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]]> http://mikebreed.wordpress.com/2012/01/27/whiskey-for-breakfast/feed/ 0 mikebreed Media_httpaudioboofmb_nzhgi http://mikebreed.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/dear-alabama/ http://mikebreed.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/dear-alabama/#comments Thu, 01 Dec 2011 17:15:21 +0000 Mike http://mikebreed.wordpress.com/?p=284 ]]> Dear Alabama,

As a former resident, I have a soft place in my heart for you. I joined my first Cub Scout pack while I was in grade school in Sandusky. I’ve been to the statue of Vulcan and peered over Noccalula Falls. I shook Bear Bryant’s hand when I was in third grade and snuck into the Alabama/Auburn game when I was in college.

So forgive me when I say you’re killing yourself with this Draconian immigration law.

Ever since Arizona decided to take a hard line, Republican legislatures around the country have been chomping at the bits to one-up each other. In Alabama, they passed HB56, which requires proof of legal status for any transaction involving the state. That law turns teachers, doctors, police and the receptionist at the water department into immigration agents.

The results?  Crops are rotting in the fields. Alabama’s economy is shrinking as undocumented workers leave, taking their economic impact to a less repressive state.

“Good!” says the law-and-order hardliners among us. They shouldn’t be here in the first place. The labor problem will eventually work itself out. Besides, now we can put more inmates to work.

As we’ve seen so often, zero tolerance leads to zero common sense. In Tuscaloosa last week a German executive with Mercedes-Benz was arrested for driving while foreign (he’d left his passport back in his hotel and charges have since been dropped). Mercedes Benz opened an auto plant in Vance back in 1993 (once the state finally took the Confederate flag down from the Capitol). This led to Honda, Toyota and Hyundai opening plants in Alabama. These foreign companies are huge sources of employment for the state.

This week, a Japanese man who works for Honda was issued a ticket in Birmingham. He had his passport and a valid drivers license, so it isn’t clear why he was cited. But it made national news anyway. The next time a foreign company wants to set up shop in the states, do you think Alabama is going to make the short list? Do you think other states are courting these companies now?

Less than 2.5 percent of Alabama’s population are undocumented immigrants. That’s about 120,000 people. It costs taxpayers $23,482 to deport one person. Do the math. I’ll wait. In 2010, those same people paid $130 million in income, state and sales taxes. But that’s okay because Alabama’s economy is doing fine, right?

The law-and-order hardliners may not care about breaking up families or disrupting lives, but how do they feel about paying more for the food they eat? What about the local businesses that will go under without the revenue generated by these people? What about the next foreign automaker who is looking for a home in the USA? What about the money you’re going to spend defending this stupid law in court?

As a Tennessean, it is easy just to say “Screw it, It’s Alabama, who cares?” I care because the Tennessee state legislature is controlled by Republicans and they’re already beating themselves over the head to try to out-conservative other states with their voter ID law. An anti-immigration law is coming too and I don’t want my home state to be in the same xenophobic boat as the “Heart of Dixie.”

Taken at Doak House Museum
]]> http://mikebreed.wordpress.com/2011/10/28/last-friday-of-the-month-local-musicians-come-to-the-doak-house-museum-to-play-old-timey-mountain-music-mountainmusic-strings-dontcallitbluegrass/feed/ 0 mikebreed Media_httpimagesinsta_hivbn http://mikebreed.wordpress.com/2011/10/16/fall-tv-2011-part-ii-the-dramas/ http://mikebreed.wordpress.com/2011/10/16/fall-tv-2011-part-ii-the-dramas/#comments Sun, 16 Oct 2011 18:03:50 +0000 Mike http://mikebreed.wordpress.com/?p=281 ]]> I’m not a huge fan of TV dramas. I tend to get invested in characters only to see really good, innovative and groundbreaking series cancelled due to lack of ratings. *cough* “Boomtown” *cough* “Life” *cough* “Journeyman” *cough* “Human Target” *cough*

My finger isn’t exactly on the pulse of the mainstream. But I watch them (well, most of them) to see for myself which one will break my heart next.

