A Thoreau Analysis

Most regular readers of this column -- at least the ones whose anti-psychotic medications are managed properly -- have probably noticed that I try offer a big-picture perspective, like a Renaissance painter, while remaining topical, like an anti-fungal cream.

I might get around to that today, but first I have to tell you about my vacation.

I just got back from camping in Vermont and New Hampshire, where I spent most of my time trying to find an ATM so I could buy a key card that would operate the campground’s laundry machines, thus enabling me to dry my sleeping bag just in time for the next thunderstorm to roll through.

But I enjoyed living simply for a few days. With fewer electronic distractions and life management tasks, I could focus on my family and my insect bites.

President Obama recently vacationed at Acadia National Park, but it’s too bad he did not get the genuine tourist experience there: fighting traffic in Ellsworth, taking the Park Loop Road by mistake and having no way to turn around, nearly running over absent-minded pedestrians in Bar Harbor.

No, he has lackeys and secret service agents to do all that for him, so all he has to do is look at the lighthouses, trying to seem Presidential for photographers while gazing upon Maine’s most cherished phallic symbol.

Come on. Without some degree of stress in getting there, how can you feel like you really earned that view from Cadillac Mountain?

Just like Obama, my getaway was far too short, and I returned home to find all sorts of major problems waiting for me.

First, I had to deal with the pool.

The lethal mystery mix of chemicals we mix in had worn off, so we undertook emergency procedures. We were pool paramedics. We checked vital signs, we shocked, we billed insurance.

I feel awkward even telling you that we have a swimming pool. It feels immodest. When I grew up, they were reserved for the wealthy. I must have been 9 or 10 years old when my grandparents got an above-ground pool; I thought they must be loaded.

(They probably were, just not in the way I imagined.)

Nowadays, you’ll see these “pop-up” pools next to run-down trailers with rust stains on the siding, and no one thinks this is particularly odd.

We paid $75 for our eight-foot “pop-up,” a financial decision I vigorously opposed at first. Perhaps part of me felt subconsciously unprepared to claim pool-worthy status. The other part of me knew that we lived five minutes from a lakefront, making a pool seem unnecessary.

Besides: In Maine, it only gets truly hot about five days out of the year; five days of relief (which could otherwise be obtained from the lake or the shower) did not feel worth an entire summer of pool maintenance.

I’m not the type of person who wants to sit around worrying about the pH level in a vat of water.

On the other hand, I also don’t like worrying about my daughter. Now that we have a pool, she is already a better swimmer, at age 5, than I am.

So I caved, of course, and we got the pool, and now we have to go spend even more money on camping trips so we can feel what it’s like to have a simple life for a little while.

Our lives are full of conveniences that somehow do not make things feel any easier, and products that add a measure of security but don’t enable us to worry any less.

Well, at least my bed is almost always dry.

From an Alternate Universe

Republicans have spent the last year on a message that seems to contradict itself. They're saying:

1) Obama is pathetic because he can't make good on any of his campaign promises, and

2) In following through with his campaign promises, Obama is turning this country into a socialist dictatorship.

Thanks to Jon Stewart of "The Daily Show" for pointing out some more hypocrisy, but he left out one crucial detail:  Somehow, the public is eating it all up. 

The President's popularity has dipped substantially. In fact, he holds the dubious distinction of being the only African American president in history with an approval rating below 50 percent, all because he has NOT enacted drastic reforms in health care, gays in the military, and the War on Terror like he said he would.

Personally, I'd say if the man can straddle a worm hole in space and exist in two universes at the same time, one in which he is wildly successful and another in which he is a colossal failure, that's quite impressive, particularly after only one year. Give him his props.

At any rate, the GOP is feeling its oats.

(I don't even know where the expression "feeling your oats" comes from. Probably best not to think about it.)

Example: Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska (think Sarah Palin with wrinkles) has introduced a bill to strip the Environmental Protection Agency of its authority to protect the atmosphere.

