Over at Bats Left Throws Right, the Hoosier Sage gives Jonah Goldberg a masterful combination wedgie
and swirly, ending with a Double Titty Twister and a Flying Dutch Rub.
It’s a thing of beauty and must be appreciated in its natural
environment.
But now that Doghouse Riley has been kind enough to hold him down and sit on his chest, I’d like to take a moment to slip a chunk of Ivory into a tubesock and flail away at Jonah like Vincent D’Onofrio in Full Metal Jacket. In his LA Times column, entitled Do Away With Public Schools, J-Go asks the question that is on the tip of everyone’s tongue: Why should upper middle class taxpayers foot the bill for educating the hoi polloi when you can just snooze through high school and college, learning nothing, and still get a gig as a columnist for a major newspaper, solely on the strength of the blackmail-quality photos and audio tapes your mother acquired while serving the Nixon White House as a distaff Donald Segretti?
Still, the inconvenient fact that Jonah was born with a silver shovel in his mouth doesn’t inhibit him from advocating a system based on the social implications of Darwinism and the economic principles of Rollerball.
Or maybe schools could work on the proven principle of the Peep Show. The teacher could stand on an enclosed stage, surrounded by booths. Each time a student inserted a quarter, the window shade would go up, and they’d get to hear part of the lesson. Collect enough pop bottles and cans, and by the end of the year, you’ll be able to do long division, and your neighborhood will be spotless.
Posted by scott on Thursday, June 14th, 2007 at 1:15 pm.
But now that Doghouse Riley has been kind enough to hold him down and sit on his chest, I’d like to take a moment to slip a chunk of Ivory into a tubesock and flail away at Jonah like Vincent D’Onofrio in Full Metal Jacket. In his LA Times column, entitled Do Away With Public Schools, J-Go asks the question that is on the tip of everyone’s tongue: Why should upper middle class taxpayers foot the bill for educating the hoi polloi when you can just snooze through high school and college, learning nothing, and still get a gig as a columnist for a major newspaper, solely on the strength of the blackmail-quality photos and audio tapes your mother acquired while serving the Nixon White House as a distaff Donald Segretti?
Still, the inconvenient fact that Jonah was born with a silver shovel in his mouth doesn’t inhibit him from advocating a system based on the social implications of Darwinism and the economic principles of Rollerball.
HERE’S A GOOD question for you: Why have public schools at all?
OK, cue the marching music. We need public schools because blah blah blah and yada yada yada. We could say blah is common culture and yada is the government’s interest in promoting the general welfare. Or that children are the future. And a mind is a terrible thing to waste. Because we can’t leave any child behind.
The problem with all these bromides is that they leave out the simple fact that one of the surest ways to leave a kid “behind” is to hand him over to the government. Americans want universal education, just as they want universally safe food. But nobody believes that the government should run 90% of the restaurants, farms and supermarkets. Why should it run 90% of the schools — particularly when it gets terrible results?Why be timid and stop at just privatizing the schools? If we got the cumbersome behemoth of government out of both education and food safety, then the subsequent outbreaks of cholera in the cafeteria would reduce the surplus population, leading to more manageable class sizes (and isn’t that what those Wobblies in the teachers union want?). Once you unshackle the Invisible Hand, it’ll not only correct sluggish, over-regulated markets, it’ll also assassinate your enemies, perform charades, and deliver telegrams, just like Thing from the Addams Family!
Right now, there’s a renewed debate about providing “universal” health insurance. For some liberals, this simply means replicating the public school model for healthcare. (Stop laughing.) But for others, this means mandating that everyone have health insurance — just as we mandate that all drivers have car insurance — and then throwing tax dollars at poorer folks to make sure no one falls through the cracks…
Really, what would be so terrible about government mandating that every kid has to go to school, and providing subsidies and oversight when necessary, but then getting out of the way?That’s a fabulous idea! Sure, if your mother or father is laid off due to outsourcing, you’ll lose your medical insurance and your place in school, but you could always get a job at McDonalds and work and save until you have enough to go back and finish the year. Or at least the semester. Let’s see how it would work: Assuming you get evicted from class when you’re six years old, and assuming they assess late fees and interest, and require the balance paid in full and a down payment made on the next semester before they’ll allow you to re-enroll, you should be able to finish first grade by age 16, just in time to master enough basic reading skills to take the written test at the DMV.
