Douchebag of the Week 4/30/06

I have been slacking on my award-giving duties, but this post is not going to far to remedy my laziness. There is only one nominee this week, and therefore, that one (or possibly more than one) nominee is the winner.

The winner is the person or people that broke into my truck last night while I was eating dinner at Green Street. They took 3 bags after smashing my window. One bag had an iPod and my digital camera. That stuff is expensive, but easily replaceable. However, in the other bag was the free loot that I got from the Vroman's Book Bus, which was all books and a few trinkets. The other bag had my school work (including the gradesheets for my students' notebooks which took me 3+ hours to do), my planbook, the sample CDs from the book publishers, my paycheck, my $80 UCLA textbook, my checkbook, and really more things of almost no value to them. So I am sure these cunts (yeah, I said it) are enjoying the new digital camera and iPod while all of the stuff that I can't replace is in the garbage. So, thanks...you complete fucking douchebags.

I have lost a little more confidence in humanity.

My nerdy weekend

Just when you thought I had nerded myself out completely with a weekend visit to the tall ships, I now top myself. Tomorrow I will be spending about 8 hours at the LA Times Festival of Books. Now, its free, so it isn't the complete epitome of nerdiness. However, I did pay to take a bus from Vroman's here in Pasadena to the festival. I will sign in just before 8am and have some coffee and some sort of food. Before boarding the Festival Party Bus, which will include discussion with an author, I will get a totebag with "various goodies" including a "book bus hat" which you will all be jealous of.

My schedule for the day includes the following seminars: writing epic history, satirical fiction, nonfiction: unraveling the story, current interest: American Identity, and a cooking demonstration (and book signing) with Giada DeLaurentis from Food Network's Everyday Italian. Plus, I'm going to explore the different vendors and spend too much money on books that I won't read for a while since I already have like 15 or so waiting in line. There is also a good chance that I will get a slight sunburn.

I promise to post my notes from the different panels and any pictures that I take, especially since Giada tends to show a lot of cleavage. Sadly, though, Amanda will be with my sister-in-law making our wedding invitations, an activity that I am glad that I got out of. Not that I don't care, I'm just not that crafty.

I still need to post the few pictures that I got from my appearance on the Channel 5 news.

Oh, and Rush Limbaugh got into some drug trouble. I guess he's allowed to be in trouble since he's a legal citizen and conservative.

FoxNews is a stepping-stone to the White House?

Look, I would feel the same way if a liberal chose Al Franken for Press Secretary. Although I posted about it last week almost as a joke, Tony Snow was named Press Secretary this morning. Are they serious?!? Aren't journalists supposed to be somewhat objective? I'm the first to say that 90% of the media is polarized, leaning left or right, but this seems like a bit much to me. They were already claiming this morning that calling Snow a "rightist" in the same note as Rush is wrong. Look FoxNews, its too late to clean up his record. He worked for FoxNews and now he works for Bush. Good pick. At least he already has practice avoiding questions and spinning everything in favor of Bush.

If you don't read this post you are helping the terrorists

OK, not really, but I really could not think of a different title. However, I have a few interesting tidbits to cover today before the scheduled blogger outage at 4:00.

Pennies are worthless...or are they? With the rising price of metals, it turns out that a penny costs more than a penny to make. I heard this on a podcast (or maybe NPR) the other day, but I can't find a better source in "print". If I remember correctly, it costs 0.7 cents for the metal to make the penny and 0.6 cents to carry out the process (per penny). That means it costs us 1.3 cents to make a 1-cent penny. Talk about government efficiency. I wonder how we can just get rid of pennies. Would businesses have to round up or round down? What really pisses me off is that pennies are still used, but the Sacagawea dollar didn't catch. Bullshit!

The man doesn't want to let you use the internet. Well, sort of. There is a bill in progress that is looking to protect access to the internet. There are a few links in this article at TheCarpetBagger Report that give more details. The issue is that some companies that run high-speed internet service want to maintain control of the access to their wiring. Steve at TCB gives a good analogy. If Amazon agrees on a deal with Verizon, Verizon could realistically make Amazon's website load and run faster than other bookstores, especially independent stores that could not afford this same deal. The bill looks to make this type of deal illegal. I don't think these deals exist right now, but it would not surprise me.

Gas gives me gas. Well, not as much as beans, but this whole situation with gas prices does make me sick. First, however, let me say that although I would prefer lower prices for gas, I am OK with high prices. Maybe this will force us to use other options. What drives me up the wall is oil companies playing it off like they have no control. A new bi-partisan movement in Congress looks to tax these windfall profits that gas companies have been getting. Normally, I don't like this type of government involvement in business, but clearly gas plays a special role in our economy. So I say screw these oil execs. We pay at the pump for their $400,000,000 retirements. Do you think I am exaggerating? Lee Raymond retired from Exxon got that deal. Yeah, those oil prices are really costing you guys. What happens when the price of oil goes up? Within 48 hours we see a rise in gas prices. What happens when oil prices go down? It takes a week for gas stations to drop their prices. Congress needs to grow some balls and really investigate these companies. Why don't they? Because oil companies give $25,000,000 annually to their campaigns (86% of that to Republicans). Sorry, I guess the average American gets the shaft again.

All the news that is fit to print...or not

No more McClellan. Bush's Press Secretary "voluntarily" resigned this morning clearing the way for another stooge to come in and not answer tough questions. I kid you not, there are rumors that they are actually considering a FoxNews reporter as his replacement - Tony Snow. Well, he's got a lot of practice making shit up in favor of bush anyways, so he might as well take the promotion. Yes, there are others being considered, but just the fact that this idea is out there is absolutely pathetic.

Schools are cheaters. Let me be very clear here: schools are not cheaters. People around the country are up in arms over the AP report that schools are allowed to leave out the test scores of certain groups of students if there are not many of those students that attend the school. The AP story uses the example of an African-American student whose scores are not counted in the No Child Left Behind scores for the primarily white high school she attends. Guess what? It happens. When your school has 17 Mexican kids, their scores are not reported because that's not a large enough number to be representative. These scores are statistics, and how accurate are statistics based on a minority population of 17 in a school of 3,000? So I am arguing that this study is misleading. How misleading? Here is a link to the scores my school got on the most recent CST testing. Notice how we tested 2468 students and we have only 86 African-American students and only 81 white students. At about 3% each, these groups are not really statistically significant. So yes, we left out the white and black kids. Also check out this link, which is the scores that are used for NCLB (aka AYP). So, really, schools are not cheating anything. The real cheater is the federal government for spreading this type of shit about schools and saying that our schools are failing even though they really don't help us.

May 1. So I guess there is going to be some kind of boycott on May 1st to show the economic power of immigrants. This is another stupid idea hatched by leaders that seem to have no clue how to get real response. So on that day, Mexican immigrants will not spend money. How is this supposed to be effective? Guess what? I didn't spend money yesterday. Yeah, I'm a crazy political activist. What would have happened if King led a one-day boycott on the buses in Montgomery for just one day? You would have had a lot of black people walking. Instead, they did it for more than 2 weeks, showing not only their persistence, but their economic power. One day? I go 1 day without buying something all the time. If this movement is successful, and I hope that it can be, they need to get some new leadership that has a clue.

That's all for today. They're shutting me out at 4:00 for repairs, so I better post and get some school work done.

Welcome to the Podcastosphere

I though I was being really creative when I came up with that word, Podcastosphere. However, when I did a Google search for it, I came up with about a billion hits.

In any case, I have become addicted to Podcasts. There are sooooo many out there and they cover soooooo many topics. Today, I am going to tell you about some of my favorites. They are all readily available through iTunes.

1. The NPR Podcast of "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me!". I realize that this is on my local public radio station every Saturday, but I really don't feel like sitting near a radio on Saturday afternoons. Plus, the podcast version cuts out the news and ads. WWDTM is basically a news quiz show with guests that make jokes alongside the host. Some of the more funny panelists are P.J. O'Rourque, Mo Rocca, and Paula Pundstone. I highly recommend it.

2. NPR Story of the Day. The NPR people choose a story from one of their shows for each day that they think is especially interesting. I listen to NPR a lot, so sometimes I skip these as I have already heard them. One of the better ones recently talked about a man that created an audio-journal of his last year of life before dying of cancer. They had his wife on talking about their experiences.

3. The Onion Radio News. From the writers of The Onion Newspaper, these are usually under a minute and are released just about every day. Basically, they are just like stories from The Onion, but spoken. The newsman, Doyle Redlund (sp?) has one of those cool 1950s radio voices. I wish I could get more of these.

