Political Theatre category archive
Ideological Divide 0
Michael Smerconish is a professed conservative, but a rare one who does not do the Fox(News)-Trot.
In a column posted today, he tries to make sense of the conflict between the what he calls the purists and the pragmatists in the Republican party.
It’s interesting, but also kind of sad, reflecting as it does the contortions of a decent person trying to convince himself that a viable bit of decency remains in his party.
“Book ‘Em, Dano” 0
Dan Casey awards his seventh annual Dano awards for distinguished accomplishments in stupid. Here’s one (emphasis in the original); follow the link for more.
Now in bankruptcy, ANR earlier this month asked a federal court in Richmond to allow it to pay up to $14 million in executive bonuses. At the same time, it proposed eliminating workers’ 401K match, short-term disability benefits, curtailing paid vacation and more.
Here’s how the company justified it: “Successfully navigating Alpha’s restructuring process has been and continues to be the primary focus of our senior management team and maintaining that strong leadership throughout this process is viewed as essential in the eyes of both the board and Alpha’s constituencies.”
For that, they also win the Dano in Corporate Gobbledygook.
Dealing with Uncle Liberty* 0
There is a simple flaw in this presentation: Facts do not override prejudice. For every fact, there is an equal and opposite prejudice.
Via Raw Story.
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*The term “Uncle Liberty” is used courtesy of Driftglass.
Testing the Fail 0
In a longer article at Psychology Today Blogs–indeed, almost as an aside–Alfie Cohn indicts the reliance on standardized testing and its inimical effects on our school systems. A snippet:
(snip)
But the outrageous and incalculably damaging reality of testing students every single year — extraordinary from a worldwide perspective, in fact virtually unheard of for students below high school age — continues in ESSA (“Elementary and Secondary Education Act”–ed.). Annual testing is something we’ve been conditioned to accept and even to view as tolerable compared to the reality of multiple tests a year, what with benchmark exams in between the other exams, districts piling on with their own assessments, new Common Core tests, and so on.
Remember “cramming” for tests? Two weeks after the test, all the stuff you crammed was gone, whereas, had you studied through the semester/quarter/period, you did not have to cram because you had actually learned stuff.
The regime of standardized tests has institutionalized cramming as a pedagogical technique. The test is all; there is nothing else. Learning is irrelevant to the cram.
Qui bono?
The testing companies. Everyone else is losing.
It Wasn’t Supposed To Be a Prophecy 0
Franklin Roosevelt, 1932:
We have nothing to fear but fear itself.
Republican candidates, 2015:
The Candidates Debate 0
Dick Polman sums up last night’s cavalcade of stupid.
Dealing with Climate Change 0
Reg Henry considers a new strategy for coping.
What a bore! I don’t want to hear any climate change doom from reality-respecting scientific know-it-alls. I want to enjoy the luxury of blissful denial in the face of the facts. In short, I want to become a conservative.
More at the link.
Republican WYSIWYG not 0
Paul Krugman considers the rise of the right wing in Europe and the U. S. A snippet (emphasis added):
But there is a strong element of bait-and-switch to this strategy. Whatever dog whistles get sent during the campaign, once in power the GOP has made serving the interests of a small, wealthy economic elite, especially through big tax cuts, its main priority — a priority that remains intact, as you can see if you look at the tax plans of the establishment presidential candidates this cycle.
Sooner or later the angry whites who make up a large fraction, maybe even a majority, of the GOP base were bound to rebel . . . .
The Candidates Debate, Idiot Boxes of Idiots Dept. 0
I don’t watch candidate debates. I can read about them the next morning in 10 or 15 minutes, instead of wasting hours of my life that I can’t get back.
Tonight, I might just watch some Three Stooges. At least their work had coherence.
Trumpeting Nonsense 0
One way to tell that Donald Trump is beyond the pale is this: Even Charles Krauthammer, who can pretzel himself to support the most twisted Republican policies, is excoriating his positions.
Your Vote Counts . . . 0
. . . only if you use it: