My Java and I are delighted to salute labor, although we dearly wish there were more employed laborers to salute.  Despite a recent upturn in manufacturing, too many good jobs, especially manufacturing jobs, have migrated overseas.  And a large number of computer jobs here have gone to foreigners on H1B visas. Too many laborers still stand in unemployment lines, rather than march in parades.  

But the most puzzling disappearing employment--a group only recently classed as labor--is the dwindling numbers of employed teachers.

I’m hearing screams from the ghosts of teachers past: How dare we lump teachers into the labor force?   Teachers prepare the next generation’s leaders.  They teach children how to think, question, and express themselves.  Behind every great person stands a greater teacher.

Calm down!  My java and I agree with you.  If teaching isn’t an honorable profession, we don’t know what is.  But that doesn’t change what’s happened.  The teaching profession suffered, and teachers are joining the ranks of the unemployed en masse, for two reasons. 

Reason one:  Illinois school districts fund education from property tax revenues. The quality of education is directly proportional to the amount on the Illinois property tax available to an area’s schools.  The wealthier suburbs have state of the art schools.  Teachers in wealthier systems have more opportunities to be creative; less work-related stress; higher wages.

Poorer suburbs, rural areas, and large cities have less property tax revenue per student to spend on education.  Classes are larger, as is the stress level—but wages are often substandard. 

Enter the recession. Oh, fiddlesticks—let’s call it what it is in human terms—a depression!  As the downturn accelerates, the real-estate market has tanked, foreclosures have accelerated, factories have been abandoned; small businesses, closed.

With every foreclosure, a home is pulled from the property tax rolls; the same for a business closure.  The less property tax a community generates the less money available for local schools, and the more teachers lose their jobs.

Now let’s look at how Illinois helps local education. Illinois is supposed to provide schools with 50% of their education funding.  Our fair state is 49^th out of 50 in education funding.  The depression has decreased Illinois’ funding to schools and forced Illinois’ school districts to cut programs and lay off teachers to balance their budgets.

Reason two for teacher unemployment is even more insidious: The teaching profession suffers inordinately from gender bias.  From the 19^th century schoolmarm to Miss Dove and Miss Francis, teaching grades K-12 has long been viewed as an acceptable female calling, especially for the spinster.  But these hard-working women were viewed with disdain.  They failed life’s largest test, not catching a husband.  Hence, these teachers were “rewarded” with lower salaries and less respect. 

During the 1950s-1980s, as women began attending college in increasingly larger numbers, many parents and family members viewed their daughters’ college years, not as a chance for the daughter to enter professions, but as a means to land a professional husband. These young women were steered heavily into elementary and secondary education.  Mothers explained to hesitant daughters, “It’s something you can fall back on.”  Females who defied the mold were warned, “You’ll never marry.”

Channeling women into education regardless of suitability resulted in an increased proportion of uninspired teachers. Uninspired teachers or, worse yet angry teachers often teach badly.  Many former teachers have perforce found “happiness” in alternative careers.

And the result?  Teaching rapidly moved down the scale from profession to “women’s labor.”  The ascendency of teachers’ unions confirmed this.  That’s how teaching slipped into “another day; another dollar” land.

That’s why it was easy, given the economy and underlying gender bias, for Chicago school administrators to lop off over 1,000 teaching jobs.  Just another layoff!

The federal government rode to the rescue, granting Illinois money to rehire half the laid off Chicago teachers.    What about the other half? 

What about the children?  Who will teach them to read, write, and think?  Who will teach the math and science necessary for the 21^st century?  Who will teach history, literature, art, and music?  Where is our civilization without its collective memory?  What about the examples of good and evil that history alone gives?

My java and I have a Labor Day message.  Either keep teachers on the payroll, and treat them with respect--or know your children will lack the skills necessary to be leaders in the 21^st Century.  The next generation of Asian, European, and other foreign students are already outperforming American students. Which nations will be leaders by the mid-21^st century?

Let’s salute labor by putting the teachers back to work.  Let’s give our teachers some long overdue respect.  My java and I wish them--and you--a Happy Labor Day!

