In my recent post “Dear Errant, Advice to the Marks: Always Be Cynical” I proposed that there is no way to understand “the way social life works” (that means cities and states and nations, etc.) without taking a big hard look at the POWER structure and questioning its motives–hell, impugning its motives! This is what I have come to refer to as ABC–Always Be Cynical….
Dear Errant, Advice for the Marks: Always Be Cynical
If you haven’t seen Glengarry Glen Ross, get thee to your movie outlet of choice (ah, choice) ASAP. (Of course let’s not talk about the Mamet of today, okay?) Briefly, a real estate sales office is trying to cold call “marks” to buy lots in new developments. Their leads are “very cold” and they hear there are new “hot” leads coming. But only the best…
Denial Strata: Economic Geologists and Corporate Industrial Fabrications
You know how sometimes you’re just walking along minding your own Ps and Qs when out of the blue there comes a synchronicity of events that brings a kind of clarity that was formerly “felt” but unrealized? This happened to me recently and it’s sort of a “duh” moment–I mean the following seems obvious when you think about it. After witnessing the recent spate (gaggle?)…
Vouchers Redux: The Rhetoric and the Consequences
Surely, if you’re anything like me (don’t admit it if you are!), you must be confronting the idea and fact of school voucher programs from rhetorical and ideological perspectives on offer in the news media and as promulgated via advocacy campaigns spearheaded and driven by “public policy” foundations. In other words, the propaganda is pretty deep by now. As I’ve been using “propaganda” pretty constantly…
Murdoch’s Wireless Gen. and EdisonLearning Donated Money to Tony Bennett
This is a guest post by B-town Errant contributor, Doug Martin. This post was originally published on Mr. Martin’s blog on Fire Dog Lake, and has been republished on B-Town Errant with his permission. As the Indiana State Board of Education decides to hand over Indiana’s so-called “failing” schools to EdisonLearning, Charter Schools USA, and Rupert Murdoch’s Wireless Generation today, it is important to note that both Edison and Wireless Generation have donated to Education…
Errant Eye 8/28: Battle for Most Corrupt – ExxonMobil, Dick Cheney and IU’s Haydn Murray
Title Correction: “Haydn White” should be “Haydn Murray”. (Update to #6 below) This morning’s news round-up from the across the Web: 1) One can only hope Dick Cheney travels outside of the country and is detained by a country who believes in laws and treaty agreements. Cheney has not only committed every war crime in the book, but he boasts of it in this New…
Errant Eye 8/27: Hispanics and Education – The Great Dream of a Debtor Nation
Our local paper is chock full of less than stellar news today. Let’s just post all that brings me way down. 1) The front page is nearly entirely committed to a murder of a 28 year-old woman and to the missing Lauren Spierer. This is shaping up to be a great town in which to raise the nippers. 2) The “counterbalance” on the front page…
What’s as American as Apple Pie? Concussions in Sports
Are you ready for some footba…er, brain trauma? This story in the HT, Concussions no laughing matter in football, is timely. I was biking through our local park last night, beautiful weather; a little breeze, and though warm and sunny if you kept moving (walking or riding a bike), it was very pleasant. A great evening to take the kids to the park so they…
Errant Eye: News Capture 8/25/11
In “What Caught My Eye” this morning: 1) As it’s “back-to-school” time here in Bloomington and IU is abuzz with horribly inattentive drivers this piece on school debt might be of interest. From Bryce Covert at New Deal 2.0 (by way of Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism, “Recession Has Lit the Fuse on Explosive Student Debt”: The rise in student borrowing is a longtime trend,…
“Right-to-Work” Legislation: Same Shit, Different Century
A couple of weeks ago Andrea Neal, who is, I suppose, Indy’s version of a local Weekly Standard columnist, offered a propaganda piece about “Right-to-Work” legislation in the HT. She begins with some “headlines” that purport to illustrate what will follow in her piece, though they are obviously just words out of context and so have no meaning that we can fully understand. But where propaganda…