There is doubling down and doubling dumb. You will have to decide. Brooklyn principal Greta Hawkins caused a national uproar after banning Lee Greenwood’s patriotic “God Bless the USA” — including criticism on this blog about the lack of a standard given the fact that the school allowed other songs like Justin Bieber’s song “Baby” with lyrics about nailing a girl. Rather than reversing her decision to ban the first song, Hawkins responded by banning Bieber’s song as well. The kids, who have been practicing both songs for months, will now have to come up with some other choices for their end-of-the-year celebration.
Mayor Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott said Hawkins informed the public that Hawkins now believes that “Baby” is also inappropriate for 5-year-olds. Bloomberg stressed “The principal has decided she’s not going to sing that song. It’s the principal’s decision, and we support the principals.” Really, you support principals no matter how absurd their decisions? I thought we were operating on the “best interest of the children” standard. I can actually understand the Beiber decision, though it should have been made sooner than just before the ceremony. There, however, remains the bar on the first song. It is not one of my favorites but to say that it is inappropriate or insensitive is, in my opinion, absurd.
What is most striking is the total lack of responsibility shown by Bloomberg and the school head, who seemed to go out of their way to stress that they will not second guess a principal. That may resonate with the principals, but it is hardly in the best interests of the school. Indeed, Hawkins’ greatest critics have been teachers and parents at the school.
Source: NY Post
Swarthmore mom,
You said it. And when it is a model for twins, or for baby plus sidecar for packages etc
idealist, Those upscale baby carriages in Scandinavia are certainly noticeable.
JuctionShamus,
Always nice to know when one’s stuff is OK. .
So it’s not NYC or SF, then is it Junction City?
I think of course of “Chinatown” and Jack Nicholson getting a nostril sliced up, hurts to think of it. Ehhh?
Thanks for the IKEA figures: the 500 would be rated a spacious one-room or a small two room, and 800 a standard three room apartment, in Stockholm.
I had a temp room for a year in an old house through the local student apartment bla bla. Common bath in the basement, but large kitchen.
The one I have inherited after my wife is 750, with two small bedrooms where in both we have a desk to do things at. IT is chiefly furnished with Billy bookshelves 🙂 and other IKEA. She was a genius at many things, planning for compact living. She even did the design of the expansion of our summer cottage—-an almost standard Swedish dwelling, this need for nature contact in the summer.
But the apartment is poorly planned with an over long living room, attractively it suited her need for filiing every surface with beautiful things. Things like a living banana tree, which grew ferociously for two years and then saddened when it could not go through the ceiling as instinct said it should.
Money and taxes. The worldwide question. One of our by law forbidden thoughts is to consciously think about avoiding taxes. True. But only if they can prove it. No lie detector tests here, only tax returns.
And absolutely don’t want to become like the rich people I have on occasion had social contact with, HOWEVER one wonders if one of their tricks might aid me in avoiding the enormous marginal effect. But everyone is hit by it, except the dodgers.
I would instead of my guessing, suggest that you seek figures at various official and googled sites.
I am a special case, (oh, not again, some groan) because the pension insurance my wife purchased for herself to last 30 years is now being consumed in 5 years per her advice considering my life expectancy, she wishing it to not freeze in at my statstically predicted death.
So, I with a, by American standards, modest comfortable income am a very high tax payer.
This leads to a sort of egalitarianism, a solidarity between people here. Few are rich, some few are poor, and the system provides social help to all. Some drive deluxe baby carriages, others hand me downs from a thrift shop.
The rich, on the other hand, climb like hell while outwardly are very couth, smiling and bowing in every direction while dissing, and gossiping behind each others backs. But they can be pleasant at times.
The tern “sir” was discarded in the 1960’s, called the “du” reform. Only the very elderly may prefer the formal form from old.
Doubt if you found the answers you wanted. but took up a lot of space doing this little factwise.
Swedes, in general, are people who don’t carefully search out your origins, financial base, brag on the many exclusive trips, or find out the economical status of your affairs. That is done instead constantly in cocktail meetings among the rich—who I pity for it.
Tack för hälsningar och trevlig snack oss emellan.
I shall google the MontyP phrase. Who knows what that will lead to. Thanks for it.
JunctionShamus,
Shamus, was that lawyer, or detective?
Was sleeping (almost) whem you wrote.
The major road to hell in Sweden is the lack or apartments to rent, particularly as the migration which went from farms to small industry towns, now continues to 3 major cities.
Purchasing a bostadsrätt apartment = condo but don’t own the house but the right to sell later at market price is very expensive. A one room with kitchenette and bathroom and all-room will go for 300,000 USD right now, I recently heard. That was nearby in my neighbor, a former workers’ part of town.
This is particularly hard for college students and young people.
That (shamus) would be a private detective/investigator – I work for shysters (attorneys) – I think that would put NYC and SanFran to shame, though it’s been a while since I’ve been in either place.
