The Ledes

Tuesday, October 1, 2024

Washington Post: “ John Amos, a running back turned actor who appeared in scores of TV shows — including groundbreaking 1970s programs such as the sitcom 'Good Times' and the epic miniseries 'Roots' — and risked his career to protest demeaning portrayals of Black characters, died Aug. 21 in Los Angeles. He was 84.” Amos's New York Times obituary is here.

New York Times: “Pete Rose, one of baseball’s greatest players and most confounding characters, who earned glory as the game’s hit king and shame as a gambler and dissembler, died on Monday. He was 83.”

The Ledes

Monday, September 30, 2024

New York Times: “Kris Kristofferson, the singer and songwriter whose literary yet plain-spoken compositions infused country music with rarely heard candor and depth, and who later had a successful second career in movies, died at his home on Maui, Hawaii, on Saturday. He was 88.”

~~~ The New York Times highlights “twelve essential Kristofferson songs.”

The Wires
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Public Service Announcement

Washington Post: "Americans can again order free rapid coronavirus tests by mail, the Biden administration announced Thursday. People can request four free at-home tests per household through covidtests.gov. They will begin shipping Monday. The move comes ahead of an expected winter wave of coronavirus cases. The September revival of the free testing program is in line with the Biden administration’s strategy to respond to the coronavirus as part of a broader public health campaign to protect Americans from respiratory viruses, including influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), that surge every fall and winter. But free tests were not mailed during the summer wave, which wastewater surveillance data shows is now receding."

Washington Post: “Comedy news outlet the Onion — reinvigorated by new ownership over this year — is bringing back its once-popular video parodies of cable news. But this time, there’s someone with real news anchor experience in the chair. When the first episodes appear online Monday, former WAMU and MSNBC host Joshua Johnson will be the face of the resurrected 'Onion News Network.' Playing an ONN anchor character named Dwight Richmond, Johnson says he’s bringing a real anchor’s sense of clarity — and self-importance — to the job. 'If ONN is anything, it’s a news organization that is so unaware of its own ridiculousness that it has the confidence of a serial killer,' says Johnson, 44.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'll be darned if I can figured out how to watch ONN. If anybody knows, do tell. Thanks.

Washington Post: “First came the surprising discovery that Earth’s atmosphere is leaking. But for roughly 60 years, the reason remained a mystery. Since the late 1960s, satellites over the poles detected an extremely fast flow of particles escaping into space — at speeds of 20 kilometers per second. Scientists suspected that gravity and the magnetic field alone could not fully explain the stream. There had to be another source creating this leaky faucet. It turns out the mysterious force is a previously undiscovered global electric field, a recent study found. The field is only about the strength of a watch battery — but it’s enough to thrust lighter ions from our atmosphere into space. It’s also generated unlike other electric fields on Earth. This newly discovered aspect of our planet provides clues about the evolution of our atmosphere, perhaps explaining why Earth is habitable. The electric field is 'an agent of chaos,' said Glyn Collinson, a NASA rocket scientist and lead author of the study. 'It undoes gravity.... Without it, Earth would be very different.'”

The New York Times lists Emmy winners. The AP has an overview story here.

New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass. ~~~

     ~~~ AP Update: “There’s no evidence that a well-known beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation it was a Russian spy was shot to death last month as claimed by animal rights groups, Norwegian police said Monday.... Police said that the Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted a preliminary autopsy on the animal, which was become known as 'Hvaldimir,' combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,' police said in a statement.”

New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”

Click on photo to enlarge.

~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI." 

Washington Post: “'Mary Cassatt at Work' is a large and mostly satisfying exhibition devoted to the career of the great American artist beloved for her sensitive and often sentimental views of family life. The 'at work' in the title of the Philadelphia Museum of Art show references the curators’ interest in Cassatt’s pioneering effort to establish herself as a professional artist within a male-dominated field. Throughout the show, which includes some 130 paintings, pastels, prints and drawings, the wall text and the art on view stresses Cassatt’s fixation on art as a career rather than a pastime.... Mary Cassatt at Work is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Sept. 8. philamuseum.org”

New York Times: “Bob Newhart, who died on Thursday at the age of 94, has been such a beloved giant of popular culture for so long that it’s easy to forget how unlikely it was that he became one of the founding fathers of stand-up comedy. Before basically inventing the hit stand-up special, with the 1960 Grammy-winning album 'The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart' — that doesn’t even count his pay-per-view event broadcast on Canadian television that some cite as the first filmed special — he was a soft-spoken accountant who had never done a set in a nightclub. That he made a classic with so little preparation is one of the great miracles in the history of comedy.... Bob Newhart holds up. In fact, it’s hard to think of a stand-up from that era who is a better argument against the commonplace idea that comedy does not age well.”

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Jun222012

The Commentariat -- June 23, 2012

Okey-doke. My column in today's New York Times eXaminer is one NOBODY will agree with. Eh, so I'm mean. The NYTX front page is here.

The President's Weekly Address:

     ... The transcript is here.

** Joe Stiglitz in a Washington Post op-ed: "Inequality is greater here than in any other advanced country. The data remind us how a combination of monetary, fiscal and regulatory policies have contributed to these outcomes. Market forces play a role, but they are at play in other countries, too. Politics has much to do with the difference in outcomes.... The Fed has consistently failed to understand the links between inequality and macroeconomic performance." ...

... Henry Blodgett of the Business Insider: "In case you needed more confirmation that the priorities of US companies and the US economy are screwed up (specifically, they're engineered to create a country of a few million overlords and 300+ million serfs) ... Corporate profit margins just hit an all-time high. Fewer Americans are working than at any time in the past three decades. Wages as a percent of the economy are at an all-time " With charts to prove it.

In a Washington Post op-ed, legal scholar Jonathan Turley argues that Congress should expand the number of members of the Supreme Court. "The nine-member court is a product not of some profound debate or study, but pure happenstance." Having the whims of one unelected old fogy repeatedly decide national law is a stupid system. CW: I'll have Boehner & McConnell get on that right now.

The Anti-Union Supremes. New York Times Editors: "The Supreme Court’s ruling this week in Knox v. Service Employees International Union is one of the most brazen of the Roberts court.... Under the court's rules, only the questions set out in the appeal are to be considered by the court." But the 5 conservatives decided they would add a constraint on unions that wasn't part of the suit. CW: I think this is similar to what they did in Citizens United, altho there they asked the litigants to come back & make new arguments; here they just dispensed with the lawyers' cases & legislated from the bench, unbid. ...

... Or as a Yahoo! News contributor, Andrew Riggio, writes, "Supreme Court rules in favor of freeloading." ...

... NEW. AND Markos Molitsas is asking us to do something about it: in retaliation, he has put up a petition on Daily Kos "asking Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to introduce legislation requiring corporations to get opt-in permission from shareholders in order to be allowed to use company resources for political purposes." CW: I signed. ...

     ... Here's a related post by Kos.

... Lisa Lambert & James Kelleher of Reuters: "As America's biggest state and local government employees' union gathered [in Los Angeles] this week, it faced obstacles like never before.... Lee Saunders, who became the union's first African American president on Friday, said ... the mission for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees was to save nothing less than organized labor itself."

Ethan Bronner of the New York Times: "David Blankenhorn, a national figure in the movement against same-sex marriage, has recanted his opposition.... Mr. Blankenhorn, the founder and president of the Institute for American Values, wrote an influential book that argued against same-sex marriage in 2007 ... and served as an expert witness against the constitutional challenge to California's Proposition 8, which limited marriage to heterosexuals. On Friday, he said in an opinion article for The New York Times, published online, and in an interview on NPR that his concerns about same-sex marriage remained, but that 'the time for denigrating or stigmatizing same-sex relationships is over.'"

Richard Gizbert of Al Jazeera on why Julian Assange's application for asylum in Equador is no surprise.

Presidential Race

Michael Luo & Julie Creswell of the New York Times: While Mitt Romney ran Bain Capital, "Bain structured deals so that it was difficult for the firm and its executives to ever really lose, even if practically everyone else involved with the company that Bain owned did, including its employees, creditors and even, at times, investors in Bain's funds.... In at least three of the seven bankruptcies..., companies appear to have been made more vulnerable by debt taken on to return money to Bain and its investors...." CW: so where does "savvy businessman" morph into "ruthless predator"?

