Some random thoughts...

After spending nearly two weeks enjoying Spain and making new friends in Gaucin, it has been a bit of an effort returning to my “routine” life. I can see why other retirees spend all their time traveling; it can be so addicting.

Friday night I went back to my school for the annual Indian Culture Club show, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. This Thursday is the annual National Honor Society induction, when my last class will be honored, so I will be there as well. Sadly, I might have no reason to return to the school after this year though.

A lot of people, including myself, are pleased that the State Supreme Court did not give in to the bullying of the governor and demanded fair funding for the state’s public schools. I do not think they went far enough though by restricting themselves to urban schools, since suburban schools were screwed by the governor as well. However, the state legislature has defied the State Supreme Court several times by refusing to fund public employees’ pensions, even though the court ordered them to do so twice. So it remains to be seen if the separation of powers in the state continues to be a farce. I suspect that this time though, since the public cares about funding for their children a hell of a lot more than they care about funding for public employees, that if the governor defies the court there could be a genuine constitutional crisis.

Hypocrisy and anti-education continue to go hand-in-hand in the Star-Ledger, the state’s largest newspaper. As usual, the paper is praising Rutgers’ football team today, something they do on a regular basis, this time their excuse being the team’s high graduation rate. Meanwhile, the same paper consistently supports anti-teacher initiatives in the state legislature, including demanding that teachers help shrink the state’s budget crisis out of their own salaries. All of this while the paper conveniently ignores how much money is stripped away from academics to fund Rutgers’ football team. Let’s never forget that the head coach earns over 2.5 million dollars per year for playing a damned game. Apparently he is the only state public employee that neither the Star-Ledger nor the governor believe should sacrifice any of his salary for the sake of the state’s budget.