Re “I Propose a Toast to Manipulation Day”
As I read your piece last Thursday, I, too, didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
I suppose that it was just luck of the draw and El Rincon’s misfortune that you drove by my school on March 4.
You refer to the event as undescriptive, uninformative and misleading. But as a journalist, surely you would have felt it necessary to contact either the union organizers or our School District office to gather more information before writing your rather Ann Coulter-ish article.
I was offended by your references to “da widdle childrens” (described in this fashion for unkind affect, as opposed to the little children?); “adult masters”; and then later, “standing on a street corner, barking like dogs suffering from distemper.”
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I sincerely hope that you don’t actually believe that the demonstration was an example of modern day slavery and that these references were just an attempt to engender emotional responses in myself and others on a rather slow news day for your newspaper.
The Stand Up For Students event, which was spearheaded throughout the state by the California Teachers Assn. (the group of union organizers to which you refer as a monosyllabic breed), organized this as a before-school event, which it was.
Your concern about this being a foolish, puerile way to spend a school day is unfounded in that regard, but perhaps, we could see it for what it was: a teachable moment in which students could see that in this country we have the right to express our views in social protest against a system of government spending and waste in Sacramento (and Washington) that apparently does not place value on education.
While it is true that we cannot spend what we don’t have, it leaves one to wonder why we don’t have it. I would venture to say that you and I have different points of view about the spending habits of both the state and federal governments, but I think we could agree that education has been shortchanged.
My best to you.
Ms. Hamme, President, Assn. of
Classified Employees, Culver City, and
Member of the CTA, may be contacted at antiquer01@aol.com
Ari Noonan comments: I objected to shamelessly using guileless children as props to promote a carefully choreographed script unrelated to children and modeled after a television wrestling match.
This was entirely show business.
Do any of those innocent human props have a remote idea why they are standing by the street, wildly waving cardboard at passersby?
Steve Gourley, President of the School Board, told this newspaper last year that it will take 20 years to restore educational funding to a near desirable level.
As I said, last Thursday was show business.
Teachers unions spend tens of millions each election cycle to promote liberal politicians who blow the legislative budget on “social justice” agendas instead of education.
Why do you keep voting for the same sick people — I give you U.S. Rep. Diane Watson (D-Culver City) and her putative successor, recently dethroned Speaker of the Assembly Karen Bass (D-Culver City)?
Last time I saw either woman, she was being rhetorically hoisted onto the shoulders of jubilant fellow Democrats who lavishly lauded her shopping-spree spending habits.
Aren’t you only mocking yourself, then, when you stand on a street corner and protest the very left-wing loons you insist on supporting?
