My commentary, not op-ed, to PBS Washington Week producers.
I am trying to understand why there seems to be such a strong “undercurrent” within the people whom I communicate. After watching PBS Washington Week and considering the money I see donated to PBS and NPR by big oil tycoons, the Koch brothers, I am now beginning to understand.
The PBS programs appear to be in the gutter, avoiding good investigative journalism and relying on analysis of political ideas and the ideas of those who don’t support the fascist, John Birch, KKK agenda in America today. You don’t discuss this fascist agenda, perhaps because money comes to PBS from fascists like the Koch brothers and big oil?
Gasoline prices. They are actually lower, figuring for inflation over a long period of time, and in comparison to the inflation aspect of consumer earnings. I have the evidence. It was published in NEWSPAPERS but not in the broadcast media. Comparisons in terns of inflation, from the early 1950s to the oil embargo of the 1970s, to today. I READ NEWSPAPERS and PRINT COPY of periodicals. I could do without the junk mail in print copy, but we are FORCED by big fat pigs of corporations to accept the lack of printed NEWS and INFORMATION.
Inflation. Really no worse than it has been many times in history. But keep limiting information to being the worst. I have seen worst. Give us a long term HISTORICAL evidence this is the worst. Do a comparison to what the inflation was like under various political party leaderships over the past. Nixon and his proposals for “price controls.” Don’t just tell us how a FEW voters think about this. That is disgusting.
Dealing with inflation. There is newspaper info. with ideas about how to deal with inflation. But of course the technology industry, propped up by big oil and the fascists, is pushing a liberal agenda to stop reading newspapers. Yes. I said liberal.
And then the liberal agenda pushes the envelope in trying to maintain that, somehow, reading newspapers in digital form is going to save trees. Really? What saves trees is to stop ripping down the rain forests for development and not replacing those trees, such as what has happened in a South American nation now run by a vicious fascist. PLUS. The consideration that the more technology, computers, and mobile phones there are, the more electricity is consumed which brings pressure on the electricity infrastructure and its grid to produce more.
Does anyone actually believe the fascist agenda with Trump, Rick the Prick Scott, DeSatan, and others is truly going to change the scenario I identify above?
Rick the Prick inherited from Democrats a really lousy setup of PUP insurance for hurricane coverage in Florida. Did Rick the Prick make a change? Nah! He never made any change in this. What DID Rick the Prick do instead? Fought Obamacare because it goes against the egotistical narcissistic ways of Rick the Prick who made money from PRIVATIZATION of hospitals, where he plead the 5th numerous times when he was charged with stealing from Medicare. |
When Florida voters approved of a fast-speed rail system so as to save money over the long term and cut down on carbon emissions, why did Rick the Prick override the voters? Because he had his marching orders from the Koch brothers and others who insisted they wanted to continue to sell oil and to hell with other means of getting around it.
Those of us consumers and voters were screwed by Rick the Prick when he did this. Some of us invest in corporations which wish to do BOTH oil and alternative fuels. The Koch brothers ONLY want oil. So, in the name of the Koch brothers, Rick the Prick took his marching orders from vicious egotistical bastards who just MIGHT be giving support to PBS. And we the consumers who invested in real residential real estate along the route of that rail system were screwed as well.
Developers along that proposed rail route were screwed as well, while corrupt developers in Palm Beach, with house flippers, made out well with their corrupt practices while working with the banks. Who does real estate in Palm Beach County? Care to guess? The guy at Mar-a-Lago.
And the answer to this is, by the ideas of the fascists, to use coal and pollute more. Electricity in a Florida utility, I am told, is now concentrated with coal and gas while a less-polluting nuclear plant has been shut down. Not to endorse the ideas of nuclear, but there has been R&D work to improve the safety of producing nuclear. Where? in Europe, where the build rail systems.
The undertow of groupthink talk here is to put down electric vehicles, as if they are going to do bad things to the electric grid. What about the bad things being done to the grid when people are buried more in technology and not paying attention to their fellow human beings?
What is being described here is being done in the midst of this consumer groupthink undertow of information to push the idea that the local newspaper stop printing on paper. The anti-electric vehicle (anti-solar, anti-wind power, anti-hydro power) and pro-non-printing on paper is inconsistent in claiming, “the environment will be better.” According to this talk, solar is awful. Wind power is awful. But keep putting those newspapers out in digital form where consumers have to fight with the technology and pay higher costs just to get their newspapers and INFORMATION.
