Damn.  Doing some last minute blog- and link-hopping before bed, and I ended up here thanks to Off the Kuff.  It is damning and scary and important to read:  

"The Pentagon has some explaining to do," op-ed from today's Houston Chronicle. 

11:57:21 PM    

Well, my Dad arrives from Israel in just 14 hours.  And I will be working at the family resource center in the morning with TLG [much more of a challenge] because all our friends who usually take him for a "playdate" are out of town vacationing.  Then I have meetings Tuesday and Wednesday nights.  Wednesday I will be going to the local "Meet Up" for Howard Dean for the first time.  They are getting together not even 10 minutes from my front door so I thought I would drop in and see how involved I want to be.  And Tuesday evening ... well, that little affair is confidential at the moment but I am jumping in with both feet, in over my head yet again, on a new project that I think will be much fun and a good learning experience.  I will share a bunch about it as soon as I can. 

later gators...

11:27:04 PM    

From the July 30, 2003, New York Times.  Mostly good news.

Senators Offer Alternatives to House Idea on Head Start
By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO
 
WASHINGTON, July 29 — Senate Democrats and a Republican are offering separate proposals for revising the federal Head Start program, neither of which adopts the most controversial change in the version the House passed last week: permitting eight states to take over the program.

The rejection of the takeover option, particularly in the proposal by Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, appeared to diminish the chances that the proposal would ultimately become law. The House passed its bill by a one-vote margin.

Mr. Alexander, a former federal secretary of education and governor of Tennessee, proposed a bill to create 200 Centers of Excellence, which would showcase exceptional Head Start programs across the country. His proposal pointedly rejects the state takeover option, saying that while states should be more involved in Head Start, "the need to involve states does not necessarily mean sending federal dollars first to states and then to Head Start centers."

[...]

The Democratic proposal, which was put forward at a news conference this afternoon and was scheduled to be introduced in the Senate, also rejects the state option. It calls for strengthening the academic qualifications of Head Start teachers beyond the House measure, requiring all Head Start teachers — rather than just half — to have four-year college degrees by 2008. It also raises the academic standards for children enrolled in the program.

But it carries a hefty price tag, raising the authorization to $16 billion by 2008, more than double the $7.4 billion spending cap the House bill authorizes for 2008.

Much of the money in the Democratic bill, $3 billion a year, would go for educating Head Start teachers and raising their salaries, and much of the rest would go to providing Head Start for all eligible children. It now serves more than 900,000 children, about 60 percent of those eligible. Early Head Start, which is for children under 3, reaches only about 3 percent of eligible children.

The Democratic bill, sponsored by Senators Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut and Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, was presented more as a statement of principles entering negotiations than as the final Democratic word on Head Start. Senators at the news conference said that they hoped to reach bipartisan agreement in committee.

Senator Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire, who heads the education committee, said he was taken aback by the Democratic proposal. "I am concerned that there seems to be a desire to energize constituencies rather than reach agreement," Mr. Gregg said in an interview.

He said he had planned to reach a consensus on the basics of a new Head Start bill, leaving the most politically divisive issues — spending levels and the state takeover option — for debate on the Senate floor.

11:07:19 PM    

The following is a substantial excerpt from the transcript of the July 25th NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.  I think it is a good summary of the issues raised by the Head Start Reauthorization bill passed by the House.  [Note: all emphasis, below, is mine]

Head Start was created 38 years ago, to give disadvantaged children a running start into kindergarten. The federally run program provides preschool reading and math instruction, as well as essential nutrition and health services to some 900,000 children… Early this morning, after a contentious debate, the House of Representatives reauthorized Head Start for five more years, but for the first time, voted to shift some control of the program from the federal government to the states.

The bill would create a Head Start pilot program for eight states, allowing them to design their own early childhood programs, funded with federal Head Start grants. The state programs would have to "meet or exceed" national quality standards, but would not have to follow the detailed federal regulations that apply to local Head Start centers. Democrats called the pilot program nothing more than a block grant, and said it signaled the eventual end of Head Start.