4. New York Times front page. I don't really get much chance to read the newspaper, but the people at the NYT give a quick summary of the front page and some stories from the inside of the paper. And the best part is that they release them the night before so I can listen to today's headlines today!

5. World Soccer Daily. These guys do the Fox Football Friday show on Fox Soccer Channel and this 2-hour talk show is actually broadcast on Sirius radio. They are pretty knowledgeable, although a lot of the people I know don't respect their opinions. However, I just like to hear people talk about soccer.

6. Slate Explainer. The people from Slate do a Podcast that gives explanations to those questions that you always wanted to know the answer to, but were afraid to ask. Some recent examples: What is a Congressional earmark? Who cashes my tax check? How dangerous is hail? How United are the United Arab Emirates? Usually about 5 minutes.

7. Slate Magazine. These are usually pretty short (7-8 minutes), but can be as long as 20. They are not always about politics. My favorite of the recent past talked about the unadvertised size of drink at Starbucks: the short. Short is smaller than the tall, which is perfect for people who don't want so much. It is also cheaper. If you want a one-shot cappuccino, this is the size that gives you the appropriate proportion of espresso to milk. Other recent topics: Baseball stadiums getting rid of their cheap seats (that was today actually), cell phone plans, and the proper manners when you run into Scooter Libby after you trashed him in an article you wrote.

8. State Department Press Conferences. The Daily Press Conference given by the State Department about issues like national security, foreign relations, etc. is actually posted on the web every day. This may not be interesting to most, but I find it wildly entertaining. Lots of question-dodging, lots of anger, lots of being defensive of ridiculous policies created by the Bush Administration.

9. Wine for Newbies. This is a series of podcasts that teach you about the nuances of wine and the different types of wines. I just listened to the lesson about Reislings. As a teacher myself, I am very critical of his teaching style, which is basically monotoned talking, but I'm learning a lot about wine, which I enjoy.

There are so many more out there. Our governator has his own boring podcast, shows about sports, news, politics, the OC, American Idol, etc. Bill Frist just announced that he will be doing his own podcast. My iPod has 2 CDs on it, but about 60 hours of podcasts. I add maybe 7-8 hours a day and erase the ones that I already listened to. I listen in my classroom during lunch, I listen at home on some nights, I listen in my car while driving to/from work. Its like crack.

A random post for Easter

First of all, Happy Easter. Today I will be devouring every potato that I see. I gave them up for lent, and I want them back.

Some short news items that I have found interesting:

SouthCentral farmers. This is an issue that my church has been involved with recently. Basically, the city gave a group of farmers a plot of unused land in the center of SouthCentral, which they used to create 330 plots of land for poor families to use to grow extra food to eat and sell. The site was going to be used as an incinerator, but the city backed out of that plan and left it vacant, which meant it became an unofficial dump. Now it supplies 330 families with extra food and income and all they have to pay is $13/month for services like water, trash, and sewage. Now the guy who originally sold the land to the city wants it back, and right now he is getting his way. Not only that, but he sued the city and will likely get it back for its 1980s value, which is maybe 1/3 of its current value, giving him a huge windfall. Read more about it at the link above or visit their website.

City of Vernon elections. I never knew much about the City of Vernon besides its name. Its a weird place. Basically, it exists only for industry and has a population of about 100. Even their motto says "exclusively industrial." In any case, they had an election for City Council and have decided not to count the votes. Instead, the current council voted to keep itself as the next City Council. Why? Because some new people moved there and ran. Basically, they have had the same people on City Council for over 35 years! It gets even more strange. It turns out that once these people filed to run, they had all of their services cut off by the city, stalked by armed private investigators hired by the city, and finally were evicted. The city even sent their election registration packets to the county after stamping them "cancelled", which they do not have the power to decide. However, there is another side to the story. The people that ran were set up with their place in Vernon by a real estate agent who has connections with a scandal that took money from the city of South Gate. Maybe the City of Vernon just wanted to keep these kind of people out. I, however, think that they clearly went about it the wrong way, which is the understatement of the century. It also seems like the City Council gets a good deal of income. The city collects a bunch in taxes, but only offers services to a small number of residences. They can afford their own police, fire and medical clinic. Their city administrator retired and was given $600,000 in salary, vacation, and bonuses. His son is the city clerk that refused to count the ballots. I wonder how much these council members and other city employees get. Actually, most of the residents of Vernon are city employees who live in city-subsidized cheap housing. See what I mean, this is sketchy as hell.

