Revolution Day (Mexico)
It's ironic that on Rights of the Child Day the conversation has come back to education and the Board of Regents.
If you haven't heard, the U of I isn't getting a new president anytime soon. The Board of Regents decided on Friday to scrap the current set of applicants (over 150) and start over. There's enough great coverage of this to go around, so if you haven't yet, be sure to check out the following:
Nick Johnson
The Register
Radio Iowa
State 29
Iowa City Press Citizen
The Press Citizen piece marks the first editorial I've seen calling for a shakeup within the Board of Regents to end all this crap. I agree wholeheartedly. In fact, I started calling for Michael Gartner's resignation a month ago.
Even if you're willing to give Gartner the benefit of the doubt on some of his actions from before his time with the Regents, the fact remains that he has lost the trust (and deservedly so) of many members of the faculty and staff at the Regents universities. If this isn't remedied, it will get worse. There have been accusations that Michael Gartner wants to end public funding to our state universities. Let's end public funding to Michael Gartner first.
Other notes today:
I live in the Drake neighborhood, and I used to worry when I read stories like this one about muggings. But I've also gotten used to reading lines like this:
The men struck Noonen in the head and took his wallet, which had $10 in it, the report said.I think the easiest way to prevent crime is to show how it doesn't pay. Four men in my neighborhood are splitting $10 today, and all they had to do to get it is risk years in prison. I'm carrying $7 in cash today, a Wisconsin fishing license, my Cosmonaut Club card for Mars Cafe and my Frequent Noodler card for Z'Marik's. I'm rarely, if ever, worth the effort it would take someone to get my wallet.
Finally, Common Iowan has a good post up on the dangers of overexpansion of ethanol in Iowa. The need to diversify is greater than ever. Good thing we elected a past president of the Iowa Corngrowers Association as Secretary of Ag.
KL
2 comments:
"Good thing we elected a past president of the Iowa Corngrowers Association as Secretary of Ag."
Ain't that the truth. I mean we could have had the chairwoman of the American Organic Cattle Starvers' Council. Now there's diversity.
I'm going to say here what I should have said before the election, and what I wish the O'Brien campaign would have shouted from the rooftops:
I know Denise O'Brien and her husband personally. I've worked with them, I've seen their farm and I've eaten at their table. I find it impossible to believe they would make a conscious decision to starve cattle.
So, now that we've removed malice from the equation, what's left is negligence, and I think there's some truth to that. But I'd still rather have a family farmer in that office than a puppet of big ag. Sadly, about 50.1% of voters disagree with me.
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