T. “Scout” Katt just walked in and gave my java and me a severe meow-lashing.  Translated: “Why, hiss yowl, haven’t you turned our laptop loose on the Blago saga?  Meoooow!  If that’s not java-write, what is?” Ms. Katt calmed down only after I fed her mucho catnip.

We stayed silent on Blagojevich’s trial while the trial dominated the news because defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty.  Blogging about the former governor’s actions before the jury reached a verdict would disrespect the judicial process. So we waited; alas, the trial resolved nothing.

Ok, the jury found the impeached and convicted former governor of Illinois guilty on one of the 24 counts of the indictment, but failed to reach verdicts on the other 23.  On the most serious indictment, selling the Senate seat previously held by President Barack Obama, the jury voted 11 to 1 to convict.  The one juror who voted to acquit had done so on each of the 23 unresolved counts.

Judge James B. Zagel accepted the lone guilty verdict, declaring a mistrial for the other 23 counts.  The judge, on August 26^th, set the retrial date for the unresolved counts during the first week of January 2011.   

In addition, Judge Zagel limited Blagojevich’s defense team to two attorneys and one paralegal.  Blago paid for his previous defense by draining his campaign fund.  Now that Illinois’ taxpayers will pay for the Guv’ defense, Judge Zagel is trying to keep defense expenses within reason.

My java and I feel compelled to blog now because--Blago’s legal status aside--his trial revealed disturbing blog-worthy dangers to our legal system that cry out for examination.

Criminal trials determine guilt or innocence.  But in Blago’s trial, personalities took center stage, pushing legal issues off stage completely.  Instead of witnessing a trial, we sat front row-center in the theater of the absurd.

Sam Adams Jr. played Perry Mason; U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, the mad caped crusader, fighting corruption, no matter the cost.  And Blago…?  He alternated roles.  Some days the Guv played Mr. Smith, fighting to clear his name; other days, Willy Stark.  Shining through both personae was Blago Hood, the Guv who robbed the rich to give free transit to the seniors.  The jury played the Greek chorus. 

Pity Judge Zagel!  He was forced to preside over a three-ring circus; more ringmaster than judge.  These histrionics trashed the prosecution’s case to drivel.  Behold a bunch of nitpicking fusses, cried the defense, unable to see the forest for the trees.

The jury debated for two weeks before announcing they could only agree on one count.  At first glance the holdout juror may have been taken for an idealist sticking to her principles.

CBS News-2 identified the holdout juror as a former state employee who had worked on the campaign of a family member.  Other jurors noted the holdout juror refused to listen to the arguments.  Dismissing contrary evidence, Madame Juror wouldn’t budge.  Other jury members remained circumspect, suppressing their frustration. Fellow jurors viewed Madame Juror as hell-bent to acquit, evidence be damned. 

To my java and T. “Scout” Katt, it’s obvious that Madame Juror was far from impartial.  From the time she was selected for the jury, she fully intended to acquit.

As a result, Blago’s trial lacked a conclusion, or moral. It was theater of the absurd at its worst. 

The trial left so many doubts and questions that some citizens argued a second trial would be useless and costly.  Others call Fitzgerald a fanatic, hell-bent on bringing down the Illinois’ political establishment.  News commentator Walter Jacobson added credence to theories about Fitzgerald’s ‘grand design’ when Jacobson speculated Illinois Speaker of the House, Michael Madigan may be the next politician in Fitzgerald’s crosshairs.

Governor Blagojevich’s guilt or innocence will probably be determined at the new trial.  We’re blogging now because the last trial turned law into cheap theater, endangering us in the process.

For law is the skeleton of the body politic.  Destroy that law-- shatter that skeleton--and only chaos remains.  The shoddy theatrics of the last trial reduced the law to rubble. 

If the theatrics at Blagojevich’s trial become the norm, then we’ve accomplished Al Qaeda’s mission:  We will have destroyed our judicial system; made hash of ethics, honor and the public good; and turned public service into a license to steal.  Was this the American ideal that so many Americans paid for in blood?

