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Staff Shots

Topic One: Teacher's unions

Wednesday, Arizona state Secretary of Education Lisa Graham Keegan spoke out about her plans for education. She commented that the state of Arizona should take steps to remove tenure from public school teachers, and base their pay, instead, on the basis of job performance.

Don't get upset; the chances of anything of this sort happening are - as they put it in Chicago- Slim and none, and Slim just left town. Why? The teacher's union, potentially the most powerful education lobby group in the country, would not allow it. In this age of pity for public education and anyone who has to work there, no politician in her right mind is going to take a stance against the teachers. Sadly, though, it's a good idea. The current system provides no positive reinforcement. As long as a teacher doesn't sell crack to their student, who also happens to be their lover whom they knifed in a lovers' quarrel over the possession of their pit bull, they won't be fired. And as there are no benefits for doing well, there's no reason that teachers should bother to put in the extra effort. That's not to say that there aren't teachers out there doing a good job, but that our current system isn't supporting them in it. And that, not tenure, is the real tragedy.

Topic Two: Watch out for those lead candles

In yet another example of how our society has completely given itself over to victimization, a Congressional committee last week was hearing testimony about the dangers presented by candles. Yes, candles. It seems that the bastions of new-age touchy-feeliness, candles, are slowly killing off millions of people because of the minuscule amounts of lead used to stiffen up the wicks.

The bottom line: anyone who goes about their life in an apartment filled with five candles per square inch right under their noses, inhaling every last little toxic bit while never opening a window, deserve to die a slow wasting death in forty years. We should warn them, of course, and if they still want to do it, we should let them.

Topic Three: Day-trading legislation

Also on the hill last week, a congressional committee heard testimony on the problems presented by day traders. These traders, a relatively new force in the stock market, operate through the internet without any formal training or instruction. And they generally lose their shirts. That's not the problem. Anyone who doesn't realize that stock brokers go to school for a reason deserve to lose their money and have a perfect right to do so.

However, problems arise when brokerages that serve these day traders don't require sufficient minimum balances or encourage safe investing. In these cases, brokerages have to raid the accounts of legitimate, long-term investors in order to keep the day traders' accounts open so that they can continue to pay commissions.

Day trading is a bad idea, and those that partake in it deserve whatever they get. However, we need some legislation to ensure that they don't take down the real investors with them.

Topic Four: Islamic unity

Last week, the paranoid segment of American society stood up in alarm as the second- and third-largest Islamic groups in the country announced that they would enter into talks with Louis Farrakan's group. Why are people getting upset? Even in our enlightened age, most Americans get scared whenever they see a man with a turban sitting on a plane. For the most part, we are scared of Islamic people and are thus scared that they may be joining together to take us down.

These negotiations are a good thing because they will demonstrate that there is no need for us to be scared of Islamic groups. If anything, they are significantly less dangerous than Pat Robertson and the Christian Coalition, and the quicker we learn it, the better.

Topic Five: Jon Benet resurrected

The last two weeks have seen the airing of two TV movies dramatizing the investigation of the Jon Benet Ramsey murder. We all know that this is in poor taste. We all know that even if the little girl in question was a bit creepy, she doesn't deserve to be part of a TV docudrama. No one deserves that. Instead, the real question is: which is worse, this or the debacle that is "Who Wants to Marry a Multi-millionaire?"