News Nov 7, 2010 at 8:00 am

Comments

1
Republicans just love war, don't they? Haliburton must be chomping at the bit! And they can now resort to hidden accounting methods just like the good old Bush days.
2
The thing about suicide is that people often attempt/commit suicide on an impulse, and if they are prevented or fail they usually change their minds about it later. Putting a fence on the Aurora will keep people alive - and their families won't suffer the loss of them.
3
you dipshit, they shouldn't be able to kill others on the ground/water that they fall on. There have been a number of people injured... ass.
4
aww, what about this piece of morning news/story: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/lo…
5
Not just the LCB "enforcement", Matt. They need to get rid of "prevention" division as well. In my experience (seven years working part-time in a bar, ten years working in hotel catering departments) they mostly just produce annual glossy full-color posters telling you the same thing the previous year's poster did (how many drinks it takes before a person is drunk) which are immediately either thrown away or posted in a storeroom somewhere. To be fair, I'm sure they do other things, but judging from the number of drunks I know, they're not "preventing" much of anything.

Keep the stores, if we must, for the revenue they provide and the false security they give the pearl-clutchers. But the rest of it should seriously be considered for elimination. That money is needed for much more important things, care for street drunks being one of them.
6
It's a decent point Matt, regarding whether the state should prevent people from killing themselves. After the fact the free market can compete to clean up the mess. The dental work alone would make it pay.
7
Just by your liquor online. Since they pay for enforcement via revenue if you buy online they don't get that.

Plus it's cheaper, more convenient, and there is a much better selection.
8
for the cost of the fence, you could staff actual humans on both sides of the fence, round the clock, to talk to people attempting suicide for about 35 years.

which do you think would have a bigger impact - a physical barrier that will make people utilize some other method to commit suicide (e.g. jumping in front of a bus doing 50 on aurora), or a compassionate social worker?
9
Sure, they should be able to kill themselves, but not by putting themselves through the roof of my Volvo parked below a bridge.
10
After Tyler Clementi's suicide, they interviewed a guy who had survived a bridge suicide attempt. He said his last thought, as his hands slipped free of the bridge, was "what have I done?" and he said he thought that he probably wasn't alone in that thought, but that he happened to survive.

11
Just reported my sasquatch sighting. I'm sure that will be useful to them!
12
We should have suicide chambers through out the country where you can go and die (See the Star Trek episode of "Taste of Armageddon") And given that Social Security will be privatized and gambled way by an unreformed stock market in a few years we all may just need someplace to end it all when there is nothing left but despair and destitution.

Expect suicides to increase even more in Tea Bagger America!! I don't think a fence will help.
13
uh right. so the stranger supports things like giving free drug testing kits to cokes addicts so that they can make sure there aren't any pesky additives to their cocaine, but questions whether or not we should attempt prevent suicides.
14
nice job... NOW EVEN URBAN LIBS are blaming the teachers unions.... go right wing framers!
15
@8, that's a really good point. As someone who's younger brother, 23, died August '09 from a mixture of overdose and a concussion--possibly suicide, possibly accidental, I think anything that can delay suicide, even until at least the person can be allowed to say: "I no longer want to live" after which they can seek help to kill themselves or something. I don't know. I'm very conflicted on the personal need a person who decides to kill themselves has & their bodily autonomy, yet, at the same time, killing people is wrong for a whole host of reasons and just because you happen to be the person you're killing...I dunno. Death is so fuckin' final, so zero-sum and irreversible. It's hard because suicide=suffering PERIOD. For all invovled. Shitty shitty shit.
16
Well at least the sources are a little more varied than the other day.

6 links to Seattle Times.
3 links to CNN.
1 link to The Globe and Mail.
17
Hi. I'm a teacher, and I'm not a HUGE fan of the teachers' unions, but guess what -- they WANT there to be more teachers in schools (more teachers = smaller class sizes), and they also want there to be more money for reforms. To state otherwise implies that you a) have not done your research, or b) just want to stir shit up for the sake of stirring shit up. In either case, please get out of journalism.
18
People who criticized unions the most are those who know the least about them. And the criticism is usually based on something grandpa (who was too dumb to get into a trade) told them. Since they come from the same gene pool as grandpa, they lack the intellectual ability to question that belief.

