George Carlin was an inconvenient nudge. Never constrained by conventional wisdom and most often delightfully sane in a crazy world. We need a truthteller like George who died in 2008. Here is his take on the environment and the planet.
” The planet is just fine- the people are f*****.”
It’s not the airlines‘ fault that air travel is so demeaning and degrading. Blame it on the public for demanding cheap transportation. Think about the degrading humiliation that air travel inflicts on every traveler these days. It violates every tenant of customer service. What organization would go out of their way to insult and demean their customers as a business plan for success? Unthinkable, isn’t it? It is a formula for failure in every market except one – transportation. In transportation we will accept any torture so long as you get us there cheap.
A recent trip reminded me just what humiliation we accept in exchange for cheap transportation. Young folks have no idea what air travel was like a mere twenty years ago when flying was civilized, passengers were treated like welcome guests and airlines competed by the amenities they offered. The new 747’s allowed airlines to offer passenger lounges – some with piano bars on trans-continental flights. Meals were offered on most long flights and though they were never much better than TV dinners, it was hot food, served with style and professionalism. TWA baked bread during the flights. Many airlines brought hot towels to refresh passengers at the end of the flight. Blankets and pillows were always available just by pushing the stewardess call button. Boarding was civilized as well because passengers checked baggage and carried only what they might need during the flight. You dressed up to fly because civilized people cared about their appearance and, of course, in those days you didn’t have to undress to get through security. And this was flying coach.
In those days, people flew because they wanted to get from one place to another fast and they were willing to pay for the privilege. People that weren’t, rode the bus or the train. Those were wonderful days. Flying wasn’t cheap but it was civilized.
Contrast those days with my trip this week. Start with the luggage. Most airlines now penalize customers for checking bags with the natural result that every passenger boards the plane with all their worldly possessions in hand. Without baggage, you never have to check in and can go directly to security, easing the burden of providing service by the airlines but upping the burden on TSA. This makes you a nuisance if you do want to free yourself from lugging your bag through security to the gate and on the plane. Most airlines now charge you for that service. They want to have as little to do with you as possible. And if they must deal with you personally, you will pay for that privilege.
Boarding is shear hell. You stand in line waiting for your boarding call, then lug your baggage down the boarding tunnel and wait while all the people ahead of you stuff the compartments with their luggage and squeeze into their seats. Dante must be smiling as he watches this modern day hell. Arriving you just reverse the process until you reach the relative comfort and civilization of the terminal, And we accept this! When we used to expect this.
What has brought us to this total breakdown of civilization we call flying? I think we asked for it. You ask how? Well come back on Monday to see what I think.
Have you ever gone crazy? Of course you’d never admit it but face the truth, crazy people think they are fine. So if and when you go crazy you don’t have a clue. If you are really crazy , it’s the world that’s gone mad. You are just trying to cope. Everyone wants to believe that crazy is coo coo, that a crazy person is evil and out to destroy the world. When the reality is that crazy people just aren’t willing to accept the same constraints that you do. Sometimes attacking crazy makes sense- take serial killers. Other times you can be crazy but the world applauds – take workaholics. Society loves workaholics and vilifies serial killers. But they are both crazy.
Crazy is all about following conventions, coloring within the lines and waiting patiently in lines. If those things make sense to you then you probably aren’t crazy. In fact, you probably believe that people who follow conventions are the crazy ones. It’s enough to drive someone mad. Continue reading »
Image by DoubleSpeak Media via Flickr
This all started with two teachers; well, to be precise, one teacher and a group of teachers but lets just pretend that all the teachers at the State House in Wisconsin are one guy. The other, of course is the Pennsylvania teacher who blogged about her teaching experiences and got suspended. The jury is out on both these teachers. Some people support the ‘right’ of public employees to abandon their battle stations and picket the government. Some people say it is an outrage. Some people think that the Pennsylvania teacher was out of line to suggest that her students were not motivated. Some people think it’s about time that somebody says that kids should be responsible.
Lets call our surrogate Wisconsin teacher, Wesley and the Pennsylvania teacher Sue just for discussion and forget the complication that Wesley is part of a pack and Sue is the lone ranger. Lets just talk about how crazy things have gotten here in the old USA that these are big news stories.
