First NYC Madrassa fails to meet Any Standard

The first public school madrassa in Brooklyn is an abject failure. They are closing the middle school because of the low enrollment and perhaps the worst violence of any of the city schools. Last year I reported that the school was forced to suspend more than one-third of its student body for infractions ranging from hitting to weapons.

In March of 2010:

“Every day, they’re fighting,” said Voneeda Black, who nervously sends her 6-year-old to the elementary school with which Gibran shares a building.

“You don’t see parents,” she said. “Three or four times a week, there are cops here, if not more.”

It may be the worst record in the city.

So I think it appropriate to take a hard look at Gibran — a school founded on the flawed notion that segregating Arabists will lead to harmony.

Since it opened, the tiny school on the edge of DUMBO has had one of the city’s highest rates of violence. A teacher was taunted by kids as a “terrorist” in 2008. It’s gotten steadily worse.

More than a third — one in three! — of Gibran’s 114 students, grades six through eight, have been suspended this year, according to the Department of Education.

Twenty-two were yanked from school for five days. Eight kids were considered so rowdy or dangerous, they were banned from class six to 10 days.

Nineteen fights led to student injuries or intimidation. In two other cases, weapons were used. This number has climbed from last year’s 17 violent incidents and 26 suspensions.

So they are closing the middle school and reopening as a a high school (!). Why is beyond me -- just close this publicly funded madrassa.And you'll notice in the reportage the violence and school failure is never mentioned.

Join me -- we have been fighting this madrassa, the Khalil Gibran International Academy, since the city announced plans to open it in 2007. Pamela Hall has been leading this fight as well. We were both first on the story and the fight, Atlas as early as February 2007. August 2007: NY PUBLIC SCHOOL MADRASSA IMAM: “Jihad is our way, And death in the way of Allah is our promised end”

Progressives Avoid Success as a Plague

Having developed rabbit ears for the right-wing taunt of "liberal media bias," reporters, editors, producers, and pundits seemed determined during the Bush years to prove how un-liberal they really were. In the process, the press abandoned its traditional watchdog role and morphed instead into lapdogs. Media Matters

Many Progressives revel in membership in a righteous minority that always loses. This way they have an excuse. Whatever goes wrong they are not guilty of it because they rarely commit to any ideal. Their participation is at the periphery easy to escape when the Police begin to use taser pistols.
They couldn't wait to jump off the Obama bandwagon. The only Progressive President since Teddy Roosevelt, Obama has come closer to health reform than any other.
This explains my motivation for a tip of the cap to Harry Reid. This also explains why OEN members did not comment on this article. Winners make them nervous.

Are You Just Finding This Out?

My grandfather could have told you this 120 years ago. He named my father Clarence after the famous defense attorney Clarence Darrow. The called him the attorney for the damned. Why were they damned? They were blacks, women and members of despised religious minorities wrongly accused by a totally corrupt and godless society.
Abraham Lincoln lied. Liberty and justice existed for slave owners of blacks in the south and of whites in the north. Lincoln was a shill for the special interests with the gift of oratory the Barack Obama of his day.
In the 1950's any kid with 25 cents could buy a Ballantine paperback. Muckrakers wrote the inside story of Washington. Every Senator indulged in white slavery, influence peddling, graft or any number of other departures from acceptable norms.
People don't change.

The Persecution of Al Gore

The orgy of resentment that erupted toward Gore during the 2000 campaign season was likely unprecedented in American politics, as media elites did very little to hide their disdain for Gore. For years, they mocked him, bad-mouthed him, and made up nasty stories about him.

Media Matters

"[T]he 300 media types watching in the press room at Dartmouth were, to use the appropriate technical term, totally grossed out by it. Whenever Gore came on too strong, the room erupted in a collective jeer, like a gang of 15-year-old Heathers cutting down some hapless nerd."

Eric Pooley, Time Magazine

On January 23, 2009, the topic on the table was the administration's proposed economic stimulus package and whether the White House, which was hoping for a bipartisan effort on the legislation, would be disappointed if the bill passed with little or no Republican support. And that's when Todd asked Robert Gibbs the following:

Would [the President] veto a bill if it didn't have Republican support?

Todd's absurd query highlighted the unheard-of double standard the press constructed for the new Democratic president. Namely, when addressing the issue of bipartisanship (i.e. "involving cooperation, agreement, and compromise between two major political parties") the press decided to hold only one of the political parties accountable: the Democrats. Bipartisanship was now something Democrats had to bring to fruition. Chuck Todd, msnbc

My bookend quotes capture how the "liberal" Beltway press corps changed the rules to cover Gore at the beginning of the decade and Obama at the end of it. And how did the same press corps spend the years between Gore and Obama? Lying down for Bush, of course. Having developed rabbit ears for the right-wing taunt of "liberal media bias," reporters, editors, producers, and pundits seemed determined during the Bush years to prove how un-liberal they really were. In the process, the press abandoned its traditional watchdog role and morphed instead into lapdogs. Media Matters http://bit.ly/5eXOfW #p2

Here is a recent example of the ABC media sell-out.

Organ Harvesting Happens in 191 Other Countries

Israelis know they must accompany a loved one in the operating room if they want him to survive intact.
As in stolen cars, the parts are worth more than the entire body.
The body parts trade exists everywhere. Why is the ABC news article about Israel worthy of special note? Jason Paz

ABC News.com reported on organ harvesting in Israel. Posted by Stanimal on the OEN home page news, ABC has removed the article.

I'm tempted just to let Jason Paz comment on this one.
How does organ removal compare with drone bombing? For fork's sake.

by GLloyd Rowsey

Organ Removal is Worse than Drone Bombing Jason Paz

At least, a drone bomb has a good chance of killing the victim outright. In hospital the victim may suffer for days while the doctors take out parts one by one. Parts from living victims fetch higher prices.
GLloyd,
Please drop me an e-mail whenever you see an article such as this about anywhere in the world. The stories from the Mexican border are particularly sad.

It will become interesting if NBC continues to bash Obama after the mangled health bill passes. Will David Gregory on Meet the Press remain a prominent shill for Boeing and the corporations? Will Progressives dote on the Main Stream Media for information?

Elliot Spitzer and America's Ethical Perversity

Elliot Spitzer and American Ethical Perversity

Rabbi Michael Lerner, Opednews.com

[Excerpt]

That there is no outcry for these government officials and corporate leaders to resign immediately or be impeached, that there is no moral outrage at the entire system that produces this impact, is America's ethical perversity. Instead, the only crime against humanity that the media takes seriously and the politicians fear is being exposed for personal sexual immorality. While everyone basks in their own self-righteous demands on Spitzer, we all allow media and elected officials to fundamentally distort our ethical vision and play out our morality on the smallest of possible stages while ignoring the global and personal consequences of our larger ethical failures.