Even with six new schools opening in the last two years, 51 year-rounds, and 1,071 mobile classrooms, WCPSS is operating at 91.7% capacity. Now just how bad do you think over-crowding will be after a hack study with Ron Margiotta in charge RE-assigns 140,000 kids to their “community” zone? Unfortunately, over-crowding was always the point. Luddy plans to construct a network of 25 to 50 schools based on his Thales Academy and he needs chaos and a failing school system to make it work. So when this plan blows up, as it always was supposed to, Luddy can claim public schools fail children and a) demand the charter school cap be lifted so Wake County taxpayers can line his pockets or b) start catering with his low-tuition private academies to suburban parents furious with 30+ class sizes.

Luddy’s got all the angles covered. But he needed the help of two of his rabid anti-public school trustees and an arch-conservative millionaire “philanthropist” to get him there:

Same dudes behind the Tea Parties are behind this shit

Annoyed at the suckers who spent all last year protesting free health care? Check out the big money supporting it. Arch-conservative interest group FreedomWorks were immediately found out astro-turfing ”spontaneous” Tea Party protests, leading to CNBC anchor Rick Santelli’s on-air apology for his role. Sister organization and Art Pope-directed Americans for Prosperity quickly picked up the reins. For their nationwide April 15th Tea Party “protests,” AFP organized, sent out press releases and even offered cash rewards for participating. The most infuriating aspect of conservatives is that even after being confronted about their outrageous behavior, they treat it as one big joke:

Astroturf Art also HATES public education. His far-right media and think-tanks have cranked out more than 20 pro-charter pieces in 2010 alone! He was behind the “overwhelming majority” push poll to abandon diversity. The man would sooner give Obama a hug than admit someone from WCPSS actually knows how to do their job. So when Art’s entirely self-funded Civitas Institute congratulates the “grassroots efforts” of WakeCARES and the Wake Schools Community Alliance on electing the new school board majority, you should be really, REALLY fucking suspicious.

It’s all out in the open

The problem is Art Pope’s a genius. The N&O busted him cold in December, printing an internal e-mail praising his vision and calling him the architect of the new school board majority.  This wasn’t some blogger talking shit. The e-mail’s from Wake County GOP fundraising chairman Marc Scruggs to school board member Ron Margiotta. What does Pope do? Flashes a shit-eating grin, shrugs, and then puts on the chinchilla and adjusts his diamond-encrusted watch before jumping in the Escalade with four honeys. He’d make a great rapper.

So how is this Mr. Burns motherfucker you’ve never heard of the architect of anything?! Ask the WSCA. The non-stop non-profit acted as a fucking school choice PR firm, who by their own admission “vetted and endorsed four winning candidates,” “publicized the KIPP charter school model, making it a campaign issue,” and “generated more than 1800 specific mentions of the name Wake  Schools Community Alliance in the News and Observer alone this year.” WSCA had a press release for everything and were at the center of every school board debate. Pretty goddamn impressive for a “concerned group of parents” from Apex!

The long con

Look, it’s not JUST that astroturf leaders Sarah Redpath and Kathleen Brennan are on the board of trustees at Luddy’s private school. Their statements and behavior have done more than anything to undermine confidence in public schools, in particular the idea that year-round schedules are beneath their families. “They’re only for poor kids…and the government certainly can’t FORCE your kids to go there!”

Sarah was on fire during this John Locke Foundation-sponsored era, accusing the school board of acting as “the Gestapo,” “Big Brother,” “Orwellian,” and “arrogant,” while repeatedly insisting that mandatory year-round “hurts the stability of families.” Now contrast the above statements with this puff piece on how Sarah’s lovin’ her kids at private school: IT’S SO GREAT HERE I <3 THALES SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A few things about Thales: They have no buses, cafeteria, or gym. Teachers are made to sign one-year contracts. The school is not accredited. The far-right wants shells like this to REPLACE public schools. Luddy makes no secret about wanting charter school status for current and future Thales academies. One of Thales’ trustees is state Rep. Marilyn Avila, who introduced two bills in the House this year to lift the cap on charters.

