The New York Times ran an article on Friday talking about the increasing educational costs that parents must bear with “Back to School” shopping. When I was a kid, my Mom used to take me shopping during the last week or two of August and we’d spend a minimal amount on school materials. The New York Times article talks about how parents are now required to spend a ton of money on school materials. From the article:
As school districts both poor and prosperous struggle to finance such basics as teacher salaries, utilities, building maintenance and textbooks, many are asking parents to purchase more — and more particular — school supplies. Gone are the days when back-to-school shopping meant making sure each child had new shoes and a three-ring binder. Now, according to the New York State School Boards Association, supplies run an average of $100 for high school students and $60 for middle schoolers.
The article talks about how parents are asked to buy clay for their students. CLAY?! Our school districts can’t afford CLAY any more?!? Come on! At least in New Jersey, aren’t our property taxes supposed to pay for this stuff?
I don’t like this trend of spending more on the basics of administration and less on the fundamental “needs” to teach today’s students. Very bad trend and it needs to be changed right away.
Sometimes I really wish that I was told that Howard Stern and his crew of miscreants would be taking off most of the summer before I purchased my SIRIUS Satellite Radio and subscription. The Stern crew just took off the last week…and I’m not sure why. They took off the first full week of August and the last full week. And I’m sure that they’ll be off next week, too (because why would you take off Monday for Labor Day and then only work a 3-day work week?).
Bear in mind they also took off the first two weeks of July. Ummm…that’s four full weeks off in the summer months. I know that Howard’s brainwashed fans will say that he’s earned the break, but there are many millions more of us who are just fans of the show and feel like they’ve been sold a bill of goods with the Howard Stern gang. We were told about commercial-free radio before he made the jump - we now get frequent 15-minute, non-live content breaks in the middle of his shows.
We were told that the show would be in the studio on the occasional Friday to surprise the audience. Bullshit on that! He spent a few Fridays in the studio when he started Sirius - more than two and a half years ago now.
Then we were told about all of the great content that we’d get after SIRIUS Satellite Radio and Stern bought back his tapes from CBS Radio/Viacom. What do they give us? A completely randomized selection of shows from all over Howard’s history with no rhyme or reason as to why they were playing certain shows. This crappy “Master Tape Theater” was so poorly received that the Stern folks were forced to move it into some weird Sunday afternoon time slot when no one is listening anyway.
Before he made the jump, Stern sold us on something like 33 cents per day or 45 cents per day to hear him on Sirius. Okay - then let me pay just the 45 cents on each day that he’s in the building. In August, I would have paid $3.60 to hear Howard and his crew.
I can’t tell you how happy I am that the merger went through. I really do like satellite radio and I really do enjoy listening to the Howard Stern Show. But paying the $14 that I pay each month (tax included) is not worth what I’m getting in terms of service. I hear that with the merger there will be an option to get 50 channels of your choice and pay $6.99 per month. Let’s get that figured out and in motion already!
I’m not entirely sure who Obama spokesman Bill Burton is or what he’s all about, but talk about making a classless, disgusting statement regarding the choice of Governor Sarah Palin to be McCain’s running mate. From the folks at Politico:
Barack Obama’s campaign is blasting John McCain for putting “the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency.”
The scathing description of Sarah Palin, from Obama spokesman Bill Burton, comes as Democrats scramble to gather a response to a selection that nobody in the political world expected.
Whoa!
Senator Obama needs to really re-evaluate having someone on his staff that is going to immediately attack Palin - even before her selection is official! And talk about the dumbest man on earth - does Burton realize that if he wants to start a battle over Palin’s experience that he immediately justifies all of the Republican comments about Obama’s gratuitous lack of experience?
Dumb, dumb move on behalf of the Obama campaign. Their best bet at this point is to retract that stupid statement from Burton and run a video similar to McCain’s video from last night with a simple, “Congratulations” message to Governor Palin.
It’s amazing how you can go from supporting the Obama campaign one night to hearing a ridiculous comment like Burton’s and be completely disgusted with them.
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