Curtis Dahlgren
The Union Line: When slop runs out, just squeal like S.W.I.N.E.!
By Curtis Dahlgren
"A nation can survive its fools and even the ambitious, but it cannot survive treason from within . . . the traitor moves amongst those rustling through the alleys within the gate freely, his sly whispers heard in the very halls of government . . He speaks in accents familiar to his victims." — Cicero
"Politics has no place in government." - Chicago alderman
WISCONSIN IS A PURPLE STATE, BUT THE LEFT IS ACTING LIKE P.I.I.G.S. (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain). When Wisconsin makes national news, it's usually for something very good or something very bad — if it's not a Super Bowl victory, it can be mass murderers such as Ed Gein or Jeffery Dahmer. Or even Students Wildly Indignant about Nearly Everything (in Al Capp's words). Teachers playing hookey and doctors writing out fraudulent excuse slips.** Vandalism under the dome of Miss Forward. Wannabe history teachers comparing Gov. Walker and Adolf Hitler. Democrat senators fleeing to a Motel 6 in Harvard, Illinois (at least they should feel at home there because there's a statue of a cow in the town square). Some of them went to a resort in Rockford ironically called the Clock Tower Inn. Yes the clock IS ticking and Wisconsin is going bankrupt.
Meanwhile back on the Capitol Square in Mad city, protesters spread the bull around, and news media claim that Walker wants to take away "all" if not "most" collective bargaining "rights" — NOT true, by the way. Every cow knows her own stall, but it seems that uninformed and underdeveloped students just run with the pack like coyotes. Go to the ant, thou sluggard. They used to hang horse thieves you know. A nation of sheep. No, make that goats — He will put the sheep on His right hand and the goats on His LEFT, you know.
"Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field, that they are many in number, or that, after all, they are other than the little, shriveled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome insects of the hour." — Edmund Burke (1729-1797)
I belonged to a union for more than 12 years. I worked outside in the cold all winter and the heat all summer in a very dangerous occupation, and the most I ever made was $30,000 — once! I cashed in my pension early to avoid the stock market crash of the last decade, so I'm okay with that, but now I live almost entirely on Social Security. And I still pay "school taxes" on my real estate. Those taxes amount to nearly one month's income, so I'm not impressed by the crocodile tears of the "poor" teachers. They drive to Madison in brand new Volvos and Volkswagens, while I drive a 20-year old Chevie (with no heater) and an 89 Toyota with 222,000 miles on it. I never sent a single kid to public schools either!
Maybe I can get a "doctor's excuse" for not paying my property taxes because doing so is too "stressful," eh?
It could be worse! I moved out of Wisconsin in 2002, the year Jim Doyle was elected governor, because I could no longer afford to live on the five acres my father left to me. I was essentially priced out of my own home by taxes which were over two grand and rising every year. I shudder to think how badly my classmates must be badgered by the tax man nearly ten years later (and it's going to get much worse).
The Madison protests aren't about the "right to bargain" but about the right of the average private worker to have enough food to survive! And five dollar gasoline is surely coming next!
It's not Walker versus WEAC; it's the taxpayer versus the tax COLLECTOR.
The average teacher in Wisconsin makes about $90,000 including bennies. That amounts to about $10,000 per month worked (which is about what my annual income is — and they want me to pay more taxes?). If a teacher calls in sick to go to Madison (and gets away with it), it could cost a school district up to $500 per day (up to $388 for the absent teacher and $120 for the substitute teacher). If you do the math, that's $2,000 for just four days of "protesting"! Beam me up, Scottie Walker!
Ask the average guy in Janesville what the UAW ever did for us but put the GM plant into moth balls. Speaking of balls, it takes a lot of gall to ask for more money when the cost-per-student is the highest in the middle west — and reading competency levels for Wisconsin students is horrible.
The teachers union wouldn't have to spend tens of thousands of dollars on "Great Schools" ads during Packer and Badger games if most people didn't know they have rotten schools!
