Thanks, Southeast Community and Technical College

by Berry Craig

Teachers at Southeast Community and Technical College
overwhelmingly approved a resolution of no confidence in the Kentucky Community and Technical College system's board of regents and Dr. Michael McCall, the KCTCS president.

The no confidence vote follows a board vote to eliminate tenure for faculty hired after July 1. McCall was apparently behind the board action.

Sixty-eight Southeast faculty members voted for the no
confidence resolution. Thirty voted against and seven abstained.

".The faculty at Southeast Community and Technical College
hereby declare NO CONFIDENCE in the policies of the President and Board of Regents of the Kentucky Community and Technical College System," the resolution says.

Maybe the resolution wasn't the shot heard 'round the world. But it quickly resonated at the opposite end of Kentucky.

Southeast's gutsy move earned quick endorsement at Paducah's West Kentucky Community and Technical College, where I teach history. My division -- Humanities, Fine Arts and Social Sciences - unanimously passed a resolution of support for the no confidence vote. 

My guess is similar resolutions and even additional no
confidence votes will follow from other community and technical colleges.

"Southeast, a rural, Appalachian community college, has faced great challenges to attract a diverse and qualified pool of applicants, and many potential applicants are under the false impression that we are remote and do not offer them and their families the amenities of other communities," the Southeast resolution also says.

When the board axed tenure, it also eliminated post retirement health insurance benefits for new employees. That, too, "will radically reduce the pool of qualified applicants, further constraining education opportunities, and present new challenges for Southeast to retain highly qualified faculty and staff," according to the resolution.

Elsewhere, the resolution says, "academic freedom is
inextricably connected to a system that offers tenure. [T]enure and academic freedom further the common good by securing free speech, the furtherance of truth, unfettered inquiry and the interchange of ideas."

Teachers in the KCTCS system "are essential partners in
curricular and academic program development and tenure is critical to our unrestricted participation in this process," according to the resolution. "[T]enure stands for tolerance and professional independence from administrators, boards of directors, and legislators.[T]enure affords faculty the freedom to speak out about troubling matters and to raise an objection to the administration on matters of curriculum and quality."

Before the board vote, many KCTCS faculty members made it plain they supported continued tenure and retiree health benefits. The KCTCS Faculty Senate approved strong pro-tenure and pro-benefits resolutions. Faculty organizations at several community and technical colleges endorsed the resolutions or passed similar resolutions of their own.

Faculty groups at Northern Kentucky University and Murray State University - my alma mater - approved resolutions favoring continued tenure in our community and technical colleges, many of whose students transfer to public universities like NKU and MSU.

The Kentucky House of Representatives weighed in on our side, too, passing by voice vote a non-binding resolution in favor of keeping tenure and post retirement health insurance benefits. 

Chair Richard Bean and a majority of the board of regents
ignored all that. "It will probably hurt some of our feelings if some people were to think that we weren't making the best decisions for the future of the commonwealth and for the students," the Lexington Herald-Leader quoted Bean in a news story before the no confidence vote.

Bean's plea probably won't win him any new faculty friends. More than a few teachers - and not just at Southeast - think their feelings don't count for much with Bean, most of his board and his boss.

Good teachers make good students and good schools. Good schools - from Harvard and Yale to MSU and NKU and Mayfield High School, my other alma mater - offer tenure. After July 1, community college teachers will be the only public school teachers in the state without the opportunity to earn tenure.

Anyway, Roy Silver, a Southeast sociology professor, has won some new friends in Paducah. He helped ramrod the no confidence vote. Before the vote, he wrote a letter to his colleagues. It does a good job of summarizing how most of us who teach at the state's 16 community and technical colleges feel about what the board did.

"A contract system for faculty can easily be transformed into a patronage system where faculty can be more easily subjected to arbitrary rules, unprofessional governance and lead to producing a revolving door for faculty," the H-L quoted from his letter.

We Presbyterians - "the frozen chosen" - don't usually do
"amens." But I can't resist an "amen" for what Prof. Silver and the 67 other brave souls at Southeast did for all of us who believe "tenure and academic freedom further the common good by securing free speech, the furtherance of truth, unfettered inquiry and the interchange of ideas."