But no. The cost aspect is thrown at me by those who wish to defend what THEY want and never consider an overall COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS over the long term.
Liberals are just as bad in pushing the envelope too far. There are alternative biomass fuels which can LOWER carbon emissions in vehicles. But no That lack of PERFECTION and they reject those and dig in their heals ONLY for solar or wind power, etc. Methanol. Still has carbon emissions. But compare such fuels to gasoline emissions? Is it better? I believe it is. But only a theory on my part. We need the evidence from the media doing its job, not simply giving us analytical views of politics.
In a PURPLE America where we got along, the production of methanol fuels could be bolstered by people working with Iowa farmers, not the coal producers. Or by orange growers in Florida with “co-electric projects.” Corn and other agricultural products can be grown in the back yards of the Keystone project people in Pennsylvania. For the production of fuels with LOWER carbon emissions. Not zero carbon emissions, perhaps. LOWER carbon emissions than what we get with gasoline. Hybrid vehicles as a choice for consumers as we ease into electric vehicles. But no. Liberals are opposed to this just as much as the big fat pig fascist oligarchs of oil are opposed to electric vehicles, solar, wind, and other energy sources. Such fascists get supposedly good-thinking “red” Americans to stupidly line up behind them.
Even if someone like me did not care for George W. Bush, he pushed the idea of reduced carbon emission vehicles. I liked that. In one of his state of the union addresses, he pushed for the use of switch gas for biomass fuels. Why? Because, as he proposed this, he outlined how the fermentation process can be reduced. So where are the switch grass farms today, some 20 years later? We have the agricultural lands, but where are these farms and the corn farms today, for these purposes? Stifled by liberals who insist “we don’t have a perfect fuel, so let’s not do this because we wish to concentrate on ONLY the perfect energy sources with NO emissions.” Stupidity here , too, among the liberal groupthink. HOWEVER.
Where is the money today? In the hands of the liberals who are yelling and screaming their dissent? Or in the hands of the wealthiest at the top who insist there IS no climate change, so let us continue to use oil. For the future of our children and generations into the future, we need to stop this BS approach and work together. We need those of us who have invested in a more moderate approach to get us through these years and into the future. A STRATEGIC PLAN is missing because there is too much tugging of one way or the other just to see who comes out the winner. The WINNER needs to be our entire community of people in the great USA, into the future. What is the STRATEGIC PLAN to accomplish this goal? With the fighting and the turmoil, I have a problem detecting it.
It’s a PURPLE STRATEGIC PLAN, not a RED PLAN (fascists) or BLUE PLAN (liberals) which will determine our way forward, based on what we can learn from the past, not RE-LIVE the past, as the stupidity of MAGA, QAnon, and others propose.
The reason the Koch brothers and other big fat pigs in the oligarchs push for Trump, Rick the Prick Scott, and DeSatan is really simple to see. So why is the media not projecting this? Is PBS getting support from the Koch brothers, so ignores this simple thing?
Governor Lawton Chiles, of Florida (and a person people hoped would be president in 2000), filed a lawsuit which brought down big tobacco in the USA. He filed this lawsuit with several other states, due to the cost the states had to endure in helping their citizens with lung cancer due to smoking tobacco. The costs were staggering, according to a report by journalist and lung cancer suffering Peter Jennings. Chiles won the lawsuit.
The vicious fat pigs of North Carolina relented by taking over the electric utility where Chiles had served on the board of directors. With thousands of other Florida employees, I lost my job due to the strategic plans of those fat pigs. A plan implemented slowly and over time and gives us much of what we have today
I am just supposed to shut up about this, due to the benefits I had following the layoff. But I won’t. Because much of what the fat pigs like Jeb Bush, Rick the Prick and DeSatan did in the interim between layoff and retirement was to screw me even more. I speak of this, in site of the wonderful career I had. I could have had more in retirement. That is a statement made because their are stupid asses who vote for the fascist Republicans who wish to bring down the Medicare and Social Security systems for which I rely on after Rick the Prick Scott and others destroyed some of my retirement investments in Florida, among other things.
