20 Search Results for "education"
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Random Musings
- From: EW278
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Description:
FRANGELA: I sent an email to KTLK (Los Angeles) requesting that Frangela (the current fill in hosts for Stephanie Miller) be put back to Saturdays and Sundays instead of just Saturdays. It is frustrating enough to turn to the station and not hear Frangela because of sports.
NORM COLEMAN: What a sore loser, but the media isn't harping out on him. We can guarantee that if he didn't have an R after his name, the media would be (bleeping) on him, fairly or not. Norm, step down and do something for the country and the State of Minnesota, for once!
THE NEW TAXES IN CALIFORNIA: Starting 4/1/2009, we are paying 1% more in sales tax, higher vehicle tax, and higher property tax. Now we learn of another "tax", 15 cents a bag that a supermarket uses if we don't use a recycle bag. Talk about taking the budget woes out on the middle class. And yet education is getting cut for the millionth time. Time for a recall, anyone?
- Blog post
- 7 months ago
- Views: 117
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BudgetVote-Call Congress!
- From: Julie in Seattle
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Description:
Hey Steph-fans, we have a chance to get Obama’s initiatives for health care reform, education & an energy plan that will turn the global warming tide turned around with 51 votes in the Senate (instead of 60!) by getting the budget passed. The Rushbots & Hannitites are dialing away their reps & Big Oil, Big Pharma & the health insurance goons are roaming the halls of Congress greasing palms to defeat it.
Make some calls Monday because the job of taking the country back isn’t done yet!
CALL your Congress-Critters to get health care, education & energy budget passed-
the numbers you need are right here:
http://my.barackobama.com/budgetaction
- 8 months ago
- Views: 58
- Not yet rated
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Obama asks for calls!
- From: Julie in Seattle
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Description:
Hey Steph-fans, we have a chance to get Obama’s initiatives for health care reform, education & an energy plan that will turn the global warming tide turned around with 51 votes in the Senate (instead of 60!) by getting the budget passed. The Rushbots & Hannitites are dialing away their reps & Big Oil, Big Pharma & the health insurance goons are roaming the halls of Congress greasing palms to defeat it. Make some calls Monday because the job of taking the country back isn’t done yet!
CALL your Congress-Critters to get health care, education & energy budget passed-
the numbers you need are right here:
http://my.barackobama.com/budgetaction
Then call some people for the Obama Team to get others to call-
REQUEST FROM OBAMA’s team FOR CALLS to Support Budget
We've asked supporters across the country to call their elected leaders in Washington and declare their support for President Obama's budget plan. The biggest way you can make an impact now is by calling supporters and reminding them to take that step and call their representatives.
Sign into our online tool and ask fellow supporters across the country to call their elected representatives.
We'll provide you with a script and a targeted list of people to call.
We can't afford to ignore the long-term challenges to our prosperity any longer. Addressing our challenges in energy, health care, and education is essential to achieving an economic recovery that lasts.
As Congress nears a vote on President Obama's budget next week, it's absolutely crucial that citizens make their voices heard and send that message to Washington.
Log on now and ask fellow supporters to contact their representatives:
http://my.barackobama.com/budgetcalls
Thank you,
Jeremy Bird
Deputy Director
Organizing for America - Blog post
- 8 months ago
- Views: 92
- Not yet rated
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crazy Scott from MN via MA
- From: JonG
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Description:
March 10, 2009 was one of crazy religious righty Scott's calls. He alluded to 'Jewish control of the media' and 'Jewish bankers' ruining the credit the USA economy needs from its financial system. I believe, as a progressive Jew that should not be necessary to disclose but I'll disclose anyway, that Scott was making a caricature of an otherwise serious subject in order to intimidate Steph, Jim and Chris from talking about the Israel-Palestinian conflict. The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations works with Talkers Magazine to take talk show hosts on trips to Israel where they are shown a mostly one-sided, Israeli government perspective similar to the trips to Israel USA Congressmembers and Senators, as well as governors and local officials, are taken on. Some of those are paid for by the American Israel Education Foundation that is a part of AIPAC the pro-Israel lobby. See "Keeping Talk Radio Pro-Israel" by Jonathan Mark in the NY Jewish Week for background of the COPMAJO and Talkers Magazine collaboration. Mike Malloy read it on his July 16, 2007 show that may be available as a free podcast at whiterosesociety.org.