Yes, incredibly, the furious basher of public schools wants your tax dollars to pay for her children to go to Thales.

To get more of a sense of the long con, just look at this quote from Kent Misegades, director and trustee of Thales:

“(There was) turmoil due to constant reassignment and then the issue of year-round versus traditional,” said Kent Misegades, director of Thales Academy-Apex. “(There was) continued dissatisfaction with quality and stability of government schools. Many parents reject these altogether and would not enroll their children in any public school. Others have transferred out of WCPSS.”

Uh huh. The idea that a “parents group” of Apex moms had the resources to take a lawsuit against mandatory year-round to the state Supreme Court is a fucking fairy tale, up there with the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus, but WakeCARES director and Thales trustee Kathleen Brennan got away with it.

Flashback to 2007: WCPSS planned to convert 22 schools to the year-round calendar to accommodate explosive growth. Republican county commissioners withheld funding but WCPSS went for it anyway out of their savings. Mandatory year-round…the government providing for its citizens…the far-right couldn’t have this. NO WAY. It was desperation lawsuit o’clock, and WakeCARES had as its counsel one William Peaslee, former state GOP counsel and the dude behind the still-unaccounted-for $1.2 million in anti-Obama ads.

Look at it from the school system’s point of view. In addition to preparing for the 17,804 “new faces” entering Wake’s school for the first time in 2007-08, they now had 32,000 year-round consent forms dumped on them from Howard Manning’s ruling ,TWO MONTHS before the start of the school year. Former school board Lori Millberg said at the time it would cause a mad scramble, and she was right.

Chaos. Turmoil. Instability. Frequent reassignments. Sound like a campaign issue? It took two years for the state Supreme Court to rule against the sham lawsuit and reinstate WCPSS’s ability to assign students, but the damage was done. It’s interesting that one of WSCA’s first press releases was they were “extremely disappointed” in the court’s decision. Man, they were just picking up the torch!

This group that caused the massive instability turned around and blamed the board for it and used it as a campaign issue. They’re about to fuck with the program again.

“With all the constructive things that people can do to advocate their point of view in a democracy, this is how they chose to express themselves?” Peaslee said outside of his damaged office early Saturday.

Four years later, Peaslee chose to “express himself” by forming the Committee for Truth in Politics, a 501(c)(4) non-profit “advocating honesty in government”(actual quote, no sarcasm). He then “constructively” blew $1.2 million on these anti-Obama attack ads:

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The second ad was immediately debunked, with FactCheck.org calling it “absurdly wrong.” While we’re meandering down the absurdly wrong path, it’s worth mentioning that Peaslee decided his little Committee wasn’t going to file any federal paperwork, EVER. Not with the IRS. Not with the FEC. In fact, his counsel James Bopp pre-emptively sued the FEC, arguing “that what the group spends on ads is none of the government’s, or the public’s, business.”

More from Bopp: “We believe that the U.S. Constitution protects them from having to file that report. The problem is having to file a report at all. To be regulated at all. To be accountable to the government at all.”

WOW DUDE. Take a second and let that one soak in. Because it didn’t stop there: the Committee for Truth in Politics filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court on behalf of Citizens United…as in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, better known colloquially as “that dumbfuck BULLshit allowing free-speakin’ corporations to spend unlimited political $$$.” You know, the ruling even Obama dissed during his State of the Union.

Here’s the twist, the dot no one fucking connected. Bev appointed Peaslee’s Republican ass to the State Board of Elections last summer. There he is, on the far right, chillin’!

Can you even imagine the irony??! Here you have Peaslee, knowing full well he’s sitting on an absolute pile of shit, and he’s got the stones to question Easley about unreported campaign flights? Incredible.

[NPR]What They Don’t Want You To Know

[Washington Independent]Is the Committee for Truth in Politics Legal?

Committee for Truth in Politics on SourceWatch

You should check out the Committee’s new attack ad, it’s hilarious.