Please, Blago’s next trial requires dignity and definitive verdicts. No more farces; no more vaudeville in the court.

As for you, Madame Juror, if you indeed got on that jury with the intent of saving the governor, know that you seriously damaged our legal system by making a mockery of trial by jury. If this was your intent, Madame Juror, Benedict Arnold’s betrayal pales next to your treachery.

Let’s face it.  The specters of fear, hunger and famine haunt America.  Our jobless so-called “recovery” shows little sign of regaining the majority of millions of lost jobs. If things don’t improve, some economists warn, there’s real danger that we may sink back into what would be a “double-dip” recession.  Hmmm. Maybe these economic whiz-bangs want to soften the blow, hoping that the adjective “double-dip” will make us think of ice-cream cones. Where did they study economics, Ben and Jerry University? 

Worse yet, according to an article in the prestigious journal Economist, re-analysis of the numbers reveals that economic experts underestimated the impact of the last recession. It turns out that Gross Domestic Income (GDI) is a better measure of the health of the economy than Gross National Product, and GDI revealed that the current recession has been the worst downturn since the end of World War II. 

Why is that important?  Since the recession was deeper than the experts asserted, the official response--the stimulus and the bank bailout--was inadequate. It was something like fighting a raging forest fire with a garden hose.

 No wonder unemployment has failed to rebound.  The private sector has been unable to create sufficient numbers of meaningful jobs.  We’re trying to climb out of a hole that’s deeper than we thought, and so far we’ve been unable to create enough demand to invigorate the economy. 

Uncle Sam’s inadequate actions have left him in debt up to his eyeballs.  Furthermore, it’s three months before Election Day, and our stalwart elected officials are quaking in their boots with fear that any vote taken in Congress will cost them precious votes at home.  Too many of them have terminal cases of ‘politicitis.’ The Tea Party and the Libertarians muddy the waters by blaming “the government” for all our woes, then suggesting that government programs that benefit individuals, such as Social Security and Medicaid, are boondoggles. They spread their big lie then pray to Josef Goebbels to give them the strength to keep the lies going. 

So fear, famine and hunger haunt our land, just as assuredly as Marx’ specter haunted Europe in 1847.  But what can we do? 

On the political front, don’t buy the lies.  Scratch tea-baggers hard enough and you’ll find swastikas in their tea-bags.  It’s nice to think that taking government out of the equation will solve all problems.  But look at the aftermath of the deregulation perpetrated by Reagan, Bush the Younger, and (sad to say) even Clinton. The economy went into the tank.  Let reason, not anger decide your vote. 

Beyond politics, there’s something else seriously wrong.  We’ve forgotten the human factor.  We’re so busy playing with numbers that we’ve overlooked the suffering recession brings. 

Last year I heard an economist at the Federal Reserve explain that it’s not a recession until a certain committee within the Federal Reserve says it’s a recession.  This committee determines recession’s existence by graphs and formulas.  Please sir, explain that to a starving child. And next time use the correct economic measure. 

My java and I look at things differently.  We propose a new metric for recession: The MQ, Misery Quotient. How does the MQ work? 

When my java and I walk in the Chicago Loop and pass at least one beggar in every block, we know the MQ is rising.  When we see children in light jackets and the temperature is minus 2 degrees Fahrenheit, the misery quotient has risen.  When we see waist-lines bulging because of too much sugar and fats, we see people growing fat from hunger and the MQ is rising.  When children sicken and die from lack of medical care, the MQ has risen.  When masses of qualified people can’t find any work, the MQ has hit the roof.

Let’s stop bickering about numbers and look around us.  The rising MQ signals one thing.  This isn’t a recession or a roller coaster recession.  My java and I say that when an economy deflates, destroys jobs, and then fails to create jobs, what you have is a DEPRESSION. 

What’s to be done?  Of course, we have some suggestions.  Let’s fight this by sharing the food around us.  Community gardens, urban farms, and co-ops make a great first step.  Let’s support our small businesses.  Let’s get to know our neighbors.  When they’re in trouble, let’s help them. 

