Seen at the Red Mango on St. Mark’s Place.
Same thing we do every night, Johnny. Try to TAKE OVER THE COUNTRY!
I’m voting for Joe Biden’s teeth.
I got an inflammatory comment about ACORN, so let’s look at the truth.
It’s clear that ACORN is being set up as the culprit for McCain’s loss, should that be the way the election goes. Maybe ACORN is guilty of unsavory practices, and there are investigations pending, but 1) as Obama pointed out in the debate Wednesday, his campaign is not actually affiliated in any way with the organization, and 2) as Lindsay points out, fictional registrants don’t vote, you know? The scandal seems to boil down to people who worked for ACORN signing up a few extra people to vote more than once to fill a quota, but you still can’t vote more than once at the polls.
So, whoop-dee-doo. Some scandal. Maybe we should talk about the thousands of poor minorities who have been disenfranchised in previous elections. Oh, but why would we do that, when they would have voted Democrat?!
No Child Left Behind is one of those policies that makes less sense to me the more I learn about it. Or, I guess it makes sense if you assume the worst and that it’s actual goal is to slowly dismantle public education. The mess with state standards and testing is one beast on its own, so let’s talk about the other prong of the program: punishing failing schools instead of helping them.
This makes sense if you’re a certain breed of republican, I guess. Eliminate after school programs and tutoring at school so that non-accredited tutoring businesses can make piles of money. All right. Never mind that the worst-off kids can’t afford fancy tutoring programs.
I volunteered today for New York Cares Day. We worked at a school on the Bushwick/Bed-Stuy border (so a less savory part of Brooklyn, let’s say). The school we worked at is one that had declining test scores for several consecutive years, and so NCLB shut it down. (So, yeah, that makes sense. Let’s close a school instead of helping it.) The school reopened as the Young Scholars’ Academy. From my team’s website:
PS 636 the Young Scholars’ Academy for Discovery and Exploration is a new school set to open in September 2008 in Bed-Sty. It will work as a community, and establish itself as a new and vibrant learning community for new teachers, students, and families. Of its 357 students in PK through 5th grade, 98.99% will receive free lunch.
I’m glad that the community is still using the building, which seemed to be in pretty good shape, for school. We went in there today and cleaned up the recess area and I spent the bulk of the day in the library, adding some color and sorting and organizing books, a lot of which were donated.
I get the impression that the community is invested in the school, which is good, but this is another school that got left behind. NCLB doesn’t intend for kids to succeed, it wants families to spend money on education that they shouldn’t have to spend. Public education should be free and accessible.
It makes you wonder if people like John McCain have ever seen an inner-city school, or a poor rural school for that matter. Because then we might have reasonable education policy.
Mmm, debate.
At home again, sadly. This time, we have Entenmann’s chocolate chip cookies and half a Subway sandwich. I am hooked into a chat room, though, and I’m hoping my friends say entertaining things. If so, I’ll post transcripts.
Pre-Debate: I’m watching the Top Model clip show instead of Olbermann. I will smile with my eyes during the debate. I’m thinking I might watch the debate on CNN this time so I can see the squiggly lines. I wish I knew which channel CNN was.
The debate is at Hofstra University in Hempstead, NY, which is on Lawn Guyland. I do not like Hempstead. I went there for a job interview once. An hour out of Brooklyn on the LIRR and what I got for my trouble is one of those suburbs that forces you to have a bigger carbon footprint by virtue of the fact that it has no sidewalks.
Oh my god, you guys, how insane is this season of Top Model?!
I haven’t really been following politics this week as I’ve been insanely busy, so if something really remarkable has happened since, like, Friday, I haven’t heard about it. That might color my interpretation of the debate.
Okay, I’m done stalling now. Let’s get to the debatin’.
9:00 So domestic issues this time, and Bob Sheiffer (sp?). The candidates come out and we have an intimate, sit-down chatty debate. Sheiffer says no talking points. And there was apparently another bad day on Wall Street?
Whose economic plan is better? We start with McCain. McCain says Nancy Reagan is in the hospital. Oh, sad. (So is my TV boyfriend Gale Harold, who was in a motorcycle accident yesterday! Speedy recovery to everyone!)
Anyhoodle, McCain goes on about home values and fixing the mortgage crisis, and he reiterates what everyone thought was the suicidal plan to bail out all Americans with bad mortgages. Which is kind of confounding, because that would go against McCain’s anti-spending plan. Also, McCain is talking like he’s explaining rocket science to a 2 year old.
Obama: bailout was a first step. Obama says some stuff, but I got distracted by the chat room. (My regular bar isn’t showing the debate, so I’m trying to lead the flock to greener pastures from afar. It’s fun.)
McCain rebuts with a “regular guy” anecdote. Drink! He mentions Joe the Plumber, who sounds like an excellent horror movie villain.
I seem to be incapable of doing anything useful right now, so you get a link dump.
+ The truth behind who wrote Dreams of My Father
+ There are a lot of eerie parallels between our current financial crisis and the stock market crash of 1929. Gawker says this election is also a few other elections past.
+ My quiet neighborhood seems to be the new hipster mecca. Why this article is in the travel section is a mystery.
+ Tin Pan Alley is for sale.
+ Joe DiMaggio might not be so happy about having a highway named after him.
+ Sarah Vowell on the Daily Show. Watch for the end where she and Jon Stewart go off on a rant about how politicians come to New York to wrap themselves in 9/11 before going back out to bash New Yorkers.
That’s right, bitches. It’s time to write a novel. This year, I have a nefarious plan to write the most ridiculous suspense novel ever, with way too many characters and a hero who moonlights as a paid assassin. I’m psyched.
So it’s that time again: Debate #3. It’s just me and my feline roommate Molly tonight, and there isn’t even any booze (although I do have Diet Pepsi and Milanos… tasty, but not really the same) so this might be less entertaining.
[Note: Comment moderation is turned on as an anti-spam measure. If you've never commented here before, your comment will get snared, but I will try to approve things as they're posted, so don't panic if your comment doesn't show right away. But comments are welcome!]
Pre-debate: Watching Olbermann. I’m pretty grossed out by McCain campaign tactics with both the Ayres stuff and with the racism in the McCain crowds. Also, Milanos are tasty.
9:05: Urgh, I have the hiccups. This should be fun. Okay, here we go. Town hall format. Tom Brokaw. Uncommitted voters gave their questions to the Brokaw. Should be fun. Plus Brokaw just gave us permission to jeer at home! Read more
stuff
I'm also up to this stuff:
