… but according to a report on the former baller from a commenter on Joanne Jacobs’ blog, he’s turned into a helluva guy! [Maybe the Lakers could use him.-ed. It's a little late.] (ht: Cahterine Johnson, no relation)
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Roger, do you mean that you *hate* hated Kevin Johnson, or just that he was aggravating as all heck when the Lakers had to play against him? I always felt the latter, but after a certain point I also became aware that his public pronouncements made him seem like a serious and thoughtful guy, much more into books than bling. Education has been an important issue since before his playing days ended. I’m not surprised by his current venture and wish him well. Certainly, someone who was once a top-notch NBA point guard ought to have the leadership skills and determination to make it work.
Kevin’s pretty highly regarded up in these parts and deservedly so. I know the neighborhood he’s involved with–they can use all the help they can get.
Roger:
Kevin Johnson, a thinking Democrat. Someone who is more concerned with fixing the problem instead of bowing down low to the Teachers Union that is more concerned with keeping power and control rather then finding solutions.
It’s this very issue — education — that will keep Republicans on the (domestic) moral high ground for the next decade or so.
The Democratic dependency on the educrat vote is disgraceful, if unsurprising. Don’t they care about actual poor people?
http://www.allamericanspeakers.com/speakerbio/Kevin_Johnson.php
A class guy in every way…
who spent four years playing in Berkeley, and…
a pro, for the most part, when Detroit and then Chicago were it (though the Suns were almost good enough in 1992) and somewhat eclipsed as a player, but never as a man, at Cal, and then in Phoenix, by Jason Kidd.
Great ballplayer, and a good person, in the David Robinson mold, it seems. KJ was a better samaritan than the point guard who followed him to Cal, then the NBA (hint: he plays in New Jersey right now and his last name has to do with those we educate)
As for education, I am a Conservative teacher, and let me just say that a) I despise the Unions and they have driven me out of the profession at age 27. http://www.utla.net
And b) I am criticised and shunned for having a Bush and Rice picture in my classroom.
Essentially, in teacher-speak, the GOP is AGAINST education. Arnold, George et al. do not care about kids. I’ve heard it uttered in various fashions over the past three years.
Funny, doesn’t it seem the OTHER way to most of you? I think so.
http://ajkauf.blog-city.com
The teacher’s union (WEA) in Washington is especially horrible. Not only have they managed to get the courts to impose what amounts to a prohibition against charter schools, but they were so bold as to put a 1% increase to state sales tax on the ballot for non-specific “education” funding (which would have put our sales tax here at 9.8%, when we’re already close to the top of the list in that category. The ballot initiative failed by a significant margin, but I imagine they’ll next try to get it through the state legislature, who would probably push it through with little resistance. Add to that the usual politically correct garbage they pass off as an education, and I am determined that when I have children, they will never set foot in a publich school.
Don’t they care about actual poor people?
In a word, no. I once got hammered by a Lefty friend for being unable to source and, thereby, prove this quote, but I recall once seeing the head of one of the two teacher’s unions (almost positive it was the NEA) quoted as saying, in response to the standard, “What about the children?” question, “When the children pay union dues I’ll take their interests into account.”
Now, as a part-time pragmatist I fully understand that the President of the National Education Association isn’t really interested in education or students or schools – he’s interested maintaining and expanding the bureaucracy that he is president of while making sure the union members he represents don’t go into open revolt and stop paying dues.
Unfortunately, for some reason I am just unable to touch let alone get a grip on, even my most Leftist acquaintences, many of whom are completely unhappy with the schools their children attend and complain mightily, are thoroughly convinced that the NEA is “all about the children and education” and that other unions “represent the interests of all working people.”
I apologize. I’ve very depressed today about widespread cognitive dissonance and how the gramscian bastards are taking advantage of it. I’ll try to be quiet.
I used to hate Kobe when he played for LA?
And guess what I still hate him and he still plays for LA? fancy that?
Knucklehead–For future arguments:
When school children start paying union dues, that’s when I’l start representing the interests of school children.