Finally, let’s tell our representatives at all levels to stop fearing elections and get to work.  Sensitive representatives and forceful executives get re-elected. 

The time for playing with numbers has passed.  Let’s understand that this depression won’t end until everyone who wants employment will find a job with a future.  Now it’s time to fight the specters that are killing our children.

I’m baayack!   You can’t keep me and my java down.  We’ll blog through bad weather, cr-ppy Crocs and broken bones.  Even my broken hip told me to blog on.

There’s just too much going on to keep silent.  Corruption abounds, so my java and I must blog about it. The Tea Party and their fundamentalist, right wing cohorts always do something blog-worthy.  And let’s not forget the States of Chaos--Arizona, Texas and Illinois.

But this week the gang that hangs around my word processor, my java, and T. “Scout” Kat, even the aliens spoke with one voice.  To quote the aliens’ message cleverly disguised as a get well card:

Get yourself up

Get out of bed

You need to blog about

Dan and Ed

Dan and Ed are Daniel Schorr and Edward Presberry.  Both men lived exemplary lives; both blazed trails, and both died this summer.  Daniel Schorr rose to international fame; Edward Presberry was less well known.  Both men left legacies; that’s why they’re remembered together. Politicians and business people listened when either man spoke.

Daniel Schorr, journalist and human being extraordinaire died on July 23^rd at age 93.  He reported on everything from the horrors of war to dishonest politicians.  Schorr never stopped asking questions, and his defense of the public’s right to know was relentless. He nearly went to prison to protect a source.

Schorr reported his first story at age 12 when he tipped off the Bronx Home News about a woman who fell off the roof of his apartment building to her death.  During the course of his career Schorr reported on national and international stories.  He made Nixon’s “enemies’ list.”  Schorr resigned from both CBS and CNN because he disagreed over policy.  He joined National Public Radio in 1985, and broadcasted there until shortly before his death.

I never met Daniel Schorr, but my Java and I woke up early every Saturday morning to listen to his news analysis on NPR. It always seemed like Schorr was talking to us. When Bush the Elder attacked Iraq, my Java and I shuddered.  We knew that no good would come from going into Iraq. But as news of the first invasion came over the wire, we heard Daniel Schorr on NPR-- protecting and comforting us by reporting the truth.

Edward Presberry, also human being extraordinaire, died on August 6^th at close to 90.  Starting from humble origins, Presberry climbed society’s ladder.  In the 1930s he was a member of joined the Civilian Conservation Corps, digging the sewers along north suburban McCormick Boulevard and Northbrook’s Skokie Lagoons.  During World War II, Presberry oversaw ordnance at the army’s center at Fort Benning, a job previously reserved for Caucasians.

After the war Presberry viewed his job as doorman as an opportunity to meet the political and social movers and shakers.  He became the first African-American Congressional Secretary to a Caucasian Congressman, Barrett O’Hara, and served as Chief Deputy Clerk of the Circuit Court.

For over 45 years Presberry volunteered tirelessly for the Community Economic Development Association (CEDA).  He championed seniors and veterans, and provided the entrée for CEDA representatives to Senators, Representatives and agencies in Washington D.C.  Presberry also sat on CEDA’s Executive Committee, chaired CEDA’s Nominating and Rules committee and led CEDA’s taskforce on transportation. 

He was a force to be reckoned with.  When Presberry pleaded on behalf of seniors living on dog and cat food, people listened.  When he said “you’re with me,” it was a high compliment, and you said “yes.”  My java and I were honored to have known and worked with him.

Why write of Schorr and Presberry in the same blog?  Both men exemplify what happens when one individual insists on doing the right thing.

Daniel Schorr revered the truth.  He personified the journalist’s creed by reporting news without emotion; asking tough questions; challenging authority, and safeguarding the public’s right to know.  He defied the USSR, Nixon, the CIA, and Congress.  Schorr resigned from CBS and CNN, rather than sacrifice his principles.

Think about the courage Schorr showed when he read his own name on Nixon’s enemies’ list.  Schorr managed to remain calm, even upon discovering the President of the United States considered him an enemy.  What a feat! 