For a more nuanced discussion of the subject of how well-funded, well-organized parts of the USA and world Jewish community influence the media see the film "Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land" and read the blog muzzlewatch.com. The blog is about the suppression of dialogue about conflict resolution between Israelis and Palestinians mostly within the Jewish community. Other blogs, one called yidwithlid, have attacked it in a reflection of the suppression of USA Jewish dissent from Israeli government policy that muzzlewatch.com tries to overcome.
Scott from MN is crazy and prejudiced but the subjects he raises, however clumsily, can be discussed in more responsible, nuanced ways.
On June 23, 2009 in hour 1 scott from MN called again and Steph cut him off. Here is an email I sent to Jim Ward about the call.
Hi Jim,
Scott from MN crazy Jew-blaming call in hour 1 June 23 again caricatured a serious issue re support for USA bombing Iran nuclear power plants (Helen Caldicott has called power plants bomb factories in book Missile Envy) or standing with Israel bombing them as self-defense.
The USA did stand in support of Israel by means of Congress and Senate resolutions, in 2006 during Israel's Lebanon and Gaza, and 2009 Gaza, disproportionately forceful responses to kidnappings and rocket attacks.
Your guest June 19, Donna Edwards, voted present not yes, on 111th Congress 1st session H. Res 34, and will likely face a pro-Israel political action committee-funded challenger in a primary or general election because of it.
Focus more on where Iran election law violated that helped Ahmedinejad steal election just as you also focus on election law violations that helped Bush steal 2 terms. Repression of protesters is news but so are election law violations. I heard on an NPR show (On Point) that one candidate got fewer votes than campaign workers (Mehdi Karroubi?).
It was nice meeting you at Obama radio nation Jan 18. Remembering event is bittersweet because the station promoted dropped progressive talk 3 weeks later.
Jonathan in Bethesda, MD
- Blog post
- 8 months ago
- Views: 131
- Not yet rated
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You got yur edumukation all a*
- From: Reek Havoc
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Description:
Quit blaming teachers. All the teachers I know are doing the best they can..teaching to the asinine tests, going the extra mile... my mother was a teacher for 35 years or more? They are closing my daughters school for godsakes!!! You go into the office and it looks like a MASH unit....more later get it straight it aint the teachers fault!!!
- Blog post
- 8 months ago
- Views: 121
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Is this crash an accident?
- From: EllieWilder
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Description:
Is our economic crash an accident?
I know this is a blog post for the Thom Hartmann blog, and it is there, but I wanted to put the question to Steph's fans as well. Thom had an interesting story to tell on Monday. The following is a summary of what he was saying, and at the bottom I ask the question, is our economic crash an accident?
There was in the early 1700s thru around 1830 a period of strong middle class. (A result of slavery and stealing lands from native Americans). What happened as a result of a strong middle class getting established was that the middle class revolted against the established order. The revolutionary war was the revolt (against England) starting in 1774/5 when most conservatives (most aligned with England) left the country.
Fast forward:
The Wagoner Act (FDR) in 1935 created unions. From this a middle class emerged. In the 1960's/70s there was social dissent against the establishment resulting in more freedoms, especially for women and minorities. (My point added: also freedom for non-minority men to grow their own businesses from small to large and enter the elite class). Reagan's point essentially was... why should I pay for the education of people who are going to rebel against my wealth, rebel against the system?
Since Reagan's time Neo-conservatives (neocons) have been making an effort to decimate the middle class, to return us to a 2-class society. They decided they want people to be a little more frightened, have less confidence they could find a job, and have a little less leisure time. (my note: also less land, less education, and to be available for military service). And by many measures, succeeding. (Read William F. Buckley to see how this was the attitude of elite in the 1960's). They wanted to take the people who thought they were middle class, strip all their advantages away and turn us back into a 2-class society. To do this, they have created a system of people making money off of money - banking, stock market, arbitrage. The richer you start out, the greater the benefit in this kind of system.
