The "We Hate Opposing Viewpoints" Doctrine

That's what the Fairness Doctrine really was about: For each point, there was a mandatory counterpoint in the green room, getting prepped by the producer. Then, in 1986, the Fairness Doctrine was scrapped, giving rise to such things as talk radio.

John Gibson: Those who want the Fairness Doctrine back into law will cut off a lot of its own noses to spite faces. Each time Bill Maher comes on, Ann Coulter must follow. For every Dixie Chick, a Tobey Keith, &c, &c. In other words, Hollywood, the movie industry, et. al. must become a defacto Fox News, fair and balanced and cannot rely on the polemic of one to stand while the response of the other is left unheard. (Hannity & Colmes are already a shoo in, no further parts required.)

Jon Keller: You might like all the roses in your garden, and find one rose rotting, but does that mean you put the flame-thrower to the entire rose garden? Jon puts the smackdown on a certain rotanes from Massachusetts whose $1.50 words contain zero nutritional value - sort of like cotton candy without the flavor or the teeth-rotting sugar.

Dennis Miller also gives his two cents: advertisers like the Mr. Roarke approach ("smiles, everybody!") to radio, rather than the Marge Simpson as a blue squirrel against Itchy 'n Scratchy ("don't do that! don't do that!") or the crazy nutball who thinks George Carlin talks about doomsday from the Ms Pac Man game at the bus terminal.

To us, bringing back the Fairness Doctrine represents a temper tantrum by spoiled brats, who desperately want to be heard, but the fed up parents are walking away. It's also about MONEY - those juicy advertising dollars that businesses put out for radio shows that work hard for it, not a bunch of slackers who paste together a whole buncha nothin' (or a whole bunch of horsehockey) and call it a show. The solution? Reminds us of the story of the man who deals with screaming and naughty children, whispers something into their ears, and everything magically stops and they walk away...when the shopkeeper asks how he did it, he said, "I threatened to give them the biggest spanking of their lives."

Pros and Cons of Providence, RI

Pro: Easily accessible from Boston by MBTA, as there is direct service. Secret: save yourself the $15.50 round trip ($18 via Amtrak) and take the Orange Line to Forest Hills, then either Route 32 or Route 50 to Hyde Park Station and pay $4.50 - savings a whopping $3.25. Going back, get off at Hyde Park and reverse route. Bonanza bus lines also offer fares for $14.95 round trip.

Con: Train often packed; sometimes trains make all stops between South Station and Providence; at night and on the weekends, you're at the mercy of
the vending machines, which feature 500ml of Poland Spring water at $2 a whack and stale packs of Doritos. (During the week, there's a nice souvenir shop selling Rhode Island-themed gifts and The Lot. More about that later.)

Pro: RIPTA is head and shoulders above the MBTA. The fare is the same ($1.50) but you can purchase an all-day ticket for the RIPTA trolley (covers the entire city, more or less) for $3.00. Buses are clean and drivers are polite and well-mannered. Passengers we met were not the ones staring us directly in the face with an invitation to fight.

Con: Kennedy Plaza. Ever want to experience what Times Square (or the South End during the Elevated era) was before Michael Eisner decided to gentrify it? Even though the entire plaza has been rebuilt - sort of like an open Harvard Square - and you can find the buses a lot more easily than the MBTA, it is an eye-opener for the dark side of Providence. Sleaze is one of the kinder words we could use, and a few years ago we went there and watched a full-blown brawl bust out, and 30-40 Providence Police vehicles arrived in less time that it takes to sneeze. The interior is...well, after three minutes of waiting for a donut while one of its "customers" described something in sickening detail, we left feeling super dirty. As long as you wait outside, Kennedy Plaza is OK. Otherwise, South Station Bus Terminal is the Taj Mahal. Kennedy Plaza is also an intercity bus stop for Greyhound and Bonanza/Peter Pan.

Pro: Thayer Street is a walker's dream. Brown University students, bohemians, punkers, and other residents are much friendlier and don't carry that "we're a famous Ivy League University" snitty tone. (No reference to a Cambridge-based university intended.) Brown University bookstore is neat and clean, and offers plenty for the voracious reader. CVS and Store 24 for the sundries and cheap eats, but many casual restaurants (and Starbucks, of course) and neat little shops.

Con: Thayer Street is located on College Hill, which has a hill than can be best described as one you don't dare trip on. Don't aggravate the Providence Fire Department, as they haven't had a contract after 1080 days (3 years, nearly). After the shops, Thayer Street becomes a plain vanilla residential area.