Last time I checked, the EPA is supposed to protect the environment, and the atmosphere is, in most places, part of the environment. But in Murkowski's world, recklessly spewing a bunch of toxic waste and greenhouse gases into the air doesn't count.

Makes sense, I suppose. If the Earth heats up, people in Alaska are least likely to find that objectionable.

Curiously, the new manacles on the EPA would not apply to automobiles. Her amendment specifically allows the EPA to keep its rusty, barely adequate catalytic converter on your exhaust system, but factories and power plants would be free to emit nasty filth unchecked, much like the standard cable TV news pundit.

I'll give you two guesses as to which industry lobbyists have been nicer to Senator Senator Murkowski. Hint: It's not the beleaguered auto makers.  It's probably the same ones who favored her father, the man who occupied the same senate seat before her, and fought environmental reforms and conservation efforts for his whole career so the energy industry could have its way with Mother Nature.

It's not as if Murkowski is a global warming denier. Her website says it is "a real threat that must be addressed."

Maybe she's the one living in two universes at once.

Or perhaps she is the criminal mastermind of an evil, multi-national psychotic organization bent on destruction of the human race.

Either way, she must be stopped.

I urge you to write to our congressional delegation: Senators Olympia "Still There" Snowe and Susan "Helium Voice" Collins, along with Representatives Mike "Flannel Got Me Elected" Michaud and Chellie "Insert Amusing Nickname Here" Pingree.  

Tell them two things: a) Despite the maelstrom of corporate lobbyists and special interest money surrounding our elected officials, you are still naive enough to believe an intelligent, well-reasoned letter from a concerned citizen can be heard in Washington, and b) Lisa Murkowski is a big fat poopy head who only made it to the Senate because her daddy appointed her while he was governor.

If there's any way you can get it postmarked from "the other side of the worm hole," that would be a bonus.

The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is...

Everyone in politics lies, but you have to admit, Republicans seem to have an easier time of it. 

It's easy to see why, when you think about it.

Look at this small sample of questionable right wing utterances I've kept track of since last year's political season: Obama is a socialist; Obama will convert the government into a dictatorship; Obama is going to take away your guns; Obama wasn't actually born here, so he might be a terrorist; Sonia Sotomayor hates white people, gay marriage will destroy America.

Normally, I would include a phony exaggeration in that list for humorous effect, but I can't come up with one that outdoes reality.

The latest volley of prevarication relates to health care: Obama wants to save money by letting people die; people routinely kick the bucket waiting for emergency life-saving surgeries in countries with socialized medicine; 300,000 additional breast cancer patients would have died last year under Obama's plan, including your mother; and (my personal favorite) Obama's system could track party enrollment in order to be able to deny health coverage to Republicans.

Seriously. 

I can't retort any better than this quote from The Onion: "It's appalling that political affiliation would be used to determine eligibility for health coverage. That's what race and socioeconomic status are for."

Zing!

Look. The government already runs health care for millions of Americans: the very poor, the very old, and the very wounded in battle. You rarely hear people in the first two categories complain about their coverage; for some reason, we haven't figured out how to take care of veterans quite as well. I'm sure we'll get around to it once we make sure we have a few more of them around.

Meanwhile, 82% of Canadians think their health care system is better than ours, according to the Associated Press. They spend nearly half as much as we do, per capita, but live an average of three years longer.

(Not that any of the proposals in congress even remotely resemble what Canada has, anyway. It's looking more and more like we won't even see a public option.) 

Knowing all that, it's hard to believe a campaign of fear would gain much traction in the health care debate. But the right has a well-conditioned audience.

If you observe the pattern, you'd have to conclude that the people who are likely to believe Republicans are a bunch of nervous ninnies who still have to sleep with a night light, perhaps in fear that there is a homosexual lurking nearby, just waiting for it to be dark enough to spread his gayness on your weaponry so it won't work properly when the hippies show up to try to make you stop worshipping Jesus.

Whereas left-wing lies tend to consist of scattered, disorganized exaggerations and over-generalizations. There's no system to it, which makes it hard to generate the same kind of loyal following the conservatives have with their bed-wetting wimps.