Watch Art Pope. The multi-millionaire is so nauseatingly right-wing that there isn’t enough weed in the world to soothe me. Credited as the architect of the school board victory, Pope uses his array of media to push the hell out of charter schools and his dollars to back astro-turfed “parents” organizations like the Wake Schools Community Alliance into doing the same. In this, he allies nicely with George W. Bush, who had no problem “helping” Katrina victims as long as the money went to non-union charter schools (Bush’s notoriously under-funded No Child Left Behind has helped the expansion of charters, but it certainly hasn’t helped our state’s children).

Let’s be clear: the goal of the new board majority is to weaken and dismantle our public school system so a few people can line their pockets. Accomplishing this has less to do with “resegregation” than deliberate overcrowding of schools, making charter schools more attractive for BOTH the suburbs and poor areas. I remember in college reading that Starbucks only needed to siphon 10-15% of business away from a local coffeeshop to put them out of business; similarly, the players behind the scenes only needed to convince 10-15% of parents scared shitless about their property values to vote for them and grind the system to a halt.

It’s worth noting that every single far-right talking point was eviscerated here.

A better example of the future of Wake schools is not Charlotte but Los Angeles, where last year astro-turf organizations like “Parents Union” convinced L.A’s school board to convert 250 public schools to charters while laying off hundreds of teachers. The Los Angeles Times reported seeing classes with 48 students or more in the remaining public schools. Here’s a quote that stuck with me:

Public schools are purposely starved to induce failure in order to bring in the new ‘turnaround artists’ and non-profit privatization outfits to ‘fix the problem’

It might surprise you that Robert Luddy, the largest donor in the school board race, founded the Thales Academy as well as other private and charter schools. According to his bio, Luddy sits on the board of Astroturf Art’’s John Locke Foundation and Civitas Institute, which their ridiculous push polls so Luddy’s buddies can claim “an overwhelming majority oppose blah blah blah.” Check out Thales board of trustees:

Thales Academies are “community” schools funded by and for the communities where they are located. Each has a Board of Trustees consisting of leading civic leaders dedicated to more choices in education. In the case of Apex, the Trustees include Marilyn Avila, member of the North Carolina House; Kathleen Brennan, co-founder and Director of the parent advocacy group WakeCARES; Chloe Gossage is a Senior Policy Analyst at the John W. Pope Civitas Institute in Raleigh; Cory Johnson, Apex businesswoman; Robert Luddy, founder and CEO of Raleigh manufacturer Captive Aire, founder of Franklin, St.Thomas More and Thales Academies; Ron Margiotta, member of the Wake County Board of Education; Kent Misegades, Apex businessman; Richard and Sarah Redpath, IBM scientists and noted Wake County education advocates; and Keith Weatherly, Mayor of Apex. All work on a pro-bono basis for the betterment of their community.

Why is a sitting school board member on the board of a private school??! And the leaders of astro-turf groups WakeCARES and WSCA, whose bullshit we’ve had to listen to for YEARS, what are they doing there? Working for the benefit of “all” Wake’s kids?

Sarah is actually the author of my personal favorite in astro-turf, the hysterical Ayn Rand boner-fest Wake County’s Big Secret. Actual quote from the book (regarding year-round assignments): We felt the local government had suddenly landed in our living room one night and told us to jump and exactly how high. This didn’t feel like free America.

Thales deliberately keeps its tuition low at $5,200 a year, which is less than state per-pupil spending. North Carolina also currently has a cap of 100 on charter schools, which Bev is under constant pressure to lift. Republican dorks are hard at work making sure we don’t get any more federal dollars. With Wake facing a $20 million shortfall and the state untold billions in the red, you can bet Luddy will be knocking on some doors soon talking some shit about how public schools are failing and how he can do it better and cheaper.

Now, if you want to see what a for-profit charter school in a POOR neighborhood looks like, there’s one right here in Raleigh. Pre-Eminent charter is run by Michigan’s National Heritage Academies. It’s 98% black, has no cafeteria or buses, and the worst test scores in the city (even worse than Barwell’s).

Pre-Eminent is the ONLY school in Wake designated “low-performing” (2% of schools state-wide). The school was recommended to have its charter revoked, but Heritage’s slick PR team got them off the chopping block.