Bush lied again. As proof that there were WMDs in Iraq, Bush talked about these mobile biological weapons labs that they had found. Well, it turns out that these trucks are pretty much what the first investigators thought that they were: nothing. In fact, they were jokingly called "the biggest sand toilets in the world." The article I linked to is pretty long, but on the second page they talk about the now-discredited Iraqi defector that originally told German intelligence about these supposed mobile labs. I guess a lot of the drawings that Colin Powell used in his big UN speech were based on this guy's stories, which we now know were made up. Where can you read the 122-page report on these big toilets? You can't. It is classified and collecting dust on a shelf while being ignored. The only way we know about what is in them is through interviews with the scientists that issued the report. Here we go again.

That's all for today. I'm about 3 articles from publishing the long-awaited Douchebag of the Week(s). We'll see how motivated I am tonight to finish them.

Hillsborough

Tomorrow marks the 17th anniversary of possibly the greatest tragedy in modern sports history. On April 15th, 1989, Liverpool FC were set to play Nottingham Forest in an FA Cup Semi-final at Hillsborough, the stadium normally home to Sheffield Wednesday. As was custom during that decade, Liverpool fans were separated from Forest fans by fences, especially on the terraces (the cheapest section where there were no actual seats, just concrete floors and some rails). As gametime appraoched, more than 5000 Liverpool fans were still trying to enter the grounds. Instead of delaying the start of the game, police opened another gate, allowing a flood of fans to enter the terraces, crushing many of the fans that had already entered. The game was postponed, and after more than 10 minutes, a gate was opened allowing fans to escape onto the pitch (field). Once the section was emptied, there was a total of 95 Liverpool fans that had been crushed or trampled to death, and one fan died several years later after being in a persistent vegatative state.

Since the Hillsborough tragedy, stadiums have gotten rid of the terraces in favor of actual seating.

I have only been a Liverpool supporter for about 5 years or so, but this is one of those days that makes me appreciate my life a little more. I have been to over 100 professional soccer matches in the last 10 years and I am a season-seat holder for the LA Galaxy. I could never imagine the absolute joy that I get from attending matches bringing this type of horror. Reading the names, you can see that some families lost multiple members.

As my annual tribute to those 96 fans who lost their lives, I will post their names and ages here:

You'll Never Walk Alone
John Alfred Anderson (62)	Thomas Howard (39)
Colin Mark Ashcroft (19)	Thomas Anthony Howard (14)
James Gary Aspinall (18)	Eric George Hughes (42)
Kester Roger Marcus Ball (16)	Alan Johnston (29)
Gerard Bernard Patrick Baron (67)	Christine Anne Jones (27)
Simon Bell (17)	Gary Philip Jones (18)
Barry Sidney Bennett (26)	Richard Jones (25)
David John Benson (22)	Nicholas Peter Joynes (27)
David William Birtle (22)	Anthony Peter Kelly (29)
Tony Bland (22)	Michael David Kelly (38)
Paul David Brady (21)	Carl David Lewis (18)
Andrew Mark Brookes (26)	David William Mather (19)
Carl Brown (18)	Brian Christopher Mathews (38)
David Steven Brown (25)	Francis Joseph McAllister (27)
Henry Thomas Burke (47)	John McBrien (18)
Peter Andrew Burkett (24)	Marion Hazel McCabe (21)
Paul William Carlile (19)	Joseph Daniel McCarthy (21)
Raymond Thomas Chapman (50)	Peter McDonnell (21)
Gary Christopher Church (19)	Alan McGlone (28)
Joseph Clark (29)	Keith McGrath (17)
Paul Clark (18)	Paul Brian Murray (14)
Gary Collins (22)	Lee Nicol (14)
Stephen Paul Copoc (20)	Stephen Francis O'Neill (17)
Tracey Elizabeth Cox (23)	Jonathon Owens (18)
James Philip Delaney (19)	William Roy Pemberton (23)
Christopher Barry Devonside (18)	Carl William Rimmer (21)
Christopher Edwards (29)	David George Rimmer (38)
Vincent Michael Fitzsimmons (34)	Graham John Roberts (24)
Thomas Steven Fox (21)	Steven Joseph Robinson (17)
Jon-Paul Gilhooley (10)	Henry Charles Rogers (17)
Barry Glover (27)	Colin Andrew Hugh William Sefton (23)
Ian Thomas Glover (20)	Inger Shah (38)
Derrick George Godwin (24)	Paula Ann Smith (26)
Roy Harry Hamilton (34)	Adam Edward Spearritt (14)
Philip Hammond (14)	Philip John Steele (15)
Eric Hankin (33)	David Leonard Thomas (23)
Gary Harrison (27)	Patrik John Thompson (35)
Stephen Francis Harrison (31)	Peter Reuben Thompson (30)
Peter Andrew Harrison (15)	Stuart Paul William Thompson (17)
David Hawley (39)	Peter Francis Tootle (21)
James Robert Hennessy (29)	Christopher James Traynor (26)
Paul Anthony Hewitson (26)	Martin Kevin Traynor (16)
Carl Darren Hewitt (17)	Kevin Tyrrell (15)
Nicholas Michael Hewitt (16)	Colin Wafer (19)
Sarah Louise Hicks (19)	Ian David Whelan (19)
Victoria Jane Hicks (15)	Martin Kenneth Wild (29)
Gordon Rodney Horn (20)	Kevin Daniel Williams (15)
Arthur Horrocks (41)	Graham John Wright (17)