Scare tactics play right into conservative ideology, which emphasizes protection and preservation over progress. That's why old people are disproportionately Republican. They're not known for their reckless bungee-jumping or rights-giving, and "change" is a concept they rarely relish, unless it refers to "change back to the way things were in the 1950s."

So take heart, fellow liberals.  Once Obama gets rid of all the geriatrics with his new health care plan, we'll be even more invincible.

Children: Priority or Nuisance?

Back in college -- probably the same semester a very attractive 22-year-old pre-law major asked if I wanted to visit her apartment to “study” together, and I said, “No, thanks, I’m pretty much ready for the test,” because I thought she actually wanted to study – I took a course in political theory, featuring Plato’s Republic, a text even more gargantuan than the sentence you’re reading right now.

In The Republic, Plato outlines his idea of the perfect city-state, where one “philosopher king” rules over everything, but nobody minds because he’s too enlightened to do anything wrong. Justice is always served, peace and prosperity are the norm, and the public bathhouses are open 24 hours a day for your man-boy loving convenience.

Plato’s vision abandons all possessions. No one would have spouses or children in his ideal world. Instead folks would apply their skills for the common good. Those who were adept with children would look after them in daycare-type environments, and the rest of us would do important things, like figure out where truth comes from.

Even as a college freshman who could never get a date because I didn’t know what one looked like, and was therefore eons away from enjoying a family life, I could see that Plato was on to something.

I could recognize, even in my late-teen stupor, that any society that treated children as a nuisance -- a biological necessity to keep the species going -- rather than a cherished responsibility would certainly advance and thrive.

Not convinced? Too bad, because we’re already moving toward Plato’s ideal. These days it’s fairly common for babies to enter daycare at six weeks old while both parents (if there are two parents) work. To wait until your child is six months old before returning to work is considered a long wait to return to the workforce.

This is not meant as a guilt trip. Putting a child in daycare can be an excruciating ordeal. We live in a fast society with a massive economy, and, in many cases, two or more incomes are required to keep pace.

In many ways, we live in Plato’s Republic right now, except that our leaders are far from enlightened. Observe President Obama’s education policy (yes, he does have one, though he doesn’t say much about it). It emphasizes expanding childhood education.

Yay.

True, studies suggest kids who start school earlier tend to do better academically. But so do those whose parents haven’t abdicated responsibility for educating their offspring.
If the choices are school or neglect, obviously, school is a better choice at any age.

I know senior citizens who remember when Kindergarten was an add-on. Now we have full-day kindergarten, pre-kindergarten, Head Start, Early Head Start, etc. Even responsible, attentive parents feel they have to enroll their kids so they can “keep up,” or not miss out.

No one questions the merits of early childhood education. But at what point is a child better off with a parent rather than an “expert?”

At this rate, you’ll live to see the day when children are whisked away from their parents at birth to enter some sort of infant enrichment program, not to be seen or heard from again until they graduate high school.

Ever wonder why children don’t respect their parents as they used to?

Maybe it’s because, after being shuffled from one adult to the next since toddlerhood or before, their parents are simply less important to them.

And vice-versa.

Justice and the Fairer Sex

With the nomination of a new Supreme Court justice comes the tired and lame accusation from radical conservatives that she is a woman.

Radio host G. Gordon Liddy said he hopes “key conferences” don’t happen while she’s menstruating.

This isn’t much different than what I said about Clarence Thomas when he was nominated: I hope “key conferences” don’t happen while he is imagining what someone looks like without her clothes on.

If you compare the amount of time a woman spends menstruating with the amount of time the average man spends distracted by sex or sports, you’ll soon realize that women should be making all the important decisions in this country.

Come on, people.

First of all, Sonya Sotomayor is nearly 55 years old, which means, with all due respect, that she doesn’t have a whole lot of periods left in her. Thus, Gordon Liddy, like most Republicans, is not exactly an authority on women.