Or maybe schools could work on the proven principle of the Peep Show. The teacher could stand on an enclosed stage, surrounded by booths. Each time a student inserted a quarter, the window shade would go up, and they’d get to hear part of the lesson. Collect enough pop bottles and cans, and by the end of the year, you’ll be able to do long division, and your neighborhood will be spotless.
What about the good public schools?They produce idiots like Jonah, who, even if you gave him change for the social studies peep show, would only use it to buy two bags of Funyons and a Mr. Pibb from the vending machine.
Well, the reason good public schools are good has nothing to do with government’s special expertise and everything to do with the fact that parents care enough to ensure their kids get a good education. That wouldn’t change if the government got out of the school business. What would change is that fewer kids would get left behind.Just the poor ones. And the blue collar ones whose parents worked in a factory until they were underbid by a child laborer in Ghana. And the middle class ones whose parents divorced, or got sick. In short, if you didn’t have the foresight to be born to a professional Ratfucker and recreational Gorgon, it’s a little late in the day to be reaching for the bootstraps. Best to just stand by the freeway offramp with piece of cardboard that says, “Will Work For Literacy.” Of course, you’ll have to outsource the actual creation of the sign to someone who’s managed to collect enough donations to learn how to read and write.
Posted by scott on Thursday, June 14th, 2007 at 1:15 pm.
25 Responses to “Please Deposit 50 Cents For The Next Ten Minutes of Arithmatic”
the hoi polloi
By the way, this is redundant and repetitive and redundant. Hoi polloi, no the
Jonah Goldberg’s anxiety and panty-twisted panic over public schooling is probably due in large part to the fact that he is now old enough to be laid off in favor of a GenZ’er who’ll work at half the wage, so long as the paper throws in health insurance.
By the way, this is redundant and repetitive and redundant. Hoi polloi, no the
Jonah Goldberg’s anxiety and panty-twisted panic over public schooling is probably due in large part to the fact that he is now old enough to be laid off in favor of a GenZ’er who’ll work at half the wage, so long as the paper throws in health insurance.
BAM! Good one, scott. Ka-POW! BTW, Jonah’s gassy outburst here
is simply an update of his long-held belief that all education should
emulate the antics in Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher” video. If only he’d
stayed with that. FWAP-PAF!
Uneducated electorate will lead to more elected officials like
bush. That’s the point. Constitutional rights will vanish before their
eyes and the public will think they’re watching a magic show at a
birthday party and start applauding. After the show, the only question
on the public’s mind will be: Where’s the pony?
Thank you.
I gotta figure out how to write a letter to the editor over there. Jesus Christ, what an ignorant asshole Jonah is. And there are people doubtless sitting around reading this bullshit saying “You know, I hadn’t thought of it like that, but he’s making sense,” and I, personally, kinda want to hurt them, but at the very least expose them to the fact that PRIVATE SCHOOLS GET TO DUMP ANY UNDERPERFORMING STUDENTS AND STILL DON’T DO MUCH BETTER ON STANDARDIZED TESTS!!!! PUBLIC SCHOOLS TAKE EVERYBODY, THAT’S WHY THEY’RE PUBLIC!!!!!
God, what an asshole. He’s like an even stupider John Stossel, you know? If cows had LA Times columns, they’d make more sense. If possums had LA Times columns, they’d make more sense. If sock puppets had LA Times columns…
I really, really hate that man. I’m going to go weep softly and wish I was still drinking. What these bastards have done to the world, gods help us all.
I gotta figure out how to write a letter to the editor over there. Jesus Christ, what an ignorant asshole Jonah is. And there are people doubtless sitting around reading this bullshit saying “You know, I hadn’t thought of it like that, but he’s making sense,” and I, personally, kinda want to hurt them, but at the very least expose them to the fact that PRIVATE SCHOOLS GET TO DUMP ANY UNDERPERFORMING STUDENTS AND STILL DON’T DO MUCH BETTER ON STANDARDIZED TESTS!!!! PUBLIC SCHOOLS TAKE EVERYBODY, THAT’S WHY THEY’RE PUBLIC!!!!!
God, what an asshole. He’s like an even stupider John Stossel, you know? If cows had LA Times columns, they’d make more sense. If possums had LA Times columns, they’d make more sense. If sock puppets had LA Times columns…
I really, really hate that man. I’m going to go weep softly and wish I was still drinking. What these bastards have done to the world, gods help us all.
Oh, hand me that soap in a sock, and stand back… I’m gonna smack him where it hurts, if I can find it.