Dream Small. Dream Tiny. Suzy Khimm of the Washington Post: "Mitt Romney ... did reiterate his support for ... a narrow version of the DREAM Act that would provide a path to legalization for immigrants who serve in the military." Romney's immigration policy would offer legal status to "just 1.5 percent of the 2.1 million illegal immigrants who would qualify for legal status under DREAM overall...." CW: so basically, the Romney plan is to "let Mexicans do the jobs Americans won't do" -- like fighting & dying for the rest of us slackers. Semper Filipe. ...

... Major Garrett of the National Journal: "Hill Democrats and Republicans alike believe that [President] Obama outfoxed and outmaneuvered [Sen. Marco] Rubio [R-Fla.], who for three months advertised his intention to draft a GOP version of the Dream Act (which Obama's executive-policy gambit has now temporarily addressed).... Mitt Romney had been waiting expectantly for the never-to-emerge Rubio bill. Now both are left stranded -- much to the White House's delight -- on the sidelines of immigration and Latino politics, while the president soaks up attention."

Here's a surprise. The Wall Street Journal published this op-ed by Prof. Jeffrey Liebman, an Obama advisor, explaining why the jobs bill President Obama proposed 9 months ago -- and which the Congress refused to pass -- "would have strengthened our economy now & for years to come.... What would Gov. Romney do to create jobs now? In a word, nothing. In fact, the proposals he has put forward would slow the recovery, reversing the gains we have made since the recession ended." Thanks to contributor Trish R. for the link.

Washington Post Editorial Board: "On Friday, Mitt Romney -- along with an entourage of his most important donors and fundraisers -- arrived at the tony Utah ski resort of Deer Valley.... Unknown ... are the identities of the 'bundlers' present at this weekend fete, the fundraisers largely responsible for Mr. Romney's unexpected outraising of President Obama in May.... The Romney campaign's refusal to identify those who bring in a quarter-million dollars or more differentiates it not only from the Obama campaign but also from those of the past two Republican contenders for the White House.... Selling access has become nearly universal in political campaigns. Seeking to do so in secret sets Mr. Romney apart."

"Romney's Bid to Become Liar-in-Chief." Michael Cohen of the Guardian: "The United States has never been witness to a presidential candidate, in modern American history, who lies as frequently, as flagrantly and as brazenly as Mitt Romney.... Those of us in the pundit class are really not supposed to accuse politicians of lying -- they mislead, they embellish, they mischaracterize, etc. Indeed, there is natural tendency for nominally objective reporters, in particular, to stay away from loaded terms such as lying. Which is precisely why Romney's repeated lies are so effective. In fact, lying is really the only appropriate word to use here, because, well, Romney lies a lot." ...

... Steve Benen chronicles a staggering 30 lies Romney told this week alone.

Robert Costa of the National Review: "I'm reliably informed that Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin ... has submitted paperwork to the Romney campaign. Sources confirm that he is being vetted for the vice-presidential nomination." Via Greg Sargent.

Right Wing World

Fergitt Mitt. Dana Milbank: Grover Norquist is the head of the Republican party.

News Ledes

AP: Mandatory minimum sentences mean Jerry Sandusky will likely die in prison. Sentencing will likely be in about three weeks.

Washington Post: "Gov. Robert F. McDonnell told members of the University of Virginia's governing board Friday that if they do not resolve the leadership crisis at the historic school next week, he will remove all of them. McDonnell (R), who had repeatedly resisted involving himself in the escalating troubles at the state's flagship university, sent a stern three-page letter to the Board of Visitors late Friday, nearly two weeks after the ouster of President Teresa Sullivan."

New York Times: "Turkey announced Friday that Syrian forces had shot down a Turkish warplane with two crew members over the Mediterranean, a potentially ominous turn for the worse in relations already frayed because of Turkey's support for Syrian rebels fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad." Al Jazeera story here.

Al Jazeera: "Tens of thousands of Egyptians have returned to Cairo's Tahrir Square to demand the rollback of what they see as politically biased court decisions and military power grabs designed to throttle last year's revolution and steal the presidential election. The mass protest and sit-in, initiated by the Muslim Brotherhood on Wednesday night, has since then grown and remained determined as ever on Saturday. The anti-military rally comes ahead of anxiously awaited results of a runoff vote between the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohammed Morsi against Ahmed Shafik, the final prime minister to serve under ousted president Hosni Mubarak."

Washington Post: "In a searing letter sent to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency Review Board on Friday, Lance Armstrong made it clear he intends to fight the agency's allegation that he participated in a vast doping conspiracy while winning his seven Tour de France titles."