Sunday News Shows

I did watch several news shows today. I know I haven't reported on the news shows in a number of weeks, but hey, everyone deserves a break now and then. It isn't like people are beating my door down to hear my opinions. But I post them for posterity.

Basically, the main theme today was to what extent Obama can continue to use the excuse that he "inherted" all these problems and to what extent he has to start assuming some responsibility for conditions in the U.S. It seems there was some kind of broad agreement amongst the pundits that Obama still doesn't have to assume a lion's share of the responsibility for conditions in the country. But, most think that he has stumbled a bit in convincing some of the upper echelon that he has a good plan for getting us out of this. Of course, they want a plan that gets them out of it scott free, regardless of what everyone else is going through. That isn't going to happen. 

The other thing is Obama's big thinking approach - whether or not he can pull off taking on multiple of the most controversial issues in Washington at the same time. All the other presidents have crashed and burned trying to take on one social security, one medicare, one energy system, etc. Obama says he has to do it all at once to fix the so-called economic problems in the country. I think he's smart to try it this way. Others agree with me, but some think he will never succeed. We'll see.

Crazy times

I don't have a lot of time to write at the moment. But, a lot has been going on here. With the ice storm and such, it's been hard to get a minute to sit and write. But...besides the fact that some bad driver swerved over and hit me on the Brookport Bridge in a terrifying incident, which ended up doing minimal damage to my truck although at the time it sounded like the whole side was getting caved in, on Friday the 13th, and then on Saturday the 14th I found out that my song, "As Long as the Stars Shine," the same song that got me into the Bluebird Cafe, was going to be played on Prairie Home Companion as part of their Valentine's Day poem and song contest, everything has been pretty normal.

Obama's prime time news conference

We watched Obama's prime time news conference last night. It was great to listen to and watch a president who actually acted "presidential" and was articulate. I could hardly swallow one more Bush, the "cowboy" president (not to cast aspersions on cowboys), news conference. Well, thankfully, he never did hold too many. He just never liked to be accountable to anyone.

Obama did paint a bleak picture. But, at least we have someone who doesn't seem to be ready to just sit by and let the system squeeze all of the working people completely dry. Chuck Todd, NBC's new white house correspondent, and someone that I think is pretty smart, said that it was a good performance, but that it was a week late. What's a week in a presidency that is so new that it's full term served thus far is still measured in weeks? I think that is a "weak" analysis. But, it is true, as I noted previously, that he did let the republicans push too far forward (in the spirit of reaching out) and got in a bit of a political bind before he figured out what was going on. If you are going to say that there is an emergency, then you have to do what has to be done right now - you can't sit and argue with the ambulance driver over what's the fastest way to get to the scene too long or the patient is going to die waiting.

But I do have some concerns about the "stimulus package." One is that I still wonder whether or not accumulating more debt is the solution the problem of too much debt. But, then again, if money can get shifted from those parties with large amounts to those with lesser amounts, it sort of serves the same purpose. But, the federal deficit cannot just grow forever.

The republicans are really coming off bad I think. They just don't want to agree with any ideas of Obama or the other dems. That's a mistake. Those that ascribe to the survival of the fittest - just let the money situation play itself out - are calloused about the impacts of that on humans. And there's fewer of them than those that will be impacted. That's why their kind got voted out of power in the last two elections. But I'm still not sure that Obama is thinking out of the box enough. Even as late as this afternoon, the system didn't like Geitner's presentation today about saving the financial system, and they sold off their stocks in large numbers. 

A lot of this is about confidence. I certainly have more confidence in Obama than Bush, but, he is not a miracle worker. He is, however, trying, and putting the lower income people higher on the scale than Bush ever thought about doing. But, he needs to be very creative - have some artists around him - not just surround himself with the same old bureacratic types.

Obama can't let republicans dictate

The republicans, after a disgraced president and congressional majority, which has lead our country down the path of ruin, are now trying to push the young, new, and inexperienced but popular president, Obama, around. Obama can't let that happen. 

Sure, give guys enough rope and they will hang themselves, but that isn't what is happening. Obama is on the verge of letting the republicans get a lot of credit for the "stimulus package." That just is dumb and Obama has to get over this fettish of his to get republican support, and use the authority he has gotten from his election and those of his party to get things done. Force the republicans to respond to you, not you to them.