Principle at work: A 2-class society for conservatives is easier to control. They think people are essentially evil (adam and eve), and so we need a small leadership of the "good," (who are few and far between), and the rest should be ONE class, the workers, the followers. Liberals think people are basically good and need more freedoms and own more of their own property and wealth. Liberals have created the middle class. Jefferson, Madison, Washington and FDR included. Obama is now there doing battle with the Neo-conservatives.
My question is:
1. Is this stock market crash, and the concurrent economic crash, an accident - the greed gone awry or the change from 3-class to 2-class system gone awry, or was it an effort by the Bush administration to shake the small-dollar investor out of the stock market, and further decimate the middle class WHILE making it really hard for Obama to succeed?
- Blog post
- 8 months ago
- Views: 161
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Whitehouse Radio Address 2/28/
- From: capt
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Description:
Two years ago, we set out on a journey to change the way that Washington works.
We sought a government that served not the interests of powerful lobbyists or the wealthiest few, but the middle-class Americans I met every day in every community along the campaign trail – responsible men and women who are working harder than ever, worrying about their jobs, and struggling to raise their families. In so many town halls and backyards, they spoke of their hopes for a government that finally confronts the challenges that their families face every day; a government that treats their tax dollars as responsibly as they treat their own hard-earned paychecks.
That is the change I promised as a candidate for president. It is the change the American people voted for in November. And it is the change represented by the budget I sent to Congress this week.
During the campaign, I promised a fair and balanced tax code that would cut taxes for 95% of working Americans, roll back the tax breaks for those making over $250,000 a year, and end the tax breaks for corporations that ship our jobs overseas. This budget does that.
I promised an economy run on clean, renewable energy that will create new American jobs, new American industries, and free us from the dangerous grip of foreign oil. This budget puts us on that path, through a market-based cap on carbon pollution that will make renewable energy the profitable kind of energy; through investments in wind power and solar power; advanced biofuels, clean coal, and more fuel-efficient American cars and American trucks.
I promised to bring down the crushing cost of health care – a cost that bankrupts one American every thirty seconds, forces small businesses to close their doors, and saddles our government with more debt. This budget keeps that promise, with a historic commitment to reform that will lead to lower costs and quality, affordable health care for every American.
I promised an education system that will prepare every American to compete, so Americans can win in a global economy. This budget will help us meet that goal, with new incentives for teacher performance and pathways for advancement; new tax credits that will make college more affordable for all who want to go; and new support to ensure that those who do go finish their degree.
This budget also reflects the stark reality of what we’ve inherited – a trillion dollar deficit, a financial crisis, and a costly recession. Given this reality, we’ll have to be more vigilant than ever in eliminating the programs we don’t need in order to make room for the investments we do need. I promised to do this by going through the federal budget page by page, and line by line. That is a process we have already begun, and I am pleased to say that we’ve already identified two trillion dollars worth of deficit-reductions over the next decade. We’ve also restored a sense of honesty and transparency to our budget, which is why this one accounts for spending that was hidden or left out under the old rules.
I realize that passing this budget won’t be easy. Because it represents real and dramatic change, it also represents a threat to the status quo in Washington. I know that the insurance industry won’t like the idea that they’ll have to bid competitively to continue offering Medicare coverage, but that’s how we’ll help preserve and protect Medicare and lower health care costs for American families. I know that banks and big student lenders won’t like the idea that we’re ending their huge taxpayer subsidies, but that’s how we’ll save taxpayers nearly $50 billion and make college more affordable. I know that oil and gas companies won’t like us ending nearly $30 billion in tax breaks, but that’s how we’ll help fund a renewable energy economy that will create new jobs and new industries. In other words, I know these steps won’t sit well with the special interests and lobbyists who are invested in the old way of doing business, and I know they’re gearing up for a fight as we speak. My message to them is this:
So am I.
