Making Utah look even stoopider…

From the Salt Lake Tribune, Feb 3, 2015 (no, not 1955):

"If an individual has sex with their wife while she is unconscious ... a prosecutor could then charge that spouse with rape, theoretically," said Rep. Brian Greene, R-Pleasant Grove."That makes sense in a first date scenario, but to me, not where people have a history of years of sexual activity."

Same place, Feb 4, 2015:

This year, lawmakers are lining up to order a special edition AR-15, manufactured by Tegra Arms in Orem, a semi-automatic rifle similar to the M16 used by the military.

The carbon fiber weapon is surprisingly lightweight, covered in a white Cerakote finish with a gray beehive pattern. The state motto, "Industry," is emblazoned on the side with a beehive. On the stock is etched a honeybee, the state insect, and the phrase "Vox Populi," the Latin phrase for "Voice of the People," which is the motto of the Utah House.

And finally, published on the 3rd of this month:

Utah lawmakers looking to make a statement want to change the oath of office and require elected officials to swear to defend Utah's Constitution first, ahead of the U.S. Constitution.

Rep. Brian Greene, R-Pleasant Grove, said state lawmakers are elected to act as protectors of the state and its constituents against the federal government.

Yup, our illustrious leaders thing that it is not possible for a husband to rape his wife, gave out an assault rifle as a commemorative trinket of their time at this legislative session and see the U.S. Government as the enemy.

I’m sooo proud to have them “representing” me.

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And from the “how the hell did THAT happen” file; saw this on the way home yesterday:

Gay Marriage Legal in Utah?

[ Did you hear the sonic boom from Highland, Utah?  That was Gayle Ruzicka imploding when Mayor Ralph Becker legally married two men in Salt Lake City. ]

KSL.com reports that a Federal Judge decided that Utah’s Amendment 3, defining a marriage as between 1 man and 1 woman, is unconstitutional.

[ Do you hear the big sucking sound from Utah County?  That’s the imploded-Gayle-Ruzicka black hole sucking all of Alpine, Lehi, and American Fork into oblivion. ]

Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill said that until he receives some legal injunction, the County Clerk’s office will be issuing marriage licenses to any couple that applies.

Utah Governor Gary Herbert is “…very disappointed…” and will “…determine the best course to defend traditional marriage within the borders of Utah,”

Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker has already performed the marriage of Utah Democratic Party Chairman Jim Dabakis and his partner. (That’s not them down below).

There’s no doubt in my mind that the Great State of Utah will waste a ton of money fighting this.  I’ll also bet that, in light of the DOMA and Prop 8 rulings, this ruling will be upheld.

And for those of you screaming “state rights” and “will of the majority”; I can’t put it any better than utzfan did in the KSL.com comments: “the majority of the southern states still wanted slavery, luckily our federal rights prevailed!!!”

Utah Headline.

Lawmaker drafts bill to help Utahns keep and eat roadkill

Raises

I just got back from dropping off the payroll for Free Wheeler Pizza.  I was surprised to see extra money in my pay envelope, with a little note from the owner saying “It’s been a while, here’s a cost of living raise.”

The legislature also gave me a raise on my teaching salary this year. My first raise from them since 2009, which would have been a pay cut if I hadn’t earned my Master’s that year.  And it’s a whopping 0.33%.

⅓ of 1% from my full-time (and a half) job and 10% from the small pizza place I do payroll for.  Now you might think “Yeah, but ⅓% of a teaching salary is gonna be a lot more that 10% of what you’d get paid to process 20 paychecks a month.”

Au contraire, mon frère.  It works out to a difference of  $4⁵⁰ a month.

Yeah, the Utah Legislature respects and values their teachers.  Oh, yeah.  Not more than a struggling local businessman.

P.S. – red is the official Math Department color for sarcasm at my school.

Reader Beware

It is entirely possible that a few, if not many, expletives will creep into this post.  Anyone easily offended by coarse language should probably skip this post.

Woke up this morning, had a cup of coffee, grabbed today’s edition of the Salt Lake Tribune, took my place on the throne and made it to the front page of the Utah section before getting totally pissed off.

Utah Sen. Howard (the Duck) Stephenson is going to sponsor a bill that would privatize failing schools, firing the entire staff of the school.  This I’ve posted about before, but what boiled my blood was the quote by Stephenson they had in today’s article.

“It’s quite interesting that the members of the state school board who say, ‘We don’t want to punish schools’, are perfectly satisfied to keep punishing children by subjecting them to mediocre education.  I’m less concerned about the feelings of educators who run mediocre schools than I am about the future prospects of those children in the school.”

Bullshit, you duckin’ hypocrite.

If his holier-than-thou “won’t someone think of the children” almighty façade had any truth to it;

1. Utah students wouldn’t be crammed into the largest classrooms in the nation.
2. Utah wouldn’t be spending less than any other state in the US, by about $2,000 per student.
3. He would have freaked out when his peers passed a law that earmarked $30,000,000 of new tax revenue to roads rather than education.
4. He would be fighting tooth and nail to not only hold educators accountable, but also to provide them with the tools to do their job at the level he wants them to.