But one of the most important functions of the public sector unions is so simple that even the most thick-skilled should be able to grasp it: they protect all of us who pay taxes from rampant political cronyism. Imagine a scenario where a new mayor or council could come in, fire everyone, and appoint their hairdresser and bowling buddies and old Sunday school teachers to important positions like teacher or cop or building inspector. We've done that before in this country, with disasterous results, which is why we have public sector unions.

And bashing the teacher's union in particular gives us a convenient way to sidestep the topic of bad parents, which are the main reason schools fail and teachers throw up their hands.

Yeah, unions aren't perfect, and they desperately need reinventing. But it would sure be nice to have an adult discussion about them.
19
@ Catalina's 5 -- Oh yes, the fact that the WSLCB exists at all simultaneously amazes and disgusts me. I was just trying to "moderate" my position for Slog consumption.

@17 -- Read the article. Some of the teachers they hired are TFA alums. Look at how the teachers union is reacting to TFA here. "Oh, you actually had a real major and didn't just get Cs in education courses for five years? NO WAY ARE YOU WELCOME HERE!! IT'S FOR THE KIDS!!" If you think the teachers union is anything more than a cartel to protect the jobs of a minority of good teachers and a much larger majority of people who just want a steady income, then you're on drugs or part of the union. There's a lot of things that piss me off. Most of them don't impact people's lives. Bad teachers being kept in classrooms just because they have a union card ruins lives and I can't fucking stand it.
20
Intern dear, you need to calm yourself, or you will end up one of those dreadful middle-aged men with high blood pressure and a Don't Tread On Me T-shirt.

Go for a nice walk and enjoy the weather. You're distraught.
21
Re: suicide prevention "Why shouldn't we let people do it?" Well, for one thing it's really selfish. You off yourself and someone else has to take care of the mess you've made if you decide to off yourself in the middle of someone's parking lot (like what happens now.) Not to mention the trauma you spread by offing yourself at their place of business.
22
@20 is that how to have an "adult discussion?" You condescendingly dismiss someone's legitimate concerns and frustrations (pretending that bad teachers unions aren't awful is no different than pretending that all teachers unions are bad).

Here's a documentary filled with sincerely frustrated people. Should they just "go for a nice walk and enjoy the weather?"

http://www.thecartelmovie.com/
23
@1, there's as much evidence to suggest that Democrats love war less than Republicans as there is to support Young Earth Creationism.
24
LJM, just how does one not condescendingly dismiss someone who opens dialouge with the assertion that I must be on drugs because I don't agree with him?

Intern and I have a unique relationship. He calls me names and I condescend to him. It seems to work for us.

Btw, could it be that intern recently saw the movie you are plugging? Why else would he call teacher's unions a cartel, or is that some right-wing talking point I've managed to miss?
25
@19:

"Read the article. Some of the teachers they hired are TFA alums."

....who have since gotten their Washington teaching credentials. That's a pretty key point that you don't seem to understand.

"If you think the teachers union is anything more than a cartel to protect the jobs of a minority of good teachers and a much larger majority of people who just want a steady income, then you're on drugs or part of the union."

So in your world view, the majority of teachers are bad? Really? We have one of the highest SAT passing rates in the country, we're competitive on the NAEP, Bellevue has some of the highest ranked schools in the country, but you're going to posit that the majority of teachers are bad? Really?

I'm sorry about the English teacher who pissed in your hot chocolate in high school, but it might be time to get over it.

"Bad teachers being kept in classrooms just because they have a union card ruins lives and I can't fucking stand it."

Behind every bad teacher stands a lazy administrator who isn't doing their job, period. And as someone who has sat in on due process hearings and helped teachers clean out their rooms after they lost their jobs, I can happily, gleefully proclaim that you have no idea what the hell you're talking about.

There's a reason you're the unpaid intern--you're not worth paying.

Hugs and kisses,

26
I'm still not entirely sure why people shouldn't be allowed to kill themselves.

People are allowed to kill themselves. And other people are allowed to dissuade them from doing it. Why would you tramp upon the latter group's freedoms? I thought you were a "Libertarian".

27
I'm thinking Wallander is the best person for the job. You know, as opposed to Lisbeth Salander.
28
@18 and @25: yes. There's little for me to add here.