The system we have now might work for the powerful and well-connected interests that have run Washington for far too long, but I don’t. I work for the American people. I didn’t come here to do the same thing we’ve been doing or to take small steps forward, I came to provide the sweeping change that this country demanded when it went to the polls in November. That is the change this budget starts to make, and that is the change I’ll be fighting for in the weeks ahead – change that will grow our economy, expand our middle-class, and keep the American Dream alive for all those men and women who have believed in this journey from the day it began.
Thanks for listening.
*****
Wow - I might not agree with everything (no such thing as "clean coal") and a couple of others things in details not offered but . . .
Barack Obama has my support.
- Blog post
- 9 months ago
- Views: 28
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You can't win if you don't pla
- From: clytemnestra
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Description:
For the past two decades this country has been treated to the rantings, ravings and, what passes for deep, thoughts of Rush Limbaugh. Despite what you might think of him, he has been an absolute genius of cornering, marketing and imaging making of talk radio. I first heard of him as the subject of a newsgroup title on usenet.
It was kind of strange seeing a newsgroup devoted to discussing and disseminating his teachings as if he were a prophet from God, his or herself. He had a following even then and quite a few detractors. But that newsgroup and others about him that followed, were the bellwether to not only his talk radio dominance but of the successful use of mass media to promulgate the neo-con message, dog whistles and furtherance of it’s oft hidden agenda.
We laughed and underestimated and we lost the ability to play.Liberal and progressives have had to play catch up. Even as Clear Channel and other mass media companies grew in size and power and little local stations were gobbled up and cast aside, we woke slowly. We either did not understand the threat of being defined by those that oppose us, or what the cost of the loss of the microphone, any microphone, would do to us. In that failure we did not move to protect assets, like small radio stations, or pick up a network on the nascent cable (network explosion) when it was much cheaper to do so.
So we sit here now. After years upon years of hard work to gain some of our democracy back we have:
1. We are only now showing a benefit to programming progressive television talk and opinion shows. Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow have the only two shows of this type that are exceeding their market projections and helping MSNBC to finally, steadily, march up the ratings in the key demographic (sorry BillO you need to look at the whole book not just the demographic of 70 to dead)
With those positives why has it been so hard to get MSNBC to program more progressive political talk shows? There is a market, and it is growing. Now I know there are rumors that MSNBC is looking for another progressive talker to host a show and names have been flying, Aaron Brown, Stephanie Miller, Thom Hartman, etc.
To those who want to get the gig I say look at what Rachel Maddow did prior to her show. Her “Campaign Asylum” vids on youtube are essentially audition tapes. She showed that she has camera presence. She spoke directly to the camera, no interviewer, no interviewee, no audience, just her. Currently Cenk Uygur is doing much the the same thing.
2. We still haven't been able to get MSNBC on to basic cable packages to compete with Fox News. What's good about that is that even with an artificially engineered decrease in viewership opportunities, Keith and Rachel's shows are growing.
What's bad, well that's obvious, there is no counter message to Fox News. In a democracy, more than one side of the political spectrum must be represented. The right will yell that the left has PBS. They know it's comparing apples to oranges, commercial and public TV are not the same thing.
It's also pretzel logic because they want it both ways. They say liberal thought can't exist but on public tv/radio no one will pay for it, but then say we can't demand a commercial station because we have public radio/tv.
When I was in Pakistan I also learned that MSNBC had been made unavailable on satellite packages. As in it WAS available, but now it's not. Fox News, however, was still available. So overseas only one side of our political discourse is being heard. With that kind of news it is no wonder their view of us has tanked even lower.
3. We have Democratic Senators and Congresspeople who still don't understand or care that part of the 2006/2008 success is due to the free exchange of the internet. It has been one of the only avenues available to project progressive/liberal thought, to connect liberals and lead them out of the right wing imposed cone of silence, is the internet.
Without the internet, the web, liberal blogs, on-line magazines, live streaming of radio, we would not be as far as we are in coming back. Net neutrality is a big part of that.
If big Republican owned companies can tier the speed of which web sites get loaded onto a browser the fastest, based (they say) on payment from the site to get into the fastest tier (like the difference between 1st class and coach on an airplane) who do you think will go to the end of the slow tier line?
