Not Yet Even Talking the Talk

On Monday, Jan 25., I joined the group of protestors who disrupted the beginning of Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan’s state of the city speech. It was a very powerful, really well organized action, a demonstration of a community coming together and insisting on being heard. That latter bit is more important than how the mayor reacted. (Hear more from the organizers here.)

However, she did engage the crowd for a while, and a bunch of things have been rattling around in my head about what she said. I wanted to spell them out, especially for people who don’t really understand why what she said met with negative reactions.

Let Them Eat Tests

Every once in a while, someone does us a favor and says explicitly what we’ve been suspecting they believed or intended all along. Sometimes it has to be captured by a mole, like Mitt Romney’s 47 percent comment. Sometimes people say it loud and proud because, apparently, they don’t understand just how awful it makes them sound.

That was the case for NYS Regent Meryl Tisch’s suggestion that “high performing” schools be exempted from the high-stakes testing regime that is currently being forced on the school children of the state.

Refuse the Tests

Parents. Grandparents. Anyone raising school-aged children in the state of New York, and anyone who has their ear: We need to talk about these upcoming high-stakes tests.

Income for Everyone

If you wanted to come up with a totally cockamamie idea to attribute to someone to smear them as unrealistic bleeding-heart socialist, what would you come up with? Possibly “the government should just give everyone a salary (even if a minimal one) just for breathing”? That ought to do it, right? I mean who in their right minds . . . ?

Turns out, however, quite a few people.

The Unapologetic City

“Bomb it.” “Bulldoze it.” “A Hurricane.”

For the past several years, Metroland’s Readers’ Poll has included a question about the best thing that could happen to each of the region’s cities. Invariably, a dozen or so people suggest doing away with various cities or city neighborhoods entirely, often in some violent fashion.