Monday, September 17, 2012

How Much is that Elephant in the Room? The Elephant Wearing Glasses, but not talking and wearing Red on Red! That One?





“I am tired of billionaires telling us what we need to do for our children as if they love our children more than we do,” Lewis continued, as the crowd the union estimated at 25,000 waved signs and cheered. “I want them to turn off the air conditioning at 125 S. Clark, and work like we work. I want them to turn off the air conditioning on the fifth floor of City Hall and let them work like we work.” Chicago Sun Times


Karen Lewis, Leo High School has been standing in solidarity with you on the air-conditioning issue since 1926.  No air-conditioning, no way, no how!  I knew that when I signed a contract with Bob Foster in 1995.  He didn't have no air-conditioning himself.  Our building was constructed beginning in 1921 when air-conditioning was limited to Swift and Armour meat storage houses and box-cars in Canaryville's Stockyards.  Some things will just not configure, or evolve as John Dewey pretends.  

I wish we had a few billionaires concerned for our kids, like CPS.  We have a handful of millionaires pumping in hard dollars, to be sure, but mostly old or aging white guys who managed to safe a few dollars extra, or young black guys making their way in the world thanks to their Leo High School Catholic education. Thanks be to God.

Karen Lewis excoriated Bruce Rauner, a philanthropic capitalist, who wants the best education for Chicago public school children in last Friday's Pre-Wisconsin Style Occupy Union Park Rally column meant to gin-up rage against the machine.


Millionaire capitalist Bruce Rauner, ranked No. 90 on Chicago Magazine's "100 Most Powerful Chicagoans," and who donated enough money to the Noble Network of Charter Schools to get his name on one, published a scathing opinion aimed at Chicago Public Schools teachers in Wednesday's Tribune. The amount of anger and venom Rauner spits out at our hardworking CPS teachers is beyond reprehensible. Chicago Tribune op-ed Sept 14, 2012
Donated money to a school? Let's kick him in the nuts!  

As a Director of Development, I was appalled by a beneficiary of private largess taking a donor to the canvass at all, much less while in the process of squeezing more money from the CPS public coffers emptied with glee by Ms. Lewis et al since 2001.  I could only imagine my life expectancy in the Leo Community were I to call Andy O'Spud Class of 1940 and beef that his recent contribution of $ 200,000 for financial aid assistance was shabby.

My pelt would be drying on the portals of Leo, before I hung up the phone. Not Karen Lewis. She continued in this  
manner on Saturday with the above pasted quote from the Sun Times  at the Hey,Hey, Ho, Ho-fest in Union Park on Ashland Ave. before an estimated 2,500 ( or 10% of the Chicago Membership of CTU). 

 Karen Lewis, I believe in my craven, mean-spirited, child-hating heart of hearts, is merely the gut-wind for the ISO doctrinaire VP of CTU -Jesse Sharkey.  Jesse Sharkey is the CTU leader the media has been told to lay-off. He is much like the daffy Andy Thayer, or odious Kevin Clark who merges Hamas Propaganda Boosterism with Anti-Catholic domestic terrorism in the name of Gay Rights.  Jesse is leader of International Socialist Organization( ISO) and Kevin Clark is a national leader of Hamas affiliated International Solidarity Movement (ISM).

The teachers strike, it seems to me, is more about creating havoc than righting work-place wrongs.  The media has beating the phrase Elephant in the Room,  into a pliable metal of metaphor meant to maintain this havoc.  Who is the elephant? Rahm??? Penny Pritzker??? Bruce Rahm????  What is the Elephant and how much do he cost?  

In an earlier news conference, a grim Lewis ticked off a long list of concerns that her members mentioned about the contract. She said "the big elephant in the room" is CPS' plans to close upwards of what she said could be 200 schools. Teachers are "extraordinarily concerned about that," she told reporters. "It undergirds everything they talked about" in the House of Delegates meeting.
Yes, CPS could be looking at closing and consolidating schools. The real elephant in the room: CPS is exhausting its reserve funds this year and faces an estimated $1 billion budget deficit next year with a massive pension payment hike.

Close schools and Karen Lewis will lose membership and numbers is what Jesse Sharkey is all about.
Numbers keep the havoc going!  Numbers of dollars, schools closed, or not closed, air-conditioners, kids in a class, days off, test scores and enemies to be vilified.  You gotta keep the hate going.

There is great jazz tune by Oscar Brown Junior about a child's incessant demands for something over there - in this case a stuffed elephant.


This sums up the continuing strike by Chicago Public School Teachers and no one in the media will ever point to the real Elephant in the Room - the buss-ciut Brooks Brothers Commie in the Red Duds standing behing Karen Lewis and tellling here what to say and do.

Dat Elephant over dere?


The time will march days will go
And little baby's going to grow
I gotta tell her what she needs to know
I'll help her along and she'll be strong

And she'll know right from wrong
As life's parade goes marching by
She's gonna need to know some reasons why
I don't have all the answers but I'll try to do what I can
We'll make a plan

You give the kid your best and hope she’ll pass the test
And finally send her out into the world somewhere
And though she's grown up I bet I never will forget
Mummy, can I have that big elephant over there?

Hey why they do that there? And how you put that there?
Hey mummy, up here! Hey mummy, what that say up there?
Hey mummy, what is fair? How come I have to share?
And mummy can I have that big elephant over there?
And mummy can I have that big elephant over there?
And mummy can I have that big elephant over there?
http://www.suntimes.com/news/15177062-418/union-head-teachers-tired-of-billionaires-telling-us-what-to-do.html
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-09-14/news/ct-perspec-0914-lewis-20120914_1_cps-teachers-charter-schools-karen-lewis
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-union-0917-bd-20120917,0,6966289.story


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