Hey Jonah, if you’re wondering why not everybody has the benefit
of the private education that came with your cushy upbringing in smug,
affluent GOPistan, maybe it’s because you’re a fucking parasite.
(By the way, a “parasite” is not an obsessive Hilton-stalker. At least, not etymologically.)
(By the way, a “parasite” is not an obsessive Hilton-stalker. At least, not etymologically.)
D.Sidhe, as usual, has it right.
This Goldberg yahoo clearly knows nothing about how schools and the classroom work. Nothing, I tell you.
I’ve been in the classroom for seventeen years, and if I were king of the world, there are three simple things I’d do to make schools more effective:
1. Have no class with more than twenty kids.
2. Make it easier to dispense with the bad apples.
3. Make school voluntary, rather than mandatory.
Listen: I’m not saying it would make our world a better place, but doing those three things would make schools immeasurably better.
This Goldberg yahoo clearly knows nothing about how schools and the classroom work. Nothing, I tell you.
I’ve been in the classroom for seventeen years, and if I were king of the world, there are three simple things I’d do to make schools more effective:
1. Have no class with more than twenty kids.
2. Make it easier to dispense with the bad apples.
3. Make school voluntary, rather than mandatory.
Listen: I’m not saying it would make our world a better place, but doing those three things would make schools immeasurably better.
Would it help if schoolkids in Zimbabwe saved up their old textbooks and donated them to schools in the US?
I wrote that in the fullness of irony (and after 4 beers), but I wouldn’t be surprised if it were already happening.
I wrote that in the fullness of irony (and after 4 beers), but I wouldn’t be surprised if it were already happening.
If cows had LA Times columns, they’d make more sense.That’s so, so… beautiful!
[wipes tear from eye]
*sniff*
And, with all the bolded italics, I thought it was Annti at first (a complement, I think).
Damned TAGS!!!1!!
God HATES tags!1!!
The only reason I can figure for the Right keeping this guy around
is the recruitment factor. Every half-wit who reads him must imagine
he could write a column.
“OK, cue the marching music. We need public schools because blah blah blah and yada yada yada.”
God I love that argument.
“And here’s what you sound like: Duh, I like public schools because I’m a dumb liberal and I like to smell my own butt. DUUUUH!!!”
God I love that argument.
“And here’s what you sound like: Duh, I like public schools because I’m a dumb liberal and I like to smell my own butt. DUUUUH!!!”
You may be right, Doghouse. I’m kinda thinking *I* could write a
column, and if I were harder up for cash, I might be willing to stuff my
soul in a pill bottle and go over to the unpleasant side.
And Marq, God Hates Script, too. And the blending of fonts.
And Marq, God Hates Script, too. And the blending of fonts.
I should’ve gone to private school. My hatred for these fuckers
has long since outstripped my vocabulary, reducing me to feral snarls,
foaming at the mouth and wild, windmilling punches at the empty air.
Soap in a sock?? I’ve got a brick in a sock! Lemme at him!! (Assuming I can fly Dulles-LAX while carrying a concealed brick.)
The Doughy Pantload is wrong on so many levels here that I can’t even go into detail, I’m HYPERVENTILATING.
And, mind you, I attended California public schools and university BEFORE Proposition 13…
The Doughy Pantload is wrong on so many levels here that I can’t even go into detail, I’m HYPERVENTILATING.
And, mind you, I attended California public schools and university BEFORE Proposition 13…
Jonah Goldberg Opens His Mouth, Removing All Doubt: “Well, the
reason good public schools are good has nothing to do with government’s
special expertise and everything to do with the fact that parents care
enough to ensure their kids get a good education.”
Governments typically provide money, not expertise– that is left to the educators they employ. There are exceptions, of course, which corrupt this simple wisdom– the No Child Left Behind Act provides a good example.
Nevertheless, you can draw a fairly straight line through the plotted points on a graph of outlay-per-pupil against achievement. The more that is spent, the better the students perform on standardized achievement tests.
School funding at the state and county level continues to be based on formulae which are in turn based on property values. Thus, publics schools in wealthy districts will outperform those in poorer districts, because the schools simply have more money to work with.
Jonah’s essentially saying that rich parents care more about their children than poor parents, by the way, which is just another reason to punch him in the pants next time I see him.
Nasty little shit.
Governments typically provide money, not expertise– that is left to the educators they employ. There are exceptions, of course, which corrupt this simple wisdom– the No Child Left Behind Act provides a good example.
Nevertheless, you can draw a fairly straight line through the plotted points on a graph of outlay-per-pupil against achievement. The more that is spent, the better the students perform on standardized achievement tests.