Politics as usual

Even though I'm generally a big supporter of Obama, and believe that he is going to be a lot better president than Bush, I still don't rubber stamp he does. I questioned his drawing too much on familiar old democratic party figures for his top cabinet and other advisors. How can he represent change if what we are getting is more of the same?

Why he has put himself thru all of this in the last couple weeks spending his political capital defending guys (and a gal) who have income tax problems is beyond me. I mean, Geitner shouldn't have gotten in as Treasury Secretary, really. 

An article in yesterday's USA Today entitled " 'Two nobodies from nowhere' craft winning ad'," about two brothers from Indiana who won the Doritos ad contest and got their ad broadcast during the Superbowl, and walked away with the award for the most popular ad, had the following quote which I think is applicable. "Regular people have great ideas." This quote is attributed to one of the judges of the ads, all "regular people." 

Obama should have known better. I know that the political pressure to have democratic party big shots put into these spots had to have been immense, and these are people that know the system, and you want some of those around you. But, "regular people have great ideas," and we need that right now, especially if we are going to change things. 

Do I think any "regular people" will make into the upper echelons of the Obama administration? No, not really. But they should. In a nation of 300 million people, we ought to be able to draw from more than a pool of a few hundred people to lead the country, especially when that pool has failed us so miserably in the past.

Sunday News Shows

On this last day of January, 2010, I watched the news shows that I have available. They really keep us poor rural folk uneducated if they can. 

Meet the Press had Axelrod and Boehner. Boring. The roundtable didn't really give me much either.

To the Contrary had an interesting discussion about why females get so few federal contracts. The conservative women tried to say that women just don't bother with it because of all the paperwork. That's a pathetic answer, especially from females. 

Inside Washington had the best discussion of Obama challenging the Supreme Court decision on campaign finance. By now, anyone half awake knows that Alito shook his head and said "not true" when Obama said that the the decision would allow foreign corporations to influence U.S. elections through campaign contributions. I'm hearing some dispute of this, so I'm going to have to read the order I guess. I have to prepare my eyes for overglazing. 

But Colby King, the African-American former banker turned journalist/TV talking head, who usually really supports Obama, said that it wasn't the right place to bring it up. Personally, I think Obama was cool to bring it up, because it's probably true, and Alito was ok to do his silent mouthing. Big deal. Alito is the one touting free speech with few limits, so he has to live with his creation. And if he can muster mouthing "not true" on camera, good for him. Heck, he is one of 9 in the country. But, as I have written before, this number of justices is way out of date and needs to be expanded badly. 

I thought that Sandra O'Connor, former Reagan appointee supreme court justice, said it best. She said something to the effect that if you couldn't recognize the impacts of the influence of excessive money in the political process, it was like not noticing an alligator in your bathtub. So I think Alito is using his position for political purposes. I don't expect an objective judgment from him, or Roberts, to tell you the truth. They are political animals. And in this atmosphere, should we expect different?

 

The Fix is IN

I guess i should comment on the Blagojevich stuff going on in my home state. Yeah, I watched him today and this weekend on the major media, and honestly I don't blame him for doing it. It's all he has. "The fix is in," as he put it. He's getting fired.

But should he? What kind of standard should be set for removing a duly elected official? Shouldn't it be pretty high? Like, for example, convicted of a crime? Well, at least indicted...geez. I stilli think that the bigger story isn't being told here. Blagojevich is trying to portray it as he, the knight on the white horse who was protecting the lil' people by taking on big, brutal, power hungry legislature who is being driven by the greedy corporations. 

Believe me, there's a lot more to i this than what meets the eye. You can't believe the legislature and you can't believe Blagojevich. To me, what this shows is just how sick our state government has become. And it's a shame, because it's a large government - a government that spends lots and lots of our money. I've always thought it was very ironic that state open government laws in Illinois, for the most part, were less open than similar federal laws. Yet, the state government is supposed to be closer to the people and therefore more accessible. And, even adding to that is that we live in one of the bluest of blue states.