Pro: The Lot, Rhode Island's lottery. Games are much more fun to play and you don't feel as if you wait for an eternity while Fatso McScratchy orders up his fat little notebook of daily numbers and his daily ration of 60-70 instant tickets. (Disclosure: we played The Numbers and Powerball and didn't win a thing. However, we did win about $20 playing the instants, but put some of the money into other things...like lunch and fare home.) Unlike our Lottery, The Rhode Island Lottery has a $20 instant ticket you don't have to wait until the 4th of July to figure out if you've won.

Con: The Lot in Rhode Island isn't publicized as much, and the games could be a horror show for seasoned Mass Lottery fans who get the hives when they play Bingo or Cashword. Also, no trash pickers because there's no trash.

Control freaks at Johns Hopkins University

The worst type of control freak is one who is put out by the slightest millimeter of offense, and then proclaims numbers of "acts" to gain back forgiveness. These are the types of people who are so insecure, so afraid of incivility, so afraid to offend, that they display their fit of pique in a way the Marquis of Sade would implore them to stop.

Witness the self-flagellation and acts of Job that the professors of Johns Hopkins attempted to put through this student (advice: read thoroughly re: Baltimore, please!) before the public and FIRE* screamed blue murder.

The extreme overreaction at JH screams academic totalitarianism - more worthy of the Soviet Union than at a college that pledges "diversity, tolerance, and understanding." Not when those three are at the discretion of very narrow minds.

*the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education

Cursing to the Choir, middle school edition

Kids: if you're going to do Chris Rock monologues, find the clean and non-controversial ones, not the ones with abundant amounts of deleted expletives.

On the other hand, the girl who let loose with her Andrew Dice Clay rendition did a great service: since no one would listen to the complaints from teachers and other students about the choir teacher's litanies and tirades, what better place highlight your teacher's shortcomings than after a Rogers & Hart song!

Hey, it might cost you a ten day suspension and make you miss your graduation ceremony and party, but the best thing is that it forced some of these administrators with their hands on their ears to finally listen!

Smug Kills, Same Sex Marriage Edition

Jon Keller makes perfect sense when he says "don't gloat." Even Deval Patrick was eloquent enough to tell the crowd to dial the smug way down:

The folks on the other side of this question are still our brothers and sisters. And we need them tomorrow and the next day and the day after that if we are together going to confront and solve the challenges facing up economically or in the public schools or on broken roads and bridges and a health care system we are trying to reinvent and a whole list of other issues on which we must come together.

Agreed, Governor Patrick. The Michael Corleone maxim is "keep your friends close and your enemies closer." Or, you may need your enemies one day if you're in a real jam.

Just Plain Marriage, or Do You? Do You? Good, You're Married

We're going to take the Spaceballs (warning: some language naughty) approach to what happened on the same-sex marriage front:

Quote #1 refers to the group of people meeting Yogurt (Mel Brooks), the Yoda knockoff:

Princess Vespa: Yogurt, the wise.
Dot Matrix: Yogurt, the all-powerful.
Barf: Yogurt, the magnificent
Yogurt: Please, please, don't make a fuss. I'm just plain Yogurt.

We've watched what's been going on in this front, and we just shrug our shoulders. We don't care about who gets married, and that the genders in front of the altar don't matter. What we do care about is that marriage isn't an exercise to show how far it can be stretched and bent to fit the wills and whims of certain groups.

Jon Keller's explanation is very true: marriage means social stability, regardless of gender, and none of the horrors predicted by the pundits ever happened. Governor Patrick can take pride in defusing a political hot potato - even if he had to do a little "horse trading" to do so. The legislators, instead of indulging in antics befit for spoiled children, practiced real democracy and voted, rather than delaying it, canceling it, or adjourning it. The pols who promised their voters one thing and did another will get their comeuppance at the ballot box. Liberal newspapers will put the results in the editorial pages; talk radio will get their callers complaining or praising the decision. Life goes on, and it's truly

There was one glaring item: the most obnoxious and unnecessary aspect of this debate was the argument between the two opposing camps: the cacophony of shrill slogans, sound bites, blaringly colorful signs, and colorful versions of what might happen if one side wins and the other loses. More rational voices, such as the ones who might not like the hefty weight of marriage but feel more comfortable with a less binding but similarly official civil union, or men and women who are in common-law marriages, were left out in the debate. Giving ground from "the people have spoken" to "let all the people speak, and if necessary, vote" and "marriage is strictly between a man and a woman" "marriage is usually between a man and a woman, but in the interest of true civil rights, marriage between two men and two women are also acceptable."

