Papers, please.
Feb. 2nd, 2008 11:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogOne of the problems with Fascist types is, even if you do manage to vote them out, their legacy often continues for years beyond in the bureaucracies they leave behind. It doesn't even have to be one of their own bureaucracies, as two stories from this week's local news illustrate.
The big electronic signs on the expressways here were all a-flashing yesterday, not about accidents (though there were plenty of those) but about the new border crossing procedures that took effect on January 31 with little advance warning. Congress and Der Fuhrer have been battling for years over the need for requiring passport-level identity documentation at land crossings between here and Canada, and despite clear language in a bill passed last year delaying such rules until June of 2009, the Bushies said, "a-ha! but we can still enforce a prior Eisenhower-era requirement for birth certificates, even though we never have in the 50 years that's been on the books!" et voila! Red-faced Congressional aides all said "Oops," and now all of us have to produce, at least, a photo ID and a birth certificate to get back into the country.
If the penalty for non-compliance is being forced to live in Canada, I'm wondering what the incentive is here.
----
The nastier tale of dictatorial trickle-down is at a local city high school, of all places.
The story broke last week about the suspension of a volunteer girls basketball coach at an inner-city high school. No reasons were given, but suspicions quickly arose that it was retaliation for her snitching on the boy's basketball coach after she saw him leaving the home of one of her high school students during the school day. The snitching in question consisted only of her asking HIM about it; satisfied with his explanation (an older friend of his lived there), she pursued it no further, but it apparently wounded his manhood enough that he sought her dismissal through the principal of their school.
The principal in question is herself a piece of work. A while back, she got her husband onto a European tour by the school's music groups for next to no cost, despite the school making the inner-city kid performers raise far closer to their own full freight through candy sales. She's also been caught running her own personal Coke machine in the hallways and accounted for the profits with a vague, "oh, it's for the children." She's also the highest paid principal in the district and, surprise surprise, head of the principals union. (Yes, public management employees get union rights. Welcome to New York.)
If the firing of the volunteer had been her only retaliatory move, it probably would never have gotten outside the school walls. Unfortunately, some of the girls on the basketball team were actually paying attention in social studies class when they explained the part in the Constitution (remember that quaint document?) about petitioning for redress of grievances. They called downtown to get the Board of Education to put them on the next meeting agenda to air their protest of the volunteer's dismissal. Not only did they not make the agenda, the principal suspended the leader of the protest band for using a cell phone on school property. When further complaints got out, she extended the suspension to seven weeks- with the added heinous charges of not being on school property on two occasions and, horrors!, wearing a hoodie.
FrauBlucher! Barton has had the full support of the district administration during this putsch. The Superintendent- who once walked several male thugs back into another district high school after they beat up a teacher and another student (he encouraged the beaten kid to transfer)- supposedly signed off on the extended suspension and, last week, led a hasty assembly at the school to support the principal, telling the kids not to believe anything they read in the paper.
Finally, today, gutters are being installed and waxed to catch the rolling heads. A city ethics chief is questioning whether the suspension was appropriate without due process (hell, I knew from my School Law course 100 years ago that you couldn't suspend for more than three days without a full hearing), and questions are even coming about whether the not-so-Super-intendent actually signed the suspension or if some anonymous minion did it. Oh, and the disciplinary file of the senior honors team member who's already missed five weeks of study and playing time in her final year of high school? It's mysteriously disappeared.
For more information on this story, contact the Superintendent's new special assistant for district security: K_Rove@buffalo.k12.ny.us.
The big electronic signs on the expressways here were all a-flashing yesterday, not about accidents (though there were plenty of those) but about the new border crossing procedures that took effect on January 31 with little advance warning. Congress and Der Fuhrer have been battling for years over the need for requiring passport-level identity documentation at land crossings between here and Canada, and despite clear language in a bill passed last year delaying such rules until June of 2009, the Bushies said, "a-ha! but we can still enforce a prior Eisenhower-era requirement for birth certificates, even though we never have in the 50 years that's been on the books!" et voila! Red-faced Congressional aides all said "Oops," and now all of us have to produce, at least, a photo ID and a birth certificate to get back into the country.
If the penalty for non-compliance is being forced to live in Canada, I'm wondering what the incentive is here.
----
The nastier tale of dictatorial trickle-down is at a local city high school, of all places.
The story broke last week about the suspension of a volunteer girls basketball coach at an inner-city high school. No reasons were given, but suspicions quickly arose that it was retaliation for her snitching on the boy's basketball coach after she saw him leaving the home of one of her high school students during the school day. The snitching in question consisted only of her asking HIM about it; satisfied with his explanation (an older friend of his lived there), she pursued it no further, but it apparently wounded his manhood enough that he sought her dismissal through the principal of their school.
The principal in question is herself a piece of work. A while back, she got her husband onto a European tour by the school's music groups for next to no cost, despite the school making the inner-city kid performers raise far closer to their own full freight through candy sales. She's also been caught running her own personal Coke machine in the hallways and accounted for the profits with a vague, "oh, it's for the children." She's also the highest paid principal in the district and, surprise surprise, head of the principals union. (Yes, public management employees get union rights. Welcome to New York.)
If the firing of the volunteer had been her only retaliatory move, it probably would never have gotten outside the school walls. Unfortunately, some of the girls on the basketball team were actually paying attention in social studies class when they explained the part in the Constitution (remember that quaint document?) about petitioning for redress of grievances. They called downtown to get the Board of Education to put them on the next meeting agenda to air their protest of the volunteer's dismissal. Not only did they not make the agenda, the principal suspended the leader of the protest band for using a cell phone on school property. When further complaints got out, she extended the suspension to seven weeks- with the added heinous charges of not being on school property on two occasions and, horrors!, wearing a hoodie.
Frau
Finally, today, gutters are being installed and waxed to catch the rolling heads. A city ethics chief is questioning whether the suspension was appropriate without due process (hell, I knew from my School Law course 100 years ago that you couldn't suspend for more than three days without a full hearing), and questions are even coming about whether the not-so-Super-intendent actually signed the suspension or if some anonymous minion did it. Oh, and the disciplinary file of the senior honors team member who's already missed five weeks of study and playing time in her final year of high school? It's mysteriously disappeared.
For more information on this story, contact the Superintendent's new special assistant for district security: K_Rove@buffalo.k12.ny.us.