Like it or not, the internet has made us rather impatient. If a site takes too long to load (in a person's mind) people will move on to another site. Opposing ideas to conservative/Republican/neo-con speak will be lost, and we will go back to being isolated.
Net neutrality is very important to us, and it is one of the reasons they push so hard to end it.
Make sure our senators and congresspeople know and understand it.
4 Liberal Talk Radio.
Liberal talk radio has been credited with greatly assisting our wins in 2006 and probably 2008.
For years Rush Limbaugh et. al. have pushed the idea into the American collective thought that liberal talk radio isn't on because it is not commercially viable. This thought persists and is championed by the right even though it goes against every idea of capitalism; find an unmet need, fill it, be successful. The right wing used to say that there weren't enough pockets of liberals to make it economically feasible, except:
A. there have always been states and large cities that have always voted for the Democratic candidate.
B. people of like minds like to meet with and talk to each other
C. there were no liberal talk stations in these place to give them the opportunity.Now I don't think it's to hard to understand why the Republican leadership would not want there to be liberal talk radio even though it goes against their vaunted laissez-faire capitalism (hell, these people will tank/crater/dismember an entire national economy and risk the international economy, thousand and millions of lives just rid the US government of the ability to offer safety nets, provide for education and infrastructure and to make themselves even more obscenely wealthy)
But the disconnect of average people have from saying they believe in capitalism , to looking but not seeing the evidence before them, to spouting the right wing bull shit is amazing. Now, despite more states turning purple and blue, the right still says uses these talking points, though their reasons are more transparent.
They point to Air America going bankrupt, saying that it totally failed. Even though they started saying that the day AAR started (they were a failed concept even before words were spoken into the microphone of the first AAR show). They totally ignore that AAR was on an advertisers blacklist. It's now out of bankruptcy.They try and say that all progressive/liberal talk show hosts are from Air America (there fore they by extension must be failures). Only a fraction of liberal talk show host are with AAR now, but we also propagate that lie by thinking hosts like Ed Schultz, Bill Press, Stephanie Miller, Mike Malloy, Randi Rhodes, etc. are with AAR.Progressive Liberal Liberal talk radio is now more diverse in talent and in management.
While some progressive talk radio stations were created by companies like Clear Channel, they have also changed more progressive talk radio station formats away from it. Sort of like giving someone a lollypop just to shut them up and then taking away because it was too successful.Even progressive talk radio stations that were once thought of as "safe" have been turned to music or sports formats.
Often times the changing of formats defied reason. Take Boston for example. The radio signal Clear Channel had given it's progressive talk station was a crappy daytime signal. It wasn't very powerful and if you were lucky to get it, you lost it at sundown unless you lived IN Boston itself.
The station was also run on autopilot. There was no local talent on weekly, just national shows which switched between offerings automatically (Rachel Maddow (then Young Turks), to Stephanie Miller, to Al Franken, to Ed Schultz to Randi Rhodes, etc.) and there wasn't a sales department. Really, a commercial radio station with no sales staff, in short, a lollipop.
When Clear Channel switched the format to salsa music (the 5th such station in the market) they also upgraded the signal (which we had long pleaded for) and got local on air talent and a sales staff..... ooh looky there!, and actual radio station with desires to actually succeed.
Despite that their ratings for many quarters did not come close to or much less meet the ratings they had with the crappy signal autopilot progressive talk station, they never turned back. The argument that this is a money making decision is laughable.
(update from trojanrabbit: the Boston salsa station that WAS Boston Progressive Talk Radio has "disappeared off the chart for the latest Fall ratings book." )
Many progressive talk radio hosts have said this is all about ownership, and they are right. As John Mayer sang "when they own the information they can bend it all they want." But for the Drobneys attempts to organize to start buying stations I've not seen much in that area, it seems that many progressives want to abandon terrestrial radio all together.
There are several problems with this idea.
We cannot keep, maintain, or turn red to blue if we cede the terrestrial airwaves to right wing radio. In doing so we will fail to reach with our message those who cannot afford satellite radio. We will in effect give our message only to the first class passengers and give the finger to the majority in coach.
