Creating ‘union government jobs’ isn’t what we had in mind

Maybe this explains why wages for federal employees have risen so fast: for the first time, the majority of union members work for local, state, or federal government.

This is not good. Unions act as clearing houses for political contributions to Democrats, and together they make deals to grow government. Now that most union members are now government workers, this is a huge conflict of interest.

So now we have a perfect storm: unionized government bureaucrats, whose salaries come from our tax dollars, and whose compulsory union dues are funneled (sometimes against their wishes) to Democrats for the purpose of growing a government that is already too big, too expensive, and a drag on the economy.

More, from the above:

Last month when the White House released its visitor log for the first six months of the Obama presidency, one name appeared far more often than any other: Service Employee International Union (SEIU) President Andrew Stern. Stern has every right to expect to be welcome in the Obama White House. He has repeatedly bragged about the fact that under his leadership, the SEIU spent $60.7 million to elect Barack Obama president. And what is Stern buying with his $60.7 million besides White House tours? Ever expanding federal government programs and state government bailouts which are rapidly bankrupting our country.

There was a time when unions protected working people from harsh, inhumane conditions. But do today’s government workers, who mostly sit in cubicles in temperature-controlled offices, need to be unionized? To protect them from what? Lower (and more realistic) wages?

Again, from the above:

Union membership has fallen to 7.3% of private sector workers – the lowest rate since Roosevelt signed the National Labor Relations Act into law. But it is a completely different story in the public sector: 37.6% of government employees belong to unions, up almost a percentage point since last year. Those 7.9 million unionized government employees are 51% of all union members nationwide.

So when we hear Obama continually talking about “creating jobs”, we have to remember: he must mean creating government jobs. Because that’s the only kind his kind of economic policies can create.

On this Veteran’s Day, I want to pay tribute to those who serve our nation.

Your tremendous efforts and sacrifices, and those of your families, are hereby noted.

And I instruct my children to respect the military, and to honor those who fight for our country and the greater cause of freedom in the world.

So I offer my most humble, and most sincere, “thank you” to all who serve the United States military, today and in the past. The world is a better place because of it. And I don’t just think about that on Veteran’s Day, I think it every day of every year.

Even Google (!) is showing respect for Veterans today:

Back in the fall of 1975, when the monster album “Kiss Alive” was released, I remember buying it at Korvette’s for $5.99.

In fact, that might have been my first “hard rock” album. I was a junior in high school, and was just starting to get into Led Zeppelin, Kansas, The Who, all that, and Kiss was in the mix too.

Kiss, of course, was outrageous. They wore ridiculous makeup and costumes, and bass player Gene Simmons used to spit fake blood and do crazy things with his huge lizard tongue. To me, that whole thing seemed a tiny bit campy and silly, but they quickly developed a reputation as a great live act, and sold out shows accordingly. For me, it was more about (some of) the music. “Rock and Roll All Nite” was a decent party anthem, and I liked a few other songs, especially “Room Service” from the Dressed to Kill album.

But, seriously, if somebody had told me back then that 34 years later, Kiss would still be spitting blood, wearing ridiculous makeup, and selling out large arenas for live shows, I would never have believed it. Outrageous is strictly for the under-30 set, right?

Well, believe it, bucko.

The crowd at the United Center was a bunch of old guys and gals, some even dressed up like their favorite Kiss band member.

Yow! The mind reels.

Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, the founders of the group, must be doing pretty well for themselves: for just another $30 last Friday night at the UC, you could get a “USB leather wristband containing digital files of the night’s performance”.

Do the math on that profit margin, and multiply it by all that other crap you can buy at concerts. Think about all the other old fogeys doing concerts today, and how much cash is made from all that crap people buy at the shows. Say, how’s that career choice looking now?

