There’s nothing like a good Friday night, and I’m referring to the money. While the money can be very nice, Fridays often devolve into a desperate attempt at triage involving far too many calls from far too many drunks trying to blow off far too much steam. I occasionally find myself hoping for a non-human delivery, with the knowledge that the box won’t ask me to take it to Barracuda and then quiz me about whether I get “lots of bitches getting freaky in the backseat.”
But when the weather’s nice, and people are in good moods, and I somehow avoid landing the mean drunks, well…the job is fun. It’s maybe a secret that I’ve kept too well in this column, but driving a cab can be a complete blast. I drive around for a few hours, listen to good music, meet new people and have great conversations. Most of it is fairly mundane stuff—my fares and I rarely discuss the meaning of life. The vast majority of them are normal people trying to get home for the night.
And on this Friday there are tons of them, and they all seem to be funny, or interesting, or even good-looking and flirtatious, and after 10 minutes they’ll hand me money and I’ll be on my way. And I’m having so much fun, and am so high on the adrenaline, that I don’t even pause to reflect on how lucky I am to have a job I sometimes love.
http://www.susanohanian.org/show_atrocities.html?id=8075
Ohanian writes:
Save Dave: Madison High Students Protest Forced Departure of Esteemed Counselor
Ohanian Comment: For a variety of reasons, mainly having to do with time, I don't often post "local" disputes. But the ongoing saga of corporate "reform" in Portland is of vital interest to anybody who cares about education. And when there are parents who see beneath the surface hype and are willing to peel the money onion, then, I have to get involved too.
Lynn Schore and Anne Trudeau explain why we all must watch Portland: It is Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine in Portland: Create confusion and misinformation with false data, then come in and steal the public institutions, public lands and resources. . . .
Pay attention, America! Your neighborhood school is next.
Comment by Lynn Schore and Anne Trudeau of Portland's Neighborhood Schools Alliance and Jefferson High School PTSA:
Portland Teachers and Students revolt against racist, inequitable "small schools" reforms.
Portland Public School system is careening from crisis to crisis almost weekly. Inequity has been institutionalized in the name of "small schools reforms". Funded by mega-corporation Gates Foundation, these reforms have created small schools with no curriculum, no academics, and a lack of teachers and programs. These small schools are always instituted for our majority non-white high schools, never for our majority white high schools.
In May, students at Jefferson High School, the district's only majority Black school, walked out in protest of the disorganization,constant change in administrators, inequitable offerings, and lack of academic rigor. The PTSA at Jefferson has been speaking out about this for over three years. The response of administration has been to ignore, slander, and lie to anyone who speaks out.
At Madison High School, a multi-racial and low income school in outer NE Portland there have been repeated actions to protest inequity. These are detailed here.
Students at Portland Public Schools' Madison High staged a walk
out to protest the departure/forced transfer of their beloved guidance
counselor, Mr. David Colton. Colton is also well respected by
teachers and parents. Colton has been one of the district's most important critics
against small schools -- Per the article, Colton was one of the "most vocal
critics of the recent changes at Madison."
If administrators have their way,
this could be his last year at Madison. "I think I'm being scapegoated for a lot of the problems that exist in the building." (See #1 below.)
Teachers then took the unusual move of a vote of "no confidence" in their Madison principal (article 2 below).
Now Colton has filed a tort claim against Portland Public Schools
for defamation and invasion of privacy. We have been told that the principal
publicly defamed Colton in front of 200 students and 20 staff
(articles 3 and 4 below).
The superintendent who initiated these reforms, Vicki Phillips, left to work at the Gates Foundation. Our new superintendent Carole Smith was Phillips' chief of staff, so it still looks like Phillips is both running the PPS district and doing the Gates job. We expect another big round of traumatic and unnecessary school closures
with the new Superintendent Carole Smith, in January 2009. This is despite predictions of a million
more people living here in Portland in the next 20 years -- who is coming to
town, only the elderly and childless? But to counter critics who say this is poor planning, PPS administration has also initiated plans for the building of new schools (never mind that there is a shameful neglect for maintenance of our existing buildings). PPS school board has floated the idea of a bond to fund the new buildings, touting them as "green" projects. Schools activists see all this as a plan to line the pockets of consultants and developers and shunt resources to richer parts of town. This parallels the role of Halliburton in Iraq, first destroying the country and profiting off that, then rebuilding it and profiting, all the while claiming to be a savior for the poor and down trodden.
It is Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine in Portland: Create confusion and misinformation with false data, then come in and steal the public institutions, public lands and resources -- ensuring that the pockets of the rich are lined while racist inequities continue to increase.
We are heartened by the teachers, students and parents who continue to stand up to the insane policies here. – Lynn Schore and Anne Trudeau