthi missile caches, and attack Houthi launch sites inside Yemen. news.antiwar.com/2018/05/03/us-army-special-forces-secretly-sent-to-saudi-border-with-yemen/
The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor
www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2c-X8HiBng
The average American worker takes less vacation time than a medieval peasant
Life for the medieval peasant was certainly no picnic. His life was shadowed by fear of famine, disease and bursts of warfare. His diet and personal hygiene left much to be desired.
But despite his reputation as a miserable wretch, you might envy him one thing: his vacations.
Plowing and harvesting were backbreaking toil, but the peasant enjoyed anywhere from eight weeks to half the year off.
The Church, mindful of how to keep a population from rebelling, enforced frequent mandatory holidays. Weddings, wakes, and births might mean a week off quaffing ale to celebrate, and when wandering jugglers or sporting events came to town, the peasant expected time off for entertainment. There were labor-free Sundays, and when the plowing and harvesting seasons were over, the peasant got time to rest, too.
In fact, economist Juliet Shor found that during periods of particularly high wages, such as 14th-century England, peasants might put in no more than 150 days a year. As for the modern American worker? After a year on the job, she gets an average of eight vacation days annually.
It wasn’t supposed to turn out this way: John Maynard Keynes, one of the founders of modern economics, made a famous prediction that by 2030, advanced societies would be wealthy enough that leisure time, rather than work, would characterize national lifestyles. So far, that forecast is not looking good.
What happened? Some cite the victory of the modern eight-hour a day, 40-hour workweek over the punishing 70 or 80 hours a 19th century worker spent toiling as proof that we’re moving in the right direction. www.businessinsider.com/american-worker-less-vacation-medieval-peasant-2016-11?utm_content=bufferb1073&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer-ti
www.facebook.com/telesurenglish/videos/1329599903850075/
Unemployment Rate Falls to 3.9 Percent, but Wage Growth Remains Weak
The unemployment rate fell to 3.9 percent in April, the lowest rate since 2000. It has only been below this level for one month in the last 45 years. However, in spite of the drop in unemployment, other aspects of the report were less encouraging. Most importantly, wage growth remains weak. The average hourly wage increased by just 4 cents in April, bringing the year-over-year increase to 2.6 percent. There is no evidence of acceleration.
The drop in the unemployment rate was also due to the reported drop in labor force participation, the second consecutive drop, not an increase in employment in the household survey. There was also a drop in the percentage of unemployment attributable to voluntary quits. The 12.7 percent share is still near the high for this recovery, but well below the rates of 14 percent or more seen in 2000. This suggests that, in spite of the low unemployment rate, workers are still not confident about their labor market prospects. cepr.net/blogs/cepr-blog/jobs-flash-2018-05
Solidarity for Never
Refusing to Leave $6M in Dues on the Table, NEA Confronts Complications as It Tries to Hold On to Las Vegas Teachers Union
One of the National Education Association’s largest locals, the 11,000-member Clark County Education Association, cut the cord with its state and national unions and declared independence last week. Concurrently, Las Vegas teachers saw their dues lowered by almost 40 percent.
The turnout for the disaffiliation vote was low — less than 8 percent of those eligible cast a ballot — but support for continued affiliation was anemic. Only 99 teachers bothered to vote in favor of staying with NEA and the Nevada State Education Association.
One would think that after such a poor showing NEA and NSEA would fold their tents and go home. But the unions won’t sit still for a loss of $6.1 million in annual dues. They formed a competing union — NEA Southern Nevada.
The new union has no officers, no bylaws, and no bargaining rights with the school district, but it has a logo and a membership form that authorizes it to charge an unspecified amount of dues in perpetuity.
“To the extent that NEA-SN is not currently an employee organization recognized as the exclusive representative for purposes of collective bargaining, I understand the NEA-SN will seek to obtain that status,” the form reads.
Ah, but that’s a problem. Unseating the exclusive representative is tough under normal circumstances, but to do it in Nevada is exceptionally tough. Oddly, it is so tough because of the efforts of NEA and NSEA lawyers.
In Nevada, a union must win a majority of members in a bargaining unit, not just a majority of votes cast, in order to replace the incumbent union as exclusive representative. In 2006, the Teamsters outpolled the Education Support Employees Association (ESEA), an NEA affiliate that represents bus drivers, custodians, and other support workers in the Clark County School District. www.the74million.org/article/refusing-to-leave-6m-in-dues-on-the-table-nea-confronts-complications-as-it-tries-to-hold-onto-las-vegas-teachers-union/
Teachers demand shakeup in Oklahoma Education Association leadership
ktul.com/news/local/teachers-demand-shakeup-in-oklahoma-education-association-leadership
Teachers’ union claim that 95 percent of funding secured causing controversy
OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. (KTUL) —
For the first year of the teacher union’s three-year demand, their asking amount was just over $800 million, or so most people thought.