My Kiss fascination ended pretty quickly. Within 4-5 years I wasn’t even listening to much hard rock any more. Maybe their wimpy ballad “Beth”, from their next studio record, had something to do with that. That song, in fact, might have started a huge 1980s trend: power ballads from hard rock bands. Gosh, thanks for that, guys! Really, that’s just awesome. Thanks again.

For completists only, I imagine: a 1994 tribute record called Kiss My Ass: Classic Kiss Regrooved, featuring Stevie Wonder, Garth Brooks, Lenny Kravitz, among others.

If Lovie Smith doesn’t have answers, who does?.

David Haugh toes the line but doesn’t go over it, so I will. Lovie Smith is just not a good head coach, and it’s time we woke up to that cold hard reality.

In fact, based on the miserable showing of this team in 2 of the last 3 games, I’m questioning the talent evaluators, the GM, the scouts, the front-office people that hire them, and everybody who has a say in a team that displays over-paid mediocrity nearly every Sunday.

The team is a joke, and suffers from a complete lack of leadership at all levels.

Can you even imagine a Ditka coached team from the 1980s losing so badly? Losing close games is one thing. Getting your ass handed to you two weeks out of three, quite another.

Can you imagine a Singletary-led defense playing like that? I sure can’t. Man, I miss that guy. But he seems to have rejuvenated the 49ers, who play the Bears on Thursday night.

Imagine that, a black head coach who got the job because … he’s good at it.

I wonder what that would be like for a Bears team.

Note to ownership: we’ve seen great football in this town, played with passion and intensity and talent and dedication. And this AIN’T it.

I’d never heard of either Jerry Angelo or Lovie Smith when they were hired. But I bought in, and gave them both plenty of time.

Sorry, but I think it’s time to say it: neither one is very good at their jobs.

And so by extension, whoever hired Angelo isn’t very good either.

Wave goodbye to juice box!

Right after a crushing playoff loss in cold, windy weather, the football coaches of my son’s youth team gathered the kids around for the usual post-game talk.

The season is over now, there’s no getting around it. This is the end.

After 13 weeks of practice six hours a week … after 9 games … after all the team-building that results from good leadership of 25 ten-year-old boys who love football and get along well with each other … here we are now. Done. Over. After all that effort, and all that investment, suddenly, it’s all over.

Some of the coaches got choked up trying to put their intense emotions into words. Just like last year. And listening to them, and watching them, so did I. Just like last year.

And this was a totally different set of coaches from last year.

Two seasons of football, two different sets of coaches, but two identical scenarios at the end of the season: a tough loss, and an emotional message.

Two sets of good people connecting with our young men, doing a wonderful thing for them, and for us. Two sets of dads who throw themselves into coaching with great dedication and desire. with a sincere and earnest wish to teach football to 9- and 10-year-old boys. For nothing. Well, it isn’t really for nothing: the coaches get to spend a little of their own money, and a lot of their own time, energy, and emotion.

Some kids aren’t so lucky, I know, and end up with jerks for coaches, who ruin an entire sport for them forever. We’ve been lucky enough to go 2-for-2 in the Good Football Coaches category, but I know that maybe some folks feel differently about this whole thing. And maybe I’ll even feel differently someday.

But clearly, for the coaches we’ve had, this is a labor of love. And when it all ends so suddenly, it’s extremely hard to face without some powerful emotions bubbling up to the surface. For some of us, it means an apple in the throat, and watery eyes.

I know if I was a coach and had to get up there, and look at the young faces of 25 young men that I’d grown to like and respect, and deliver a summary of how proud I was of them for trying so hard, for so long, I’d struggle to get through. I know I would.

As I’ve learned over the last two enjoyable seasons, football builds bonds like no other sport that I’ve ever been involved with, as a parent or as a child. The investment of time and emotion is so big. SO, so big. And with all that investment comes bonding. Boys with other boys. Coaches with boys. Parents with each other. Parents with coaches.

It all comes together, slowly, over a period of weeks. It turns into a team, a real team, where everybody works together for a common goal, without concern about who gets credit.