The public schools have been reduced essentially to serving as K through 12 Day Care centers. And they failed to even serve that purpose during the "Week of Rage" in Madison!
Many young protesters got an adrenalin high because it was almost like those "sixties" their teachers are always talking about. And if you want me to stop "rambling," I'll show you some rambling: Just listen to the White House press secretary sometime — or the Secretary of State — or Homeland Security.
This isn't the second term of Jimmie Carter; it's the first term of Jimmie Hoffa. And they are so focused on their domestic political priorities that national security and foreign affairs are just annoying distraction — whether the world is on fire on not. Is it no wonder that America's voters have chosen Republicans nearly twice as often as Democrats in the last half century or so? From 1953 to 2009, the GOP occupied the White House 36 years to only 20 for the Dems. In spite of voter fraud, I might add. And I'm not even a big fan of the Republican party. I'm an Independent-in-waiting (waiting for a return to sanity).
CONCLUSIONS?
Are the teachers' unions too big to fail? Or just too big for their britches? The lard in our kids' pants is nothing compared to the pork in federal and state school spending. The daily interest on the national debt is four billion dollars a day and rising. Economics instruction in the public schools must be totally lacking, and general mathematics must not be much better.
Time to me this truth has taught,
('Tis a treasure worth revealing),
More offend from want of thought
Than from any want of feeling.
- Charles Swain (1801-1874)
That must be one of the earliest commentaries on reality versus "emotional" fantasies. Of course, while the rank-and-file union members are 98 percent emotion and 2 percent thought, the thugs at the top are 100 percent cold calculation:
"When school children start paying union dues, I'll start representing the interests of school children." — Albert Shanker
P.S. A few final quotations:
- "I'm insulted. I've got my family to feed." — Latrell Sprewell (when offered a 10 million dollar contract)
- "No thanks." — Albert Pujols (when offered 200 million dollar contract)
- "Nice. Way to bribe me." — Pres. Oboma (in candy store in Marquette, Michigan)
PPS: Al Gore, please answer your phone. The Academy Awards committee is calling. They want their Oscar back.
© Curtis Dahlgren
February 23, 2011
"A nation can survive its fools and even the ambitious, but it cannot survive treason from within . . . the traitor moves amongst those rustling through the alleys within the gate freely, his sly whispers heard in the very halls of government . . He speaks in accents familiar to his victims." — Cicero
"Politics has no place in government." - Chicago alderman
WISCONSIN IS A PURPLE STATE, BUT THE LEFT IS ACTING LIKE P.I.I.G.S. (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain). When Wisconsin makes national news, it's usually for something very good or something very bad — if it's not a Super Bowl victory, it can be mass murderers such as Ed Gein or Jeffery Dahmer. Or even Students Wildly Indignant about Nearly Everything (in Al Capp's words). Teachers playing hookey and doctors writing out fraudulent excuse slips.** Vandalism under the dome of Miss Forward. Wannabe history teachers comparing Gov. Walker and Adolf Hitler. Democrat senators fleeing to a Motel 6 in Harvard, Illinois (at least they should feel at home there because there's a statue of a cow in the town square). Some of them went to a resort in Rockford ironically called the Clock Tower Inn. Yes the clock IS ticking and Wisconsin is going bankrupt.
Meanwhile back on the Capitol Square in Mad city, protesters spread the bull around, and news media claim that Walker wants to take away "all" if not "most" collective bargaining "rights" — NOT true, by the way. Every cow knows her own stall, but it seems that uninformed and underdeveloped students just run with the pack like coyotes. Go to the ant, thou sluggard. They used to hang horse thieves you know. A nation of sheep. No, make that goats — He will put the sheep on His right hand and the goats on His LEFT, you know.
"Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field, that they are many in number, or that, after all, they are other than the little, shriveled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome insects of the hour." — Edmund Burke (1729-1797)
I belonged to a union for more than 12 years. I worked outside in the cold all winter and the heat all summer in a very dangerous occupation, and the most I ever made was $30,000 — once! I cashed in my pension early to avoid the stock market crash of the last decade, so I'm okay with that, but now I live almost entirely on Social Security. And I still pay "school taxes" on my real estate. Those taxes amount to nearly one month's income, so I'm not impressed by the crocodile tears of the "poor" teachers. They drive to Madison in brand new Volvos and Volkswagens, while I drive a 20-year old Chevie (with no heater) and an 89 Toyota with 222,000 miles on it. I never sent a single kid to public schools either!
Maybe I can get a "doctor's excuse" for not paying my property taxes because doing so is too "stressful," eh?
It could be worse! I moved out of Wisconsin in 2002, the year Jim Doyle was elected governor, because I could no longer afford to live on the five acres my father left to me. I was essentially priced out of my own home by taxes which were over two grand and rising every year. I shudder to think how badly my classmates must be badgered by the tax man nearly ten years later (and it's going to get much worse).
The Madison protests aren't about the "right to bargain" but about the right of the average private worker to have enough food to survive! And five dollar gasoline is surely coming next!
It's not Walker versus WEAC; it's the taxpayer versus the tax COLLECTOR.
The average teacher in Wisconsin makes about $90,000 including bennies. That amounts to about $10,000 per month worked (which is about what my annual income is — and they want me to pay more taxes?). If a teacher calls in sick to go to Madison (and gets away with it), it could cost a school district up to $500 per day (up to $388 for the absent teacher and $120 for the substitute teacher). If you do the math, that's $2,000 for just four days of "protesting"! Beam me up, Scottie Walker!
Ask the average guy in Janesville what the UAW ever did for us but put the GM plant into moth balls. Speaking of balls, it takes a lot of gall to ask for more money when the cost-per-student is the highest in the middle west — and reading competency levels for Wisconsin students is horrible.
The teachers union wouldn't have to spend tens of thousands of dollars on "Great Schools" ads during Packer and Badger games if most people didn't know they have rotten schools!
The public schools have been reduced essentially to serving as K through 12 Day Care centers. And they failed to even serve that purpose during the "Week of Rage" in Madison!
Many young protesters got an adrenalin high because it was almost like those "sixties" their teachers are always talking about. And if you want me to stop "rambling," I'll show you some rambling: Just listen to the White House press secretary sometime — or the Secretary of State — or Homeland Security.
This isn't the second term of Jimmie Carter; it's the first term of Jimmie Hoffa. And they are so focused on their domestic political priorities that national security and foreign affairs are just annoying distraction — whether the world is on fire on not. Is it no wonder that America's voters have chosen Republicans nearly twice as often as Democrats in the last half century or so? From 1953 to 2009, the GOP occupied the White House 36 years to only 20 for the Dems. In spite of voter fraud, I might add. And I'm not even a big fan of the Republican party. I'm an Independent-in-waiting (waiting for a return to sanity).
CONCLUSIONS?
Are the teachers' unions too big to fail? Or just too big for their britches? The lard in our kids' pants is nothing compared to the pork in federal and state school spending. The daily interest on the national debt is four billion dollars a day and rising. Economics instruction in the public schools must be totally lacking, and general mathematics must not be much better.
Time to me this truth has taught,
('Tis a treasure worth revealing),
More offend from want of thought
Than from any want of feeling.
- Charles Swain (1801-1874)
That must be one of the earliest commentaries on reality versus "emotional" fantasies. Of course, while the rank-and-file union members are 98 percent emotion and 2 percent thought, the thugs at the top are 100 percent cold calculation:
"When school children start paying union dues, I'll start representing the interests of school children." — Albert Shanker
P.S. A few final quotations:
- "I'm insulted. I've got my family to feed." — Latrell Sprewell (when offered a 10 million dollar contract)
- "No thanks." — Albert Pujols (when offered 200 million dollar contract)
- "Nice. Way to bribe me." — Pres. Oboma (in candy store in Marquette, Michigan)
PPS: Al Gore, please answer your phone. The Academy Awards committee is calling. They want their Oscar back.
© Curtis Dahlgren
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