The Complete collapse of the Bush Administration

OK, I have not been nearly diligent enough is talking about what is going on in politics and my views on those events. This piece from the CarpetBagger Report piqued my interest though. It seems that the conservative Chicago Tribune wants Dick Cheney to nut up and talk about the CIA leak case. In case you missed it, Scooter Libby testified that Dick authorized him to leak the information about Valerie Plame, and more importantly, information about Plame's husband's report saying that Bush's WMD worries were false. (Did that make sense? If not, read the story).
Now, theoretically, Bush can't really get in trouble for de-classifying information since that is his right, but Cheney does not have that right, even though he thinks that he does. (He doesn't). In any case, I think this administration has gone on lying long enough. Although conservatives will never admit it, Bush clearly misled Americans about his reasons for Iraq. See the Downing Street Memo. Bush dodged the issue of wiretapping until he finally said that he was allowed to do it. Bush said that he would fire anybody involved in the CIA leak. He has done nothing about it and his VP refuses to answer questions from anybody except FoxNews.

And now there is a new story out saying that James Tobin, a Bush campaign worker, was convicted in a scheme to jam Democratic phone banks during the 2002 Senatorial election. Basically, there were some people working on behalf of the Democrats that were calling people to get them out to vote for the Democratic candidate in a very close election. Starting at 7:15 am, there was a barrage of incoming calls to the bank that were basically hang-ups. This jammed their phone bank, thus preventing the callers from getting out the vote. How is Bush connected? Tobin called the White House 12 times that day. Hmmmm... Oh, and guess who paid Tobin's lawyers during his court case. The Republican National Committee.

This has been a 6-year debacle based solely on the premise that we need to prevent another 9-11. I maintain my argument that everything we are doing to stop terrorism is essentially encouraging more terrorism. The Bush Administration has lied, cheated, and now even their own people are bailing out. Shit, even Bill O'Reilly thinks we need to get out. Francis Fukuyama, who is a really smart Harvard economist and super-conservative, says that the war in Iraq is no longer worth what we are losing in lives and money.

Look, I realize that all of this sounds pretty leftist-cooky, but can you honestly say that Bush has done a good job? Maybe if you look only at some basic economic statistics. Oh, and conservatives will always go back to the "So you don't think getting rid of Saddam Hussein was a good idea?" argument, but that one is getting old. So that is where I am right now. The only thing that bothers me is that there is not much better out there. Politicians only do what they think will keep them in their cushy job, not what will actually make our country, and the world, better. I am waiting for the candidate who says "here is what I believe is best for the country and if you disagree, please don't vote for me." I know, I know. It will never happen. Unless I run for office someday, which Amanda has said is not allowed. Plus, I like my job.

I am a media whore

Unless something changes between now and Wednesday morning, I am going to be on the KTLA Channel 5 morning news Wednesday. They are broadcasting from the Home Depot Center because of the L.A. derby this weekend (a derby, in soccerese, is when two local teams play eachother). I am one of 10 Galaxy fans that will be there along with 10 Chivas USA fans. I'm not sure what I am going to be doing or how much airtime I will get, but there are a few interesting characters that will be representing the Riot Squad (the supporters group I sit with) and there could be some interesting happenings. I just hope they get my good side, although I'm not sure which side that is.