School funding at the state and county level continues to be based on formulae which are in turn based on property values. Thus, publics schools in wealthy districts will outperform those in poorer districts, because the schools simply have more money to work with.
Jonah’s essentially saying that rich parents care more about their children than poor parents, by the way, which is just another reason to punch him in the pants next time I see him.
Nasty little shit.
We go upon the practical mode of teaching, Nickleby; the regular
education system. C-l-e-a-n, clean, verb active, to make bright, to
scour. W-i-n, win, d-e-r, der, winder, a casement. When the boy knows
this out of book, he goes and does it. It’s just the same principle as
the use of the globes. Where’s the second boy?
‘Please, sir, he’s weeding the garden,’ replied a small voice.
To be sure. So he is. B-o-t, bot, t-i-n, tin, bottin, n-e-y, ney, bottinney, noun substantive, a knowledge of plants. When he has learned that bottinney means a knowledge of plants, he goes and knows ‘em. That’s our system, Nickleby: what do you think of it?
‘Please, sir, he’s weeding the garden,’ replied a small voice.
To be sure. So he is. B-o-t, bot, t-i-n, tin, bottin, n-e-y, ney, bottinney, noun substantive, a knowledge of plants. When he has learned that bottinney means a knowledge of plants, he goes and knows ‘em. That’s our system, Nickleby: what do you think of it?
thank you, you said everything I thought when my eyes fell on this
effusion of know-nothing greed and hatefulness in the paper, and you
said it better than I ever could.
what an evil little fuck Jonah is
what an evil little fuck Jonah is
I wouldn’t describe Jonah as evil, so much as an idiotic waste of
space who in a perfect world would be taking orders in a fast-food
resturant and being yelled at by his 17-year-old boss for being so
incompetant. (And taking the abuse because, jobwise, this was his only
option.)
Oh, and as far as being able to write a column, sometimes when I
read something by some brain-dead wingnut like Jonah or Ben or
Adams-Apple Annie, I get really depressed about how things turned out
for me. I had aspirations to a writer when I was in my late teens-I even
entered a young playwrites’ competition (it was for people 18 and
under; I was 19 at the time and lied about my age, so it’s just as well I
didn’t win.) There was no monetary prize-the Top 5 selections would get
to see their play put on stage on Broadway, performed by professional
actors. The judges were some big names (I think Stephen Sondheim was one
of them). Anyhoo, it made the final 30 before being eliminated (I can’t
remember how many entries there were, so that may not be all that
impressive.) The play was returned with a critique from one of the
judges, which was completely fair in its assessment-I actually agreed
with the criticism. After a couple years of trying to write and being
totally unable to finish ANYTHING I started working on, I gave up, and
finally got a “real job”(by which I mean a soul-crushing, mind-numbing,
do-it-for-you-paycheck, can’t wait to get the fuck home job.)
I don’t blame anybody for my own failings, but, sometimes I get this feeling, which I’m sure many other people get, that there was some kind of cosmic clerical error, and the life I was supposed to have got delivered to someone else by mistake.
I don’t blame anybody for my own failings, but, sometimes I get this feeling, which I’m sure many other people get, that there was some kind of cosmic clerical error, and the life I was supposed to have got delivered to someone else by mistake.
You too, Bill S? I’m sorry. But G-d knows, you’re not alone…
It irks me that rw-nuts like Goldberg actually think they are
agreeing with left-wingers on topics like this simply becuz it is
anti-government.
When are such asshats going to realize that it isn’t government per se that the left is so mad at, it is the wealthy ruling-class corporate hands controling government that we are mad at.
So, the idea is not to privatize government, on the contrary, the idea is to take wealthy corporate privateers out of government and give it back to the people in general.
When are such asshats going to realize that it isn’t government per se that the left is so mad at, it is the wealthy ruling-class corporate hands controling government that we are mad at.
So, the idea is not to privatize government, on the contrary, the idea is to take wealthy corporate privateers out of government and give it back to the people in general.
Nick Z.
Hear, hear, sir! It ain’t government that’s the problem. It’s them what’s runnin’ it.
Hear, hear, sir! It ain’t government that’s the problem. It’s them what’s runnin’ it.
Hey, Bill S, keep writing. Don’t forget that William Carlos
Williams was a doctor and Wallace Stevens was an insurance executive. A
real job shouldn’t keep you from practicing your craft, even if it’s
just for your own amusement.
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