By David Rutter
1. Jean-Claude Brizard, WTF?
There is no specific element of J-C Brizard’s hiring to run Chicago’s schools that announces unequivocally: Well, of course, that makes perfect sense.
Ah, but there is.
Rahm Emanuel’s thinking is transparent only if you have dark, cynical soul. It just so happens that WTF does.
Here’s a hint. Brizard is a product of multi-billionaire Eli Broad’s social engineering foundry.
What Broad has done for urban education with his Broad Foundation, the Koch brothers would do for energy. That is, own it by owning the public agencies that regulate it. And not totally beside the point, Broad gave $25,000 to Emanuel’s campaign. Broad wields influence like Thor wields a broadax.
What’s the effect? Many Broad Institute superintendent graduates (their education there is subsidized by Broad who then helps pipeline them into jobs) have been run out of their towns, just ahead of angry villagers storming through the night with torches and pitchforks. In short, exactly the sort of Boris Karloff lookalikes that Rahm would find appealing.
The grads are all characterized by their critics as autocratic and committed to upheaval and chaos as a tool to break down a community’s will to resist. Resist what? The philosophy is sort obvious if you look with clear eyes: Shift public tax dollars away from traditional schools to vouchers and charter schools. Then control the new school system. They are zealots in that cause.
The Rochester, N.Y., school system whence Brizard sprang is virtually belly up because the city is belly up. Brizard says he made a positive difference in education there. Almost no one else there does.
2. Jesse Jackson Jr., WTF?
Perhaps because dad is having that same old problem again, it’s a good moment for junior to step up and be sort of, well, really dumb or really nuts. Maybe it’s both . . . duts and numb.
This was after he was really in favor of the iPad. That was last week. This is this week.
Oh, Nurse Ratched, we have a WTF emergency in Aisle 3. Bozo is loose again.
Sometimes when you say a person is an idiot, you thereby insult the clinical idiots whose idiocy is a medical condition and not the result of carefully crafted stupidity. Technically, junior is not an idiot, just a nitwit.
3. Rick Santorum, WTF?
And speaking of deranged zombies lurking in the antechamber, the Rickster is still taking his nut job pills, too. They’re big, blue ones.
The pride of Carmel High in Mundelein is running for president, but, then, isn’t everybody?
The Rickster almost makes Trump seem like a statesman. But there is justice in the world even for distasteful detritus like Santorum, and the Internet is the means of the Lord’s good work.
4. No-Hooker Zones, WTF?
This alderman wants “prostitution-free” zones in the city but this seems to imply there are “prostitution is okay” zones. Odd. We thought there always was a “no prostitution zone.” It’s called EVERYWHERE.
Also, prostitution is hardly ever free.
While we work out those legal details, let’s have a contest for the design of the “No Hookers Allowed” signs. We assume there’s a circle with a red diagonal line through it. But what is the image? Mingle among yourselves and call us in the morning.
5. Bobby Douglass, WTF?
He’s been a 63-year-old bad boy but we doubt reports the ex-Bear kicked in the front door of his soon-to-be ex-girlfriend in Lake Forest to inquire about her diminished ardor.
Bobby is not a kicker. Of course, he wasn’t much of a quarterback either. Just for the record, he has a 48.5 quarterback rating for 11 seasons.
We back this alternate legal theory related to the legal kerfuffle: Bobby calls out to his love, Double-deep-zag-f54-on-two, hut hut, fade back, slide right, sees she’s in the Cover 2 defense (she’s really cute in that Cover 2) ,looks for his check-down short-release across the middle, head-fakes the strong side linebacker to clear room for the H-Back’s crossing route, and then throws the ball 853 miles per hour right through the front door of the condo 10 feet away.
It’s like a WTF Vietnam flashback.
–
Comments welcome.
Posted on April 22, 2011