Concert of my Life
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Some of my posts will be emotional or controversial. Always refer to the "Read More" sentence. Thanks.
I write a lot about social/political/world issues and you may or may not agree with my opinions. I am not and do not claim to be an expert on any of the topics, and am only presenting my thoughts formed from knowledge gained through research or school. Feel free to let me know what you think, I am always open to new ideas and perspectives.
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New Page to collect all Posts related to Society/World Issues: Thoughts on Society
I’m not surprised that they have sympathy for the shooter. His reasoning behind putting peoples lives in danger, including children, was “it was a way for him to vent his life problems.”
FOR REAL?!! REALLY?!!
If you need to “vent” your life problems then take your ass to a damn psychiatrist!
People are so dumb its unreal.
Uhh… wow.
I’m also from around that area. A white male quite literally explaining that the only way to solve his entitlement problems is to shoot a gun in a public space.
But seriously. Yes on Prop 30. Or start saving up like hell because you’re going to need to have another $2,000 more every quarter.
You think tuition is absurdly high for a public higher education that was supposed to be affordable and accessible? Try blowing the roof off that number and seeing tuition DOUBLE in just FOUR YEARS.
Be educated when you vote in the California elections!
SIMPLY:
1) DON’T VOTE THIS ELECTION
2) VOTE NO ON PROPOSITION 30
3) DON’T REBLOG THIS INFORMATION
At the top of the hierarchy, the Feudal Lord, the Chancellor. Up in clouds of authority, unaware, or purposefully unaware, of the suffering below.
Serving the Lord are Treasurers, Vice Chancellors, counting and distributing the fiefdom’s money.
They sit and watch with amusement as the Nobility, the Deans, squabble over who should get the most money, who should have the most prestigious and well funded school.
All the while, the Clergy, the Faculty members, sit in their untouchable safe haven of academia, with the sole purpose of getting the Peasants and Craftsmen in and out of their convert system as fast as possible. Of course, you have to pay a fee to be converted and have your soul saved though, through a piece of paper acknowledging your payment.
The Craftsmen, the Graduate Students. On the lower rungs of the ladder, but offered marginal benefits for their skilled labor.
The chosen representatives of the Peasants, the Student Governments, given little to no actual power, are tasked with keeping the Peasants happy by throwing festivals. The authorities will never remind the representatives that their actual duty is to protect the Peasants and advocate on their behalf.
And ah, the Peasants. Working every day, doing what they can to get by. Paying their tithes to the Feudal Lord. Milked dry of their money and time, to fill the coffers of the fiefdom.
They are the people who make the fiefdom possible. Yet they are treated the worst, and receive the least for what they give. The upper authorities don’t care about the Peasants, we are just each another $50,000 number to them. The faster they can get our money, the better. The more then can get us to overpay for Summer Session, the better. But of course, we don’t have much of a choice. We work and pay our tithes because we need to survive, and because we believe that the system works for us. But we also think that we don’t have power over those above us. We think that it’s easier to just pay the fees and get our salvation through a piece of paper. We don’t imagine, we don’t envision, a better world, a world where we might actually be respected as human beings seeking a future. We don’t realize the power we have. We don’t realize that if the Peasants stopped paying their tithes, the Feudal Lord will have no money and no power. But we’ll likely never do that, because we are trained to be docile and passive.
It is very unfortunate.
EVERYONE
TODAY, the California State Senate is voting on the Middle Class Scholarship Act, a two part bill that would close an out-of-state corporate tax loophole in order to fund scholarships accessible to UC or CSU student whose family ma
http://asmdc.org/issues/middleclassscholarship/
You can help this bill pass by participating in a CALL-IN ACTION. Simply call these 6 Senators and tell them that you urge their support for AB 1500 and 1501.
If you need a script, you can say something along these lines: “Good morning. My name is ____________ and I attend __________________. I would like to urge Senator _______ to vote in yes on AB 1500 and 1501, the Middle Class Scholarship, to help solve the crisis of affordability at the University of California. Thank you for your time.”
Senator Tony Strickland
Capitol Office
Sacramento
(916) 651-4019
Senator Roderick D. Wright
Capitol Office
Sacramento
(916) 651-4025
Senator Gloria Negrete McLeod
Capitol Office
Sacramento
(916) 651-4032
Senator Lou Correa
Capitol Office
Sacramento
(916) 651-4034
Senator Mark Wyland
Capitol Office
Sacramento
(916) 651-4038
Senator Bob Dutton
Capitol Office
Sacramento
(916) 651-4031
These are talking points/notes I prepared for myself going into the Lobby Visit yesterday!