Comments Off

Reader Comments (15)

It is time to say it here since the MSM would never go there. Mitt is a serious psychopath. Total lack of empathy or even sense that others exist, absolute ease of lying, no sense of remorse or willingness to admit a mistake. It isn't just that he lies, if he took a lie detector test he would pass. His brain is in total isolation from the norms of human behavior.

June 22, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterMarvin Schwalb

It's true that Willard the Rat is a lying piece of shit, but as I mentioned a few days ago, lying is a strategy he has adopted through the offices of his problem solving skills developed as a vulture in training at Harvard Business School. The ahistoric, fact-free, divorced from real world, antiseptic environment in which his mind operates does not require, in fact, would likely squelch any impulse toward truth and away from the goal of succeeding at the task at hand, in this case, lying his way into the presidency.

Plus Romney will never put himself willingly into a situation in which he can be called on his lies. If it happens inadvertently, he simply lies again. Can anyone imagine David Gregory or any of the Sunday morning stenographers calling Willard the Rat a liar to his face?

Never.

The big trick will be whether or not Obama can find a way to set down his measured demeanor and professorial hat and smack this lying sack of shit upside the head in a debate.

I'm not hopeful of that happening. Willard the Lying Rat has bet the farm on no one having the nerve to call him on any of his lies. He is betting that a compliant, acquiescent press, a too gentlemanly opponent, and a dull, slack-jawed public will stand obligingly by as he spins his web of lies all the while beaming his cynical, rodent-like smile toward stupefied voters.

Once more, the immorality and stunning lack of ethics on the part of a Republican candidate for high office gleefully mocks the essence of what it used to mean to be American.

June 23, 2012 | Unregistered Commenterakhilleus

akhilleus, it is much worse than you think. Willard has no plan regarding the media calling him out, because he doesn't lie since he has no idea what a lie is. To lie requires that you know that you are doing something wrong. He does not understand the concept of right and wrong.

June 23, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterMarvin Schwalb

I finally finished Slaughter's article––very long and very thorough––and since, you, Marie, wanted some input, here it is: I think Anne Marie covered all the bases here, especially since there are so very many jobs that require an actual body and would be unable to do work from home or teleconferencing. I was impressed with her stress on the importance of being there for your children, for family life, how really crucial that is. At one point in my life, I dropped one career and went back to school to get my teacher's certificate because I wanted to be on the same schedule as my husband and son. But even with that there was a lot of juggling–– and I am fortunate to have one of those extraordinary husbands––there were times I thought I would lose my mind. Trying to imagine what women with high power jobs have/had to deal with puts my mind losing way down on another level. I went back to school to get my masters only after my sons were well on their way out the door and it was much easier. Our culture has not made it easy for us females, but we do keep fighting and we do manage to improve the circumstances–––and yes, a 35 hr. work week would be dandy.

Marvin thinks the Mitt's lies are pathological and Akilleus calls the Mitt a lying piece of shit and a rat. I'd venture if we put those three together we have a pretty good description of a bat-shit crazy rat fink liar who is running for president in a country where the MSM refuses to identify him as such, thereby hoodwinking millions of people into believing in that nice looking man in the open shirt who is pretending he's just like they are.

June 23, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe

Nobody has yet ventured into my thesis--that the MSM are money-grubbing psychopaths who do not know truth from lies. They would not challenge what most of us know to be lies coming out of the mouths of the pols on "Press the Meat" or any other Sunday Flying Circus show, because they have not a clue what truth is. (A commitment to "fair and balanced" is a charade.) Nor do they care. The idea is to get VIEWERS, so their corporate SPONSORS can make more $$$$ for their SHAREHOLDERS. The fourth estate, to be sure--a fancy brothel! I am beyond disgusted! Not to mention hopeless. There are too many names to mention, but IMHO David Gregory is leading the pack.

June 23, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterKate Madison

A tidbit from last night's PBS News Hour: the discussion revolves around the Dream Act:

JEFFREY BROWN: So what does Romney do? Does he just try to hope it goes away, change the subject, what?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, if it were up to me, he would do the comprehensive thing.

And his strongest point this week has been, listen, the president promised you immigration reform. Where has he been for the last three years? He hasn't really raised the issue. It has been a low priority.