The Good:

“Person of Interest”
CBS, Thursdays, 9/8

For those of you who miss “The Human Target,” “Person of Interest” fills the void quite nicely. There isn’t as much humor, but there are so few shows these days that feature a guy who can enter a room full of thugs, beat them all down with a briefcase and walk away without killing anyone or getting scratched.

The premise is intriguing. After 9/11, the government developed a machine that monitors all communications, security cameras, text messages, cellphone calls and everything else. It looks for terrorist activity and divides everything into two categories: relevant (terrorism) and irrelevant (everything else). The irrelevant data is erased each day. Or that’s what the government thinks.

Instead, the irrelevant data is sorted and sent to the original programmer in the form of a list of social security numbers. The number at the top of the list represents a person who has some connection to a violent crime that has yet to be committed. So, that person gets stalked until we figure out if they’re the victim or the criminal and then doors get kicked in and people get beat up with briefcases. It’s all quite exciting and fun.

Oh, and if it’s Mark Valley you’re missing from “Human Target,” he just joined the cast of “Harry’s Law” as a different lawyer than the one he played on “Boston Legal.” Personally, I miss “Keen Eddie.”

“Pan Am”
CBS, Sundays, 10/9

This is a period piece about the long-gone airline and how, in the 1960s, people treated flying as an occasion worthy of wearing one’s Sunday best. I like Christina Ricci very much, but she’s going to have to turn down the doe eyes (or I’m going to have to work out some sort of filter on my TV). She occasionally looks like an anime character.

I like this weirdly sanitized version of the 1960s where no one smokes and an airline stewardess might just be a courier for the CIA. “Pan Am” follows four stewardesses as they jet-set across the globe finding adventure, when they’re not being harassed by the company snitch during their pre-flight weigh-in and girdle check. There is international intrigue, cool locations, some historical recreations and at least one overly aggressive passenger getting jabbed with a serving fork. I like it.

The Bad:

“Charlie’s Angels”
See below.

The Meh:

“Terra Nova”
Fox, Mondays, 8/7

We all knew this one was going to be a spectacle. First off, it stars Jason O’mara who we last saw in “Life on Mars” in which he played a cop who travels back in time. In “TerraNova” he . . . well . . . plays a cop who travels back in time. This time, instead of the 1970s, it is a parallel Earth some 35 million years in the past. I don’t like the kids, not crazy about the wife or the oldest son’s love interest. But the plots have been interesting so far and the effects are pretty incredible.

What the series really needs a cool villain.

“Prime Suspect”
NBC, Thursdays, 10/9

This is not your British grandmother’s “Prime Suspect.” For one thing, Detective Jane Timoney doesn’t take an entire season to solve a murder. She wraps it up in about an hour. She’s tough, she’s quick, she’s trying to quit smoking and she looks good in a fedora. I like this show a lot, but I put it in the “meh” category because it is another in a long line of cop procedurals without much to distinguish it from every other one. Ooooh, there’s a woman detective in homicide. Just like in “Castle” today or “Police Woman” back when my dad was in control of what TV shows I watched.

It’s 2011. Is it really all that novel to have a female lead in a police procedural? Nope. Does every female homicide detective have to be harassed by the men on the force? Yeah, most of the time (not so much on “Castle”). I have yet to see that “ah-hah” episode that’s going to make this series stand out from the hundreds that have come and gone before it. It is a well-written, gritty police drama. If you like that sort of thing, you’ll find something to like here.

“Unforgettable”
CBS, Tuesdays, 10/9

Hey look! It’s a police drama with a woman detective. The difference here is that she has a rare condition that makes it impossible for her to forget what she sees. She can remember everything that’s ever happened to her except for the day her sister was murdered. Oh, and her mother is in a nursing home and can’t remember anything. I like the show because Poppy Montgomery is amazingly hot and she wears a lot of tank tops. That might be enough to carry the series (if I were in charge it would be) but I doubt it.