So how is this happening? A governor who isn't even indicted is getting impeached? The Lt. Gov. who is going to become governor was one of the lead people going to the media and saying that the Governor should be impeached? And it isn't even coming from the other party - it's coming from Democrats. It's amazing to me, and I just know that the real story behind this is a story of raw political power being exercised in a most unusual way for some end. What that end really is will make a great story.

 

Sunday News Shows

There were a few noteworthy moments in the Sunday News Shows for today. First, on Chris Matthews, he played a short clip of the first couple lines of "My Country 'Tis of Thee" as sung by Aretha Franklin at the inauguration on Tuesday. Then, he pulled out this clip of black and white tape from the 30s I believe, of Marian Anderson singing (and he allowed the entire song to be aired) the same song at the Washington Monument, after there were objections to her singing at the inauguration of FDR because of her race. Eleanor Roosevelt, according to Matthews, had stepped in and set up this particular event. It was quite moving, and I had never heard the story before. "My Country 'Tis of Thee" is one of our best (non-national anthem) patriotic songs, along with "America the Beautiful." Kudos to Matthews for the filmclip, probably the highlight of the morning.

Also on Matthews, they discussed whether or not Obama was going to allow prosecutions of Bush administration officials for their handling of prisoners - torture and abuse and the like. The most interesting comment was one that while Rep. Conyers may hold hearings in his committee, that Reid would block it in the senate. Uh huh? So the law doesn't apply to certain people? Only those who get picked up with a joint, throw the book at them. That kind of hypocricy really gets me. One more strike against Reid. 

It also was stated that Holder's nomination for Attorney General is being held up by the republicans for a promise that he will not go after the Bush administration. I guess, since the nomination is still on hold, Holder hasn't promised.

But, I had previously seen an interview with Pelosi recently in which she had also said that bringing these kind of issues up in regard to the war on terror wasn't something she was interested in, but that she was interested in delving into the U.S. Attorney firings. So, I guess when all is said and done, it will be interesting to see what happens. Probably nothing. But anyone with a joint better keep it hidden or else!

Another interesting tidbit was at the Roundtable on the Stephanopolous show on ABC. At one point, Mr. Hoity-Toity himself, George Will, made a comment about a economic study in the past which he said indicated that economic stimulus basically didn't work, and Paul Krugman jumped him immediately and said, "That study doesn't say that, it says that you should use monetary policy first, but we've reduced interest rates to about zero, so there's no monetary policy left for us to act on." Will for once in his life looked befuddled. I loved that.

Face the Nation had Veep Joe Biden. When Schieffer asked Biden about whether or not we had notified the Pakistan Govt. before this latest drone strike in Pakistan, which happened after Obama became president. He wouldn't answer the question. 

On Stephanopolous' sunday funnies segment, there was a hilarious spot from Jon Stewart, in which he showed a photo of Osama Bin Laden wearing the same hat that Aretha Franklin wore while she sang at the inauguration. If you saw it, you know what he means. His caption was, "Aretha's inauguration hat is making a worldwide fashion splash, Osama Bin Laden was seen wearing it," or something to that effect. Very funny!

Rosa Scott takes over presidency of NAACP chapter in Paducah

Rosa Scott, an African American woman from Paducah who is a strong community activist, has become the new president of the Paducah chapter of the NAACP. Rosa, who I like, respect, and admire, has, in my opinion, crashed a huge barrier in assuming this important leadership position in Paducah. 

The former president, who had held the position for a couple decades, J.W. Cleary, was well entrenched in the position. Cleary had done a lot for the community, but he realized, rightfully, I believe, that it was time for him to pass the torch. The fact that a younger female has taken over the position indicates a significant change. 

Cleary took one what I consider to be strange position a few years ago that was in total opposition to what I was trying to do. When Kentucky was trying to close the Liquid Waste Disposal (LWD) hazardous waste incinerator in nearby Calvert City, Kristi and I, and several of our allies, showed up at the hearing the state held to get public comment on their proposal to finally deny LWD's part B operatin g permit and shut them down. The reason for the shutdown was that LWD had repeatedly missed deadlines to establish an adequate reserve fund for cleaning up the site after they closed - a permit requirement. In fact, LWD was in bankruptcy and their debtors were filing liens against the facility, which was highly polluted. 