Secondly, my experience tells me that any woman is perfectly capable of logical thought at any point in her cycle as long as you don’t tick her off.

(And what on Earth does Liddy mean by “key conferences,” anyway? I should think any conference involving at least one Supreme Court justice would be considered “key.”)

When they’re not attacking her biologically, Fox News types are saying Sotomayor tries to make policy from the bench and rewrite the constitution.

I don’t know where these people have been the last 200 years. Judges are supposed to help the constitution keep up with the times and with changing social standards.

When the Bill or Rights was written, corporations did not exist, nor did cars, global warming, semi-automatic assault rifles, civil rights, the Internet, and bands that give themselves absurd, surreal, non-pluralized names like “Third Eye Blind” or “Theory of a Dead Man.”

(Seriously, we must be running out of band names if all we can do is put random words together.)

Let’s say you start a new band called “Plaid Lobster Retardant.” You try to set up a website for your band, but you’re not allowed to register your domain name because it’s cruel to animals.

If you go by the original wording of the constitution, you and someone from godaddy.com would have to settle the dispute with a duel, because there is no language in the constitution related to animal rights or electronic expression.

Ideally, a judge could step in and declare that naming a domain registration site “godaddy.com” is also pretty stupid, and thus rule in your favor.

All this talk is just a way for conservatives to distract people from Sotomayor’s actual record, which is full of remarkably moderate, common-sense decisions. So far, she has ruled that:

- prison guards should not strip-search any adolescent girl unless there is a really strong reason to think she is hiding something,

- no one should be fired from a government job for exercising their right to free speech in their off time, even if that speech is offensive and evil,

- the government doesn’t have to send money to pro-abortion groups if it doesn’t want to, and

- everyone involved in baseball should stop whining about money and just play the game already (her injunction ended the 1994 strike).

It’s hard to argue with any of that, unless you’re a Pirates fan.

So let’s chalk this up as a political no-brainer victory for Obama and move on to something that really matters, like North Korea.

Next week: Is Kim-Jong Il menstruating?

2008: Reliving the Agony, Part II

Future historians will look back on the second half of 2008 as a time when billions of dollars were wasted on futile attempts to rescue the economy and public officials engaged in record levels of illegal behavior, but Americans found New Hope.

As in, “I hope this charming young man we just elected President can back up his glittery message by, you know, making good decisions and stuff.”

Let’s break it all down:

July: Battling brain cancer, Massachusetts senator Ted Kennedy heroically returns to Washington to engage in some political posturing.

The world’s eight richest countries agreed to a landmark new treaty that will compel future generations to cut their greenhouse gas emissions, thus solving the problem of global warming, at least until you and I are dead.

Congress passes a new law exempting politicians from prosecution for tax evasion, soliciting prostitution, taking bribes, abuse of power, and eating trans-fats.

August: John McCain, demonstrating the kind of “maverick” behavior that made him popular with independent-minded voters, dresses George W. Bush in drag and makes him his running mate.

Russia invades Georgia, which causes great alarm and outrage among roughly 75% of Americans, until they realize that Georgia has all those confederate flag-waving gun nuts, so they’ll be just fine.

Michael Phelps wins eight gold medals by refusing to breathe the air in China, instead holding his breath from the time he got on the plane in the U.S. until the end of his last race in Beijing.

September: In the thick of hurricane season, Americans dutifully avoid the news for a while.

The Bush Administration spends several weeks putting together a bailout proposal for the economy, but Congress rejected it because it did not include enough bonuses for highly-paid corporate executives.

Wall Street does a fantastic impersonation of Tom Brady’s left knee.

The world learns that Sarah Palin’s unwed teenage daughter is pregnant, which conservative, family values-oriented pundits everywhere declare to be perfectly normal and ok. Meanwhile, Palin refuses to release her own medical records, probably because she doesn’t want people to know she is actually Tina Fey.

October: My three-year-old daughter declares that for Halloween, she will be a cheerleader, a Tigger, a ballerina, a pirate, and a fairy. She vaults into lead in the Presidential polling.