Albert Shanker
AFT President
Greenspan–am I on the wrong thread?–just now wound up a congressional testimony during which he said many things among which were that–and he repeated this over and over throughout–that the USA’s most unfavorable trend in international competition is whatever it is that is happening to our kids’ aquisition of quantifiable knowledge in grades 4-12.
My interpretation/characterization–others may’ve heard him differently.
Buddy,
the USA’s most unfavorable trend in international competition is whatever it is that is happening to our kids’ aquisition of quantifiable knowledge in grades 4-12.
Our very own href=”http://www.kitchentablemath.net/twiki/bin/view/Kitchen/WebHome”>Catherine, a Category Five Force of Nature, is on the case – and she’s got an armed sidekick! Lord help the gramscian bastards trashing our schools. They have an enemy they are incable of understanding.
ewww, that was a nasty looking HTTP botch. Sorry.
Roger:
I notice that when Rose heard certain words from Johnson that did not fit into the cannon of the Secular Orthodoxy he reflexivly launched into the Pavloian response of “you sound like a Republican”, thus branding Johnson as someone who must be looked at with a wary eye.Unclean! Unclean! He is talking about education and of course Charlie must make sure that his viewers know that this is someone who has strayed from the script. Think of it, a African American who thinks for himself. Charlie will have to pull him aside and make sure that he realizes he is not acting they way he should.
wait just a minute…if the Heretics are 52%, and the Orthodoxists are 48%, shouldn’t they swap titles?
I’d say that if Charlie Rose is in fear of losing control of his Negroes, maybe he should dispense with labels and categorizations altogether, and go, you know, ‘color-blind’.
Maybe that’d help, hey?
Ahg, that was mean…i take it back. It’s just that the ‘liberal plantation’ really gets my goat. And yes, it’s because of the history. the 19th century. Now, seguing off that, we have Ted “hands off my poor people” Kennedy and his wing of aspiration-smashing artists. When does it end?
Kyda, thank you for that quote! I know it’s true, and I say it to my colleagues everyday (while they look at me as though I am crazy), but now I have it in writing, thanks to you.
I put it right on the header of my blog.
http://ajkauf.blog-city.com
Kyda,
Albert Shanker, heh. Is he any relation to that sitar player who used to be famous?
Speaking of seasoned gourds and movable frets… never mind.
OH my gosh—-Greenspan said that?
Does anyone have the source?
I want to get it up right away.
Meanwhile, if you’ve got time, check out the ‘f-words’ at Kitchen Table Math.
(Not real f-words—–! Elizabeth Carson, of NYC HOLD, sent a jpg of two math text indexes for the letter ‘f.’ You really have to see it to believe it.)
Here’s the post:
http://www.kitchentablemath.net/twiki/bin/view/Kitchen/CompareAndContrastPart4
Well, Catherine, I see it but I don’t believe it.
Catherine–There’s no transcript yet for today’s testimony, but this is not the first time he has made such remarks. Here’s a transcript entitled:
Testimony of Chairman Alan Greenspan
Education
Before the Committee on Education and the Workforce, U.S. House of Representatives
March 11, 2004
What you’re looking for is just over half way down.
Oh my gosh!!!
I haven’t read yet, but THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!
Did everyone see Friedman’s oped on public schools today?
I was surprised to learn that he wasn’t originally concerned about school quality.
Kyda
It really is incredible, isn’t it.
The more I see this stuff ‘in the flesh’—–as it actually is, rather than as some Math Warrior whose lost his mind writes about it, the more horrified I am.
The amazing thing with the Math Wars is that the most furiously angry, frothing Parent Complainer (umm, that would be me, or will be) still hasn’t told you the half of it.
Why should epidemic levels of innumeracy harm our economic performance? It hasn’t hurt our journalistic performance… oh, wait, never mind.
I haven’t read Friedman. I pre-emptively took Rick Ballard’s advice and canceled my subscriptions to all and sundry newsprint over the years. Oddly enough the NYT was the last of them – it took me forever to make that move. For the last few years I justified it as wanting to know my enemy but I finally realized I don’t want to know what the loons in the psych wards (apologies to our mental health contingent) are thinking so why would I want to know what the loons at the NYT are thinking.