Cleary showed up at the hearing and testified against closing the facility - because, he said, a number of minority folks worked there and they needed the jobs. He insinuated that closing LWD was racially biased. I thought that was ill-advised and a stretch. LWD was an environmental disaster, and Cleary mentioned nothing about the environment. NAACP needs to be cognizant of environmental issues. But, this is just one incident in a series of very good public advocacy, and Cleary needs to be congratulated for his service. 

But Paducah needs and is ready for new energy in the NAACP. And I'm sure that Rosa Scott will bring it.

 

Inaugural address

I watched now actually President Obama's inaugural speech. I thought it was great except for one little thing - he said that we can run our factories, etc. by the sun, wind, and soil. Well, we need to be conserving, and that has to be number one - cut the waste in usage. Then, we cannot expect more out of our soil than it can give. I know that as one who grows food organically commercially. If we think that the soil can run our factories and cars, we are going to deplete our soil faster than we already are, and we are depleting it at unprecedented levels through industrial farming techniques. 

But other than that, I liked the speech - I thought Obama did a great job. He certainly showed the strain of the responsibility.

 

Burris gets in

Certainly I'm not surprised that Burris is going to be our Senator, and I'm not that unhappy about it. Hopefully Burris will be a good senator, and do what he needs to do to hold the seat. He has handled himself with dignity and good humor as he went through this process. And, he had to have some of the necessary ambition to take the appointment in the first place. 

How this will affect the criminal case against Blagojevich, I'm not sure. But everyone seems convinced that he did not sell the senate seat to Burris - Burris said he didn't have the money. So if he didn't sell the seat, he can't very well be accused of selling the seat, can he? 

Sure there are other things in the criminal complaint, and maybe that will be enough to bring down Blago, but the Illinois Senate best be very fair with how they handle the trial. Any hint that the trial is the same kind of kangaroo court that came out of the Illinois House, and these bodies will be losing credibility for a long time to come. Illinois is now under national scrutiny, not least because it is Obama's home state and all this is going on in his home town. 

I still say that Reid, Durbin, and the others mishandled this at first. OK, we all make mistakes. But this one went to a core Democrat value - the right to due process, the presumption of innocence, and the right to privacy. How the Dems could have just chucked away all those principles to go after Blago with such venom is still a mystery to me. I still believe that there are things going on not being reported by the mainstream media. 

You give me a fraction of the money that some of these high priced pundits are making, and I'd give a good stab at figuring it out. No wonder newspapers are failing left and right. They aren't telling us anything interesting. And that is because they are corporate and don't want to rat out their corporate buddies. If newspapers would go after the truth and report it, people would buy them. That's the problem. And this Illinois mess is a good example as to how the newspaper people are missing the real story. At least that's what I think. (And we're very good consumers of newspapers).

Sunday News Shows

I watched a number of news shows this morning. There are a couple things about which I want to comment. First, I guess I should mention the Blago/Burris U.S. Senate seat for Illinois - in fact, Obama's seat. It now looks pretty much like the Senate is going to seat Burris. Burris has gained in stature - much more than he ever did from any of his campaigns - by the way he has handled himself going through this. He now has gone from a desperado who only could get in the Senate via a tainted appointment to a persistent, polite, intelligent, good-humored, and right on the law politician who got the best of Harry Reid, Durbin, and even Obama himself. Good for you Mr. Burris. I hope you make a good senator. I think you will, and may surprise people with how good you are. But, if you want to keep your seat, you better get out and travel the state non-stop in the next two years, hold a lot of town meetings, and avoid Sen. Moseley-Braun's mistake of never meeting her constituents. 

Second, there was a lot of talk about congressional Dems being more upset about Obama's proposed economic stimulus plan than the republicans - mostly because of the proportion of tax cuts in the proposal to infrastructure improvement spending. 

I wouldn't make too much of this. It really is a clever strategy. When Obama can't get that through congress, of course he is going to change to be more in line with his fellow Democrats rather than let the thing die - he says he have to have it and immediately. He can turn to the republicans and say - sorry guys and gals, but I tried for you - we're just going to have to go along with the Dems. It's going to be really hard for the republicans at that point to put up too much resistance to what Obama wants. 