Congress finally passes a $700 billion bailout bill, and not a moment too soon, because they barely have time to stretch and crack their knuckles before getting started on the next one.

November: After an historic campaign, Barack Obama makes history in an historic way by finally becoming the official Democratic nominee for President in history.

In a shrewd investment move that immediately earns the admiration of Wall Street insiders, Somali pirates capture a Saudi Arabian oil tanker.

Terrorists kill 170 people in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), India. Americans remain glued to coverage of the three-day rampage until “Grey’s Anatomy” comes back from commercials.

December: Barack Obama selects Hilary Clinton as his Secretary of State, despite the fact that he spent most of the year questioning her qualifications to run a donut shop, much less hold responsibility for any sector of the federal government.

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich is arrested for doing what just about every politician in the world has done since the beginning of recorded human history.

Canada’s Prime Minister implodes the parliament and establishes a government made up of elk. Nobody notices.

Americans tiptoe into 2009, realizing they have just twelve more months to try and salvage the decade.

Phony Business

Hi, you’ve reached the McKay residence. We can’t come to the phone right now because we’re trying to bury our house in a giant pile of leaves for extra insulation. Please leave a message and we’ll call you back.

Beep!

Hello, I’m calling on behalf of John McCain for President, and the RNC, to let you know that Barack Obama is a greasy, lying, Molotov-cocktail-throwing shoe bomber sex pervert from Iran. If the Democrats take control of Washington, they will enact their radical left-wing agenda by bombing churches, parochial schools, and southern state capitals.

The liberal elite mainstream media is also not telling you that Barack Obama once listened to a Michael Jackson record, which means he associates with child molesters and --

Beep!

Wait! I wasn’t done. John McCain, on the other hand, is a cute and cuddly little ball of fun who promises to be your best pal. Just look at him – don’t you want to give him a great big hug? He’s like Elmo, only not as annoying. He promises to bomb only foreign capitals, and –

Beep!

Hi, Chuck, this is Ed from Black Death Oil Company. I just wanted to touch base about the delivery we made a few weeks ago, just before prices plummeted. Funny how that works, isn’t it, right before an election? The only thing lower than the price of oil right now is Bush’s approval rating! Oh, zing! Am I in the wrong profession, or what? Anyway, your payment is overdue, and –

Beep!

This is not a solicitation. This is an urgent business call. Please hold the line while we make you wait long enough to determine if you are enough of a sucker to fall for our scam.

Beep!

On November 4, vote for John McCain, a true reformer and maverick. John would never stand for vicious partisan attack ads that mark “politics as usual” in Washington.

Beep!

We’re offering a low introductory rate of just 2.999999 per cent to qualified –

Beep!

Barack Obama may be a smooth talker, but as everyone in “real America” understands, articulate people can’t be trusted. We can only believe people who speak in short, folksy sound bites that are easy to understand.

John McCain puts his country before politics. That’s why he chose the most qualified, mentally stable person available to be his Vice Presidential running mate, even though there were other, less-experienced candidates who could have helped him energize the base of the Republican Party and pick off votes from women.

Beep!

Mr. McKay, this is your local tax assessor calling. We’ve driven by your address three times, but we couldn’t find your house, only a giant pile of leaves. If you could please call –

Beep!

Christmas is under attack! Barack Obama and the liberal elite would have it stricken from our vocabulary! This is why it is not good enough for stores to start playing Christmas music in mid-October. If John McCain becomes President, you’ll hear nothing but “O Come All Ye Faithful” from August through January.

Beep!

Please continue to hold until our next available associate can assist you. If you start to wonder why we didn’t just call you when we had someone available, shake your head and remind yourself of the futility of trying to understand the marvelous and mysterious ways of capitalism.

Beep!

Acorn! Bill Ayers! Obama bin Laden! Terrorist! Your family will die! Stop this heinous –

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!

End of messages.

I don’t negotiate with fear-mongers.

Electing History

Has anyone else noticed that the 2008 Presidential Election feels different than almost every other election in recent memory?