“It says 95 percent of ‘ask’ secured and reoccurring, which is complete crap,” said Teresa Danks, aka the Panhandling Teacher, upset with a spreadsheet put out by the union which says that the $479 million that been secured so far represents 95 percent of “the ask,” the amount of money demonstrators demanded.
“Well, OEA changes the number today. They dropped $300 million of the original ask, came up with a new ask,” Danks said.
As with most things, the devil is in the details. The flyer says “Where we are on education funding?” not healthcare and state employee pay, which make up the other $300 million of the initial ask. But for some, that’s splitting hairs.
“If they are going to tell us that this is the ask now, that’s a flat out lie,” said Danks. “Legislators aren’t doing what we’ve asked and now OEA is caving.” ktul.com/news/local/teachers-union-claim-that-95-percent-of-funding-secured-causing-controversy
NEA Bosses love March for “Our” Lives Diversion
www.facebook.com/neatoday/videos/1604959142905430/
Pelosi: “I Don’t See Anything Inappropriate” In Rigging Primaries
The Intercept has published a secretly taped audio recording of one of the most powerful Democrats in America pressuring a progressive candidate to drop out of a Colorado congressional primary race. It hasn’t been getting as much attention as the WikiLeaks drops on the DNC’s sabotage of the Sanders campaign because it’s not about a presidential race, but make no mistake: this is the single most damning piece of evidence ever published exposing the Democratic Party’s war on progressives.
The recording features House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, the second-highest ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives, informing primary challenger Levi Tillemann that if he runs, he will be running against not just the chosen establishment candidate Jason Crow, but against Hoyer and the full might of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) as well.
“Which means effectively, Congressman Hoyer,” Tillemann is heard saying toward the end of the recording, “I’m running a campaign against Crow, and against you, and against the DCCC, because you guys are on Crow’s side.”
“Yeah,” replied Hoyer. “You know, frankly, that happens in life all the time.” medium.com/@caityjohnstone/pelosi-i-dont-see-anything-inappropriate-in-rigging-primaries-641ac1bb70c8
Spy versus Spy
I went to prison for disclosing the CIA’s torture. Gina Haspel helped cover it up.
I was inside the CIA’s Langley, Va., headquarters on Sept. 11, 2001. Like all Americans, I was traumatized, and I volunteered to go overseas to help bring al-Qaeda’s leaders to justice. I headed counterterrorism operations in Pakistan from January to May 2002. My team captured dozens of al-Qaeda fighters, including senior training-camp commanders. One of the fighters whom I played an integral role in capturing was Abu Zubaida, mistakenly thought at the time to be the third-ranking person in the militant group.
By that May, the CIA had decided to torture him. When I returned to CIA headquarters that month, a senior officer in the Counterterrorism Center asked me if I wanted to be “trained in the use of enhanced interrogation techniques.” I had never heard the term, so I asked what it meant. After a brief explanation, I declined. I said that I had a moral and ethical problem with torture and that — the judgment of the Justice Department notwithstanding — I thought it was illegal.
Unfortunately, there were plenty of people in the U.S. government who were all too willing to allow the practice to go on. One of them was Gina Haspel www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/i-went-to-prison-for-disclosing-the-cias-torture-gina-haspel-helped-cover-it-up/2018/03/15/9507884e-27f8-11e8-874b-d517e912f125_story.html?utm_term=.983fc1c398e4
The Magical Mystery Tour
www.facebook.com/ideapods/videos/1575897902504439/
House superstitious chaplain wins job back after scalding letter
The embattled chaplain of the U.S. House of Representatives has won his job back just hours after sending a scalding letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan that accused a top Ryan staff aide of telling him “something like ‘maybe it’s time that we had a Chaplain that wasn’t a Catholic.’”
Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican, forced Reverend Pat Conroy to tender his resignation last month, sparking a firestorm. Ryan has said he was dissatisfied with Conroy’s pastoral care to lawmakers.
But in a statement Thursday, Ryan – himself a Catholic – reversed course.
“It is my job as speaker to do what is best for this body, and I know that this body is not well served by a protracted fight over such an important position,” Ryan said.
