Not bad for a day's work. It's much too hot to garden so I have given the indentured servants at the Experimental Work Farm the afternoon off. They can make up the time this evening. Those bean fields won't weed themselves.
"WORK!!" Is that Maynard G. Krebs we just heard?
The Squire of the Stately Manor is too well born to laugh at others' misfortunes. But a fellow named Jeremy Ryan, better known as "Segway Boy," has become the clown face of the Siege of the Capitol. The young man rides a Segway as his mobility vehicle outside and inside the State Capitol, disrupting committee meetings to the point where even Sen. Lena Taylor, D-Milwaukee, has chastised the lad.
Not certain what his disability might be but that is not the young man's misfortune. His affliction is his overweening sense of self-importance made ridiculous by an immaturity that would embarrass the Onion's prince of slackers, Jim Anchower.
Jeremy tells us he is "vital to the overall movement" because "I ... make the GOP legislators very nervous. My mere presence causes automatic tension in any committee meeting."
Now, after harassing people in the Capitol for the last four months, the lad is out of money, can't pay the rent on his admittedly expensive apartment. (He does not mention the $3,600 on 15 citations for disorderly conduct.)
Keep The Efforts Alive- Fund For Food and Rent!! Today I got a five-day eviction notice and the reality is that things have not worked themselves out yet. My cash reserve is now depleted and I face the very real possibility of losing my apartment. So I am faced with an option and something I never wanted it to come to. Get a full time job or ask for help.
Guess what his choice is. Remember, he's a liberal/progressive. Yes, class, he wants YOU to pay! Is this guy the poster boy for the entitlement society or what!!! If George Soros won't bankroll the poor schmuck I hope the Koch Brothers do! Send him into the recall districts campaigning for the Democrats! (Segue coming.)
Guests of the Stately Manor can't help but laugh at his cluelessness but let's also remember that this is a fellow human being who needs help. But not the monetary kind.
Sen. Jon Erpenbach, you are listed as Jeremy's friend on his Facebook page. Please be a friend and have a sit-down, facts-of-life chat with him. You owe him or you own him. Tell him the beans need hoeing at the Experimental Work Farm.
Schools for Left-wing Scandal
A thoroughly unionized Madison teacher ("instead of going to school, we marched into the Capitol building") proudly explains how she indoctrinated (PDF) her second and third grade students, letter of reprimand in her personnel file be damned.
Marches, rallies, boycotts, sit-ins, demonstrations, and elections were no longer foreign words to them. ... Yes, I thought, this is what democracy looks like. And this is what learning looks like.
Not surprisingly, Prog Dane School Board member Marj Passman makes a heroic appearance in our unionized teacher's classroom, according to the article.
This lesson in radical brainwashing comes from an outfit called "Rethinking Schools." (Is this contraband allowed in the teachers' lounge?) Some of the other fun stories in the Summer 2011 edition:
- Teaching Budget Cuts to Third Graders
- Teaching for Hope and Activism ("How do we bring the fight to protect and transform public schools into our classrooms? How do we connect our classrooms to the struggles in the streets?")
- EDITORIAL: This Is What Solidarity Looks Like
Apparently, "Rethinking Schools" has been around for 25 years. It started in Milwaukee, where the teachers union is agitating for taxpayer-paid Viagra. Indeed, the MTEA is heavily represented on its editorial board.
Handicapping the summer recall elections
Here is the segue from the Segway. I renew my prediction that this summer's recall elections will not change Republican control of the State Senate. Drilling down, my sense is that Republicans may lose two of the six challenged incumbents but pick up one of the three Democrat(ic) seats.
Blogger a teachers union heavy who has left a Ho Chi Minh trail of gaffes. Prosser also took Hansen's Green Bay seat (with 52%) and Holperin's North Woods seat with a tidy 55% of the vote. I've seen Holperin's opponent, Kim Simac, in action. She can really bring it!
Melchert's eyebrow raiser is Hopper as "too close to call" in Fond du Lac. But Prosser won there with 53% and even Daily Kos shows the Democrat with only a 3-point lead. Maybe Hopper is already past all the bad news they can throw at him and has nowhere to go but up.
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Education Action Group says it got a court order forcing "Mr. Transparency," Dane County D.A. Ismael Ozanne, to fork over e-mails detailing his efforts to derail the governor's budget repair bill after being stonewalled.
Congratulations to the newly appointed news editor of Isthmus, Judy Davidoff. I knew I should have been nicer to her.
The red valentines mylar balloon hugging the ocular of the Capitol Rotunda since the February siege has descended to earth. Metaphor? You be the judge. R.I.P. Capitol Balloon!