Normally, around this time, people look at the two candidates in front of them, and wonder what distant, swampy planet of anguish and confusion, teeming with drooling losers, jettisoned its two most incompetent stiffs to Earth, only to have them end up competing to become leader of our planet's wealthiest and most powerful collection of homo sapiens?

In 2004, for example, plenty of voters were not particularly impressed with W, since they round out he invaded Iraq under false pretenses, having doctored intelligence reports to substantiate his dumbfounding aggression.

But the electorate was still insecure enough to want a watered-down John Wayne in the White House instead of someone who, despite his real-life experience in foreign policy and warfare, is from Massachusetts.

Every four years, it seems voters shake their heads and wonder, “is this the best we can do?”

This year, would-be moderate voters actually seem to respect both candidates.

McCain has an honorable record of service and a reputation for doing the right thing instead of the most politically savvy thing.

Obama has a chance to make history by breaking a color barrier, and keeps drawing comparisons to John F. Kennedy. He has the charisma of Bill Clinton, with half the fat and almost none of the sleaziness.

Am I crazy, or are people feeling like no matter who wins, we could end up with a President who actually changes the course of American history?

Someone who will be remembered 100 years from now, and not just by 10^th grade history teachers?

To find out, let's journey back in time and examine some of the most ground-breaking presidencies in our history, to see if we see any parallels.

Obviously, George Washington, who “could not tell a lie,” set the standard for all presidents to come. Too bad they all ignored that standard.

Thomas Jefferson doubled the size of our country through the Louisiana Purchase. Obama doubles the size of his campaign war chest every three days.

Andrew Jackson started the practice of appointing his friends to government jobs, rather than hiring based purely on a person's qualifications or experience. Sarah Palin tried to get her brother-in-law fired from his job as a state trooper.

Abraham Lincoln steered us through civil war and ended slavery, holding our divided country together with sheer will and guile. Barack Obama has nice teeth.

Theodore Roosevelt made a career out of championing “the little guy.” John McCain is a little guy (at 5'6”, he would be the second shortest president in history, after James Madison).

Franklin Roosevelt guided America through its most desperate period of personal and collective sacrifice, starting with the Great Depression and leading into the Second World War. Joe Biden was one of his closest advisors.

Richard Nixon became the first president to visit China, opening diplomatic relations. Sarah Palin can see China's next next door neighbor from her house.

Clearly, Americans have every reason to be optimistic that a new and exciting chapter of American history will soon be written, no matter what happens.

Chaos Reigns Over Our Broken Democracy

So John McCain doesn’t know how many houses he owns. Let me be the first liberal to offer this response: Who gives a donkey’s monkey?

You heard right, folks. I wouldn’t vote for McCain at gunpoint, but his response to this question does not bother me.

If you and your spouse took in almost $6 million a year, how long do you think it would take before you didn’t know how many houses you owned?

It’s called investing in real estate, people. And it’s a smart move, especially right now, and it’s even smarter if you pay someone else to handle your investments. No wonder McCain doesn’t know how many houses he owns.

It would be like asking me how many dinner plates are in the kitchen cabinet. My wife cares about that stuff; I just wash them.

Obama, who previously cast himself as a transcendent figure who would not lower himself to the filthy, immature squabbling of superficial “politics as usual,” lost my respect by jumping all over McCain for being “out of touch with ordinary Americans.”

I don’t know how many times I have to say it. As a certified Ordinary American, I don’t want the President of the United States to be like me.

I want the President to be brilliant, like a five-time Jeopardy champion, but also to have absurd amounts of courage, like an amateur kick boxer with engorged testicles.

And he should also have an advanced soul, like Ghandi; the type of person who is not attached to material possessions, and therefore doesn’t bother to count his money, his houses, or his menservants, because he is too busy correcting injustices and stuff like that.

In short, the less like me, the better.

Just when I was getting over this foolishness, I found out that conservative saboteurs have been all over Fox News and the Internet claiming that Barack Obama’s birth certificate is fake, and he wasn’t actually born a U.S. Citizen, which would make him ineligible to become President.