True story:
When I was a Big Brother back in the 1980s they had a special preseason luncheon one afternoon at the American Express cafeteria where a bunch of NBA’ers were present to give a little pep talk and sign autographs. I remember Eddie Johnson and Reggie Theus and a couple other fairly famous guys were there. So they get done with the speaking and invite the kids up for autographs. I noticed that unlike some of the other players, there was one young man who didn’t have a lot of people swarming around him, so my Little and I went over and introduced ourselves to KJ. The Suns had picked him up in a trade the year before but he was injured almost the entire season, so nobody knew who he was. Of course, if they had done it the following year, we would never have been able to get close to him. Terrific guy, very soft-spoken and charming.
The academy that he founded has been going for quite some time; IIRC he started it with his signing bonus.
Knuck,
I am impressed that you managed to hold on to NYT that long. I dumped it during second Clinton administration before I even fully realized how much they lied to me. There were just too many instances that did not jibe with the observable reality there, so I stopped wasting my money.
At this point I am subscription free with exception of trade journals and the Atlantic Monthly, which I scan hoping that the spirit of great Mike Kelly will somehow reassert itself. Another triumph of hope over the experience.
While we’re on basketball memories here, here’s one that should impress Roger. I saw live the only 3-point field goal in Kareem’s entire career. They were playing the Suns at the Vet in the ’86-’87 season, and he chased down an offensive rebound in the corner, with nobody around him. The crowd quickly started yelling “Shoot” and darned if he didn’t pop it through the basket. A minute or two later the announcer mentioned that was the first successful 3-pointer of his career, and I see in the record books that is correct.
His career 3-point percentage was 5.6%, which means that he missed on his other 17 attempts.
Katherine,
Part of what kept me renewing was the Science Times section on Tuesday and the sports page. Once their politcal agenda crept into those sections it was finally more than I could bear.
The op-ed page was unreadable most days – anyone who can read Krugman or Dowd has to be either stupid or a masochist. You’d have to suffer through 3 or 4 Friedmans to find one that made any sense – but at least he’s vaguely civil if not civilized. That said, he’s one of the “We need a Manhattan Project!” morons. I can’t tolerate those dopes anymore – I’ve had all I can stands and I can’t stands no more. Safire (since retired) had grown boring years ago, occassionally entertaining at best. Few of their guest columnists were particularly enlightening; Sometimes of course but not worth the subscription cost.
The news pages required sifting through five or ten paragraphs for each one lonely bit of information among the political posturing pap. The various sections were so condescendly dripping with urban elitism that I’d rather huff tear gas than look at those. I don’t need the Times to pick a wine, the guy at my local bottle shop does just fine by me. Tell ‘im what you’re having for dinner and how you’re cooking it and he points you straight to a bin. Ain’t steered me wrong yet and he ain’t a pickpocket.
And hell’s bells, Margo, the lazy ass elitists couldn’t even be bothered to get the late sports scores. Best sports page my ass. If you can’t tell us the home team scores when they play the western divisions you ain’t jack, Jack.
A man armed-with the beauteous Sky Hook don’t need no stinkin’ 3-point shot.
Knucklehead, have you read the new guy at the Times yet, John Tierney? He’s terrific. Libertarian generically but not on foreign policy, and he puts links at the end of his columns to more reading on the subject. I can’t recommend him highly enough especially since his columns are going to disappear behind the Pay Curtain in a few months. I cover the NY Times Op-Ed columns on a group blog and he and Brooks are just about the only things worth reading. Kristof’s pretty good about half the time. Krugman and Dowd are just phoning it in, and Herbert’s a lightweight.
For anyone interested in the subject of public education, in particular vouchers, here’s a typically informative Milton Friedman op ed Schools of Thought.
Frustrations I know many of you parents share.
Knucklehead–The best sports page in New York for my money is still the Daily News (but then I only follow one sport).