Ryan’s statement came soon after Conroy delivered a two-page letter that said he has never “heard a complaint about my ministry” as House chaplain. Instead, Conroy says top Ryan aide Jonathan Burks told him the speaker wanted his resignation, and cited a prayer last year that was potentially critical of the GOP tax bill.
“I inquired as to whether or not it was ‘for cause,’ and Mr. Burks mentioned something dismissively like ‘maybe it’s time that we had a Chaplain that wasn’t a Catholic,’” Conroy wrote to Ryan in a letter that was also sent to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2018/05/03/us-house-chaplain-seeks-withdraw-resignation/34531871/
‘Modesty ponchos’ to be doled out at Dearborn Divine Child HS prom
“It’s a very stressful time,” she said.
The ponchos have been ridiculed and criticized on social media.
Twitter user @JennyLessnau wrote: “I really have a problem with the fact that if you happen to have big boobs at DC, and wear a dress that is even a little low, that will warrant a ‘modesty poncho’ EVERY time. they basically body shame girls if they’re bigger than a B cup.”
O’Malley and Divine Child’s principal, Eric Haley, could not immediately be reached by e-mail for comment late Monday. www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/wayne/2018/04/30/modesty-ponchos-doled-out-dearborn-divine-child-hs-prom/566943002/?fb_comment_id=fbc_1661838143912917_1662089420554456_1662089420554456#f3bdc6ef1b8e7e2
Audit: Okemos priest embezzlement grows to $5.4M
An investigation of a Catholic priest had focused on a $3 million mansion he built in 2007, but new records show the alleged pilfering began long before then.
The purported embezzlement started shortly after the Rev. Jon Wehrle founded St. Martha Church in 1988 and continued for 26 years, according to an audit by Plante Moran. In all, the priest is accused of taking $5.4 million from the church from 1991 to 2017, the audit shows.
Wehrle was charged with six counts of embezzlement last year and forced to resign as pastor of St. Martha. He is scheduled to be tried June 11 in Ingham County Circuit Court.
Church members, already shocked by earlier accounts of the alleged chicanery, are beginning to wonder whether they knew the priest at all.
“It’s shocking. I had no idea,” said former member Kathy Flynn www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2018/04/30/audit-okemo-priest-embezzlement-grows/34424783/
The Best and Worst Things in the History of the World
www.youtube.com/watch?v=iA-fY2dr9jc
In the Heat of Battle, ‘In the Year of the Pig’
To watch “In the Year of the Pig,” the 1969 Vietnam War documentary by Emile de Antonio (1919-89) is to be dropped into the middle of a long-germinating and still-developing disaster.
The movie, screening this weekend in a newly restored 35-millimeter print as part of Metrograph’s current de Antonio retrospective, is not a history of the Vietnam War so much as an immersion in the ideas that were held while the war was going on.
“In the Year of the Pig” (which can be found on YouTube) is also a landmark in film history. Commonplace now, the notion of a documentary without a voice-over, predicated on the juxtaposition of archival footage and contrapuntal interviews was novel in 1969 and proved highly influential.
De Antonio’s first feature, “Point of Order” (1964), a chronological assemblage of TV footage of the 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings made with Dan Talbot, was the first documentary feature to treat American politics as a media spectacle. “In the Year of the Pig” — a movie in which politicians, generals, journalists and academics posture and declaim against a backdrop of battle scenes and patriotic pageants — was described by de Antonio as “political theater.” www.nytimes.com/2018/05/02/movies/in-the-year-of-the-pig-vietnam-emile-de-antonio.html
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McMaster and Commander
“By the time I left, we had these cards,” the former staffer said. They are long and narrow, made of heavy stock, and emblazoned with the words “THE WHITE HOUSE” at the top. Trump receives a thick briefing book every night, but nobody harbors the illusion that he reads it. Current and former officials told me that filling out a card is the best way to raise an issue with him in writing. Everything that needs to be conveyed to the President must be boiled down, the former staffer said, to “two or three points, with the syntactical complexity of ‘See Jane run.’ ” www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/30/mcmaster-and-commander
So Long
Luis García Meza, Bolivian dictator jailed for genocide, dies at 88
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said the general had used millions of dollars he received from cocaine cartels to buy the allegiance of Bolivian army commanders and to forestall an anti-drug operation initiated by Washington.
He presided for 13 murderous months. In August 1981, in the face of outcries at home and abroad about corruption, cruelty and economic catastrophe, he resigned. The military installed a less odious successor, Celso Torrelio Villa. www.sfgate.com/world/article/Luis-Garc-a-Meza-Bolivian-dictator-jailed-for-12886367.php