Let The Sunshine In

I don't often do this, but David Sirota's latest post at Open Left is something I've been feeling for a while, and a question that is it critical to ask oneself periodically. Think of it as mental maintenance...


Existential Question: What The F%$@! Are We Doing?
by: David Sirota
Tue Apr 07, 2009 at 20:46

Over the last decade, I went from idealistic college kid, to idealistic Hill staffer, to cynical political campaign operative, to angry/angsty writer/activist, to full-time journalist, and in this last stage, I've hit an existential question that I think many are struggling with in their own lives, regardless of their age: What the fuck am I doing?

What, for instance, am I doing working in a media/political business that is so often governed with no rhyme or reason, and so often rewards the foolish, the stupid and the immoral? I mean, really: for every Rachel Maddow, there are five Sean Hannitys, but it's not even that - that's just an ideological bias against progressives, and that I can make sense of (even though it disgusts me). The worse truth - the one I simply cannot grasp - is that for every Harold Meyerson (ie. for every legitimately brilliant progressive writer) there are 25 Joe Kleins (ie. braindead megaphones).

This is the kind of thing that makes me want to throw my computer out the window, wear my PJ's and a robe to the supermarket, and play Halo all day. It's not the conservatives that really get me - their existence/success at least has a rationale (ie. serving the corporate masters who pay them). It's the unskilled - the classic No Talent Ass Clowns, if you will. I work in a business that treats Andrew Sullivan and David Broder and Matt Bai and Journolist and the Politico and Tom Friedman as Very Important, Very Serious, Very Newsworthy People - people worthy of not just applause, but of emulation. Scores of the precocious and the ambitious in this business aspire to be these people, scores of youthful college kids head to D.C. dreaming about being the next Joe Klein or David Broder. Indeed, there are entire magazines like the New Republic whose foundational objective is to groom the next Matt Bai.

Though I certainly don't want that for myself (thus, my flee to the sanity of the Rocky Mountain West), I'm struggling with the questions about the system. I wonder: What am I doing working in a system that creates those desires, rewards that idiocy, and creates a gross incentive structure?

That's the question, as I said, I think lots of people are asking about their own lives, whether in the media business or any other field.
David Sirota :: Existential Question: What The F%$@! Are We Doing?
Thanks to the economic meltdown, ensuing AIG bonuses, and promotion of economic criminals to top White House jobs, it has never been more clear that the American economy and political system is one that rewards everything we say we don't want to reward. The media world I work in rewards David Brooks, the economy rewards AIG executives, the political system rewards Larry Summers. It's all the same fucking thing - everything we say we want to punish, but instead systemically cheer on.

So again, what the fuck are we doing? Why do we just sit here and take it? And if we're not going to take it, what the hell should we do? Most of us who have a job are totally overworked - we barely have time for our families. Those of us who are out of work are scratching and clawing to survive - they barely have time for anything else. So what should we do?

I don't have an answer to these existential questions...at least not yet. And I certainly don't know what to do in reaction to asking them. One voice in the chorus that is my inner monologue says "you're right, what am I doing? Fuck this, I'm moving to Costa Rica."* Another voice says "I'm not getting out - I'm doing the right thing by keeping the faith that this is important work." And yet another voice says, "Just don't ask those questions - they will only give you heartbreak."

All of the rationales have merit - not just for me, but for society. And I'm sure millions of people are having the same "on the one hand, on the other hand" debates in their minds. Some days we defiantly push on, other days we want to drop out and move to some far away nirvana.

Shit, maybe this is my quarter-life crisis (though that would mean I'd have to live to 120) or my mid-life crisis (that would mean I'd be dead at 66 - that would suck). Whatever it is, all I know right now is that we live not in interesting times - we lived in fucked up times, and that means fucked up questions are going to be asked. Here's hoping we don't fuck up the answers.

* I know, I know - there are definitely serious problems in Costa Rica. But at least its warm and near the ocean...or at least that's what I tell myself as a rationale for seeing that Central American nation as a terrestrial version of heaven.

More People Not Worth The Price Of The Gunpowder To Blow Them To Hell

It has been a while since I've done a Gunpowder post but I think the liars, fools and idiots on parade the past few weeks warrant it.

A perennial...Bill O' Reilly



The Royal Family likes the Obamas. The Queen hugged Michelle, and the I-Pods contents were thoughtful. Sorry they thought the Bushes were classless jackasses. Get over it right-wing fools.

I saw this man in Grand Central. He ran chills down my spine: he even walks in a manner that is hostile. I hate that he is allowed to vent to the entire world, that he has a paid public forum for tantrums that should be reserved for his therapist.


Glen Beck...again, a man who should be crying to his doctor, not in a PAID forum where his loony ideas can influence the gullible fools who watch him. 9/12?? I love Tina Brown's description of him as a "charlatan evangelist" and "frothing". Curse you Fox News.