And it hurts when it ends. It hurts a lot. There is a very real sense of grief for the end of that bond. Maybe it hurts the adults more than the kids. In fact, I’m pretty sure about that.

And then we drag ourselves back to work, school, or wherever it is we put in our time each day, but we do so as changed people.

We’ve been transformed. Literally, transformed by the power of connecting with other people and working towards a common goal. It’s an amazing and beautiful thing. And I’m pretty sure this is one of the most powerful draws that keeps people coming back to play football, and keeps coaches coming back to coach it, at least in our local youth program.

Someday, when I’m old, and Jacob is grown, we’ll talk about the good times we had when he played youth football, and how much we both enjoyed it, and how much we both learned. Not just about football, but about other people, especially his coaches. What good people they were, and how much giving they did.

In some respects, life is really all about building memories, and it feels good to know you’ve just built another one. It feels really, really good.

I’ve avoided discussing Roman Polanski’s recent arrest for skipping bail on his 1978 statutory rape charge, but I’ve been watching it from afar. And I really don’t believe some of the public comments some people have made about Polanski, and about his 13-year-old victim.

I’m stunned, frankly. And now we can add one more lunatic to the pile: Gore Vidal.

I like to poke fun at Hollywood and the entertainment industry. It’s easy, and it’s fun, because these ridiculous people bring it on themselves. Despite that, the media refuses to criticize any of them, because the media depends on access to these yahoos for much of its content. They are, quite literally, “off limits”.

But what we’ve seen lately really ought to make some of us sit up and pay more attention to the types of people who produce our television shows, our movies, our books and CDs, and our newspapers. Because if their recent comments defending Polanski’s disgusting crime reflect their true vision of right and wrong, then we need to confront some ugly truths about our star-centric culture.

The list of such people is long, and disturbing. I’m not going to bother digging up links to all of them here and glorify their ridiculous statements.

So the big picture here is that it’s easy to dismiss cultural influence as unimportant, but I think that’s a mistake. A really big mistake.

And if the fact that Gore Vidal is an amoral twit with nothing useful to tell us wasn’t clear before, then it is pretty damn clear now.

But he’s like 145 years old, so who cares? Here’s why it matters: his outlandish, insane comments in this Atlantic interview a couple of weeks ago didn’t cause any kind of public backlash in the media.

This tells us just about everything we need to know, about both the media and Hollywood in general. And what it tells us is not good.

I’ll break it down for them: it’s ok to come out in public and criticize creeps that drug and rape and sodomize 13 year old girls. Really.

Give it a shot sometime.

Wow.

Notes left behind: Six-year-old cancer victim Elena Desserich’s heartbreaking messages of love to her family

These are the heartbreaking notes a six-year-old cancer victim hid for her family to find after she died.

Elena Desserich was diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer when she was just five years old.

During her nine-month struggle with the illness, Elena, from Wyoming, hid hundreds of notes between the pages of books, in cupboards, drawers, bags, and clothes stashed away for the winter.

What a sweet little angel. They’re still finding the notes, more than two years later, and have written a book about it called “Notes Left Behind” as a tribute to Elena and to help little sister Gracie remember her.

“Gracie” … a nickname for “Grace”. Sounds like there is a lot of Grace in the Desserich family.

While the Desserichs were forming their own tribute, Elena was secretly writing notes and tucking them away in nooks and crannies in her house and the houses of relatives.

‘She was a child who was wise beyond her years,’ said Mr Desserich. ‘I hate to think she knew she was dying but I think she did.’

‘I think the notes were her way of telling us that everything would be OK,’ added Mrs Desserich.  ‘It feels like a hug from her every time we find one.’

[...]

‘We don’t ever want to find the last note,’ said Mr Desserich. ‘I hope we keep on finding them for years to come.’

In fact, both parents have saved one unopened note from Elena which they carry with them in their briefcases.

‘It’s our way of saving the last note,’ said Mrs Desserich.