And that is his strongest case. If he came back with something Bush-like, George W. Bush's comprehensive plan, or what Marco Rubio has been working on, which has sort of been messed up by all this, sort of a bipartisan thing. . .

JEFFREY BROWN: Yes.

DAVID BROOKS: . . . then he could take care of securing the border and do something bigger than the DREAM Act.

And that would be -- that would be the way to get on top of all this. But, as Mark says, he would have to annoy some talk radio hosts to do that. And I'm not sure he's willing to do that.

MARK SHIELDS: Yes. And he would have to repeal and rescind what he has been saying throughout 2008 and 2012.

And I would point out it was Senate Republicans who did sabotage and stopped the DREAM Act. That is who it was. The administration and Democrats did support the DREAM Act. And it was the Senate Republicans that stopped it.

How very nice that Mark had to point the above out to Brooks because by this time in my watching I was screaming things even the birds heard, blushed and flew away.

June 23, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe

@P. D. Pepe: and I'm sure throughout Brooks had that innocent, doe-eyed look of a person who has no fucking idea that Romney has been immigrant-bashing for more than 4 years & mostly Republicans quashed the DREAM Act (it passed in the Democratic House, got 55 votes in the Senate, 3 from Republicans. Five ConservaDems voted against it -- enough to break the filibuster).

I'll have more to say about some earlier comments when I can get to it. Basically, I'm with y'all.

June 23, 2012 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns

Sorry to ruin your day, Marie, but if you were hoping for universal disagreement of your NYTExaminer column, you failed, as I agree with everything you wrote. And further would add that in this time of high unemployment, there is just no excuse to keep someone on the payroll who is not doing her job.
And we have something else in common - I also look 28 :-).

June 23, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterVictoria D.

Wasn't going to comment on the Karen H. Klein incident but was more or less goaded into it. Nobody (Gary Farmer) would've said "Stupid fucking white (wo)man."

June 23, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterJames Singer

On another subject. Just read a Van Jones' interview on Alter Net:

Does the Liberal Establishment Care About Anything But Itself? The Hard Lessons of Wisconsin

"The lesson of Wisconsin is pretty straightforward," says Van Jones. "This is what happens when we put our minimum against their maximum."

This paragraph really struck me, because some of my friends who are disillusioned liberals and progressives say it might be a good idea to elect Romney and just let Obama democrats go down the drain. (I guess the idea is "hope and change arising from the ashes (-: )
********************************
Van Jones: ..."And I think that people need to do a though exercise here. Remember how you felt when you woke up and found out that we lost in Wisconsin. Now, imagine how you're gonna feel waking up to President Romney and a Republican sweep of Congress. Now, I say that because we have a lot of progressives who are saying things like they're so disappointed with Obama that they're not going to do anything to help him get reelected. I think that is ill-considered because we feel this way right now, but tomorrow always comes. And when we're actually living in a world where the Tea Party is the government of the United States, which is where we're headed, we're gonna wish we had done more.

Interviewer: "And we'll have a Tea Party-controlled president and Supreme Court."

June 23, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterKate Madison

Marie
I guess I have to disagree with you about the school bus monitor. The difference between you and the school bus monitor is not limited to your appearance (which of course is similar to my 28 year old good looks). There is also the matter of IQ points. From the clip that I saw, the monitor explained that (because of her training) she knew that she couldn't grab the phone camera from the boy filming her. This is what she wanted to do, and that seems to have been where her mind stopped. Under what she felt to be overwhelming stress, her 68 year old mind got stuck. I sincerely can't blame her or call her out on this. I don't know if or when my mind will freeze under what I believe to be duress and when others might be able to function at my expected levels of skill.
Five hundred years ago, Paracelsus advised doctors to study and experience everything, because they needed to know that one day they would be confronted by "an anomaly, like a white raven," which would make everything they knew, everything they had learned at the sickbed, irrelevant. They had to be prepared for something to occur which would be out of their range of knowledge or experience.
Not everyone has the capacity to do this.

June 23, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterVictoria

Re: Karen Klien

Good points raised by Victoria and Marie.