[…]

Republican Congressman John Boehner of Ohio, chairman of the House Education and workforce Committee: Well there's broad agreement that Head Start needs to do better. It's doing a lot of very good things for needy children, but if we are going to succeed in leaving no child behind when it comes to education, we've got to expect more from Head Start. And so there is broad agreement on changes to the basic program…

Children in Head Start are not prepared to do well in school. As the chart that Mike Castle had on the floor last night indicated, they're in the 21st percentile of being read. 50 percent being the average -- those kids are going to have a chance doing well in school, we've got to do better in terms of getting their educational needs up to par so they're ready to enter school.

Congressman George Miller of California, Ranking Democrat, House Education and Workforce Committee:  ... The chart you saw that Congressman Castle had said that children in Head Start are below average. We know that. These are the most impoverished children in the nation. The fact of the matter is by the time they finish kindergarten, they're about average. It shows us that Head Start lays a strong foundation for the children to enter kindergarten and enter first, second and third grade and that they have substantial gains in terms of reading and writing skills and I.Q. skills in the Head Start program.

This is our most successful program. I appreciate people wanting to turn it over to the states. There is no state that can demonstrate that they run this kind of program for this population of children that comes anywhere near to the outcomes that these children have with Head Start. And we all agree that it should be improved. The educational component should be strengthened. Teacher professionalism should be improved as Senator Gregg and Chairman Boehner has worked for, we are all in agreement with that. But the block grant makes no sense in terms of trying to deliver a quality program for these children.

[…]

The fact of the matter is that the states really don't have that much experience in pre-k programs for this population. And none of them have a program that comes close to the results and the outcomes that we get with Head Start. So we're troubled by the idea that we would turn this money over to the governors instead of giving it directly to the local communities, to the Head Start councils to the parents who run and govern and localize and customize these programs for the benefit of these children…

… again, a close reading of the bill, the language in the bill, none of the Head Start performance standards in the regulation that are integral to the successes that we have need to be carried forward to the state under this law. You are really talking about the ability of the governor to water it down, to cover more children for less hours, less parts of the year and then diminish the critical, critical mass that we have in terms of the results that we get with Head Start...

When asked, “what is wrong with the idea of just letting the eight states see if they can prove they can do better?”

Rep. Miller: Because what you have with Head Start is a national program designed with very serious performance standards and accountability standards. It is a program that every five years this Congress has continuously improved. We sort of used a theory for manufacturing or from the business world, that you make continuous improvement in this program in terms of assessments, in terms of accountability, in terms of monitoring, in terms of the curriculum, in terms of the comprehensive services.

Every president and every Congress, no matter what party, that has been the process that we have continued to use. These eight states that they keep talking about or the original plan as you pointed out to every state in the union was going to have a block grant, they've demonstrated none of the ability to do this. They've demonstrated none of the results that we get for this very difficult population. They've demonstrated none of the gains. So what is it I'm gaining by turning it over to them?

We have best practices going on, we have all kind of different methodologies being tried with the Head Start population and that's why you see improvement in terms of the outcome of the children…

You can read a summary of the bill passed by the House, here.

10:35:55 PM    

I have been remiss in voting in recent weeks.  So tonight I settled in and read nearly all the entries [there were a few that were so stiltifyingly uninteresting to me in their excerpts that I couldn't bring myself to read them]. Here are my votes.

The S-Train Canvass: HATERS, the whole lot of you! A poor entry but I am voting for it because I liked the blog itself and am glad to have found it.
zota: System Justification Excellent and thorough post. On what? Well, you'll just have to click over and see for yourself.
Tasty Manatees: MOVE Initiative. Post was a little bizarre but thought provoking. And while the rest of TM seems a bit vitrolic, he at least seems rational.  So I will be reading more of him to get a peek for what the right 'o the aisle folks are thinking.

And with that, I am really going to bed.

1:26:29 AM    

I have been reading and reading and following links to links for months now. Looking for the political blogs that inspire me.  I've been looking in particular for two things.  (1) Right-leaning blogs which read like the writer(s) are actually open to reasoned discourse. [And I have found too few of these, so if you know of one, dear reader, please do alert me to it]  And (2) left-leaning bloggers with some fire, some passion -- that are not simply pundits, political analysts or policy wonks.