The right wing will again get to define what and who we are. And we could begin to see our gains slip away.
We will confine ourselves to a smaller number of media options, with less flexibility to meet challenges, changes and risks. What happens if space debris takes out the satellite? It's not as far fetched as you might think.
We must maintain if not expand ourselves on terrestrial radio. We have the means to start buying stations, we have wealthy progressives/liberals who could invest and thousands upon thousands liberals who could give $5.00 to an actblue type effort. Starting with the newly blue and purple states/cities we should be buying troubled stations (don't think the Republicans are waiting to gobble up more land, assets, media, etc. whose owners are in trouble, they are it's part of Disaster Capitalism.)
Then move either to red states/cities to start chipping away at it. Or go to blue cities and states to maintain and reward, I'm not sure what order is best for 2 and 3 or even a sort of alternating approach 2,3,2,3,etc.
In short, of this long winded diary, we must do, it is imperative that we compete in all forms of media, just as we have competed in all states. To cede any media is to let the right wing have a chance, and an opening to define what we are. We've seen the disastrous results.
When we compete in every state, in all media, we win, on our ideas alone.
- Blog post
- 9 months ago
- Views: 135
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Tomorrow Wear BLUE - for Messa
- From: clytemnestra
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Description:
The is a short diary, it doesn't need to be long.
All you need to know is tomorrow, February 10, to wear blue. It is part of AFT's Fight for America's Future plan.
From the letter in my email box:
On that day, your AFT friends and colleagues will wear blue to work, participating in a coast-to-coast Unity Day that will show every AFT member is behind the union’s effort to restore the economy—and put the nation on track for long-term recovery—by making wise investments in schools, colleges, healthcare and other vital public services.
Print out this flier and pass it to colleagues in your workplace. Tell them how important it is to participate in Unity Day—massive participation will make policymakers at every level sit up and take notice.
While it is the American Federation of Teachers' call to it's members, it is something we ALL can do. We all need to a strong message. We need to show SOLIDARITY with unions. Solidarity is part and parcel of unions, building, maintaining and supporting.
The AFT want's to send a clear message:
- That strong education, healthcare and public services are critical elements for our country's economic recovery.
- That budget cuts to education, health care and public services will hurt, not help, our economy.
That's a clear message every progressive, every liberal, needs to send. We could not only show solidarity with the AFT union tomorrow but we could and should wear blue EVERY Tuesday and making that message bigger and bigger. Just as wearing red for breast cancer every Friday has grown bigger and bigger.
But it is also more than just this important message, and putting pressure to maintain these necessary building blocks for a strong recovery. It is also about solidarity with unions. Wearing blue every Tuesday will also show solidarity with them.
Wear blue this Tuesday, tomorrow, and every Tuesday there after.
- Blog post
- 9 months ago
- Views: 98
- Not yet rated
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Education in Pakistan
- From: clytemnestra
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Description:
Okay this is the blog I promised to write. But I'm not going to
What I have done is posted 6 pictures and written and re-written descriptions to "splain" things. All this pictures are linked (on the bottom) and you should start at number 1 which is here.
If you read the first two (now 5 and 6) pictures before RE- READ everything. I've added more information.
Thanks
- Blog post
- 9 months ago
- Views: 65
- Not yet rated
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School Sign (1 of 6)
- From: clytemnestra
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Description:
School sign welcoming us to Abbottabad and advertising the co-ed public school. Advertisements for public and private schools are all over Pakistan. The cities have many, many private schools along with the government/public schools and it is still not enough. There are more children than schools to teach them.
Abbottabad, Pakistan
August 2008
I have decided against writing a real blog entry on this. But I am going to link the pictures.
this is picture 1
- 9 months ago
- Views: 96
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Unbashed Capitalism (2 of 6)
- From: clytemnestra
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Description:
You find these large billboards at EVERY busy perpendicular (T) stop. Even the street light poles are untilized as advertisment space. This intersection has a directional board for many military instillations. It doesn't say that the ordnance factory is also to the right. But it is along with the military medical center, military academy, and army school of music.