Last season Dr. House had a patient with the same condition. She had a problem with forgiving people who had slighted her because her memory of it was always fresh on her mind. In “Unforgettable,” she mostly uses it to count cards and remember mysterious shadows and objects that were different the last time she was there.

The Not-Yet-Premiered:

“Alcatraz“
Fox

The new “Lost?”

“The Finder”
Fox

A “Bones” spin-off with only a tangential connection to the original series.

“Touch”
Fox

“Once Upon A Time”
ABC, Sunday, 8/7

I sometimes wonder if TV writers all share the same water cooler. That’s how we get evil twin brunettes on “Bewitched” and “I Dream of Jeanie” in the same season.

“Grimm”
NBC, Friday, 9/8

The Canceled:

“The Playboy Club”

The cancelation isn’t all that surprising, seeing as how I couldn’t make it through the entire pilot. It had the professional tongue cluckers in a lather, worrying that it might be too sexy for network television. They shouldn’t have bothered. It was too boring to capture anyone’s attention for very long.

“Charlie’s Angels”

Couldn’t make it through the pilot, so I figured it was doomed. How do you make a show about three sexy women who kick butt and solve crimes and make it suck so bad? *cough* “Snoops” *cough*

The Hidden:

“Homeland”
Showtime

After a Marine sergeant is rescued from al Queda, he comes home to a hero’s welcome. Of course during his 8-year stay as a POW, he may or may not have been turned. One woman at the CIA thinks so and sets up illegal surveillance on him to  make sure. The Marines want him back, but they don’t see him praying to Allah in his garage. It’s all very psychological and thrilling and has a gloomy Mandy Patankin in it.

“Boss”
Starz

Kelsey Grammar plays the mayor of Chicago with a rare and debilitating brain disease that is slowly killing him. It’s good to see him stretch out and flex his acting muscles and playing the heavy. It’s an election year and Chicago isn’t exactly known for having free and fair elections (especially on TV). We’re still too early in the series to know if it will be any good, but I enjoyed the pilot, which Starz made available to non-subscribers via OnDemand.

Unwatched:

“A Gifted Man”
CBS, Fridays 8/7

This isn’t written for me and, as much as I’d like to say I’ve reviewed it and found it wanting, I can’t bring myself to bother (at least not yet). A surgeon’s wife dies and her ghost helps him with his patients. I envision lots of soft light, lonely stares out of windows and good-natured friends trying to get him to move on. Pass.

“Revenge”
ABC, Wednesdays, 10/9

I hear good things, but I can’t believe most of them because I hear them on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” I will probably get around to watching this, but I’m betting it gets canceled before I bother.

The Good:

“The New Girl“
F0x, Wednesdays, 9:30/8:30

I love this show, which means it’s probably doomed. But I bet they get at least two seasons out of it. Zooey Deschanel plays Jess Day, a single gal who just got out of a bad relationship (of six years) and has moved into a really cool apartment with three guys: Schmitt, a thumb-ring-wearing, gym rat with a cadre of d-bag friends;  Nick, who is still trying to get over his bad break up; and Winston, an out-of-work pro basketball player (in Latvia). Jess is a nrrrd grrl who negotiates her way through life by making Lord of the Rings references and constantly singing her own theme song.
It is clever, funny and one of the best new shows out there. So, like I said, doomed.

“Suburgatory“
ABC, Wednesdays 8:30/7:30

George discovers that his teenage daughter Tessa has an unopened box of condoms in her room. He freaks and moves the two of them from Manhattan to the suburbs.  There she is thrown into a microcosm of mean girls, desperate housewives and Heathers. The writing is good, the acting is spot on and the first two episodes made me laugh out loud. Tessa is the narrator of what seems to be an anthropology report about the weird people and customs she finds in suburbia. Extra points for the supporting cast which includes Cheryl Hines and Noah Werner.