It was noted that the majority of charter schools have a white enrollment of more than 70 percent. Sounds like world-class schools for North Raleigh and Apex, world-class dumps for Southeast.

Welcome to the future.

]]> http://www.raleighgawker.com/the-exhaustive-guide-on-why-your-new-school-system-sucks-part-two/feed 0 http://www.raleighgawker.com/the-exhaustive-guide-on-why-your-school-system-sucks-part-one http://www.raleighgawker.com/the-exhaustive-guide-on-why-your-school-system-sucks-part-one#comments Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:40:51 +0000 RG http://www.raleighgawker.com/?p=755 With Del Burns’ resignation, turmoil awaits the 140,000 students of Wake County public schools as no barriers remain in the way of the machinations of the new school board majority. I might as well give you the short version first: Conservative millionaires funded 100% bogus astro-turf organizations which capitalized on parents’ legitimate frustration with reassignments to usher in a group bent on completely dismantling Wake’s nationally recognized diversity policy. But what were the goals behind spending the $$$? And how much are they going to get away with?

The motivations for the new board majority range from the simple (Deb Prickett’s decision to run based on her son’s re-assignment from an over-capacity, 61% white school) to the complex (John Tedesco’s massive proposed restructuring “community assignment zones” scheme). Recently, John took a second to crow after voting to end mandatory year-round assignments:

Two days later, a rejuvenated Wake County Taxpayers Association, the conservative group led by former state Rep. Russell Capps, welcomed the new board members to its meeting as conquering heroes. “Keep your prayers up and pay attention,” Wake school board member John Tedesco told them. “Because I promise you, there’s more to come. We’re just getting started.”

Weird. I prayed John finds out that the lowest-testing elementary school in Wake is in his district…it’s just the Christian thing to do.

Two points of interest regarding Barwell Elementary: first, I think we can all agree from Barwell’s node map that it’s a “neighborhood school” zoning — the style John and his ilk fiercely advocate for the whole county. Second, a school where half the students aren’t on grade level for reading is currently an outlier in a functioning system…but, BUT, given the plans of the new board, Barwell’s a perfect model of the future “success” that awaits schools on the east side.

You don’t need a “diversity task force” for this one. WCPSS already did the work for you. The situation was so dire last year at Barwell that WCPSS head honchos came in to audit the school, including interviews with parents, faculty, and administrators. The resulting 145-page report of recommendations is jam-packed with tedious academic jargon indecipherable to the average human. C-SPAN is riveting by comparison. But if you take the time to really search through it, the results are scarier than driving down Wade Ave. stoned:

Here you have an administrator admitting, on record, that the teacher observations aren’t coming as often as they should (the report recommended at least two visits a week). But from the survey of Barwell’s own staff, it sounds like the administrator was being charitable:

Pretty high negatives! The key here is not to view this information as an arch-conservative or progressive or whatever. Just relate it to your own life. If your boss didn’t come past all week, would you work harder — or would you be on Facebook all day?

Again, own life.  If you heard half the waiters at Sitti didn’t think their restaurant was safe for kids, would you go eat there?

Lowest test-scores. Leading the league in suspensions. All in his own backyard. Where you AT, John?

If only this were the extent of Barwell’s problems. People still want to move here, and the year-round school’s in danger of massive overcrowding. Let’s go back to that map. All those areas in light orange? Most of those kids are staying right where they are, because our toilet economy delayed new school openings for two years. Barwell currently has 797 students. If the mandatory year-round policy goes through, the capacity of the school drops also, from 950 to 750. WCPSS internal projections have enrollment going as high as 1,138 in 2011-12, which would mean 151% of capacity on a traditional schedule. And it’s not even the worst off among year-round schools!

Wake Ed partnership put together a series of maps illustrating WHAT IT BE LIKE if every student attended the school closest to their home. Ideally the goal of many parents, if not the board itself, it could create “dozens of capacity problems” — including three elementary schools that would operate over 200%.

In their report, Wake Ed stated “while some parents believe ‘neighborhood schools’ means all children will attend their closest school, it’s important to understand the new school board majority knows this isn’t possible.” It’s like Homer Simpson running for Sanitation Commissioner: the new majority promised disgruntled parents the world, an end to the unresponsive bureaucracy, all the choice you can imagine, just vote for us, man, we’re caring parents fed up JUST LIKE YOU.