Close up of one banner (the one on the right) the next picture. School banners and advertisements are all over Pakistan.
On the way to Abbottabad, Northwest Frontier Province, Pakistan
August 2008
I have decided against writing a real blog entry on this. But I am going to link the pictures.
this is picture 2
- 9 months ago
- Views: 129
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School Banner (3 of 6)
- From: clytemnestra
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Description:
This is a close up of one of the school banners. School banners and advertisements are all over Pakistan. This one is a perpendicular (T) stop.
On the way to Abbottabad, Northwest Frontier Province, Pakistan
August 2008
I have decided against writing a real blog entry on this. But I am going to link the pictures.
this is picture 3
- 9 months ago
- Views: 75
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Public High School in Pakistan
- From: clytemnestra
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Description:
This is a small public high school in one of the towns between Abbottabad and Thandiani.
This high school in on the side of a mountain, there is a deep and narrow valley below and then of course a mountain on the other side. We passed this high school on Friday morning after it had let out for Friday prayers.
We passed the children who attend this and other schools, boys and girls, 6 year olds to 15 year olds, walking home. Hordes and hordes of children, streaming up and down the mountain we were driving on, streaming through the valley below, streaming up the mountain on the other side.These kids, no matter how hard, how daunting, or how poor the education they are getting in a government school. they are determined to go to school. Boys AND girls.
Seeing these children was quite humbling and also awe inspiring.
(public schools/government schools in Pakistan have uniforms, and it's the same uniform whether your in Abbottabad, Rawalpinid, Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar, etc.)
I have decided against writing a real blog entry on this. But I am going to link the pictures.
this is picture 4
- 9 months ago
- Views: 79
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School classroom (5 of 6)
- From: clytemnestra
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Description:
This is one of the two classroom pictures of the montessori and school my husband and I support. It is private but they try and keep tuition low so that more kids can attend AND they take and teach kids with learning disabilities. The school takes these children back to the very beginning of montessori and they have had great success.
There are NOT enough schools in Pakistan, private or public. Moe And even though public schools in Pakistan aren't good, they are better than nothing. This is where our money over the last 8 years SHOULD have been spent, it would have yeilded more, greater and lasting dividends of peace.
What Pakistan has spent on education there has been alot of waste, including building public schools that have NEVER been used. I was taken by one in Rawalpindi.
This picture was taken a week before the school year was to begin. The classroom needs the "begin the school year cleanup."
I direct your attention to the ENGLISH bulletin board.
In Pakistan the first language children generally learns is their regional/tribal language. In the Punjab it's Punjabi in Sindh province it's Sindhi (pronounced "cind-he"- yeah, I get jokes about that all the time). When they start school they learn the national language which is Urdu (just like Hindi, except the script is Arabic not Sandskrit). Then in the private schools they also, along with learning Urdu, learn English.
In this school the children start montessori at 3 years of age.
By the time these children are 15 years old they have mastered 2 and 3 langauges. And then they go to college, which is like our last 2 years of high school, and can take an additional language.
So when you hear the right wing complain about how learning more than one language is hard, most of the educated and marginally educated world hears that as Americans are lazy and stupid.
Also children in Pakistan go to school 5 1/2 days a week. They get a half day for Friday prayer, but they go to school on Saturday, getting only Sunday off. And they only get a month or two off for summer break (sometimes three it depends on the school)
I have decided against writing a real blog entry on this. But I am going to link the pictures.
this is picture 5
- 9 months ago
- Views: 127
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School classroom (6 of 6)
- From: clytemnestra
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Description:
This is anothe classroom in the private school my husband and I support.
This picture was taken a week before the school year was to begin. The classroom needs the "begin the school year cleanup." And I will draw you attention to the little heater in the corner. (hanging up)
For people who are used to 105 - 110F degrees in the summer, tempatures going as low as 40F is very cold for them. This little heater does help warm the room, but for the hour or so a day when this school (like other schools) suffer through load shedding, classrooms go cold.