An evening with Gorby

So former Soviet president Mikail Gorbachev came to the Pasadena Civic as part of their Distinguished Speakers Series. First, let me say that they really need to put some quotes around "Distinguished" since only 75% of these people are really distinguished in my view. Gorby, Colin Powell, Shimon Peres, George Will, Benazir Bhutto, etc. could all be considered "distinguished." However, are Bill O'Reilly, Naomi Judd or Carl Reiner really that distinguished? I think not. Second, let me say thank you for Lauri and Pete for getting me into this event. I felt really important going through a back entrance. By the way, Lauri looks super-professional in her suit and I was intimidated.

Now let's get to some of the comments. Please be patient with me as I am going completely from mental notes that are now 40 hours old.

The topic that he was presented was to discuss perestroika 20 years later. I think he covered the topic well, but you really had to think about how he was doing that. Also, he spoke in Russian with translation, so there may have been some loss of poeticism. There are, however, several general ideas that I got from what he said. #1 - He really does not like Boris Yeltsin. Not in the way Bush doesn't like Kerry, but in the way God hates the Devil. I mean, its really personal hatred. #2 - Despite being raised under Stalin, educated under Khrushchev, and came to power under Brezhnev this guy is really anti-totalitarian. Or at least he talks like he is. #3 - He thinks very highly of his country and still wants the best for it. #4 - I don't think he has patience for stupidity - like the KABC talk-show guy that MC'd. Anyways, here are some of the themes that he touched on while speaking.

The overall effect of perestroika. Perestroika was Gorbachev's policy of "restructuring" or re-building Soviet society. He looked to not only open up the repressive nature of the USSR (what he called Glasnost or "openness"), but he also wanted to bring more freedom to the economy. Hence, the inevitable collapse of the Soviet Communism. He made a few comments about the stupidity of totalitarian rule and said that perestroika was inevitable in a world where people were beginning to have a greater understanding of their rights, especially in the realm of private ownership and the need for survival. He felt very strongly that once Yeltsin took over, most of the strongest and most successful parts of perestroika went down the drain and the Soviet economy was based only on providing benefits to the top 10% of society (where have I heard that before?). One of the more interesting comments he made later in the speech was that he thought that if the Soviet Union would have been kept together according to his plan of perestroika, the worldwide balance of power (bi-polar power) would have been maintained and the world would be much more peaceful, including the Middle East. He also talked a lot about his peasant childhood and how that effected his view in life and led him to his reform ideas.

Iraq. It was very clear from the beginning that Gorby does not care much for the war or the way that the U.S. carries out its foreign policy. I thought that his best points the whole night came during this part. First, he pointed out that he and Reagan (and Bush the First a little) were able to settle the Cold War without actual fighting. He said that current Western policy focuses too much on forcing people to do things with the military and not enough on using diplomacy to reach a compromise. Second, he noted that "diplomacy must be home grown" (and that is an exact quote - I remember it clearly). Mr. Gorbachev noted emphatically that it is impossible to force a nation to adopt another country's form of democracy at gunpoint ad he feels that there is no way our forced democracy in Iraq will ever gain stability unless we leave and let them create their own form of democracy. I agree.

Terrorism. Gorbachev recognized the threat of worldwide terror and the need for governments to protect their citizens. Now, this next point is one that I really agree with and had a long discussion with Peter at Pete the Elder about it. Gorby argued that we are not really dealing with the root problem of terrorism. He felt that the leaders of terrorists are certainly a problem, but that the people that take up the fight on behalf of these leaders are doing so mostly because they have been isolated from the world economy. They have been left out and extreme Islamic terrorism gives them a way to fight against the countries that have done nothing to help them. Gorby argued that too many countries have been left out of globalization and that we, as a world, need to do more to bring these developing countries into the global economy. I could not agree more.