Reminds me of the strategy used by a multi-millionaire former baseball franchise-owning Texan who convinced everyone he was just a regular dude, ready to help save you from the big bad federal government…

]]> http://www.raleighgawker.com/the-exhaustive-guide-on-why-your-school-system-sucks-part-one/feed 1 http://www.raleighgawker.com/jersey-shores-ronnie-in-raleigh-roundup http://www.raleighgawker.com/jersey-shores-ronnie-in-raleigh-roundup#comments Tue, 16 Feb 2010 00:43:33 +0000 RG http://www.raleighgawker.com/?p=738 Ess Lounge paid the big bucks to get Ronnie here, so if you missed it, at least there’s pictures (all of them deserving of open caption status):

If you don’t think this is news, go fuck yourself, bro. If you want to read about Raleigh’s reaction to the arrival of an Italian-American celebrity, then you’re in luck, because I dredged up some first-hand accounts. But you might want to set your face to cringe first, because they all make Oak City residents sound like a) drooling star-fuckers, b) Facebook-crazed opportunists, and c) LITERALLY, Raleigh gawkers.

From tumblr:

dude. i felt like i was at a zoo!! he looked so uncomfortable and awkward when he got there. people (girls & guys, not just girls- a lot of bromance going on fo sho) charged over to the VIP section when he arrived, stood there & just stared at him-of course the picture-taking started instantaneously. I was pretty much ashamed to be apart of it. i brought my camera in hopes to get one good picture of ronnie with my friends, just for the fun of it, but i couldnt do it, not with everyone else hounding him for a picture- thats how bad i felt for him. no personal space whatsoever- THAT alone would drive me crazy. and the GIRLs there! Oh my freaking god! i have never seen anything like it! they were WILD. they followed him everywhere. to the bathroom, to the dance floor, back to the VIP. it was insane. i would also like to mention that i have never seen girls simulate having sex in a bar like that ever in my life. girls were grinding on top of one another – and i’m talking some serious grinding here-likeserious grinding- hell, if i would have stayed any longer i probably could have learned a few new tricks! it was sick! there was one girl who was dancing on top of the DJ both that hiked her leg up (and i’m talking knee to the head kinda thing) and started doing some crazy (and hardcore) hip thrusting. NOT TO MENTION, the bitch jumped down, landed in a split and starting humping the ground!! I couldnt believe i was even there to witness this shit. I finally left after i turned around and saw some girl’s bare ass jiggling in mid-air. i draw the line at jiggling bare assess. Anyhow, i guess it was cool to see him, but it was definitely not what i was expecting…i will say that his face was super tan. GTL baby.

Another tumblr:

It was pandemonium!  There were like 2 million 17 year olds, and they were all FREAKING OUT!  We made sure to get a spot at the bar near the roped off section, so we could have a good view.  Then Ronnie got there and all hell broke loose.  He was behind the ropes and everybody was taking pictures like he was an animal at the zoo!  It was so bizarre.  Then they made a “line” for people to go up and meet him, and everybody was cutting and getting real intense.  We did not attempt to go up and meet him, because it was just that crazy.  BUT my sister did get a good photo of him (I’ll put it up later).  I apologize if this isn’t making any sense.  I’m still a little out of it this morning.  I just can’t believe how many people were genuinely in awe of him.  AND he is shorter than he looks.

Television Without Pity forum:

Ronnie was at a club in my city of Raleigh, NC last night. OMG, that place was crazy. Their was so many people you couldn’t get around. He got there probably around 10:30-10:45. He was escorted by security into this lounge area. Many people were just crowding around to see him. Security randomly picked 2-3 people at a time to come up and get a pic with him. It mainly women.. no surprise. Then, they moved him to the DJ Booth by the dance floor in the back. He came back to the lounge for more pics and then back to the DJ Booth. 3rd time he came back to the lounge, he wouldn’t take pics. He was on the couch with like 3 women and some of the staff drinking and smoking.
I was trying like hell to get a pic with him but security wouldn’t let me. One of the security guys wanted me to pay him to get up on stage. All I had was my debit card and that was with the bartender. I couldn’t get that back because it was so busy. I only had my camera phone and didn’t do any good because it had no flash. God, I should of brought my camera.
I will say this. He is short. He’s about 5′6 to 5′7 I would say. I thought he would be a little taller.
The club was Ess Lounge. I’m sure they will have pics up on their website. I’ll be checking around and I’ll post on here if they do.