And, @19, let me give you a little bit of context. I graduated from Yale cum laude, and then from Teachers College at Columbia University. I did not coast through either schools with Cs. Neither did my colleagues. I have a HUGE problem with how hard it is to fire bad teachers, and I recognize that this is in part because of the unions. If there were a teachers' strike, I'm not sure that I would participate.

HOWEVER. If you want to base this on anecdotal evidence, instead of, you know, facts, I can bring it. As a graduate of Yale, I know a lot of people who went into TFA. There were a couple of people who applied who would have been fabulous teachers -- tough, smart, sassy, and incredibly caring. There were a couple who were fabulous PEOPLE, but kind of would suck as teachers. (My family is teachers going four generations back -- I can pick 'em.) The people who would have been great were rejected, and the people who were accepted went through five weeks of training, and -- in one example -- to a school in South Central LA where she was EATEN ALIVE, and quit after a year. That helps nobody -- not the teachers, and certainly not the kids. And teaching should be about the kids.

That's not to say there aren't good things about TFA. The two guys who founded the KIPP schools -- which are pretty flippin' cool -- are TFA alums. And the aims of the program are good. But the implementation is troubling. Take a bunch of wet-behind-the-ears college kids and send them into inner city schools with a minimum amount of training? Not a great plan. The New York Fellows Program is a much better example of a program that gets trains teachers and gets them into schools fast.

But the bottom line is, even if the teachers quoted in the story are TFA alums, the teachers' unions would have to be on CRACK to be upset about more teachers and money in schools (and while they are admittedly flawed, they are NOT ON CRACK).

(Okay, apparently I had a lot to add. And a lot of parenthetical statements. Whatever, I am now going to go away and grade approximately five thousand things before tomorrow morning.)
29
*either SCHOOL with Cs, not schools. Dammit.
30
@Catalina -- I call all licensing schemes cartels because that's what they tend to be. Teachers should hardly feel unique.

@25 -- I love people like you because you're incredibly easy to dismiss. I remember once upon a time when I was working in retail and one of the most boorish customers I'd ever seen was horribly offended by some basic request I'd made. "It doesn't matter, I earn more in an hour than you earn in a day," she said in a hick accent. When you denigrate me for being an unpaid intern, I immediately transpose her meth head onto your body and turn you off. Go back to rhetoric school.

@28 -- You'd be surprised to hear me say there's not much in your comment with which I would take issue. I don't think TFA is some sort of wonder bullet. I like that they seem to promote accountability and remove barriers to entry for people who could be great teachers, even if some of them aren't. There's a lot of non-TFA teachers that flame out in one year, too, though.
31
18
too bad we can't make everyone be gay.
cause gay parents are so awesome.
baking cookies and all.
32
@30 -- It actually doesn't surprise me all that much. I had a feeling that the initial comment in the Morning News was ill-considered, and wanted to bring it up. A warning -- teachers get touchy when non-teachers judge them. While I love the job, it is not easy. It sucks to be all, "you're not allowed to judge us because you're not ONE of us!" because, hey, judging is fun and possibly necessary for life, but... prepare for big reactions, which may be unjustified in some cases, but certainly not in all. No one really understands how hard it is to teach until they've taught.
33
All of the cost of the Liquor Control Board, the stores, the distribution center, everything is paid from mark-up on liquor. If you privatize liquor and many other services that are funded through fees and other charges, you do nothing to help the state's general fund that pays of human services, corrections, education. Frankly, if it were that simple, the Legislature actually WOULD do it.
34
Adobe has people committing slow motion suicide 25 feet from every door on smoke break every day. It's not that they really give a shit about people dying--they just don't want to look at the mess.

Which is why we need a designated jump zone with a 30 foot fence around it to contain the splat. If people want to jump, aim for the big target in the middle of the jump zone. I'm thinking we could bring it in for well under $10 million.
35
33, so the state actually has a vested interest in seeing that people drink? So much for their "prevention" mission.

Ignoring for a moment the idiocy and regressiveness of depending on liquor sales for general fund revenue, why not just keep the liquor markup and let the grocery stores and mini-marts sell it?

The hand wringers and pearl clutchers will tell you that this would make us all alcoholics, conveniently ignoring the fact that beer and wine is widely available in mini-marts, and for less money, which is important to street drunks.
36
Unpaid intern @ 19, 30:

I'm not quite as nice as @25 and @28. You're a fucking ignorant little hipster douchebag who doesn't know fuck all about education, schools, or unions.

Please wait...

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