And then I read a couple of posts from two left-wing firebrands, Conceptual Guerilla and Mykeru.  Really passionate, angry, activist stuff - but also very smart and seemingly well informed and rooted in reality. [For example, this recent post at Mykeru deconstructing a sliver of Bush's recent press conference is well worth the read].  And I feel hopeful for this first time in a long time. After reading it I flashed back to a post I wrote on my old blog in April.  Which I think I submitted to the Truth Laid Bear's New Weblog Showcase at the time. Rereading it I still like it and I think it captures a point relevant again now.  So here are the key points:

Why does it seem like all the inflammatory, rabble-rousing lefties are wearing birkenstocks and holding up placards at the World Bank and IMF? Why is the "establishment" left so freakin' conservative?  It's like once leftists grow up and become parents and investers in 401Ks and wearers of suits and assumers of mortgagers we feel we have given up the right to be truly radical in our idealism.   So we play it safe.   Once we assume the guise of grown-ups in mainstream North American culture, we seem to give up our power, our passion.   It's like we know that we sold out ... that somehow we have internalized and accepted the myth of those back and white dichotomies : "You are either part of the solution or part of the problem." 

Well, yeah.  If you are what I consider a real bleeding heart liberal in your soul, then your heart does bleed for all of it.  All the ways that as a species we are fucking up the planet and fucking over each other.  And you are willing to bleed because you have hope and you can't but help believe that it can get better and that it will get better and that people really want it to get better -- you have to believe that or you can't take your next breath.

But holding that all in your heart and in your head.  Well it freakin' paralyzes you doesn't it?  I mean our whole socio-economic set-up here is an enormous, snorting, gas-guzzling, ravenous, soul-crushing, consumption-crazed, out-of-control behemoth.  And you gotta put food on the table, right?  And take a well-earned vacation every now and then, right? And who could begrudge us a few perks of our labours?  And before you know it, ye gods, you look in the mirror and, GASP, you are one of them.

So no wonder grown-up liberals are so damn apologetic and accomodating and friggin' reasonable.  We're all a little embarassed and feeling guilty.  And there goes our grip on our righteous anger, our passion, our zeal, our fire -- all those things that one can hear on any given afternoon on AM radio.   But not on NPR. 

I still think there is truth there.  The establishment left won't engage in a real political knifefight not just because it's incongrous with our ideals, but also because we all feel just a little guilty.  We all feel just a little part of the problem.  Until we let ourselves off the hooks for not being sod-house living, mass-transit riding, TV-forswearing, vegetarians who never pass a homeless person without taking them to lunch and spend each and every weekend and holiday preparing food baskets and tutoring less-advantaged children; until we forgive ourselves for being successful in a system we recognize as inherently stacked against some folks; until we get over our liberal guilt -- well, we aren't gonna be able to channel the outrage, the anger, the passion, and the energy that we need in order to mobilize and act on the scale that is required to defeat the forces of evil that have control of our nation.

And yes, I am willing at this point to say forces of evil.  I have been hedging on it and tip-toeing around it for years now.  Willing to believe that I must be misunderstanding something, or that I must be misinformed because it couldn't possibly be as bad as it seemed.  But the things that this administration has done seem insane.  Insanely stupid or insanely evil.  And I think it is a little bit of both depending on where you point the finger.

Evil.  What a wonderful word to be able to claim. To reclaim from the sanctimonious conservatives to whom we have far-too-long ceded the moral arena.   That is yet another weakness of the left we must dedicate ourselves to overcoming.  Just because we revolt against the totalitarian legislation of morality desired by the right, we must not relinquish the language and logic of moral reasoning in the public arena.  [Oh yes, there is at least another post's worth of passion there ... but it is late and my mental energy is waning.]

Before I go -- and because I imagine that most reasonable and self-respecting left-leaning folks who may be reading this have recoiled at my use of the word -- the definition of evil from Merriam Webster on-line:

1 a : morally reprehensible : SINFUL, WICKED <an evil impulse> b : arising from actual or imputed bad character or conduct <a man of evil reputation>

3 a : causing harm : PERNICIOUS <the evil institution of slavery>

I, for one, am perfectly comfortable characterising the current admin in those terms.

12:10:08 AM