RedEye's Must Read List

If you care about education and want to know what is really going on in the Huntpatch Sitty snark School System, Havalittletalk is the go to blog. Thank you for your honesty! Thank you for getting it! Thank you for caring!

When WAAY TV.com published the list of schools affected by the new double-up bus scheme that will have some kids on the corner at 6 am, I was curious to see which kids were going to be bearing the brunt of sacrifice for the School Board’s colossal fiscal mismanagement.

Surprise! Surprise! Guess which School Board member's district is least affected?

So Dr. Jennie Robinson, District 3, you’ve kept your constituents from taking any of the hardships wrought by your fiscal irresponsibility.

After all, in your campaign last year, you said:

Putting a child on a bus for over an hour a day, disconnecting the child from the support of family and neighbors, and creating barriers of time and distance for parents also doesn’t make sense.

So much hypocrisy. So little time.

But at the Saturday July 16, 2011, meeting you were quivering so with excitement for Dr. Wardynski’s plan for putting the Providence sixth graders on two buses to Williams that you were motioning to approve (or maybe you could only get in with the second) before he had a chance to present it.

But here is the kicker. Deja Voodoo all over again.

Parents are just now, after these are done deals, finding out about them.

Blogger Mack Lyons pens a a powerful post exposing Birmingham, Alabama's "civic anemia" with hope for the future.

It originated as a company town, methodically planned out by men of industry and vast wealth, situated on a number of coal seams that made coal mining and steel production a no-brainer. Located smack dab in the middle of a county staring down the biggest bankruptcy this side of Orange County, CA, the population is currently at 212,000 and falling. It was hit hard by the loss of the steel industry, with a high number of the plants and foundries closing shop around the 1970s, only to reinvent itself as a medical research mecca of sorts, with the University of Alabama at Birmingham at the forefront. With high crime rates, deteriorating city sectors, a laughably corrupt government and a people still divided by racial and urban/suburban strife, this city is hurting. Big time. But there is hope.

Mack Lyons defines the problem with clarity.

Alabamians in general hold a deep distrust of politicians, save for their local favorites. The general assumption seems to be that these fellows in office are all corrupt and that any attempt by any of these "scoundrels" to ask for more money to do anything with should be met with absolute suspicion. Unless, of course, it happens to benefit them in a rather direct manner which they can see for themselves. Reason being these "scoundrels" are quick to siphon funds into their own personal accounts and those of their friends in high places.

So how does that relate to Birmingham, per se? Just hold on.

Another big problem is the antagonistic racial/ethnic relations between blacks and whites that has made Birmingham famous, and in a bad way. In fact, I don't think I even have to tell anyone reading this why, since it's so well known internationally. A rather fucked-up byproduct of all this is the belief among some whites that the blacks "won" or "conquered" Birmingham, causing a lot of whites to not only flee towards the relative "safety" of the suburbs beyond Red Mountain, but also to not have anything to do with the city. In fact, a lot of people have made their stock in watching the city collapse, presumably so they can show proof positive of the city's ineptitude under Negro management. You can see this backwater collapse fetishism combined with racial animosity on display at AL.com whenever black criminals, the city of Birmingham or black criminals in the city of Birmingham comes up as subject matter.

ML not only defines the problem, but offers solutions. Read on.

Field Negro say's it's time to head on down to Home Depot and buy a pitchfork.

"I need your help. I can't tell you what it is, you can never ask me about it later, and we're gonna hurt some people.
...Whose car we takin'?"

That was Ben Aflleck's character, Dougie MacRay, trying to get his boy to accompany him on a beat down in the movie, "The Town".

It's also the line from the movie that republicans met and chose to watch in order to rally around each other for this debt ceiling debate. Nice. It's apropos, seeing that it is a movie about a bank robbery, and these clowns are holding up A-merry-ca.
Anyway, like a good Negro, my man Allen West volunteered to drive the car. (Because that's what good Negroes do.)

This is your republican majority. You get what you vote for.
It turns out that Joe Walsh, the tea party hero congressman, has a little problem paying his own personal debts:

Tea Party hero Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) wants to wipe out the nation’s debt, but he’s got some major personal debt that his ex-wife is demanding he take care of - $117,437 in child support, according to a lawsuit revealed by the Chicago Sun-Times.
The suit charges that Walsh enjoyed foreign vacations with his new girlfriend while claiming he couldn’t pay support for his three kids because he was out of work.

Bruce Dixon says President Obama is smarter than the average bear. My words not his.

So if you're an Obama supporter, and you're disappointed that your president won't fight for you --- if you're an Obama supporter and you wonder why the president won't stand up for Medicaid, Medicare and social security --- here's the answer. The president really, really is smarter than you. He knows what side he's on and you don't. He knows that the two-party system is a veal pen, where as long as “he can play good cop to the Republicans' ever worsening bad cop, the game is fixed, and not in your favor.

Mark Karlin says OBAMA'S OBSESSION WITH COMPROMISE HAS COMPROMISED HIS PRESIDENCY, and I agree. Maybe that's why us "professional lefty retards" were sent to upstairs to the attic.

Regardless of the current political theater taking place over the debt ceiling, what drives much of the right wing - in terms of symbols - is the iconic image of the lone male (usually with a gun) who doesn't flinch from a fight, when his integrity and justice are at stake.

Let's call this "The John Wayne Syndrome."

Ronald Reagan, a Hollywood colleague and buddy of Wayne, was the epitome of this - in large part because he could act the role so well.

This brings us to the issue of form vs. content in the Obama presidency. Obama has positioned himself as a mediator between the Democrats and the Republicans, not as an unwavering leader for a specific agenda or vision. Since his presidency began, he has been primarily on the defensive, caught on the Republican side of the football field with has back to the goal line.

This is where his emphasis on "compromise" may have compromised his presidency. The Republicans, in general, value strength in politics over concession. They tend to look at a man who is frequently backing away from his positions, whatever his lofty rhetoric, as weak and as someone who can be pushed around.

Read on. Read often.