Friday, May 8, 2009

Be Vewy Vewy Upset, I'm Hunting Unions

Yes, Megan likes vouchers, & is "very, very upset." Tell us how you really feel, Megatron. Because "very, very upset" sounds like a mother who wants to murder her offspring, but is barely holding her rage in. Seriously,  for once she commits to something here. Increasing right-wing looniness, yeah, but it's not like wading in the usual mushy opinions. W/ this exception: 

I think the most hard-core voucher advocate would have to admit that its modest gains are not what we had hoped.
where she forfeits the game before it even gets underway. And she's kind enough to give President O. the benefit of the doubt, in the first clause of the very same sentence:
the possibility that Barack Obama genuinely believes that the DC voucher program is not helping the students.
The good vibes don't last forever, though. 

Education gets Mlle. riled up. She's so ideological on this that I can engage w/o knowing squat about what's really wrong w/ education. (Like economics, a nebulous field, in which many differences seem based on ideology rather than the real problems.) I need only look for the dog-whistles.
I think that there is probably a special place in hell reserved for politicians who betray our nation's most helpless children for the benefit of a sullen and recalcitrant teacher's union.
See? Those teachers & their unions are just stubborn children, all sullen &c.

Of course, if glibertarians are mostly interested in union busting (just on an ideological basis, of course) so potential voucher school operators will have a larger pool of incompetents to under-pay, there's little to engage.

And if things haven't turned out as even the hard-care voucherites (Voucherians?) had hoped, well, climb on the class/culture war wagon & see if resentment can be stirred up against those snooty spicy mustard eaters from "good" schools.

Bingo! The political is rendered personal, & the "Obama Girls" attending a private school is, while not accompanied by shouts of "Hypocrites!!" a good excuse to bring up some of those words:
[T]he Obama girls would do just as well in ordinary, democratic, thoroughly American public schools as in an elitist Quaker institution.
The best of the words is "elitist." (Where & why would Our Muse have ended up w/o her parents sending her to private, "elitist" schools? Should she have been deprived of that?) 

Though the phrase "thoroughly American" just leaped out at me. I have to give Ms. McArdle credit here. She's coined an elegant, sophisticated way to express the ever-popular Sarah Michele Palin-Bachmann "Real America" concept. Quite the dog-whistle. We didn't just hear some, we found a brand-new one. Congrats, Megan McArdle!! 
What is it about the Obama girls that enables them, nearly uniquely, to benefit from school choice?
Well, I think it might be that their parents have a pretty good pile of money. Is McA. now suggesting that the Prez be punished for being successful? (Is there anyone in the United Snakes who earned several million last yr. who isn't sending their spawn to private schools?) 

We might say something about security considerations (If I were president I probably wouldn't let my children out of the White House.) but who knows w/o actual research? Just sayin', if you know what I'm sayin'.

And it's worth noting that no Republican Prexy since Teddy Roosevelt (no research, just our looooong but fading memory) has had high school-age or younger children while in the office. Maybe no prez at all between Teddy R. & Kennedy had young sprats. How many R-Anywhere offspring in Wash. go to public school? Blah blah.

P. S.: What the hell, & for what it's worth, the solution to the schools/education problem is more involved parents & less ideologues involved. Blah blah blah.

Elements of Style©:
how come the Obama girls benefit from leaving the DC public school system?
"How come," in speech, makes you sound like a mouth-breather who's sucked in too many fumes pumping gas. In typing, it reads the same, & "why" is three keystrokes as opposed to eight.

More Elements: As typed, that sentence asks why leaving the D. C. schools is benefits the girls. (The schools stink because Congress doesn't want to spend money on educating D. C. residents is my answer.) I think she really means "Why do they get to leave (& thereby benefit, allegedly)?" Whatever. Some people just won't learn. Or can't learn, & should go to a vocational school.

24 comments:

NutellaonToast said...

I love how Megan's convinced of things like "the teacher's unions are destroying the skewlz!" but gets all "As if!" when you suggest any business conspiracies.

Downpuppy said...

Remember Misty Malarky Ying Yang?

The cat of the last little girl to live in the White House. Amy went to public schools, & it was a mess. They wouldn't let her outside at recess, & she couldn't make any friends.

Megan knows perfectly well why the girls don't belong in public school. She's just being an asshole.

Susan of Texas said...

I'm kind of looking forward to figuring out why vouchers push her buttons. I assume it's caught up with her whole my-entire-self-worth-is-based-on-my-prep-school's-name thing.

clever pseudonym said...

I thought Megan had nothing but contempt for public schools and looked down on the little, worthless people who attended them? Why should the Obama girls be denied the same benefits she had?

Susan of Texas said...

Since Democrats say that vouchers and charter schools aren't better than public schools, all Democrats must go to public schools instead of private schools, because they must practice what they preach.

Likewise, if a Democrat is for giving aid to single mothers, they must become single mothers. Even the men. And if they support unemployment, they must quit their jobs. And abortion--well, you know what to do.

Anonymous said...

Any one else notice that Megan's name no longer appears on the masthead of the Business Channel? Unlike the food and politics channels, no one appears to be in charge of the thing. Did Megan get demoted? If so, it's about time that the Peter Principle finally caught up to our hero.

Susan of Texas said...

No, but I did see this.


The Atlantic Online is looking for an editor/blogger to help manage its business site and to write posts on business topics. The site, business.theatlantic.com, currently covers economics and finance with an emphasis on the changing relationship between Washington and Wall Street. Starting this spring, the site will broaden its coverage to include more facets of business, technology, energy, and media.