Reagan. Obviously, there were a lot of people at the Civic waiting to hear what Gorbachev had to say about old Ronnie, and I have to say that there wasn't much there. He told a joke about what he and Reagan said about each other after their first meeting. He said that they were asked separately about what they thought of eachother. Reagan said that Gorby was a die-hard Bolshevik and Gorby said that Reagan was so conservative that he was a dinosuar. It doesn't sound as funny now that I write it. He also said that Reagan was not that open to the idea of nuclear disarmament at first and he did not respect that. In the only decent audience question, Gorby was asked what he thought when Reagan made the famous "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall" comment. Gorbachev said that he and the party members knew that Reagan was an actor before becoming a politician and that they were not impressed and thought that it was a show. That got a good laugh.

Overall, I was surprised that the crowd had such a positive response to his more liberal views. Pete said that this crowd is generally conservative. He got solid applause at least a dozen times. I thought that he had a lot of great ideas and theories, and I really appreciate his concern for world peace. Pete said that it was weird to be in the same room as the guy that we used to see on TV everyday in the late 80s. I agree. We were way in the back, but you could tell that a lot of the crowd was awe-struck to be in his presence. I do wish, however, that the KABC radio guy would not have picked the "Have you ever been to Disneyland?" crowd question from the cards submitted before the show. I felt embarrassed to be part of the audience. In any case, I would love to check out more of these speeches in the future. Maybe not Tom Wolfe, but I am interested to see who they get next year.

Douchebags, Commies, and Textbooks

First, I know that I promised that there would be a new Douchebag of the Week, and it is coming...next week while I am on Spring Break. I'm building a collection right now and the monkeys are typing away furiously at their machines.

Second, I went to a meeting today to discuss which textbook we are adopting in LAUSD next year for social studies. Well, we don't get a huge choice since there was a committee of teachers that met over the summer and looked through the 7-8 submissions for each core class (World History, U.S. History, Government, Economics) and they cut the choices down to about three and the Board narrowed even further in some cases. And let me tell you, textbooks are BIG MONEY my friends, and especially when the company has a chance to sell books to the 2nd largest district in the country. Its sort of like the drug companies buying lunch for doctors almost every day except they only have to kiss our asses once every 6-7 years, which is how often we adopt new books.

(NOTE: there are some classified/confidential issues involved here, so I am not going to mention specific companies or tell you who we are likely to choose)

So our meeting was held at Pickwick Gardens in Burbank, which is a banquet hall/bowling alley/ice skating facility. No, we weren't discussing the books between frames and pitchers of MGD, but we were fed in large amounts. When I got there a "continental breakfast" was waiting. Not the Days Inn continental breakfast with danish, shitty muffins, and a carton of Donald Duck Orange Juice. Well, OK, there were Danish and shitty muffins, but also cereal, granola, juice, coffee, tea, bagels, fruit, and (to my excitement) fresh hard-boiled eggs. These were some good-ass eggs too. No green stuff on the yoke. So I had two eggs, a slice of bagel with cream cheese, some tasty coffee and some Tropicana OJ, which was in individual bottles.

Then we went to presentations for our first two companies. They gave us free totebags, which were actually of good quality, and a copy of the teacher and student editions of their books. As we went through the books they told us how these books are so good we don't even need to show up. Now, textbooks have come a long way since I was in high school. These days, the supplemental material they give us fill a 2-foot long box. However, that box is really obsolete since everything in the box, including both the student and teacher books, are on a CD. Often, they give us enough CDs that we can let students take them home and load them onto their home computers. PLUS, the two companies that I saw were offering us a free laptop or LCD projector for every ____ amount of books we buy. See what I mean? There's some serious scrilla flying around here.

After these two 30 minute presentations they gave us more food. It was mostly the same breakfast food, but they added more fruit and various granola bars. I had a banana and tried to kill my headache with 2 more cups of coffee and some water. Plus, I snagged a Nutri-Grain bar for later, although I never ate it.

Then I went back to the same companies and heard about their books for other subjects and got more free crap. Nothing too exciting, except now I have 4 totebags full of books and stuff. Really, though, the technology is mind-numbing at some point. Right now my technology is a laptop, LCD projector, and PowerPoint. These new books have video clips, interactive maps, extra help on their websites, pre-made PowerPoints, test-makers, lesson planners, etc. One publisher had this game-type deal where you got 40 remote controls and a sensor. The remotes have buttons A-H and you can put questions up on the screen. They point the remote at the sensor and click their answer. When the teacher hits some button on the computer, the screen shows how many people picked each answer. Then I can print a report that shows me which student picked which answers and which questions most students got wrong. There is also an option where one of the buttons can be a buzzer. Crazy. I'm not saying that we picked this company or that this was a good or bad tool, I'm just telling you about some of the crazy crap available (that's my attempt at a disclaimer).