“2 Broke Girls“
CBS, Mondays, 8:30/7:30

This is one of two shows created by very funny comic Whitney Cummings. This is the better of the two. It is a gal-pal comedy about Max, a fierce New York waitress struggling to get by and her new co-worker and roommate Caroline, an heiress to a fortune that recently vanished in scandal and ignominy. They work at a diner, saving up their tips so they can open a cupcake store. It sounds worse than it is. The dialogue is snappy and the stories (at least the first two episodes) are funny. I’m not sure how long they can maintain Caroline’s privileged naiveté or Max’s aggressive stand-offishness. A second season is doubtful and that’s too bad.

The Bad:

“How to Be a Gentleman“
CBS, Thursday, 8:30/7:30

I wanted to like this show. I really did. but it’s just not very funny. It’s about a magazine columnist (is that even a real thing anymore?) who writes about how to be a gentleman. The magazine is bought out and they want more columns about where to get good bottle service and less about where to buy shirts with French cuffs. So, he turns to his high school bully to help him. It is worse than it sounds. Pass.

The “Meh”

“Up All Night“
NBC, Wednesdays 8/7

Christina Applegate and Will Arnet play new parents struggling with sleep deprivation, growing older and balancing work and family. They are funny together, but I feel like I’ve seen this before. The best thing about this show is Maya Rudolph as talk show host “Vera.”

“Whitney“
NBC, Thursdays, 9:30/8:30

Whitney Cummings’ other (and lesser) series is based on her stand-up comedy. At its bones it is a relationship sitcom. It wants you to think that it is a new take, but it really isn’t. She and her live-in boyfriend struggle with the usual fare: he’s attracted to an attractive woman, she wants to spice up the relationship, guys don’t understand girls and vice versa. NBC must have high hopes as they’re using “The Office” as a lead in, but that didn’t help “Outsourced” very much, did it?

The Waiting In The Wings:

“Last Man Standing“
ABC, Tuesdays, 8/7

Is anyone really pining to see Tim Allen return to series television?  I fully expect this show will help fill out the bad section after it premiers.

“Man Up“
ABC, Tuesday, 8:30/7:30

I don’t know anything about this show other than what’s on the web site. Three guys trying to find love in a modern worl…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

The Canceled:

“Free Agents“
NBC, Wednesday, 8/7

Ouch. Hank Azaria’s sitcom about a pr/marketing/advertising agent getting over a messy divorce, sleeping with an office colleague and trying to . . . oh who cares. It’s canceled. You can’t even find it on the NBC home page anymore.  I laughed at the pilot, loved Natasha Leggero as the saucy executive assistant and Al Madrigal as the dopey married guy.

While I am not a constituent of yours, I have followed your career closely for many years. Up until today, I’ve always listed you as “one of the good ones.” You have a history of being a fighter, a political bomb thrower with a talent for both media and public relations. You could have been a star.

That is why I am so saddened by the news that you’re just another dumb ass in Congress.

I wanted to believe. It seemed plausible, if not likely, that someone was able to access your Yfrog account and send a picture of your underwear-clad genitals to a young woman in Seattle. You’ve made a bunch of enemies during your tenure in Congress. You can’t be a loud-mouthed liberal without bruising a few sensibilities.

You went on “The Rachel Maddow Show” and said you didn’t know what happened. Today, Radaronline.com posted photos of you posing down, bare-chested, in the mirror. These were supposedly given to them by a young woman with whom you had an online fling. Another woman in Nevada has come forward (sort of) with transcripts of you two exchanging erotically charged messages on Facebook.

I have to say it again: you’re a dumb ass.

For the moment, let’s set aside the fact that you’re married. For all we know, you and your wife have some form of an open relationship which allows for that sort of thing. You wouldn’t be the first. But when that first photo went public, you denied it and tried to cover it up.

