Sunday, February 20, 2011

Wisconsin Update: Fox and the Tea Party Are No Match for Tens of Thousands of Protestors | Change.org News #wisolidarity #wiunion #weac

Wisconsin Update: Fox and the Tea Party Are No Match for Tens of Thousands of Protestors | Change.org News

Wisconsin Update: Fox and the Tea Party Are No Match for Tens of Thousands of Protestors

by Antonio Ramirez · February 19, 2011

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For the last four days, crowds of tens of thousands of Wisconsin workers have flooded the state capital of Madison in attempts to halt Republican efforts to smash state workers' collective bargaining rights.

"I've been here since 10am and the crowd has been getting larger by the hour," said Milwaukee educator Thomas Orozco Saturday afternoon. "There are senior citizens, firefighters, private sector unions, folks from all races here."

Last week, Gov. Walker announced he would "fix" an $137 million budget shortfall by eliminating collective bargaining rights for public workers. Rather than going after the two-thirds of Wisconsin corporations who pay no tax in the state, Walker wants to destroy the most basic labor rights for his own employees.

Outrage against the bill quickly spread across Wisconsin. Thousands workers, students, and supporter

Update On Wisconsin | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

New Resources On Protests In The Arab World Here are the newest additions to The Best Resources To See Who Might Fall Next After Mubarak…: Arab and Middle East revolt – an interactive map comes from The Guardian. U.S. relations in Mideast, North Africa is a CNN interactive.

Update On Wisconsin Here are the newest additions to The Best Resources For Learning About Attacks On Teachers & Other Public Sector Workers In Wisconsin: The Essence of Democracy is from The New York Times. 12 Things You Need to Know About the Uprising in Wisconsin ...

More On My Upcoming New Book When I posted about my upcoming new book yesterday, it went out on RSS Readers before I had completed it and added this description from the publisher. I’ve added it to that post since that time, but wanted to make sure all my blog’s readers saw it: ...

“Dawn Of The Atomic Age” Dawn Of The Atomic Age is an interactive from The Sentinel, a Florida newspaper. I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Learning About Nuclear Weapons.

St. Patrick’s Day Resources I’ve just updated and revised The Best Sites For Learning About St. Patrick’s Day (& April Fools Day). Additional suggestions are welcome.

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Inside Miguel del Valle's campaign

Inside Miguel del Valle's campaign

Are you part of the solution, or…? | Dailycensored.com #wisolidarity #wiunion #weac

Are you part of the solution, or…? | Dailycensored.com

Are you part of the solution, or…?

Written by Ken_SayersDaily Journal (Opinion)Feb 20, 2011

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Governor Scott Walker took a state headed for a great surplusand instituted tax cuts for his Republican friends, which turned the surplus into a huge deficit. Now is using this deficit to justify the crucifixion of labor. He is attempting to eliminate collective bargaining and increase the burden on the middle and lower class of Wisconsin.

Besides attempting to transfer wealth to his friends he wants to break the back of the middle class. He wants to destroy public education. He is the point man for the Koch’s Tea Party that

An Alarming Trend | Billionaires for Educational Reform #wisolidarity #wiunion #weac

An Alarming Trend | Billionaires for Educational Reform

FEBRUARY 20, 2011 · 10:14 AM

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An Alarming Trend

I say, when the unwashed hordes descend on the capital demanding this and that, it’s disturbing. For the love of Smedley, can’t those despicable Wisconsin residents stick to their cheese and leave the rest of us alone? Apparently they cannot. They have to have their pensions, and their medical benefits, and what they call their “right” to negotiate working conditions. Working conditions should rightfully be dictated by employers, and thank goodness this bold governor is standing up to them.

Nonetheless, should these persons of no account prevail, the results will prove highly unprofitable. In fact, such a move could provoke government to reverse the sensible tax breaks we’ve received on not only a national level, but a local level as well. We must stop this at any cost. Fortunately there are trends here in

Police and firefighters join lawmakers in Grand Rapids rally against repealing binding arbitration | MLive.com #wisolidarity #wiunion #weac

Police and firefighters join lawmakers in Grand Rapids rally against repealing binding arbitration | MLive.com

Police and firefighters join lawmakers in Grand Rapids rally against repealing binding arbitration

Published: Saturday, February 19, 2011, 9:24 PM

By Monica Scott The Grand Rapids Press
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Amanda Loman The Grand Rapids PressState Rep. Brandon Dillon, D-Grand Rapids, speaks to a crowd of more than 300 Saturday at a rally opposing the repeal of Public Act 312, which requires binding arbitration to resolve disputes between cities and unions.

GRAND RAPIDS — More than 300 police officers, firefighters and other union supporters rallied on Calder Plaza Saturday to let lawmakers know how much they oppose a bill to end binding arbitration to resolve disputes between their unions and municipalities.

State Reps. Roy Schmidt and Brandon Dillon, both Grand Rapids Democrats, organized the event that also drew members from the Michigan Education Association and Grand Rapids Employees Independent Union.

Grand Rapids City Commissioners Dave Shaffer, Walt Gutowski, Ruth Kelly and Rosalynn Bliss were present as were Board of Education members Tony Baker and Jon O’Connor.

The rally was called to show support for the 1969 Public Act 312 which mandates bindin

Daily Kos: "Riot Police" at 2 AM in Madison? Maybe not . #wisolidarity #wiunion #weac

Daily Kos: "Riot Police" at 2 AM in Madison? Maybe not . . .

"Riot Police" at 2 AM in Madison? Maybe not . . .

by teacherken

see update at end

twitter is alive with breaking messages, primarily citing Mother Jones, that the riot police have been ordered to clear the Capitol at 2 AM.

I have no source that I can cite other than Mother Jones citing their sources.

I presume that the Governor hoped at that hour there would not be any press coverage.

I have to hope that people there will have contacts with the press and be able to inform them

An idea for journalists covering education

by teacherken

Yesterday, February 18, I attended a seminar on quality teaching sponsored jointly by the Education Writers Association and the Carnegie Corporation of New York. There were more than 50 journalists who write about education, just over a dozen educators, each of whom blogs/writes about education, and several experts who presented and took questions. I will before the holiday weekend is over write a more extensive piece about my reflections on the event.

One interesting part of the event was a dialog among the journalists and educators. In an email discussion, the educators have decided to offer some suggestions to the journalists about stories they can do to more completely tell their readers about teaching, schools, education. The first such post was by Ariel Sacks and

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Sunday, February 20, 2011