Next was lunch. Now, please realize that its only 11:30 and I was just eating breakfast about 3 hours ago. Two salads, penne pasta with some kind of cream sauce, rice pilaf, chicken, and beef (tri-tip?). I had Caesar salad, a little rice, a little pasta, chicken, and one piece of beef. Here's the thing about the chicken: it was actually fish. I swear to God, it looked like chicken until I cut it. Now, I'll eat beef or chicken that has been kept hot in a chafing dish over Sterno, but I won't even eat fresh fish. It was all good, except the chicken/fish. I went to get some more iced tea and saw the desserts. Of course they had the standard cookies and brownies, but they also had bread pudding. I had a bit and it was good, but my stomach was full from too much water and coffee.

Now we discussed the books in grade-level groups. This is the part where I won't write much, but let's just say that there are some teachers that really don't get it. One guy wanted to pick a textbook simply because his school would get more free crap (laptops and projectors). In any case, it comes down to us picking one book as a school from the short list and hoping that we get them before the school year starts. I, however, already have my copy so I'm set. Shit, I have two copies of some of them.

Finally, we met as a large group. More food. This time there were cups put out and there were various bowls with Whoppers, Gummi Bears, peanuts, and pretzels. This is MAYBE 90 minutes after lunch. I love whoppers with a passion, but I just could not stomach the idea of more food (is that a pun?). However, one of my colleagues thought that I was joking about Whoppers being good so I ate one just to show him that they weren't disgusting.

So that was my day. I avoided our earthquake/evacuation drill and got a bunch of free food and books. Its a really interesting process, although a bit convoluted when it involves a district the size of LAUSD.

Third, I went to see Mikhail Gorbachev speak last night at the Civic here in Pasadena. I have a lot to say about that, but I am too tired to deal with it now. I promise to make an attempt to write about it tomorrow.

My new hero...sort of

OK, I really don't condone this type of behavior, but I will make an exception in this case. Yesterday, during the Padres/Giants home opener, a fan threw a syringe at Giants' outfielder Barry Bonds. In case you were not aware, Bonds has been accused (***cough***guilty***cough***) of using steroids by a lot of people, including the author of a new book, Game of Shadows. Throwing something like that onto the field is a violation of a number of rules and puts some people in danger (barely - that's if the needle was connected) and that person should have been ejected from the park. However, it was really damn funny.

Here's my take on Bonds. As a rookie in 1986, Bonds weighed maybe 160-170 (I'm guessing based on the fact that he was skinny, but an athlete). These days, Bonds weighs in at a more hefty 230. OK, yeah, he's older and likely would have put on weight, but that's a good chunk of beef. Besides the visual proof, Bonds's trainer was connected to BALCO, a company that pushed the new "supplement" that Bonds used to bulk up. This company also worked with Bill Romanowski, the now disgraced former NFL player who admitted to steroid use. In my view, all of Bonds's career statistics should be erased and he should be banned from the league and made ineligible for the Hall of Fame. Not only is he clearly using drugs to enhance his performance, but he is a total asshole. I mean, he has a clause in his contract that gives him two lockers so he can have a big screen in one of them. He also gets a recliner next to the double locker. Who the hell does he think he is? As a kid I dreamed of being a pro ball player and would have been more than happy with one locker, a uniform, and a nice folding chair. So not only is he a user, but he's also a dick. Now, there is nothing wrong with being a dick, but the two together makes me hate him more. Mark McGwire likely used steroids as well, but he also gave a ton of money to charity and was a nice guy, so he got away with it. Plus, a skinny Mark McGwire hit 49 homers during his rookie season. Look at the current home run king, Hank Aaron. As a 17 year-old trying out for the Dodgers, he was knocking balls out of the park while holding the bat wrong. He was a home run hitter and deserves to hold that record until a non-steroid user breaks it.

In any case, I also think that is says a lot that legendary Dodger announcer Vin Scully does not want to call Bonds's record-breaking home run. I hope he gets the chance to say what he wants to say, because Vin is untouchable and could say whatever he wanted about Bonds.

The Office

Did anybody catch those fake PSAs by the people in The Office? Neither did I, but somebody pointed them out to me and they are really funny. You should check them out here.