The ideal candidate is a journalist and blogger with several years of experience in business reporting and writing. The person who fills this job is expected to blog for the page, but also contribute to overall management of the site ' crafting headlines, choosing photos, herding bloggers, fixing problems, and generally keeping the site fresh and wonderful. Content is posted daily, mostly by staff bloggers and outside writers who have been recruited to the site. The job is full-time in Washington, D.C, and reports to the Business Channel Editor and the editorial director of TheAtlantic.com.
Who quit or was fired?

clever pseudonym said...

Maybe they're just replacing that Ross Doothant (whatever) person?

Susan of Texas said...

He didn't write on business. Maybe I'm just indulging in wishful thinking. I can't imagine anyone getting fired at the Atlantic for incompetence.

M. Bouffant said...

Um, wasn't Megan the Editrix of the Business Channel?

So if she still is, she can't handle headline conception on her own, & if she's no longer the Ed., she couldn't handle it alone. W/ all her other responsibilities.

And (I think) Amy Carter eventually attended Sidwell Friends instead of public school. "Elitist hypocrite" accusations were tossed around then as well. The more things change ...

Anonymous said...

Her ass is getting demoted. They send her out to Omaha for three days and all she can do is write five crappy posts about...Megan shit.

NutellaonToast said...

If only it were that simple. She pulls shit like that all the time. She wrote an article about aging baby boomers and it just so happened that the town she used as a case study was where her mom lived. The article was shit, too. She basically conned them into paying for a visit to mommy.

ChicagoEd said...

Her ass got demoted. Now she's just a co-editor of the Business Channel along with Conor Clarke who got promoted, according to the site. Conor Clarke must have horned in during one of Megan's many, many absences to become the other editor. Some one's got to do actual work over there. Now the question is, Whose position is the magazine trying to fill with the ad? Will Megan be forced out completely this spring with Clarke remaining on as the sole editor? Or will Megan remain on as co-editor with Conor Clarke and have the new blogger report to both of them? Given her overall uselessness, I'm betting on the former. But I'm probably biased since I think she's vile.

Megan, why don't you brag some more about how you work 16-hour days? Why does it take two people to edit the Business Channel but both Food and Politics only need one? She's got to be one of the laziest people on the planet.

Susan of Texas said...

Hmmm, they've made big changes there, with "correspondents" as well as the Voices. Maybe they're eliminating the deadwood?

NutellaonToast said...

I'm going to feel a little bad if she gets fired. I'm sure it will have nothing to do with this blog, but.. still.

clever pseudonym said...

Nutella,
I'm sure with that expensive education of hers that she's always so eager to tell us about and her qualifications for working in a much higher paying job as she frequently reminds us, she will land on her feet. I don't want the woman destroyed. I want her out of the pages of the Atlantic.

ChicagoEd said...

I don't want to see her fired. I'd rather have her go back to old, stupid Megan who posts idiotic recipes and goes on extended rants about how hard it is to get license plates for her car, maybe even pick another fight with Glenn Greenwald--that's always good for laughs. Posts about her dotty mother are funny, too. But this business page stuff was pretty boring. You could tell she didn't even like doing it, probably because it took the attention away from what's really important--Megan.

NutellaonToast said...

I just want all of her fame, money, respect and good looks.

Dillon said...

"I don't want to see her fired. I'd rather have her go back to old, stupid Megan who posts idiotic recipes and goes on extended rants about how hard it is to get license plates for her car, maybe even pick another fight with Glenn Greenwald"

ChicagoEd, you have captured my thoughts exactly. I love the Goldberg-esque, trainwrecky goodness of Stupid Megan.

Lately though (since the NYT rumors), Stupid Megan has been largely replaced by Asshole Megan, who is no fun at all.

I mean seriously, what happened to the receipe posts? C'mon Megan, throw your trolls a frickin' bone.

Chad said...

"I don't want the woman destroyed"

I...kinda do.

Although as far as "Inexplicably successful pseudo-journalists I'd love to one day see starving in the gutters and completely spit out by the system they once zealously promoted" go, Andrew Sullivan beats out Megan hands down.

clever pseudonym said...

I kind of miss the recipe posts. Those were definitely Megan at her most arrogant - assuming she's so much smarter than everyone else that nobody would know that she was completely full of shit and had no clue about cooking. Maybe she read Susan's humiliating post ripping apart her pancake recipe line for line and and was so embarrassed, she finally shut up about it.

Susan of Texas said...

Remember her macaroni and cheese recipe? When we commented on the amount of fat she said that's what New York food was like, and that recipe won a contest. At the time I didn't realize it was a contest between her and her friends on bloggingheads. Good times.

I don't want her fired, she'll just be replaced with someone with the same elitist ideas, maybe someone who is better at hiding his or her disgust at the poor.

I ask you--who else would be so oblivious that she would say Obama's kids aren't like you and her, when she went to a prep school that cost more than Sidwell? That's Olymic-level cluelessness, there. It's once-in-a-lifetime stupidity.

Don't leave us Megan--you have so much more to give!!

Retardo said...

'K, every one. Simmer down. Remember, Megan is very, very upset. Not just upset, not just very upset, but very, very upset.

'K. About Megan getting fired, this would be very, very bad because a)we would not get any more of her mouth-watering recipes to mock and b)no more posts about the live-in boyfriend, Meathead as I call him, "my housemate" as Megan calls the poor thing. (He's got no job so he's sponging off someone.) Calling your sig/oth "housemate" is really, really, very, very weird--how's that for McArdle prose?

To you Megan, you continue doing your best. Happy Mother's Day to you and Megan, Jr.

clever pseudonym said...

I remember that "won a contest" remark. We're not stupid, Megan. I don't believe for a second that dreadful recipe ever won anything that didn't have "WORST" in the title.

"1-2 cups of cream."