As a politician, you have to know that the cover up is worse than the crime. Ask your friend President Clinton (who officiated your wedding). You played fast-and-loose with Twitter and it came back to bite you. We live in an age where embarrassing photos can not only be posted for the entire world to see (in some cases years after the fact), but they can be tagged with your name and linked to your profile. What were you thinking?

Then, when that first photo was made public, you lied. Posting a photo of your underwear isn’t a crime. Armani posted David Beckham photos in his underwear all over the world. But when it became public, you weaseled and lied and made an ass of yourself. Now you’ve got to apologize not just for your lack of judgement, but for your lack of character.

But even those first few panicked public statements would be forgivable, if not understandable. You did something stupid and public. But you’ve handed Andrew Breitbart a feather for his metaphorical cap. His credibility was at an all-time low after the Shirley Sherrod fiasco and now he’s going to be known as the one to expose you as a pervert and liar.

Dumb ass.

You called a press conference to admit your stupidity and there was freaking Brietbart taking the podium afterwards. Giving that lowlife a public forum is unforgivable.

I mean, how hard is it to just behave yourself and do your job?

Once you mastered the skill of forcing a card on someone (that is, asking the mark to choose a card and then making sure he or she draws the one you want), you fix the fortune cookie with the fake fortune and guess wrong when you do the trick. The mark picks up the fortune cookie and inside is a message that shows the correct card along with a phrase:

“Silly skeptic, monkey man will make you believe.”

I was reminded of that when I saw this story about Tennessee Rep. Bill Dunn (R-Knoxville) who introduced a bill to shield teachers from ignoring education in favor of religion. Meaning, if the bill passes, teachers will be free to teach creationism, rather than science in science classes.

Dunn said the bill, HB368, was designed to help students think critically. To Dunn, that means setting aside years of scientific research, experimentation and observation and allowing teachers to teach Sunday School in biology class.

And no, this isn’t a reprint from 1925.

It is so tiring to be from Tennessee when the Republicans are in charge. This bill will never become law, so it’s nothing but political theatre — a chance for Dunn’s cohorts in the GOP to pretend they’re working. Meanwhile, unemployment is critically high, the state budget is in crisis and we’ve got dumbass legislators trying to retry the Scopes trial.

And what if it does pass? Both my children have shown interest in careers that center on biology. This bill would be an anchor around their necks when it comes to college entrance exams, academic performance and advancement in their chosen fields.

But at least they would have been taught “the controversy.”

Here’s a hypothetical: Suppose you’re the CEO of a major corporation and are considering opening up a plant in either Tennessee or West Virginia. You’ll consider all kinds of factors when making this decision, one of which will be the quality of the public school system. You’ve got hundreds of employees with thousands of children who will need to be educated. Will you be willing to ask them to raise their kids in a state where science education is a joke? Hello, West Virginia.

The Tennessean, to its credit, ran an editorial critical of the bill. It pointed out that there is no scientific controversy surrounding evolution, only a political one. So teach the political controversy in a political science class. Teach intelligent design in church. Teach science in science class. It is ridiculous that we’re still having this conversation after all these decades.

Dunn says the bill will protect science teachers, but the Tennessee Association of Science Teachers says the bill is “unnecessary, anti-scientific and very likely unconstitutional.”

In reality, I can’t blame Dunn for pulling this stunt (and it is a stunt). When the legislature went Republican, you had a lot of wingnuts on the right scrambling to get their share of the limelight. For example, Senator Bill Ketron (R-Murfreesboro) has already introduced more than a hundred bills this session chock full of right-wing weirdness: banning Sharia law, removing collective bargaining and tenure for teachers and studying whether Tennessee should print its own currency to avoid the coming federal government meltdown.

There’s not a lot of room left for a right winger to make a name for himself. So, Dunn has staked his claim and he’s welcome to it.