Save for your future - unless you're poor, then you don't get any benefits

The Boston Globe (via the Consumerist) has an interesting article on how the poor are punished for saving money, either through the 401(k)/403(b) program or just by plain saving their paychecks.

Some pretty startling tidbits from the article:

"We're constantly told that we need to save early and often to prepare for retirement...[y]et government policies tell low-income families, 'If you save for the future, you won't get our help today.' "

"For example, the tax credit for saving for retirement is wiped away when the taxpayer also qualifies for the earned income tax credit."

"[E]ach $1 saved by a single mother earning $15,000 a year would cost [a person] $2.60 in higher taxes and lost government benefits."

"...[P]utting a few dollars aside in a retirement plan can disqualify families for food stamps, healthcare benefits, and assistance given to poor families with children."

"In Massachusetts, for example, anyone with assets of $2,500 or more is disqualified from receiving federal assistance to families with dependent children. That asset test includes retirement accounts and even the cash value of a life insurance policy...[a]s a result, a single parent with two children who earns $500 a month would lose $133 a month in benefits if the family saved more than a nominal amount for retirement."

Employers love to assert that not putting money into a retirement plan is like leaving "free money" on the table, in the form of employer matches. For the poor, taking that "free money" is poison, as it will reduce or end their government benefits immediately. Putting in even 1% of their paycheck towards retirement - $2 a week for the woman earning $15,000 a year, and with a company match of 100% - is enough to reduce their benefits by 26%. Even maintaining an emergency account for expenses is enough to cause benefits to cease.

Truly sickening.

Why MCAS matters, and why it won't be going away any time soon

If you work in any industry that's all metrics, all the time (and by that we don't mean kilograms, hectares and millimeters), you understand that in certain times of the week, month, or year, you must be reaching some kind of benchmark, line of reference, or company standard. Numbers are the lifeblood of your business, and the entire business is to sustain or exceed the standards and expectations of your business - and to keep a steady eye on the competition.

A great example of this are those who work on commission. Your company sets targets on what you must sell. If you sell a lot of things, you make much more commission on top of your base salary, take home a huge paycheck, and have opportunities for promotion. If you sell very little or nothing, your bosses will demand to know why, offer you help to get more commission, and if you're still not making their targets, you no longer have a job. Nothing spells humiliation like security guards escorting you out the door, final paltry paycheck and unemployment information in one hand and your box of belongings in another.

It's no different in the school system. If students learn and succeed, getting straight A's (and some with B's) and actually going beyond what they learn in school, they will get praise and four year scholarships. If the students don't care, getting F's and getting held back in certain classes, or getting held back entire grades, they will find themselves without skills, relegating them to permanent entry-level job status or intermittent unemployment...and by then, they'll have regretted not getting even C's in their classes.

Hence, the MCAS: a test for students to measure what they're learning, how their learning, and what teachers and administrators can do to maintain their good status, and how to improve the bad status. We're not endorsing or damning the MCAS here - but we have some notions and understanding why (a) certain classes of people resent it, (b) why certain cities want it abolished, and (c) why MCAS won't be abolished any time soon.

First, Jon Keller gives an overview of the MCAS and its genesis: without accountability (which is the mother of benchmarks and standards), the quality of students' educations were as flimsy as tissue paper. Students got their diplomas, and when they began in their college work, even the straight "A" students struggled mightily to get a "D" or even a gentleman's "C". Those who didn't go to college went into the workforce, found jobs without a college degree lacking, and end up in menial, low-paying, dead-end jobs - or went unemployed for a long spell. The teachers who weren't wowing their students with self-indulgent, happy-pill pep-talks were regaling students with tall tales and guilt trips about American history and culture, and how to foment a neat little armed revolution. The remaining teachers were so deep into tenure they couldn't be fired, no matter how corrupt or incompetent they were, because the teacher's unions
had the administration by nose. The MCAS, in this instance, was the great leveler: take away all the cute little quirks that damaged the students education, and make them strive for excellence.