Rush. Anal poisoning? His speech at CPAC? His wish for Obama to fail? Ugh. This ass is no longer a mere revolting, so-called entertainer, he now believes his own publicity and imagines himself the leader of the conservative movement, and the Republican party.




President Karzai. Review? He's going to review a law that essentially allows husbands to rape their wives? What the hell was he thinking?

An Appointment with "The National Razor"?

Yes, this is America, and yes it is over two hundred years later, but I find myself amazed as each new story breaks of the naked greed, and disregard for the public's outrage. Don't these captains of industry know their history? Don't they know bubbles are meant to burst? Don't they realize that when you are in a hole you don't keep digging? Or are they so deep in denial that they will only realize when they are dragged away (figuratively) by the torch-carrying, pitchfork wielding mob?

Where's Tarzan When You Need Him?

My late father loved the adventure movies of the 30's and 40's, so consequently, I saw a lot of Johnny Weissmuller swinging through the trees on The Escarpment, giving that ear-shattering cry, as a child. Weissmuller starred in 12 Tarzan films from 1932 to 1948.

In the 1943 film, Tarzan Triumphs, the Nazis have come to Africa and taken over the lost city of Pallandria. Tarzan, being, well Tarzan saves the city from the Third Reich. At one point in the battle, Tarzan divides the Nazis pursuing him, then calls "Nazi! Here Nazi!" the way one would a somewhat stupid dog. Each man turns in the direction of his voice, Tarzan comes at them from the opposite direction, and hits them over the head. No more Nazi threat to Sub-Saharan Africa!

Pope Benedict is in Africa. Preaching that condoms don't fight AIDS. On the continent that has 67% of the global HIV cases. The place that had 3/4 of all AIDS deaths in 2007.

Tarzan needs to hit another Nazi over the head and save Africa once again.

Never thought I'd find myself writing this: Leave Meghan McCain Alone!

Talk about eating one's young. I found Meghan to be an irritating cheerleader for her father during the election, and her recent whining about being dateless because of him ridiculous self-pity. However, the piling on by these Republican female media "personalities" is outrageous.

This from Bob Cesca:



Malkin vs. Meghan McCain

Malkin appears to be choosing which stand-up comics Meghan McCain is allowed to like. Doesn't Malkin know that if you choose your comedy based upon ideology, you'll only be allowed to like Larry the Cable Guy, Victoria Jackson and Dennis Miller? That's not a huge pool. Nor a particularly funny one.

But this Malkin line was revealing:

The trouble with Meghan McCain is that, like her father, she has no fixed ideological principles — conservative, liberal, or otherwise.

Fixed ideological principles. If this is the view of the broader Republican Party, they're in deeper trouble than we expected because clearly the lessons of George W. Bush, and how his "fixed" positions destroyed his presidency, his party and, almost, America, are having no impact whatsoever on how they move forward.


And this from HuffPost:


Fresh off her feud with controversial conservative author Ann Coulter, Meghan McCain is in a spat with another prominent female conservative and media personality: Laura Ingraham. In the latest insult, Ingraham sent out an email calling McCain a "useful idiot" who is only gaining any traction in the media because she's a Republican criticizing the GOP, and dismissing the coverage of her remarks about McCain's weight as phony indignation (Via Think Progress):

Memo to Meghan McCain: Enjoy the media coverage while it lasts, but know you're being used. You are the flavor of the month in left-wing media land because you are a Republican bashing the GOP...


...The left's indignation in this instance is manufactured and totally phony. If any off-the-cuff remark about a woman's size was condemnable, then where was the outrage when President Obama made a passing reference to Jessica Simpson's "weight battle" during his Super Bowl interview with Matt Lauer? And of course they look the other way when obvious personal attacks are levied against conservatives.

The feud with Ingraham began when she criticized McCain for her recent remarks about the Republican party, saying that McCain was just looking for attention and making a snide remark about her weight: "Ok, I was really hoping that I was going to get that role in the Real World, but then I realized that, well, they don't like plus-sized models."

McCain responded during her appearance on "The View" by channeling Tyra Banks, telling Ingraham she could "kiss my fat ass!"

When the best response one can muster to a critic from a family in the inner circles of one's own party is "You're fat!" First off, she's not fat simply because she's not the size of these soulless stick-figures attacking her. Second, she could be Jabba the Hutt, it does not make her wrong. These catty women only embarrass themselves and their disgraced party further by not having REAL discussions about issues and their future. Though people who have nothing to say always mock, don't they?

Guilty of Neglect...

Ah yes, I admit it. I have simultaneously been lazy and busy. Busy with work and another writing project, lazy with my blog. Poor neglected blog, no more pathetic whimpering in the corner, Mama's back.