Obama was interviewed by Stephanopolous. It's the same interview he has given ad naseum for the last month or more. I found nothing really new in it, other than they have narrowed down the dog choice to one of two breeds. Obama refused to comment on what is going on in Gaza. Israel's Gaza strategy is turning out to not turn out so good - at least that how it seems to me. Not much improvement on the ground and the world turning more and more against Israel. There was some mention in one of the shows that Obama was considering "low level" diplomatic contacts with Hamas and Iran. Good thinking! The sooner the better. This strategy of just pretending they aren't even human by labelling them "terrorist" simply because they use violence as a tactic (what is Israel doing right now? Isn't that terrorism to the max?) is a dumb, counterproductive, artificial political stance that is doing the U.S. and the world no good. 

I did agree with Newt Gingrich on one thing - that the so called "drug war" that is going on in Mexico is the most underreported story and the issue that Obama is going to have to deal with that isn't on the radar screen at all at the moment. I'm not professing to know what the facts are, but when non governmental forces are attacking police forces, politicians, and judges and creating chaos with a level of impunity, it is a sign that their society has serious problems, at least in certain parts of the country. I don't agree with Gingrich about much, that's for sure.

Durbin and entourage meet Chu on FutureGen

According to a number of news reports, starting early this morning and continuing up to the present, my senior U.S. Senator and the number 2 man in the senate, met today with new Energy Sec. nominee Chu, to discuss the possibility of renewing the "FutureGen" project slated for the Mattoon, Illinois. This isn't the first time I have written about FutureGen. http://www.ruralthoughts.net/?q=node/25

In a nutshell, FutureGen is a coal fired power plant which purportedly captures the CO2 and then injects it into the ground for "permanent" storage, thus keeping it from getting into the atmosphere and contributing to global warming. That is supposed to make it totally acceptable from an environmental point of view. I, myself, don't buy 

According to the St. Louis BizJournal  http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stories/2009/01/05/daily51.html
"After facing resistance to the project from the Bush administration, Durbin had blocked three energy department nominations.

'It is clear after today’s meeting, Dr. Chu understands the importance of FutureGen to Illinois and is fully aware of the delegation’s commitment to moving the project forward,' Durbin, D-Springfield, said in a statement.

"The meeting also included Ill. U.S. Reps. Tim Johnson, R-15th; Judy Biggert, R-13th, Bill Foster, D-14th; Jerry Costello, D-12th; and Jan Schakowsky, D-9th, along with staff from the office of Rep. John Shimkus, R-19th...With President-elect Barack Obama’s administration headed to Washington, supporters see new prospects for federal backing."

Considering that Durbin convinced Obama to run and is his number one supporter in the Congress, it is highly likely that what Durbin wants Durbin gets. But isn't it ironic that this meeting comes on the heels of one of the most serious coal disasters that has occurred in the midwest - the coal ash sludge pond dam failure and the flooding of hundreds of acres of residential land with hundreds of millions of gallons of coal ash sludge in Tennessee. 

And while, if you believe the hype, and there is no long term data, and not much short term data, that the process works, even if it does trap the CO2 forever, which I doubt, it doesn't address the environmental issues caused by coal ash sludge ponds, the mining of coal itself, and the transportation of that coal - much of it from Wyoming to the east on large coal trains. Those processes themselves create much carbon release and other environmental impacts. 

But Durbin and the other politicians see it as jobs, and right now jobs may trump all. But ask those folks in the southern Appalachian mountains, or those which have been undermined by "longwall" mining only to see their houses sink into the ground, or the many other places that coal mining has destroyed or degraded, or those living near coal ash ponds or sludge ponds, whether or not they support FutureGen. But Durbin and the others don't want to go there. They want to go with the quick and dirty jobs. It's greenwashing of a very unfortunate kind at a very unfortunate time. 

Durbin is really a good guy all in all. I have met him more than once. For the most part, I like him, I have voted for him every chance I have had, and I am proud to have him as senator compared to most of the senators. So it is a little surprising to see him so gung ho over this what I consider to be superficially environmentally benign coal plant. It's a much more complex issue. If we have FutureGens all over the place in the near future, one knows that the impacts are going to be severe. I would have to point out to Durbin those hand painted signed in the middle of the coal ash spill in Tennessee which simply asked, "Clean Coal?"