I just got off the phone with my mom who lives not too far from Greece/Rochester area. I brought up the topic of the school bus incident and asked her if she had heard about it. I know she reads the paper and watches the local news, but she has dementia. At first she did not register what I was talking about, but after a very brief recount of the story, she blurted out something along the lines of: oh that women who just sat there and did nothing, and was not doing her job. Since I had just read Marie's perspective on it I could not hold back my laughter. My mother, who is 76, recalled at least one incident where her bus driver (and she even remembered his full name - never mind she could not remember what she did earlier in the day) pulled over to the side of the road to reprehend some students. She could not comprehend doing nothing. Considering my mothers demented mind it seemed to me like one of those "out of the mouths of babes moments". She also added that perhaps the monitors ability to respond was constrained by school policies.

However, as Victoria suggested, it may not have been within the monitor's ability to respond in a constructive manner. But, then again wasn't she trained to deal with such situations?!

When I read Blow's column I thought to myself, did he ever ride on a school bus? I can well remember some very cruel kids on my bus in the 1970's! I don't think age is an excuse to act like a barbarian, nor that todays kids are meanier, but I do believe it's the responsibility of the adult to intervene and "teach your children well" (title song by Graham Nash).

June 23, 2012 | Unregistered CommenterJulie in Massachusetts

On Karen Klein. First, I'm amazed anybody agreed with me. My editor at NYTX & I both thought nobody would see the story my way. So I'm proud to be in good company on a matter where we won't all agree.

Given the duration & vitriol of the attack on Klein, I find it hard to believe that these kids had been choir boys right up till that moment & suddenly turned into little monsters. I expect they had been picking on other kids &/or on Klein for some time. If that's the case, then the attack on Klein would have come as no surprise to her & should not have sent her into a state of temporary insanity where she had no idea what to do.

But let's suppose this was an event out of the blue & caught Klein so unawares that she was entirely flummoxed or went into a state of shock. Once she had recovered from the vapors, she should have -- at minimum -- written a report on the boys. Her job apparently requires her to do so. She didn't do even that, something she could have done even a few days later. In fact, she suggested in her interview that writing the kids up was a waste of time. "Why bother?" she said. Well, for one thing -- because it's her job. It wasn't as if Klein & the boys were alone on the bus. Other young kids were being subjected to the boys' abusive language, too. Surely that kind of talk had an impact on them. Klein had a duty to the other children to put a stop to the abuse, and if she was too traumatized to do it immediately, she should have done something later to make sure the boys were disciplined.

It's worth noting, too, as Julie's mother pointed out, that there was another adult on the bus -- the bus driver. If Klein found herself in a situation she couldn't handle -- as apparently she did -- she could have asked the bus driver to pull over & help her deal with the little thugs.

Klein's job was to prevent what happened. For whatever reason, she didn't do that.

And, Julie, I'm so sorry about your mother. She sounds like a real pip. I hope you have many more chances to enjoy her reminiscences before they escape her.

Ah, and what a bunch of good-looking old girls we are!

Marie

June 23, 2012 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns

Now, back to @Marvin Schwalb's point. I agree. I think where the psychopathy most manifests itself is in his policy prescriptions. Assuming Mitt is not as dumb as Krugman thinks he is, Mitt understands that what he proposes would make life easy for him & a few of his richest friends & much more difficult for millions of Americans. And Mitt thinks that's fine. In fact, he always has. That's why it was "fine" for him to drain money from companies he controlled, until there was no more to siphon off. If it's good for Mitt & bad for others, it's still good.

I couldn't agree more with @Kate Madison. Several years ago I was at my lake cottage, where I have limited cable teevee, so when Tim Russert's memorial service came on, it was that or Oprah. I watched most of the service & what struck me was "My god, these people all hang out together. They're not just "business" acquaintances; they're friends. They go on vacations together." So it isn't surprising they all have one set of ideas. Some of them have think tank bosses & big money bosses who give them the ideas to put in the set they all have, but it's still a boxed set. Driftglass wrote a post recently where he noted that David Gregory & David Brooks were in the same Torah study group. I would say studying the Torah was a secondary purpose of the group. As Driftglass wrote, "There is a club. And you are not in it."

June 23, 2012 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns

@Victoria--her "68 year old mind"--what? My 78 year-old-mind boggles. I know my memory is not what it was, but what has that got to do with IQ points?

I have commented on the EXaminer about Mrs. Klein where I will also be posting the response of my sister-in-law the school bus maven of her district, also in western NY. When I get it.

June 24, 2012 | Unregistered Commenteralphonsegaston
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