How You Can Tell John McCain Didn't Go to Catholic School

One thing I noticed last night, as the candidates rushed to their chairs to start scribbling their notes, was that John McCain appears to be left-handed.

I didn't care enough to research this much, but when I listened to the replay of Hardball as I woke up this morning, they were talking about it, too...apparently several of our last few Oval occupants have been cursed this way.

As Chris Matthews observed, we are now certain that McCain didn't go to Catholic school...where, back in the day, the habit would have been beaten out of him!

I wonder what ever happened to Sr. Theresa Claire? She sure didn't look like our friend on the left...

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

Just a little quick post before hitting the hay and hopefully ridding my body of a very annoying summertime cold...

The whole sex education in schools thing never fired me up that much. Maybe it's because I don't have kids, so I don't think about it all that often. Maybe it's because I'm pretty apathetic about over-legislating school curricula. Or it might just be because it's a red herring issue.

But the brouhaha last week over McCain's claims, and Barry's counterattack, about the so-called kindergarten sex ed bill in IL is the topic of a new article by National Review's Byron York.

The gist of it is that, the tenor of McCain's ad notwithstanding, the truth is much more on McCain's side than it was Barack's. York's research suggests that the Illinois Senate bill actually was a comprehensive sex ed bill and that there was more to it than the stranger danger motif suggested by the Obama campaign in their shrill retort.

You make the call.

Science in the Classroom

So as I understand it, Governor Palin believes in some form of creationism and is open to creationism being taught in schools, in a science class, next to evolution as an alternative intperpretation.

If we're gong to do this, in a reproduction class, should we teach about the virgin birth of Christ as an alternate way a woman can become with child? If it's in the Bible, and we see the Bible as containing a legitimate interpretation of fact, it probably should.

Likewise, when one dies, we teach in some biology classes about rigor mortis and all the stages the body goes thru. Should we list as an exception to this, what happened to JC when he died? The justification would be the same as above.

To be clear, i have no problem at all and am not questioning or commenting on things taken as articles of faith. My issue is with people who take that article of faith and think that it should fit into a science class as alternate, on-par, plausible interpretation for all of us.

I don't care that much what Governor Palin or others believe in their hearts as articles of faith. I won't mock it or agree with it. I'm also not too concerned about what little kids are going to learn in science class (at least as far as my Presidential candidates are concerned) but I am interested in someone being elected who cannot compartmentalize what is science and what is faith, and allows them to spill into each other.

Separate But Equal?

Winnetka, Illinios, the swanky north shore suburb of Chicago, and home to the top-tier New Trier school system had some visitors from down yonder.

Rev. James Meeks, from the city of Chicago, bussed a whole bunch of kids up there to symbolically try and register for classes in the vastly-better-funded school district.

Everyone knows that schools' funding can very dramatically by local property taxes, but I find myself sympathetic to both sides. If I'm someone who's busted my ass to make sure I can afford to live in an area like Winnetka, so my kids can get the quality education that comes with it, I don't want my taxes dilluted more and going to be spent elsewhere.

On the other hand, if I'm someone living in Chicago, perhaps working a few gigs just to make ends meet, does it seem like my kids are getting a fair shake from the Chicago Public School system? Wouldn't I be a bit resentful that the 'public' education my kids are getting is not even in the same universe as the ones being doled out 30 miles north?

As noted, the protest was largely symbollic. Enrolling in a school outside one's distric requires de facto tuition payments and there's also a plausible argument that the parents' beef should be not with the north shore, but with their own communities and the Chicago Public Schools.

It's not easy for me to make a clear "this group is right and the other is wrong" stance on this one, but I have to hand it to the Rev. for making it a big story in Chicago today and to get people who are smarter than me talking about it more openly...sometimes an in-your-face approach works.

Bubba, That Lying SOB

Doing some housecleaning here and I can't tell if the Pine-Sol or the blabbering jackass on TV is making it harder to breathe.

On C-SPAN, he just spent 15 minutes, down in College Station, TX, railing against No Child Left Behind.

He was pointing out all the problems with it and making it sound like the most worthless piece of legislation ever.

The problem is, of course, that Hillary voted for it!

Part of her standard rap on this is that it was enforced in a way inconsistent with the way the bill was written.

We have two choices here...either she did not anticipate the downsides of the bill or she voted for a bill that did not have adequate enforcement mechanisms built in.

Irresponsible to vote for it and worse to lie about it later.

Hmmmmmmmmmph.

New Enemy of this Site

For whatever reason, I've started to pay a little more attention to Chicago lately.

Could it be nostalgia for the days having lived back there?

Could it be my regularly pulling down the podcast of the Steve Dahl Show?

Or could it be because the Governor of Illinois is a world class jerkoff and that invites commentary?

Now, the idiot who forces you to wonder if the most tasteless thing going on is on top of, or between the ears, is trying to cash in on a little bit of that Northern Illinois murder mojo.

He wants to spend $40M of state money to tear down the building in which the shooting took place to build a new one.

There were 435 murders in the city of Chicago alone last year.

Do we see him wanting to tear down buildings on the west side in order to ease the pain of the black folks out there?

Hell no.

Commenting on this story is pretty much an exercise in overstating the obvious, but Blago gets the award here for idiot of the week...a distinction I believe he'll win often.

Obama Makes a Serious Move to the "Right"

Wow, I just read an article in Politico over lunch (a nice Reuben sandwich, if you must know) about Barack Obama and education that kind of floored me.

He's talking openly about wanting to explore charter schools and some kind of merit pay for teachers.

For a Democratic Presidential candidate, by my recollection, this is kind of a big deal. He's just taking a wiz right on the third rail for the NEA and other "education" groups.

Personally I've always been a little offended by their strong aversion to trying things like paying for performance, but what do I know...Teachers must be the only people in the world who believe that their on-the-job performace is imperfectly measured. The rest of us dolts just create widgets and get payed exactly accurately for what we do.

This can be seen as nothing but a serious move for those disenchanted GOP voters who have been hearing about this Barack guy and just need a good reason to go over and vote for him.

If nothing else, cheers to Obama for what could be the play of the month!

Blame Someone Else

Came across an interesting little posting about the US education system this morning.

This is one of those topics where you really have to wonder about someone who has a categorical, black-and-white opinion. It's complex, hard to test and always changing.

That said, the writer does throw enough caution in the air to rain on the folks who like to blame schools for all of our ills and try to convince us that in the good old days, everyone learned their ABCs...