I received a request the other day from Deborah Galambos, the reading specialist at Lin Howe School, to find volunteers who will help students with their reading.
The commitment is for a minimum of one hour a week, says Ms. Galambos. No experience necessary. Just enthusiasm.
Ms. Galambos can be reached at 310.842.4338.
Judging from Gov. Schwarzenegger’s new budget, Ms. Galambos’s request signifies the communal wave of the present and of the future.
Volunteerism.
Or you can use its maiden name, charity.
It is not inscribed in the U.S. Constitution that one must be reimbursed in a capitalist society for every breath he draws.
Charity is Not a Disease
Just as no one has accumulated so much money he does not need more, no community ever sags from an oversubscription of charity.
The invitation from Lin Howe School sounds like an irresistible opening for grandparents because I assume both parents in most homes are working in mid- to late afternoon.
There must also be single or divorced people in Culver City who own unfocused afternoon time.
During his campaign for the School Board last autumn, new Board member Scott Zeidman called for more communal participation — and this is what Ms. Galambos is trying to achieve.
A Cinch Topic
I am confident that Gov. Schwarzenegger’s school-diet budget will be discussed in hand-over-the-open-mouth terms at Tuesday night’s School Board meeting.
Cutbacks. Horrors. UnAmerican, isn’t it?
The noises on Tuesday night may make it sound as if The Deluge is at the door, that this is a worse crisis than the great influenza outbreak in 1918.
Golly whillickers, Murgatroyd, how in heaven’s name are we going to be able to keep every campus open?
As even vaguely involved parents know, every school’s budget is bloated.
Barack Obama notwithstanding.
In one of his nuttier outtakes in New Hampshire last Tuesday night, the first black saint in American political history was shouting hosannas to a slightly overwrought crowd.
Call Him Sen. Cheep-Cheep
He could not have pandered more chintzily if he had been standing on the steps of a Nevada brothel.
Taking a random stab at what might appeal to the glassy-eyed yahoos encircling him, Mr. Obama dipped into his Swell Cliches Bag and pulled out an old wheeze ready to fall apart:
“Higher pay for teachers,” he bellowed, and the yahoos obeyed the cue cards that said “This is where you roar, pal.”
“Higher pay for teachers” is the cheapest, phoniest, most reliable cheer in Democratic politics.
My Tires and My Head Need Air
Enriching some already overcompensated teachers/administrators in the name of upgrading public education is like inflating the tires of a car that has no engine.
It is does not address, much less resolve, any of the numerous and sensitive core problems. A flock of janitors is likely to be laid off, and education will be pronounced recovered.
Blindly raising teacher pay — “Let’s all feel real good” — is the antithesis of a serious panacea.
It is even nuttier than federally raising the minimum wage so that dead-enders holding dead-end jobs can buy one more television set a year to enrich their culturally slender lives.
Did You Read This?
The editorial staff of the loopy Los Angeles Times has carefully cradled such a visceral hatred for Gov. Schwarzenegger throughout his four years in Sacramento that it is difficult to discern whether the newspaper’s latest roasting is sincere and inept or mechanical.
On Page 1 and in its lead editorial this morning, the Times assaults the governor.
The writer of the Times’ editorial treated Arnold predictably, as if he were the newspaper’s ex-husband and she were still in drug rehab.
Acting like an overstimulated bouncer in a discount beer bar, the editorial author lambasted the governor without displaying a single insight into the budget culture.
The newspaper criticized the governor for refusing to continue Sacramento’s legislature-fueled spending spree and for refusing to raise taxes on the middle-class families the Times professes to care about.
Anyone Getting Sleepy?
How could Arnold close 48 state parks and trim the schools’ budget, the Times simplistically asks, when we need free healthcare for 36 million Californians?
How can I be broke when I still have 12 checks left in my checkbook?
Take two aspirin, three adjectives and call me in the morning.