These oligarchic fools don’t have the right to do that just because they have money and they need to be called on it. Where is the media to do this laying these people on the carpet? By the first words in the Constitution, WE THE PEOPLE, these fools don’t have a right to do this. Just by those simple words alone. They believe that what is good for the oligarchs is good for the nation. BS on that.
Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Power which takes into consideration more than a minority of people called white people is a corrupt power and tries to move towards the “absolute power which corrupts absolutely.” Koch brothers, John Birch, KKK are all corrupt and their absolute power corrupts we the people absolutely.
I have heard by hearsay from a person married to a white apartheid-loving anti-Mandela person from South Africa, that the tobacco companies have moved operations to South Africa. So, that makes that lawsuit by Lawton Chiles so bad that they had to murder Lawton Chiles and make it look like something else? Rather than build better “American mousetraps” (as has been a good example of America), we embolden white supremacists out of their closet of hiding their racism and cry foul when things are not as foul as these people make things to appear?
The only speculation I can make is that we have a lousy media today taking their cue from the money of the Koch brothers, Rupert Murdoch, and other oligarchic robber barons of the 21st Century. A media which does not follow what Peter Jennings did with his reports about big tobacco and the lawsuits which benefited society overall (according to the Peter Jennings reports). A media which will identify and bring out of the closet the vicious fascists today, rather than just reporting everything as if we as normal today as the era of the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, etc.
What does the media propose to do? What analysis based on strategic plans for the sake of WE THE PEOPLE does the media intend to present? Anything? Because I don’t see it and have to wonder why? I say, WHY NOT?










Education & My Life
When I attempt to get my point across from my 40 years of experience in education, libraries, and training, why do I get nothing but glazed eyes and have to let people know about my accomplishments I achieved in Florida? Besides genealogical research seminars and my regular librarian / professorial duties, doing several presentations with colleagues at National Association of Developmental Educators (NADE), the Florida edition of NADE, Special Libraries Association Fla. & Caribbean Chapter (SLA, an international organization) conferences? Or presentations at the Professional Teaching & Learning Center at my college (etc.)? Or writing for a PEER-REVIEWED INTERNATIONAL LEARNING JOURNAL? Then, getting rejected by American educators in attempts to get peers in the USA to consider what I am writing about. Canadian library association asking me to do a presentation when the Florida Library Association rejects me.
In music, my accomplishments at singing and substitute choir directing. Add to that my instrumental experience.
I have to fight to get noticed by American educators and librarians? But I get recognized by people around the world, from Australia to Canada? But not Americans? Are Americans thinking they are the best in the world? Really?
After reading that America, since Prop 13 in California and reduction of taxes for PUBLIC education, it now lags behind the rest of the world in education, I have to think about this. Rejected by American education professionals. Accepted by professionals on the international scene. What the hell is this? My own people rejecting me. It makes me want to spit on America at times. But I try not to do that. What if I decided to be like the QAnon bastard who invaded the Pelosi home with the intent to “break kneecaps” and break kneecaps of Rick the Prick, Ron DeSantis, Jebbie Bush, or Donald Trump? Would I not be stooping to a low level of scvummy human being?
At the same time, privatization of prisons have led to the largest population of incarceration in the world – in AMERICA. Then Republicans put an ad on television degrading the ideas to HELP human beings, but the law and order manure of, “let’s HANDCUFF” them. Never realizing that we have reduced public education in America. Is it not possible the net result of this has been an increased population in our prisons where those with minor offenses have been educated by hardened criminals instead? Privatized prisons which have as a goal to put as many people in prison in order to support a PROFIT motive.
This sounds like Hitler who, because Jews and others, dissented against him, he gassed them in concentration camps. We have not yet reached the level of “gassing,” but unless we vote these tyrant dictatorial fascists out of power, we might.
What else? Hitler killed a Lutheran pastor by framing him for something he DID NOT DO, because the pastor spoke out in the name of Jesus Christ, against Hitler. Disgusting to think that a grandson of Hitler-loving Prescott Bush was the one who began the pursuit of privatization of prisons and education, thus increasing Florida prison populations. His name? John Ellis Bush, also known as Jeb Bush. Jebbie wanting privatized prisons and privatized education. Rick the Prick and DeSantis to follow him, in spite of TERM LIMITS in Florida.