There is a place in school for students to debate evolution vs. creationism, but science class isn’t one of them. Talk about it in history (say about 1925-26), talk about it in religious studies class or have the forensics team debate it. But leave the science curriculum to the scientists, not an agricultural extension agent from Knoxville.

I wouldn’t be so embarrassed about my state if stunts like this didn’t bring out the idiocy in the state house for all to see. Supporters of the bill couldn’t wait to display their ignorance:

Rep. Sheila Butt, R-Columbia, said when she was in high school, “we gave up Aqua Net hair spray” because of fears “it was causing global warming.”

“Since then scientists have said that maybe we shouldn’t have given up that aerosol can because that aerosol can was actually absorbing the Earth’s rays and keeping us from global warming.”

The earth has rays? Hairspray can save us from global warming? Scientists have said? It makes my head hurt to think about how many people in this stupid state vote for leaders who obviously aren’t fit to lead. I was talking with a reporter recently who told me her mother (who is a teacher) voted for Sen. Bill Ketron because he “was a good, Christian man.” When Ketron introduced legislation to strip her mother of tenure and collective bargaining, she had second thoughts. Was Ketron any less Christian for wanting to destroy the teaching profession in Tennessee? He’d say no, I guess. My point is you can be Christian and still not know what’s good for the state.

Evolution has been going on since the dawn of time. One day, I hope Tennessee catches up with the rest of the world.

“Bob’s Burgers”
Fox

I did not have high hopes for this series, which may be why I love it so much. It manages to be funny, disturbing and sweet all at the same time. Bob, his wife Judy and their children Helen, Louise and Gene all run a family burger business at some wharf-side town. The kids are kooky and funny, the wife is a bit of a nag (or as Bob calls her “The Secretary of Nagriculture”) and the supporting cast pops in and out just enough to ensure you can’t remember anyone’s name.

Part of the fun for me is catching the name of the Burger of the Day on the chalkboard in the restaurant. It is always some really bad pun and as often as not Louise, the younger daughter who always wears bunny ears, will change it to something better (or at least funnier). This is a great addition to Fox’s animation lineup on Sundays if for no other reason than it isn’t another Seth McFarland series. I hope it sticks around for a while.

Traffic Light
Fox
Wednesday

This is another in a long line of “pack-o-pals” shows. The conceit of this one is that the three men interact with each other via the cell phones in their cars as much as face to face. There was some mumbo jumbo in the pilot about the traffic light being a metaphor for life, but I didn’t pay it much attention.  The three guys are Mike, a married lawyer with a toddler; Adam, who just moved in with his girlfriend; and Ethan, a British cad who has a new girlfriend every week.

The writing is clever, but they’re not breaking any new ground here. How often can you listen to dudes complain about their relationships? It was airing right after “Raising Hope” on Tuesdays, but Fox has moved it to Wednesdays after “American Idol.” I’m not sure if the shows both appeal to the same audience.

Perfect Couples
NBC
Thursday

NBC must have high hopes for this series to squeeze it into an extremely packed Thursday night line up (“Community” “Perfect Couples” “Parks and Recreation” “30 Rock” “Outsourced”). It is also a pack-o-pals show in which two of the three couples are married and the third is engaged. I have high hopes for it because it has Olivia Munn in it. There are some interesting dynamics at play and the show is funny, but I get a little uncomfortable watching these characters screw up what should be mundane situations. It frustrates me that Dave just doesn’t tell Vance to get the hell away from him.

The big difference between this and “Traffic Light” would be that the women in this show get equal time with the men. That and no kids. Both shows make me feel old, somehow.

Mad Love
CBS
Mondays

Another pack-o-pals show that focuses on a new relationship between blonde doctor from “Scrubs” and the nerd from several of the “American Pie” films. His best friend is the funny fat friend from “Reaper” and the fake dad from “Sons of Tuscon.” Her best friend is the crazy secretary with cockeyed nipples from “Arrested Development.” The writing is funny, but I’m tired of shows that try to “explore relationships” in funny, clever ways. Blonde doctor (who was also the replacement Becky on “Rosanne” for a year or so) is quirky and neurotic; pie nerd is affable and tries too hard; his best friend is a quick-witted ham-fisted oaf and her best friend is a quick-witted sharp-tongued witch. I’m betting it doesn’t get picked up for season two.