The richer school districts have students who are already striving for excellence: they're succeeding like crazy, and have excellent teachers who encourage their students to aim high but reach higher. The dark side - the richer districts are quite the snobs, as they would rather not compete or be lumped with students in poorer school districts, and the MCAS forces these students - who will do outstanding even outside the MCAS test - to be brought down from their lofty perches that none of the poorer school districts can ever hope to reach, crashing to Earth. This time, all 351 cities and towns in Massachusetts must now prove that their students are competent and knowledgeable, and the richer school districts can't charm, protest, or buy their way out of it.

This leads us to why certain cities and towns want the MCAS abolished, and why these towns don't want anything to do with standardized testing. The teachers in the richer cities and towns must set aside their pet curricula to help students pass the MCAS test. This means for several weeks, students must learn the three Rs - boring subjects that don't involve indoctrination, conspiracy theories, Paul Bunyan-like retellings of American history, bashing politicians, soldiers and others like overeager gossip columnists, praising stifling ideologies and brutal leaders, or silenced people or discussions on how cowardice and submission to your enemy is more noble than fighting back. One anti-testing person from Brookline wrote several letters to the editor of the Boston Herald, demanding that Governor-elect Deval Patrick get rid of that pesky MCAS test once and for all. Governor Patrick liked the idea, and said, "hey, why be part of my Cabinet and we can get rid of it together?"

We hate to break her bubble, or dry the ink out of her pen, but eliminating testing or standards, either in the schools or in the workplace, is a sign of weakness and fear - and no flotilla of weasel words ("onerous, demoralizing, racist, damaging to students' self-esteem", as Jon Keller puts it) will hide that fact. Not making students and teachers accountable, letting them absorb whatever fairy tales the teachers can stitch together, and letting the administrators pocket the cash for junkets instead of textbooks and computers, has already proven to be a disaster. We recommend the movies Lean on Me and Stand and Deliver as examples - the former for what happens when standards are eliminated, and how a principal must bring order out of chaos, and the latter for what happens when a dedicated teacher discards traditional methods and makes students from the barrios of Los Angeles succeed in a kind of high stakes examination.

Jail is not hot

Perhaps the LA County Sheriff took pity on poor Paris Hilton, but wearing an ugly ankle bracelet versus sitting in the stir for 23 days? Sounds like Justice, while blind, does have a great sense of humor...and the bracelet doesn't come with Swarkovski crystals, a Bentley, or some himbo of the week.

(Theo Spark has a funny, depiction of Chanel's new "Celebrity Ball And Chain." (Watch out - some sections are naughty. We're also keen on the nose plane art, not so keen on the frightened upper-class twits wanting it banned.)

I ain't payin' $5 tax on a keg of Natty Light!

If our legislators weren't so addicted to spending money, our taxes would be a heck of a lot lower.

Vice (or sin) taxes are super-popular, as it's easier to inveigle the control freak nature of some of these pols. Take away the vice, and you take away the easy, interest-free and hassle money to be spent on more noble things, like naming a park after your girlfriend or researching the mating habits of albino squirrels.

We are non-smokers, and we think the habit of smoking is disgusting and dangerous. We will not chase you down with a high-powered fan if we catch you with a cigarette/cigar/pipe, however, as we love and adore freedom and respect personal choice. If the Commonwealth of Massachusetts banned cigarette smoking and cigarette sales, they'd lose $1.50 per pack in tax alone (which comes to $30 per carton - for a $48 carton that comes to a tax rate of 62.5%!). Whether there would be a black market for smokers, or better yet, a gigantic boom for stores in other states with minimal to low taxes (New Hampshire), is uncertain. When Massachusetts loses hundreds of millions of dollars in cigarette taxes because they thought it wise to ban it, everyone loses. Prohibition didn't work because a nice new black market took its place, and crime syndicates loved the idea of cornering the market in illicit hooch.

The 5% booze tax proposal will do nothing to control drinking, i.e. overconsumption of alcohol. The idea of using the money for substance abuse is well and good, but doing it through the focus of a vice tax smacks of the same Carrie Nation prudishness that did very little than give rise to speakeasies and Al Capone. Better yet, why not have some of these politicians, who get paid in the low six figure range, or about ten times poverty level, voluntarily withhold a healthy part of their paychecks for this plan? Nope...they're elected officials, and the little people must pay.

Who "really hates freedom?" Control freaks, of course!

If you hate the nanny state - one in which the government, in full control freak mode, wags their fingers when you do something they don't approve of - Star Parker highlights a "woman [who] really hates freedom and has little appreciation that an ownership society and a 'we’re all in it together society' go hand in hand."

If you're a control freak, maybe the way she controls will cure you of being a control freak. Or give her some pointers.