We have bulging prison populations and with this Reagan fixation on lowering taxes because “government is the problem,” we have destroyed public education in America. We are unable to recognize those of us who work to help advance the ideas of public education.
In addition to what I describe happening in education, we have Rick the Prick who makes money from privatization of healthcare systems and elimination of public hospitals so as not to be as well prepared for a virus and its strains. We have made money for CEOs of Wackenhut and other companies, at the expense of many Americans, primarily the black population.
And people just look the other way or their eyes glaze over with a mindset of “it’s always been this way” when I talk about being certified with training teachers with 4MAT Conceptual Learning (Bernice McCarthy) and me being tested as whole brained after returning to music following many years devoted to a science – library science – and being analytical left brained. People think I am crazy when I go against lousy mindsets to preserve what they believe. It is awful.
This past week, I did research about the history of public schools in my hometown of Newark Valley, NY. I learned some new information. For instance, that in the late 18th Century, the first schools were begun here in Newark Valley. According to my research, the intent was (paraphrased) to create the best education for ALL of the residents. This is contrary to the notions about education at that time in Britain, the nation we shed, with its Oxford, Cambridge, and others. I do not wish to return to such a form of education designed only for those with money (aristocracy).
If I say I am Progressive Conservative, my desires are to overturn what has been done to help us move to the older ways of aristocratic Britain. Teddy Roosevelt was a Progressive Conservative but called himself a Progressive Bull Moose. He was a “trust buster” so as to bring us to a life defined by Adam Smith (friend of Ben Franklin) with supply AND demand side economics, not the supply side economics of an aristocracy which twisted the words of Adam Smith to their own narcissistic benefits. I am a Progressive Conservative American who desires to use ideas from the past which work and are good for community and society, not JUST the aristocracy and the oligarchy. Reagan’s ideas support the development of supply side economics and the return to the robber barons Teddy Roosevelt opposed.
Perhaps people need to have an attitude adjustment, rather than look down upon matters which are proven to work for the progress of our children, but are not based on the framework which is the same as what people stuck in a rut of corporal punishment education in America have been doing in the past. Measures that are NOT corporal punishment based DO WORK. Conceptual learning, information literacy (learning to learn) and other important matters are being shoved aside as people look at me with their eyes glazing over – as if to say, “you are insane in thinking about these things.” I am also whole-brained, too, according to the last tests I had taken. I was also told by a psychologist I should be joining a group like MENSA. Can’t take these things about me? Too bad.
I have observed anti-corporal punishment accomplishments. Handcuffs put people in jail to learn from hardened criminals. Or else face the “gas chambers.” Former students of my Grandpa Floyd B. Schoonmaker, here at Newark Valley (teacher and librarian, 1940s to late 1950s at NV) always talk about how tough he was with the corporal punishments he used at that time. Perhaps the best description of my grandfather is a page devoted to him, written by students and published in the 1955 NV yearbook. For in that yearbook, it describes the sense of humor Mr. Schoonmaker had. People can be tough as nails without using corporal punishment. I have observed some of the with both black and white professional colleagues. We often noticed that beneath that “tough exterior” was a person with a “heart of gold.” Sounds like my Grandpa Floyd Schoonmaker, who was performing his teaching duties as defined in the 1940s and 1950s by a man born in the late 1800s. .
My life and public education. As Rodney Dangerfield said, “I don’t get any respect.” I did achieve success with my students. Sometimes a sense of humor was utilized. One student even returned one Friday evening while I was working at the Circulation desk in the library and told all the students about how, the personj lifted himself out of homelessness and succeeded (an Army veteran), had succeeded, due to Mr. Cornwell.
But in the overall scheme of things, I wonder why I get little or no respect from professionals in education in the USA, but received peer approval in an international journal of learning? I actually felt more respect when reading how America now lags behind the rest of the world in public education and has one of the largest prison populations in the world. Yet, I received approval and respect from those outside this nation, with its failing public education system. At least I know ONE homeless person who never ended up in jail, but succeeded in life. How many others were there? Making me feel better is Aretha Franklin’s song: “R-E-S-P-E-C-T.” Other words. Dignity. Walking in integrity.
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Commentary, Education
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