AB 1436
>Same Day Voter Registration and then Same Day Voting
>Previously, must Register 15 Days prior to Election Day
>Fraud Penalty raised from $10,000 to $25,000
>Other States: 10%-12% Higher Voter Turnout, No Significant Increase in Fraud
>Other States: Idaho, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Wyoming
>Procedural Canvass Period after every election anyways, provides time to check for double-voting/fraud
>Great benefits for College Students, because College Students change addresses essentially every year, may not remember to re-register
Middle Class Scholarship AB 1500 and AB 1501
>Family Income under $80,000 already get Blue and Gold
>Many who don’t meet that strict threshold, but don’t make quite enough to properly cover the ridiculous cost of higher education
>So, Under $150,000-160,000, Above $80,000, would get Middle Class Scholarship
>Projected: UC’S 42,000 Students Affected, save $8,000 each
>Projected: CSU’S 150,000 Students Affected, save $4,000 each
>Projected: Community Colleges get $150 million for Affordability Programs
>Closes Tax Loophole for Out of State Businesses
>Brings Out of State Businesses to level playing field with Local Businesses
>Every $1 invested in Higher Education is $3 back to California
This is the first time in person I’ve witnessed first hand the news media twist the facts and show ridiculous bias in their “reporting”. Do a Ctrl+F for the word “lobby” in that Sac Bee article. You won’t find it. They felt that it was more important to focus on some Occupy people than the fact that HUNDREDS of UC students followed ALL THE RULES to LOBBY our California legislators or their staffers. Do a Ctrl+F for the word “UCSA”, you won’t find that either. Perhaps it wasn’t important to report on our coalition of UC’s, CSU’s, and Community Colleges that worked so hard for this march and rally. Kind of really disgusting.
Thousands of students and activists marched through Sacramento’s streets and rallied outside the state Capitol on Monday to protest cuts to California’s colleges and universities.
“They say cut back, we say fight back!” the students chanted while waving signs saying “fund education, not war” and “cuts in education never heal.”
The plaza on the west side of the Capitol was teeming with protesters during the rally, which was billed as a chance to “occupy the Capitol.” Outside the building, student leaders and top Democrats who voted to slash higher education budgets last year addressed the crowd.
Photo credit: Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press
HEY EVERYONE. I AM IN THE VERY MIDDLE OF THIS PICTURE.
(via antology)
For every $1 California puts into UCI, California gets $25 back.
For every $1 California puts into the UC, California gets $14 back.
For every $1 California puts into Higher Education, California gets $3 back.
A friend of mine recently said in response to UC Student protests against the budget cuts and fee increaes that “Finally, if you absolutely cannot afford the tuition, then you shouldn’t be attending the university. I know plenty of people that chose community college over a public or private university in order to save money. Higher education is encouraged and recommended, but nevertheless, it is a privilege, not an entitlement. These students ignore all the responsible people that actually choose to LIVE WITHIN THEIR MEANS.”
It was pretty shocking to me to hear this coming from a person educated in the California High School system and the University of California system. But it’s a sentiment that I’ve been hearing from different sources. Education in America has turned from a Right into a, as my friend describes it, a Privilege.
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thisisge Asks:
baritonepats Said:
That’s a far more complex issue dealing with the effects of Ronald Reagan’s War on Drugs, the Prison Industrial Complex that reaps profits from the explosive growth of prison inmates and prison buildings. How the system seeks to incarcerate and send inmates back into society with little effort to educate or help them be hard working citizens. Smaller crimes like possession of drugs earn prison time that exposes relatively small time “criminals” to far more dangerous and intense environments that sucks them into the criminal world. Divestment from K-12 education means less ability of schools to provide safe and fostering environments that would help prevent children from entering a life of crime. But the nation doesn’t want to have that conversation. Every time we talk about Prisons, we just say “Lock ‘em up”, instead of looking at more serious underlying issues. Back to the Prison Industrial Complex, law enforcement and local governments have monetary incentives to have strict laws that lock up more small-time transgressors in Prisons run not as rehabilitation facilities, but as a for-profit way to stuff as many prisoners into the smallest space possible and extract the most money from the local/state governments.
Addendum: How does this relate to Higher Education spending in the State of California? Again, there are only two budgetary items that are around $10k (in millions). That is Prisons and Higher Education. The trend, with the rise of the Prison Industrial Complex, has been massive increases in spending on Prisons. It used to be something like $5k to Prisons and $15k to Higher Education, some 30 years ago. The single California budget item that has been eating the money bleeding out of Higher Education is the Prison budget. That is why addressing California’s Prison crisis is a critical component to bringing State contribution back to the UC.