Harry’s Law
NBC
Mondays

I like Kathy Bates and I hope that she finds herself a good series to lead someday. “Harry’s Law” isn’t it, but there are some good things about it. I like the recurring character of Tommy Jefferson, but I think if he and Denny Crane were to meet in an elevator, there would be some sort of rupture in the space/time continuum. I’m just not sure the current weekly plot line of how much Harry doesn’t know about the disadvantaged denizens of her neighborhood is going to hold out. She’ll win an Emmy.

The Chicago Code
Fox
Monday

I like Jennifer Beals and I’m hoping this works out for her. She plays Teresa Colvin, newly appointed superintendent of police for Chicago. She worked her way up the ladder quickly because she grew up watching her father pay off crooked city officials and criminals which drove his hardware store out of business. The action is great and the story engaging. Her enforcer is Det. Jarek Wysocki, who is one of these tough cops who doesn’t take any guff (I picture Homer Simpson yelling at the TV “He gets results you stupid chief!”).  He’s got a young partner and the three of them are going after the big crooked Alderman Ronin Gibbons (wonderfully and evilly portrayed by Delroy Lindo).

I picked this up on a whim and I’m glad I did. It’s much better than some of the other offerings like . . . uh . . .

The Cape
NBC

If you’re still watching this series, I wouldn’t get too attached. The effects are good, but the characters are ridiculous and no one cares.

That’s about it for the networks. There are some good series on cable that I’ll get to next time. If you’re looking for something good to watch, I recommend “Lights Out” and “Justified” on FX, both are very engaging in very different ways.

I first came to that conclusion a few years back when the right was championing President G. W. Bush as one who leads by following his gut. They bragged that he doesn’t do nuance, didn’t need to be intelligent because he’d surround himself with good people and besides, he’s the sort of person you’d want to sit down and have a beer with.

That’s not the sort of person I wanted for president.

The right has always disliked the unions because collective bargaining took money out of coffers that would be better spent giving tax breaks to corporations. The right likes welfare so long as the benefactors have country club memberships. Yes, the right hates unions, but they have a special place in their gall bladders for teachers. Boy, do the right wing hate teachers. They hate them almost as much as they hate post-born children (pre-born children are so precious that some legislators want to consider killing an abortion provider justifiable homicide).

The right sees teachers as a drain on the public budget and the fact that they can collectively bargain for what little they are paid enrages them.

My wife was a public school teacher for a long time. She did some work for her local education association and tried to explain to her own colleagues why teachers’ unions aren’t a bad thing, no matter what O’Reilly or Limbaugh say. She was not always successful.

So believe me I’ve heard it all.

Teachers are lazy. Teachers are incompetent. Teachers only work nine months a year. Teachers can’t be fired. Teachers shouldn’t do it for money, they should do it for the love of the students.

Years ago, I had a friend who looked into becoming a teacher. She wanted to teach high school Spanish. She spoke Spanish fluently, but was appalled to discover that it takes more than mastery of a subject to be a teacher. You have to learn how to impart that knowledge effectively, which means taking classes on how to educate, passing tests, attaining licenses, passing board certifications, spending the first few years on probation as supervisors watch over your shoulder and keeping at least one eye on the crazies who manage to get into office at the local, state and federal level who have never spent a day in the classroom, but understand what’s wrong with the system and want to fix it by killing the unions. None of which addresses the way these teachers perform what is supposed to be their jobs: teaching.

Then you have students who have no respect for teachers because their parents and political leaders obviously don’t. Why should they listen to someone who is obviously trying to bankrupt the state with their plush lifestyle and cushy jobs?