My only experience with the compactness of apartments in Sweden is from displays for IKEA, where they show configurations for apartments as small as 500 square feet, then the spaciousness of something around 800 square feet.
So how does one make it financially in Sweden? I understand the taxes are pretty high, to support what I’ve been told is a cradle to grave system of social services. What would be the median wage?
Thanks for your response to my culturally ignorant questions and frame of reference. Always enjoy your posts.
Sov gott, min vän! (Hope it means well, and not, “Your hovercraft is full of eels.” – Monty Python skit.)
@idealist – Without offending some on this list, is the road to Hell paved with good intentions in your country too?
@Mike Spindell “Notice that I put business before government”
I did notice that. But the nice thing about business is that, unless it is a monopoly, I can frequently avoid its pernicious effects. Just try that with big government.
But I did occasionally enjoy getting cool clear water out of the tap – back in the old days. Well every industrial society requires compromise and trade offs. Remind me again what did we trade the water for? Oh, now I remember – gas, fracking gas.
Well frack, now we have bottle water and gas. Whats the problem.
Somehow, Justin Beiber singing “Baby, baby” to babies just makes my head spin.
@Elaine M. ‘Public Swearing In Middleborough, Mass. Now Subject To Fine’
Anyone care to start a pool re: if and when someone files a suite charging disparate impact or some other interesting theory?
Initial categories: never, <=1 week, <= 1 month, <= 6 months, 1 year.
Step up and make your best guess folks. Can’t win if you ain’t in
Of course some attorneys might have an unfair advantage in that they can file the suite anytime they please. They wouldn’t do that… would they???.
raff,
I didn’t say she was the only idiot.
And some of them have good intentions, they think; but poor judgement. And their children will carry the failing forward—not genetically, but by indoctrination.
BTW, is the pércentage 99 or 99.9 percent?
My brain… it’s burning….can’t… take… much… more. Ahhhh, that’s better. I just turned on Jerry Springer. Now that my brain has been burned out, it’s much more enjoyable now…
@Mike Spindell ‘Petty tyrants exist at all levels of business and government.”
I think you have just made one of the strongest possible arguments for small government.
Despite that, I have always thought it was nice to have public schools, …mmm public roads are nice too.
“Petty tyrants exist at all levels of business and government.”
BFM,
Notice that I put business before government. The problem is with any bureaucracy, public or private. It also is with human beings because there is a percentage of people who get their rocks off by bossing others around.
With now this next banning this Principal further exposes her nature. Whether she is intelligent or not has little bearing. This is all about the fact that she’s the type of person who once in charge, acts like a martinet over her small realm. The backlash from the first “banning” and the criticism that the Bieber song remained left her one option to vainly attempt to save face and that was by banning Bieber. That she was backed up by Bloomberg and Walcott was merely their expression of solidarity with a like minded subordinate. Petty tyrants exist at all levels of business and government.
It seems to me that the actions of principal Hawkins raise at least a couple of issues beyond the music she bans.
The first has to do with when and under what circumstances we ban any presentation in front of a group. My experience is that in most any group there will be someone who objects to just about anything that is presented.
Coming together in a group almost seems to imply that there will be some presentation that offends someone. With that in mind, it seems that the mere fact that some portion of the of the group objects should not be sufficient to remove that portion of the program.
The second question has to do with the role of teachers and institutions in helping students understand and appreciate society. I, for one, don’t want schools and universities indoctrinating students to the standards of the society. Yet it would seem that a society that fails to give students and citizens some understanding of their role in society and societies role in lives will not endure for long.
It seems to me that how to teach students about their role in society is a subject that, with some remarkable exceptions, educators have largely avoided for several decades. That is understandable. The subject has some complexity and is controversial. But it is an important subject that deserves consideration.
Gene,
you said it all when you said this principal is an idiot. However, what about the administration that is backing this nitwit up?
Gene H:
Stylistically I’m for banning him, too. But what’s next? Happy Birthday?
I would have liked to have seen an expansion on the claim that parents and teachers have earlier criticized the principal.
Have any formal complaints been filed? If so, what results?
Are schools autocratic, democratic, or whatever?
Or is this an “idiot principal, mayor and superintencent) ha ha ha joke?
Theoretically I’m all for banning Beiber music, but my concerns are strictly aesthetic. I can kind of understand the Greenwood song based on an Establishment Clause argument, but not the lame excuse she gave for that. This woman is clearly an idiot.
Off Topic:
Public Swearing In Middleborough, Mass. Now Subject To Fine
06/11/12
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/12/public-swearing-middleborough-fine_n_1587270.html
Excerpt:
MIDDLEBOROUGH, Mass. — Residents in Middleborough voted Monday night to make the foul-mouthed pay fines for swearing in public.
At a town meeting, residents voted 183-50 to approve a proposal from the police chief to impose a $20 fine on public profanity.
Officials insist the proposal was not intended to censor casual or private conversations, but instead to crack down on loud, profanity-laden language used by teens and other young people in the downtown area and public parks.
And she’s considered an educator…… Hmmmmmm