Yet another example of how modern journalism has become less concerned with facts than with raising a ruckus.

The Annenberg Foundation, a non-partisan media watchdog, got their hands on the actual birth certificate from the State of Hawaii (via some cloak-and-dagger nighttime raid?) and declared that it has all of the features required by the U.S. State Department to prove citizenship, including a raised seal, verifiable signature, and giant white-out stain.

The Annenberg people took close-up photos of the birth certificate and posted the on their website, www.factcheck.org, along with a borrowed image of a birth announcement from the Honolulu Advertiser from August of 1961, and video from a time travel expedition to Mrs. Obama’s hospital room for a live interview during the birth.

It still may not be enough to quell the conspiracy theorists.

At this point I’m just disgusted with the whole process. So my vote is going to the only candidate who suggested after Hurricane Katrina that federal officials should be arrested for negligent homicide, and who berated the Pentagon for pouring money into companies that support human trafficking and sex slavery.

That would be Cynthia McKinney of the Green Party.

I don’t expect her to win, of course, but we need strong third parties around to remind us that there are… you know… issues.

Accountability: Making Us Stupider Since 2001

It’s “back to school time,” and we also have a major election approaching. Seems like a great time to take my car out on the Interstate and make sure its air bags are working properly.

Ha! Just kidding. I actually meant to say that it’s a great time to evaluate the political candidates’ views on education, if they have any.

Candidates haven’t said much about education, which is weird, because the Bush Administration has spent the last eight years pelting public schools with spitballs.

Take the No Child Left Behind Act, which requires teachers to be “highly qualified” in a specialty field.

Unfortunately, “education” does not qualify as a “specialty field.”

So in order to be designated as “highly qualified” to teach high school English, I needed extra coursework or a bachelor’s degree in English (no worries – I found one in the dumpster behind Pat’s Pizza).

The only problem: an English degree teaches one a lot about which objective case pronoun one should use in one’s hypothetical sentences, but it does nothing to help one figure out how to teach kids to read.

Far too many kids walk into high school classrooms barely able to read. I need to help them with the basics before they can tackle Shakespeare.

But the President would rather make sure I can write a 20-page term paper on Moby Dick at 3 a.m. on the day it’s due without spilling black coffee on my keyboard.

This is just one example of how politicians make educational decisions that look fabulous in the headlines, but in the actual classroom make about as much sense as shoveling snow with a copy of Sports Illustrated.

Another example is the amount of testing (known as “accountability”) required by NCLB. Nowadays, teachers have to demonstrate accountability every six or seven minutes, which tends to squelch creativity and innovation in the classroom.

If students are learning half as much as they used to, at least we’re accounting for that half.

So what do the leading candidates have to say?

Let’s begin with Maine’s U.S. Senate. The Collins campaign lists a bunch of accomplishments for education on its web site, including establishing a special fund for rural schools to meet NCLB requirements, and a $250 tax write-off for teachers who buy their own classroom supplies (muchas gracias).

She also got an “A” ranking from the National Education Association.

What a nerd!

Meanwhile, Tom Allen’s website lists a grand total of 1 (one) accomplishment for education, which was to “vote for” an increase in college student aid funding. The NEA also gave him an “A.”

Allen is obviously the better candidate. He is so smart that he can slack off and still pull out a good grade.

On the Presidential front, McCain says schools “must have the resources and management authority” to provide a decent education. Judging from his support of NCLB and voucher programs, his idea of providing “resources and management authority” is to yank money away from poor school districts and threaten to fire principals.

Obama would rather “support schools that need improvement, rather than punish them.” He does not say how he would accomplish this, but outlined 15 ages worth of ideas for early childhood education, recruiting teachers, and other boring stuff that could, you know, do something about all those illiterate high school students.

Incidentally, Obama also got an “A” from the NEA.

McCain got an “F.” Maybe if they’d given him a few more doses of “accountability,” he would have done better.