Let’s start with Sue, merely because her story started first. Sue is a young, pregnant, energetic and engaged teacher. From what I can read, she seems to be exactly the kind of person I would like to have teaching my kids. In the midst of her busy and challenging life she starts a blog. The reason is probably as a way of organizing her thinking, chronicling her progress and perhaps some venting. I wasn’t following her blog until the big blowup- and then of course it went down. As I understand, she did not mention names or indicate her school or location but someone noticed. Her honest and anonymous comments tagged her as a liability for the school and she found her extremely pregnant self escorted off the premises and into limbo.
Now, how about Wesley? Wesley wakes up to discover that the state government is planing to require teachers to contribute more toward pension and health benefits to balance a budget strapped by a bad economy.
“They can’t do this to me!” , Wesley says as he checks an email from his Teacher’s Union. “No school today.”
So Wesley and hundreds of Wisconsin teachers drive to Madison to protest and attempt to prevent this action. Hundreds of classrooms are abandoned all over Wisconsin. Thousands of children get no instruction.
The impact is the same. Both Wesley and Sue leave their classrooms abandoned. Wesley from his choice and Sue from her Principal’s choice. Is either one of them right? Does Sue have the right to expect a pass when she criticizes her students? Do Wesley’s concerns for his income trump his responsibility to his community? Since they are both public employees, what does the public actually think about this?
This Coots has some strong opinions that come from my career as a unionized public employee and now a blogger. I began my employment back before government workers were forced to join unions. In those days, you accepted that government work would pay less than working for a private company but that the job security and benefits were a partial compensation along with the satisfaction from serving your community. In those days, citizens saw government workers as necessary expenses and were accepting of paying reasonable wages. That was long ago and far away. There are now so many government workers doing things that were never needed before (and perhaps not needed now?) and at such outrageous salaries that the public can only see the government as a parasite sucking them dry.
Wow! That came out a bit strong, didn’t it.
Anyway the good public servants doing necessary jobs in responsible ways get lumped in with the leeches. The good ones never confuse their interests with their responsibilities. They show up and expect to be appreciated for their service. The leeches? They show up at the Statehouse.
Not on your life. I’m a blogger, too.
I really feel for Sue. She is exactly the kind of our person I hope our country can still produce. She cares. She is committed to her job. She thinks.
Still was it right to point our that some of her students expect the world on a platter? Probably not.
Should she have been escorted off the school grounds by goons? I don’t think so.
Should she return to her job? That’s the big question and the answer says a lot about whether our culture is declining or holding.
However the circus in Wisconsin plays out, the worst thing to happen to Wesley is that he may be docked for the days of school he missed. Life will go on. Wisconsin will either cust costs in response to the voters or go bankrupt in response to the unions. Whatever, Wesley will still have his job.
Sue may get her job back but it all depends on the nervous Nelly administrators that fear lawsuits and the parents in her school district. She is a liability; great teacher though she may be. She will be a target for any whining student who thinks he deserves a better grade or indulging parents who want to get their daughter into Yale. My money says they won’t take the risk.
The cause of all this is the government monopoly on education. We all contribute to educating the youth of the country but instead of allowing parents to control where that money goes, the government decides. And lately, you may have noticed, the government doesn’t seem to care what the masses think. Since government schools don’t have to worry about attracting customers, they sell out to their employees. And since students don’t have any choice either, their only recourse is to sue when they aren’t treated right.
What’s your take on Wesley and Sue? Government workers? Unions? School Districts?
Can a teacher blog?
Some of you may actually believe the hype lathered on by self-serving politicians that our economy today is the worst since the great depression. This is hooey of course just like everything else you hear a politician say as he tries to divert you from the tax burden he stuck you with. We have had several ‘bad ‘economies since the depression and I am not thinking about the 90’s. Remember that we are not just cantankerous coots, we are cantankerous OLD coots. We lived through the oil embargoes, odd-even gas buying days and sanctimonious Jimmy Carter. So just to help you keep some perspective in these dire days, listen to this rant from the good old days of 1976. Pardon the French subtitles.