What might I write about? Going to D.C? All right. By the week before election day, I was feeling as if I had overdosed on politics, and was having fever dreams of what Palin a heartbeat away from the presidency would bring. Seriously, it gave me horrible nightmares. I kept imagining the US morphing into the Gilead of "The Handmaid's Tale" with a cackling Sarah Palin ordering all the whores and dykes rounded up and put into sprawling re-education camps in Idaho, spending their days breaking rocks and digging up potatoes whilst clad in Amish castoffs, or big blue Taliban burkas. Sarah, of course, kept her three inch designer heels and miniskirts.

Enough of my fear of the right-wing, the point was I temporarily, at least had no desire to focus on any elections, national, international, local-nothing. I had no intention of going to DC...then, well, I hadn't been in many years...and my friend, Melanie lives there now...and look at the preparations...and it's historic...maybe...I might go?

Needless to say, by the time January rolled around I was fired up again. Let me say this as well, I hate, despise, abhor CROWDS. This was worse than the crowds at the Queen's Golden Jubilee in 2002. Yes, I hate crowds, and yet I was there too. Perverse, I know.

When I think of it now, the day itself comes out jumbled, as a stream-of-consciousness.


We were walking shoulder to shoulder, and yet there were almost no arrests. People were smiling and laughing and talking to strangers. A German couple on the bus told me that they could now stop living in fear of our government. The irony of that didn't escape me. I met a Vietnam vet who works for the VA who came all the way from Alaska at Union Station. He is white, and lives with the Inuit. They hate Palin. Ancient black church ladies in big hats were crying as they rolled their walkers. A band from the town Obama's family came from in Ireland was there singing, and crowing. "Two Irishmen in the White House!" At the Washington Monument, the trees were filled with climbers wanting a better view. I am so proud of my country. Two million people came. So many parents brought young children. Two million. I wished my parents were alive. The temperature was nineteen degrees! People are singing Na na na, na na na, hey hey, goodbye to George W. Bush. And booing! Vendors were selling Star Wars Obama shirts: In a Galaxy ready for Change...The long, long walk back through the closed-to-traffic tunnels beneath the Washington Monument reminded me of The Stand. (I think of Steven King at some very odd moments) I have never been so cold in my life. We were outside for six hours, but even the children weren't complaining. I had no IDEA how many men find Michelle Obama sexy. I lost count of how many seniors I heard declare they never thought they would live to see this day...

"To teach is to touch the heart and impel it to action."

The quote I used as title of this post is by Louis Sullivan, architect, mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright, from "Kindergarten Chats and Other Writings". The man was considered the "Father of Modernism" and the skyscraper. He inspired the group of Chicago architects known as the Prairie School. And unlike the legions of so-called reformers of American Education, he understood the very essence of what it is to teach.

I just read an article in the Wall Street Journal (go figure?) on education reform by Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. The man is a senior advisor of the Carlyle Group, and was its chairman until he stepped down in October 2008. Now normally, someone in such close association with the Bush Crime Family is not a man whose opinions I would read, let alone, consider. In his 1995 book, "Reinventing Education: Entrepreneurship in America's Public Schools", he wrote, "techniques and disciplines of business have much to offer in the field of education."

Haha...bullshit. Kids are not inventory, and how, and what they learn is not a product. That he now laments the "corporate governance" of the public schools when that was what he pushed for 13 years ago, to run them more like a business, irritates me.

He has come to recognize the one point in which I am of total agreement with him. The structure of education is "unbelievably unwieldy ".

"Abolish all local school districts, save 70 (50 states; 20 largest cities). Some states may choose to leave some of the rest as community service organizations, but they would have no direct involvement in the critical task of establishing standards, selecting teachers, and developing curricula."

Gerstner does not go far enough. There should be no local school districts, and a national license. Local school districts are unbelievably political. School boards often elect or appoint any old fool who is politically connected. I worked under an AP who failed her Principal's exam 5 times-never passed but was given a job, because her uncle who is a principal, got a place for her. She NEVER passed.

Principals are in a different union, and on a different tenure track than teachers. What this means is an experienced teacher will not take the Principal's exam. He or she is opened up to firing-because there is no protection of tenure as an principal. Also there is often a loss of 10,000 or more for a teacher who switches career tracks and becomes a principal. Why? One's years of teaching are not taken into account, and a new principal is on step one. So most newer principals (anyone under 60) are people who were failing teachers who took the test before they were denied tenure. The least experienced are running our schools, hiring teachers, and evaluating them.

Teachers who move from their district lose their tenure. This is why so many teachers travel long distances to their jobs. They are rooted in place. It is a huge gamble to move. If a teacher, leaves the state, he or she must be re-certified in that state. A costly, time-consuming and maddening process. Then if the teacher does not know somebody, make influential friends a job is not guaranteed. Or if there is one the school will likely be not a good, safe place to teach.


This has to end. End all the impediments to recruiting and keeping teachers who want and know how to "...touch the heart and impel it to action."