Our sincere condolences to them on their loss.

Please go read the whole thing.

Brad Biggs gives his usual 10Thoughts about Sunday’s Bears game, a dreary 30-6 drubbing of the ridiculous Cleveland Browns.

I have a theory: the Bears’ O-line is so awful that it is screwing up the entire offense.

They can’t run the ball, because the line can’t open any holes. When you can’t run the ball, the defense tees off on pass plays. And since their pass blocking isn’t that great either, this means that on every offensive snap, basically, they are operating at a big disadvantage.

Stated another way, if they had the O-line of the Colts, or the Broncos, or the Patriots, how many of their current issues just go away? A lot, I’ll bet.

I was not convinced when Jerry Angelo said after last season that the QB was the biggest issue to be solved. It seems like I was right, and Angelo was wrong:

Just sticking to offense, and in approximately the order I’d fix them:

• old, slow, offensive line,
• bad, small receivers,
• no discernible fullback,
• a general lack of depth across all positions,
• mediocre position coaches,
• unproven quarterback who has never been given a real chance with a real offense.

Does bringing Tom Brady, or Drew Brees, or whoever else you like, fix all that, too?

Cutler, Brady, Brees, same difference.

Note that Kyle Orton seems to be doing just fine in Denver, with that great offensive line, big physical receivers, and good coaching.

Feel free, then, to draw important conclusions about the people running the Chicago Bears, both on the field, and off.

I know I have.

E. D. Hirsch, who wrote the bestselling book “Cultural Literacy” in the 1980s, seems to have been validated by education reform in Massachusetts over the last 15 years.

His belief—which I completely agree with—is that background facts are an important piece of the educational puzzle, especially as opposed to the popular practice of teaching reading and writing as skills, completely disconnected from the world around us, and from our history.

His Core Knowledge curriculum, for example, specifies:

… in English language arts, all second-graders read poems by Robert Louis Stevenson, Emily Dickinson, and Gwendolyn Brooks, as well as stories by Rudyard Kipling, E. B. White, and Hans Christian Andersen. In history and geography, the children study the world’s great rivers, ancient Rome, and the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, among other subjects.

Today’s high school and college students have great difficulty writing effectively, and comprehending what they read (ask any college or high school teacher). I’ll join Mr. Hirsch in blaming that on the fateful decision to abandon in the early school years both the emphasis on facts, and on reading great literature about real people and places from history.

Context matters. History matters. Knowing what came before us matters. And it all matters in very real ways, not just in being good at Jeopardy or Trivial Pursuit.

Hirsch on educating the poor:

“Cultural literacy constitutes the only sure avenue of opportunity for disadvantaged children,” Hirsch writes, and “the only reliable way of combating the social determinism that now condemns them to remain in the same social and educational condition as their parents. That children from poor and illiterate homes tend to remain poor and illiterate is an unacceptable failure of our schools, one which has occurred not because our teachers are inept but chiefly because they are compelled to teach a fragmented curriculum based on faulty educational theories.”

He’s right, and we know he’s right because we used to educate our children with more practical knowledge, as he advocates, and we didn’t have poor performance in our students that we see today.

But even though his system works, and he can prove it, Education schools have worked hard to discredit him. Hmmm. Whose interests are being served there?

Education schools have been experimenting on our children for decades, and it is not working.

More powerfully than any previous critic, Hirsch showed how destructive these instructional approaches were. The idea that schools could starve children of factual knowledge, yet somehow encourage them to be “critical thinkers” and teach them to “learn how to learn,” defied common sense. But Hirsch also summoned irrefutable evidence from the hard sciences to eviscerate progressive-ed doctrines. Hirsch had spent the better part of the decade since Cultural Literacy mastering the findings of neurobiology, cognitive psychology, and psycholinguistics on which teaching methods best promote student learning. The scientific consensus showed that schools could not raise student achievement by letting students construct their own knowledge. The pedagogy that mainstream scientific research supported, Hirsch showed, was direct instruction by knowledgeable teachers who knew how to transmit their knowledge to students—the very opposite of what the progressives promoted.

Please read the whole thing. I’ve just barely scratched the surface here.

Frankly, it comes down to a debate between what the Founding Fathers wanted, and what today’s Ed schools want. Do we really have to ponder that question for long? I know I don’t.

The future of our children depends, at least in part, on our understanding of (1) why we are failing to educate our children adequately, and (2) how to address it. E.D. Hirsch seems to have a pretty good handle on it. Will he continue to be largely ignored?

Bill Ayers has more legitimacy in Ed schools than a genuine educator like E.D. Hirsch. This tells us a lot. And frankly, it makes me ill.

I think I just found a new blog to love. It’s called Mean Street, at wsj.com, by a man named Evan Newmark. Here’s why.

He says we should be very careful about buying into this “the recession is over” stuff in A Sham GDP for a Sham Economy. Our GDP “growth” announced today is from government spending, much of it from cash for clunkers. This is just kicking the can down the road in the form of borrowing against the future. Remember how auto sales tanked horribly in September, after the program ended? That is not, by anybody’s definition, an “economic recovery”.

But even better, this post is a must-read: It’s Official — Obamanomics Isn’t Working.

You likely missed it. But Thursday’s Congressional testimony from Obama Council of Economic Adviser Chief, Christina Romer was the big story. She officially admitted what many of us already knew: Obamanomics isn’t working.

The $787 billion Obama stimulus package that was supposed to keep U.S. unemployment at under 8% will not only fail to keep it under 10%. But by mid-2010 “fiscal stimulus will be contributing little to further growth.”

As for President Obama’s big promise last January to create 3.5 or 4 million new American jobs. Forget it. “Unemployment is unlikely to end 2010 much below its current levels.”

Romer’s admission was startling. You’ll recall that it was her January 10th paper that outlined what a mighty job machine the Obama presidency would be. Every 1% boost in GDP would get a million new jobs.

Now here we are running stimulus-heavy budget deficits that will total almost $3 trillion over this year and next. GDP is on the rise again. And still, no new jobs.

What’s even more depressing, is that the Obama White House still hasn’t figured out why businesses aren’t hiring.

The White House seems pretty certain about how American businesses should behave. And it seems pretty certain that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, insurance companies and banks aren’t doing what they should be doing.

But all that joblessness? Who knows? Not Romer. It’s all a macroeconomic mystery of time-lags and GDP multipliers. In her testimony, she offers up seven different guesstimates on jobs created by the stimulus.

Does it ever occur to the White House to see the economy as businessmen do? Does it ever occur to the White House that America’s businesses aren’t hiring because they don’t trust Washington?

No. Business is E-V-I-L!

Just check out President Obama’s Saturday radio address on small business to see what I’m talking about.

The president paid tribute to small business, to “mom and pop stores and neighborhood restaurants we know and love.” Small business, he intoned, was the “engine of our economy,” “the heart of the American dream.”

So did the president propose new ways of cutting payroll taxes, employment costs and red-tape for the “engine of our economy?” Nope. Instead, he promised more federal SBA loans and health insurance reform courtesy of federal intervention and mandates.

How many small businessmen do you know that want government more involved in their business?

I know lots of small businessmen and I can’t think of one. I myself employ just one worker in New York City — and the amount of paperwork, fees, taxes and aggravation involved makes it feel like I’m employing a thousand.

I recently discovered that as a self-employed New Yorker I now have the pleasure of paying a new Metropolitan Commuter Mobility Transportation Tax. This measly 0.34% tax on wages is exactly the kind of stupidity that kills jobs. It’s the kind of tinkering that governments can’t resist. And it’s the very reason government terrifies businesses.

Read the whole thing.

How did we end up with a bunch of Keystone Cops in the White House?