Presberry clawed his way up, shattering racial barriers in a society that regarded African-Americans as second-class citizens.  Yet Presberry worked unceasingly toward a better future for the poor, giving them a hand up society’s ladder.

Both Daniel Schorr and Edward Presberry will be mourned and missed.  But they’ve left their legacy.  Both men’s lives reveal how one man with guts can change life for the better.  Presberry and Schorr live on through their legacies.  Let us learn from them.

My java and I like our job.  We love getting “mad as hell,” then blogging about it. And there’s always something that enrages us to the point that blogging becomes a pleasure.

But this week it all got us down.  There are more things making us mad, than there is oil in the Gulf of Mexico. Which outrage is most blog-worthy?  And most troubling to my java and me, will our rage, some day soon, morph into one long whine?

It took some thought, but after some discussion with T. “Scout” Kat, my java and I decided to give corruption a pass, (like most loyal Illinoisans’), as well as lay off of Arizona and Texas. This week the Congress earned our ire by nearly ending extensions of unemployment benefits for those whose benefits were running out. 

Senate Republicans, with the exception of Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snow both of Maine; assert that cutting off unemployment benefits will force the jobless to find gainful employment.  They “reason” (and we use that term loosely) that unemployment benefits coddle the jobless.  If we cut off these benefits, the jobless will become less choosy and go back to work, the budget deficit will shrink; the economy improve.

If you believe that, my java and I have a bridge in Brooklyn and a genuine diamond we’d like to sell you.

Paul Krugman, in his recent New York Times Op. Ed. piece, makes hash out of these arguments.  He points out that at best there is one job for every five applicants.  What happens to the other four? 

As for that one job, does it pay a living wage?  Does it include health insurance, pensions or other benefits?  Our good public servants have overlooked a substratum of society, the working poor.  Some of these souls work two or three jobs, and perhaps make ends meet.  Their being employed hasn’t improved our economy one bit.

Republican Senators also assume the unemployed deserved to be laid off.  That’s like blaming the rape victim for the rape.  Don’t insult my intelligence.

Okay, “Senators Moron and Idiotic,” listen up.  If you hadn’t enacted tax cuts for the wealthy, we might still have the monies in a government surplus, and maybe even have paid off the national debt. 

The unemployed are not responsible for our sorry mess of an economy, you are. 

Did you understand the consequences of your actions?  By nearly cutting benefits you nearly starved our future.  You knew that many of the unemployed have children.  You understood all too well that without unemployment benefits these children would go hungry.  You were holding these children hostage to your faulty reasoning and spiteful political schemes.  Under the guise of being guardians of fiscal prudence you tried to embarrass President Obama by further impoverishing millions of unemployed Americans.  You thought your goal of bringing down President Obama justified the use of mass starvation as a political weapon.  Machiavelli never advocated that.

Gandhi said that poverty is the worst form of violence.  That said, you tried to do violence to millions of already victimized families on a scale only dreamt of by El Qaeda.

Shame on you!  You almost used food as a weapon.  You almost committed a class-war crime on a scale comparable to that which the Nazis stood trial at Nuremberg.   Seig Heil Senators!  Look at your own children, and consider the havoc you almost wrought.

Ironically, you were saved by that same partisan political process you attempted to subvert for your hateful purposes.  The late Senator Robert Byrd’s replacement, Democrat Carte Goodwin voted to stop your filibuster and extend benefits.  Whew!  Masses of children will now eat to live another day.

But, enough with the anger!  There was something else blog-worthy this week needing a gentler voice, and we’ll end on that note, literally.

Peter Yarrow and Noel Paul Stuckey, the surviving members of Peter, Paul and Mary, gave a memorial concert at Ravinia Park on July 20^th in memory of Mary Travers.  Many of us remember when Peter, Paul and Mary first sang “Puff, the Magic Dragon” 50 years ago. 

It was an evening of heartbreak and hope; heartbreaking to watch Peter and Paul sing songs as a duo they often sang as a trio.  Mary came alive for them as they sang, only to die again in the applause.  And we grieved with them.