It’s crazy. Meanwhile, fewer hours are spent teaching and more are spent filling out paperwork and preparing students for huge life-changing standardized tests (which they’re not supposed to teach to) to justify their meager salaries and an annual three months of unemployment (for which they cannot draw unemployment).

Why would anyone want to be a teacher? That’s the looming crisis that the right wing can’t see coming and have no real answer for. If they get their way and teachers lose their collective bargaining rights, how do you recruit more teachers?

“Oh, we’ll get business leaders and professionals to leave their high-paying jobs to come teach in charter schools in which skills are emphasized over logic and problem solving.” Good luck with that.

“Well what about tenure? That’s the problem, Mike, teachers get in these jobs and you can’t fire them even when they can’t teach anymore.”

If I had a dime for every person who brought up tenure without understanding what it really means and the purpose it serves, I’d have enough to solve the budget crisis in Wisconsin.

Tenure does not protect an unqualified or incompetent teacher from being fired. That’s stupid. Tenure is there to protect academic freedom. The tenure system means you can’t fire a teacher without just cause. If a teacher can’t do his or her job, then a school administrator can absolutely fire them and should. Without tenure, a school board could fire a teacher because he or she spoke up at a union meeting, or was a particularly good negotiator, or went to the wrong church or had enough seniority that it would be cheaper to hire a first-year to replace them.

Tenure is a good thing. It protects good teachers without protecting bad ones. For every example of an incompetent teacher that kept his or her job due to tenure, I can point to a host of school administrators who didn’t want to do the work required to get that teacher removed. It’s as simple as that.

It used to be that teachers were a respected member of the community. You taught your children to respect and listen to them. Businesses depended on them to educate the next generation of workers. But the right has lost sight of that. They use every budget crisis, every contract negotiation to whittle away at public education. They claim to be patriots and Constitutional constructionists. Well, the Constitution provides for a free and public education for every child. Yet any time a Republican gains control of a legislative body, education funding is one of the first places to get the knife. It’s pathetic, shortsighted and dumb. Which places it right in their wheelhouse.

Growing up in Middle Tennessee, Johnson was a bit of a footnote in history class: Lincoln’s vice president, took over when Lincoln was assassinated, impeached for showing favoritism to the South during Reconstruction. Last year, a group of museum professionals went on a tour of the Capitol in Nashville. The tour guide was showing off the portraits of the three men from Tennessee who became president: Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk and Andrew Johnson. She called him a traitor. This, of course, ruffled some feathers (and understandably so).

Johnson was impeached for violating the Tenure of Office Act because he believed it flew in the face of the separation of powers. The Supreme Court later agreed with him and declared the act unconstitutional.

Today, the U.S. Mint sent representatives to the second oldest town in Tennessee to unveil the President Andrew Johnson dollar coin. We pulled the kids out of school to go see the festivities, which included a presentation of colors by a local Civil War reenactment group (Union soldiers, btw), a local first grade class led us in the Pledge of Alegance,  remarks from the president of Andrew Johnson Bank, a biographical sketch from the local Andrew Johnson impersonator, remarks from the chief counsel of the U.S. Mint and then every child received a brand new, shiny Andrew Johnson dollar.

Girl Scouts served cake featuring the coin. Andrew Johnson Bank set up a tent where the adults could buy the dollar coins. It was a fun ceremony and a real piece of history, the sort of thing numistmatists dream of.

Tennessee is an odd duck in that the state is divided into three sections, the “Three Grand Divisions” of Tennessee. My experience from living in two of the three is that the people on this end, don’t care much for the way Andrew Johnson is treated by the other two. They know Nashville exists out there somewhere, but have no reason to worry about it much. And Memphis might as well be in Arkansas. But I’ve grown to see the charm of this place and have learned to appreciate the local flavor.

In April, Greeneville will host a convention of Lincoln impersonators. I cannot wait.