There is also a fan visable. These rooms can get stiffling hot which isn't helped when load shedding happens. (In the comments I have been asked what load shedding is. I explained it in another picture so - to save me typing I'll link to it)
This school is in the process of building a school library. This is a big deal in a country with no tradition of public lending libraries. There were lending libraries in both the British and American Embassies, but in the last 8 years these libraries were closed.
For my host the closing of these lending libraries (they were not free, one had to pay an annual fee to access the library) was and is a huge loss. Not only does it deprive the people of this country access to good literature, recent avenues of thought, history, political and economic idealogy but also of alternative views. The loss of these libraries, in my host's view weakens the coversation of the average moderate and progressives in the country, since not everyone has satelite tv and even then the offerings are not always as deep asthe topic requires. In short my host felt that this development is bad for America.
The only lending library I saw was when we were invited for lunch at the Islamabad Club which is a club for the wealthy and elite of Pakistan.
As a long time supporter of the school, and since I have library experience, I have been asked to head the library project. After agreeing to head the project (with what I can do while in America) I went to the largest bookstore in Islamabad to see what was available for children.
Beyond shelves upon shelves of fun books (puzzle books, coloring books) for the preschool kindergarten set, and American/British classics (Anne of Green Gables, Tom Sawyer, etc.) beyond that there was very little (the pop culture Bratz books were available). There was little "cultural pride" books for children (stories, poetry, etc.) There wasn't even a good selection of Islamic books for children that the UK and America put out (I mean there were only 4 or 5 books, which surprised me because I had been to this site and this one too and expected to see comparable selections in a Muslim country. So basically ALL children's literature is lacking there.
This wasn't the bazaar, this was the best and biggest bookstore in the captial city.
Upon getting home I purchased and sent these books to them so they could see where I was going in acquisitions and okay it. These are the books I sent.
The Trojan Horse: How the Greeks Won the War
Helen Keller: Courage in the Dark
The direction I want to take is fine with them! (It's nice to have that trust)
OH! and also the school is co-ed, many are in Pakistan now.
I have decided against writing a real blog entry on this. But I am going to link the pictures.
this is picture 6
- 9 months ago
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DEMDAME it's ALL YOUR FAULT -
- From: clytemnestra
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Description:
I was going to stop posting pictures of my Pakistan trip today. Sure there were more I wanted to show (we took over 1,000 and that's JUST the digital, not analog or video), but I felt that I might be boring people too much.
The total number of pictures I've posted about Pakistan, including the ones I posted this morning during the Stephanie Miller Show is now 39. 39!
But SHE wanted me to post pics of the school. Which means I will have to do a blog about education in Pakistan.
So I told her in 'chat" that I'd think about it.
Well, damn! It weighed on my mind so much that I stopped the real life work I was doing and went to my computer to pick some out. And I have, along with a few other pics I haven't shown yet. Come tomorrow I will post 11 more.
I may even start tonight so I can get that blog post written.
So if anyone is tired of the Pakistan pictures click here and let damdame know how much you think of her for planting this little seed in my head.
And please, as long as I am posting them.. take a look -- rate (click the stars), make a comment, ask a question, I'll respond.
Actually I'd love to be part of helping direct the policies and assistance to Pakistan in the Obama administration. I have been working on a lot of this for years. I spent a large portion of this trip LISTENING to people, from those who were rich and powerful to the poor and whose station in life wasn't very high.
I also asked a lot of questions. I knew that I represented my country and after 8 years of George Bush I knew I had to undo the "pompous arrogant ass" idea that many Pakistanis had of Americans (because we had voted for this guy TWICE).
I went in eager to learn, to share and to listen and was richly rewarded with insight. I was told often what a nice person I am and given gifts that I did not expect.
My mission there for here was to bring back as much of Pakistan as I could to show Americans that "these people" aren't much different from them. That "bombing them to hell" (as a cousin of mine thinks - we don't talk much anymore) is NOT the way to go. These are people, thinking, breathing, loving, caring people. Not cardboard villians.
Just to make this clear, blamikng demdame is all in jest. I was laughing and being a startass when I wrote this blog.
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- 9 months ago
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Kate Hussein Simpson
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straydogma
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