It’s the legislators of the State of Utah that don’t give a flying duck about the education of our children, not the majority of the teachers and administrators that work hard to do the best they can with what they are given.  The proof is in the funding, “starving the beast’, the ever decreasing investment in support of education, despite the 60% (or more, depending on your poll) of voters that would be willing to pay more taxes for increased education funding.  Even though we were last in per-pupil funding, Utah used to be #1 in the amount invested per $1,000 of personal income, we’re now down to 24^th.  Full day kindergarten, proven to help lower income and lower achieving students – denied.  Class-size reduction funding – dried up.

Rep. Howard Stephenson; you and your cronies are the ones punishing the students of this state.  Your quote would be better rewritten as “I’m less concerned about the feelings of state legislators who won’t even adequately fund schools, than I am about the future prospects of those children in the school.”

Finally, I can’t believe anyone, including Rep. Stephenson, really believes that private companies could better educate these same students with the same funding.

War on Public Education Rages.

There is no doubt in my mind that, especially since their 2007 defeat by public referendum, the Utah State Legislature has been waging a war against public education.  There are more than enough rumors of legislators referring to “starving the beast” of public ed. for them to be believable.  Especially in view of legislation passes since then, and three bills that most likely will be put on the floor during the 2012 legislative session.

1. Public High Schools will be charged for remedial courses their students are required to take in college.
2. Amend the Utah Constitution to give the Governor direct control over Public Education.
3. Require failing schools to be dismantled and put out to private contractors.

I’ve been at 6 different schools, from the upper income east side to lower income inner city schools.  The majority of the teachers I know are doing their damnedest to educate their students with the largest class sizes and lowest per-pupil funding in the nation.  I do agree that the reforms of the last couple decades were necessary to help bring education into the 21^st century, and education in general needs to continue being required to adapt to the changing face of our society.  But since George W first introduced the No Child Left Behind concept, the silence regarding parental and student responsibility has been deafening.  Here’s my comments on these three pieces of legislation:

1. And the student is not the least bit responsible?  A motivated student will learn even if they have a bad teacher, a student determined to fail will fail despite a great teacher.  Success in school depends on a trifecta: Students, parents and teachers.  This legislation puts absolutely no responsibility on either the student or the parents.
2. Uh.  Hm.  Let’s not leave the running of education in the hands of people elected (despite being hand-picked by the Governor) for the sole purpose of making decisions for education.  Nah, let’s put that power in the hands of a single person, whose responsibility includes the entirety of the State Government.
3. This is my favorite one.  If a school fails, let’s fire everyone responsible for it’s failure.  Oh, wait.  The students are responsible too (see #1).  And what about the parents who can’t, or won’t, help or even expect their student to succeed in school.  (YES, that does happen).

I had a 9^th grade student at an inner city school that just about fell asleep in class.  I asked him about it and he told me that he was out late working.  He told me that, in addition to school, he worked about 30 hours a week.  I made a comment about how great it must be to have all that money to spend.  He looked at me and said “Nah, I have to pay the rent.”

How can I compete with that?

I will bet an entire month’s paycheck on two things if this privatization of “failing” schools passes.

1. No private school can improve the scores of students if they are required to do it with the exact same clientele and money per student.
2. Somehow, miraculously, the Utah State Legislature will find a way to improve education funding, helping line the pockets of their cronies in the private education business.

I love my job, can’t imagine doing anything else right now.  But with each and every attack on my profession (and I do not view every change or criticism as an attack, there is a lot I agree with) managing a Chevron is looking better and better.

Vote Carroon

So I got scooped.  I was planning on writing something about Pete Carroon and his run for Governor, and Pedro beat me to it.  So I’m not going to go over it all over again, you can read his post and pretty much have what I’d say, except this:

There is no time since Gov. Scott Matheson that we have more needed a Democratic Governor to balance out our loony Legislature than right here and now.  Period.

Vote early. Vote often.

P.S. I have no idea why Pete Carroon is standing there in front of a picture of Captain Kirk, but being a Star Trek fan, I obviously HAD to use this picture.

Sign of the Apocalypse?

… Front page of the UTAH section of the Salt Lake Tribune today: “Buttars an ally for gays?”

… The first thing I did was get on my knees and start out with “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil…”

… Then I read the article and thought “Hmm, Buttars is a lot smarter than I thought he was.” He says that he will probably help sponsor a bill that will allow other cities to pass ordinances protecting rights regarding housing and employment, but will, as the article said “forbid them from going any further on gay rights.” 

… As hard as it is to admit, Chris Buttars actually is smart enough to see the writing on the wall, and especially after the LDS Church came out in support of the SLC ordinance, realized the firestorm that trying to overturn the city ordinance would cause.  (The Utah State Legislature had threatened to pass state law to invalidate the city ordinance.)  Personally, I don’t think he had any change of heart from when he said gay activism is “probably the greatest threat to America”, he just realized a no-win situation.

… So what does that say about the brain power of Gayle Ruzicka, who said she couldn’t believe that “her long time ally would run a bill authorizing other cities to pass ordinances that ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.”  Not a whole lot.  Even a mosquito knows it’s time to leave when the body is dead.