But Peter, Paul and Mary’s idealism lives on with a vengeance.  Peter Yarrow’s song “Don’t Let the Lights Go out” re-energized many in the audience, including me.  But when we sang together, “This Land is Your Land” our mission became clear.

Peter Yarrow and Noel Paul Stuckey’s memorial to Mary concert reminded the audience that America should be a land that considers all her people precious.  It’s time to stop grieving and get back to work.  The first Peter, Paul and Mary album notes pointed out that honesty was back, and urged the listener to “tell your neighbor.”   Well my java and I now know that hope for that better American never died: Join the fray; tell your neighbor.

Just when my java and I began to think about what to write this week, the great state of Arizona—again—rode to the rescue.  This is the third time they came through for us, and it’s beginning to seem like we created Arizona to have a never-ending source of blog material.  But my top news scout, T. “Scoop” Kat assures me that Arizona does exist and really does all the things that make it blog-worthy.

It’s stupid law time again.  The Arizona legislature has outlawed research or experiments which might result in the creation of human hybrids. 

What’s so stupid about that?  Remember Frankenstein, Young Frankenstein, and Bride of Frankenstein?  For that matter, Peter Benchley’s White Shark, the tale of a Nazi hybrid shark and human that made, as one critic put it, “Jaws look like a goldfish.”  And, oh yes, my java just reminded me that vampires, our latest TV and movie craze, are just another form of hybrid human.

But let’s step away from horror movies and “V” reruns and look at some cold hard facts.  We’re hybrids already.  Only 4% of our body make up is, in fact, uniquely human DNA.  What makes up the other 96% is a very interesting question.  Further, if we are what we eat, we’re feeding our hybrid selves with hybrid food. What’s in that hybrid food?  Only God and Archer, Daniels Midland knows for sure.

What of stem cell research?  Scientists have high hopes of curing everything from alopecia to zits using stem cells.  Aren’t these cures made possible by creating hybrid human parts? 

What do we call the humans whose lives depend on Humulin and Symlin injections?  They’re using artificially created hormones to replace the hormones their bodies no longer manufacture.  Doesn’t that make it possible to classify the millions of people with Type 1 diabetes as hybrid?

What of artificial arms and legs?  We used to call these limbs bionic, but don’t they transform humans into hybrid-humans? 

Obviously, members of the Arizona legislature, fresh from the latest remake of “I was a Teen-Aged Loch Ness Monster” weren’t thinking about the devil in the details when they banned human hybrid research.  They were too busy worrying that Senor Sharkman might swim cross the border and eat Senator McCain.  Critical thinking wasn’t a high priority at Arizona Matchbox University College of Law.

Yet as goes Arizona, so go something like 30 other states.  Their pent up hate and fear is seeking an outlet.  Arizona leads the way in finding scapegoats on which everyone can agree, and then vent their spleen.  Those undocumented immigrants are drug lords, and they steal American jobs--so outlaw the immigrants!  Human hybrids will transform us all into transformers--so outlaw research!  Don’t let reason stem the rush to judgment.  Humans or at least 4% humans see, 4% humans do!

Pretty soon laws banning hybrid-human research will become the norm.  Then what?  Poison tea will have won again.  Grant money will dry up and valuable research will be slowed. 

Never fear.  Some scientist or group of scientists will break new ground using hybrid-human research.  Perhaps they’ll perfect a self-sustaining source of universal insulin-producing islet cells; partially human, partially pig.  These cells will be capable of surviving the body’s immune system’s onslaught.  Thus, they’ll discover the cure for diabetes, saving millions of lives in the process.

The world will hail this discovery as miraculous.  Bells will peal; hospitals will clamor for islet cells; the media will go on a feeding frenzy.  The research scientists will share the Nobel Prize, and China’s Premier or India’s Prime Minister will savor the glory their scientists have brought to their country.

But we’ll stand on the sidelines and applaud politely.  No win, place or show for us.  Thank you, Arizona.  Your laws have become the model for excellence only a hybrid that is 4% human and 96% slug can provide.  My java and I think you ought to be against the law.