Hilariously, the owner of Slim’s recently cracked that if Glenwood South were a TV show it would be Jersey Shore. My sober mind is still trying to wrap itself around the vicarious dichotomy of youth culture he exposed with that one (I liked the quip about only North Raleigh dressing up to drink there better).

Oh, and apparently Ronnie did blow in his hotel room afterward.

Now, there’s a new online annoyance — the person who doesn’t want to meet but is all too happy to e-mail, text, tweet, IM, or scrawl on your Facebook wall indefinitely. They don’t want a real relationship as much as its virtual doppelganger.

Welcome to the world of the “elationship.”

“I’ve been involved in five or six of these,” says Rich Giorgi, a 48-year-old tech writer from Carrboro, N.C., who in recent months found a “peach” of a girlfriend and left the online scene. “One woman was always popping up on chat programs — ‘What are you doing? Where you have been?’ This went on for a month and then I proposed we meet. But she was always busy. So I called her on it and she said, ‘I’m getting what I need out of this. There’s no need to go any further.’ So I cut it off. I didn’t have the time to waste.”

Look, as a loner/stoner, I hate humanity too…but I don’t feel the need to get all e-cold fish on people. Just drink a fucking beer, man!

You might be asking yourself, as I did after a crippling resin high, why would someone spend all that time communicating with a person they never planned to meet? Fortunately the article asked and answered that question:

Giorgi says he thinks some singles just like to collect “cyber-harems.”

“I have a friend who’s on a dating site and I can see that a lot of the people from the site have started following her on Facebook,” he says. “She has 12 to 15 guys all commenting on her posts and looking to get with her but she’s only interested in the attention. She’s told me plainly that she’s not interested in meeting anybody, she just wants to feel like people want her every now and then.”

Yeah, why would you want to meet anyone? I know after a brutal 50-hour work week, all I ever want to do is interface with a machine and have strangers compete for my attenti—- Jesus, I can’t even be sarcastic about this. It really IS that pathetic.

Maybe it’s a generational gap. Just like how no one over 30 understands the appeal of Jersey Shore, maybe none of us who grew up in the Myspace echo chamber will ever get why you would even want to be a creep online if you’re not going to fucking get gross. All I know is, the next time I run into a Haitian, I’m totally gonna ask if s/he can relate to the following:

“There’s the fear of failure, the fear of rejection, the fear of making a fool of yourself,” [psychologist Patricia Wallace] says. “An online relationship is perceived as being lower risk as compared to meeting in person. When you pick up the phone or meet in person, you have a lot less control over your message and your impression as compared to a Facebook wall post or an IM where you can rewrite and think about what you want to say.”

It’s this no-frills, fast-moving approach that Frist likes. The one-time Senate majority leader has been volunteering with Samaritan’s Purse, mostly in Sudan, for 11 years.

“What distinguishes [Samaritan's Purse] is the efficiency, coupled with speed,” he says. “There’s little overhead, and when there’s a problem, it’s dealt with directly.”

Well, Bill, it’s your “little overhead” comment that I like. Especially because CBS busted you on your World of Hope AIDS charity scam:

The donors included several corporations with frequent business before Congress, such as insurer Blue Cross/Blue Shield, manufacturer 3M, drug maker Eli Lilly and the Goldman Sachs investment firm.

The fundraiser generated $4.4 million in contributions, but only $3 million went to the AIDS charities. The remaining $1.4 million went to overhead, including more than $450,000 in consulting fees to two companies run by Linus Catignani, Frist’s chief campaign fundraiser. The AP story revealed that one of the Catignani’s firms was co-run by Linda Bond, the wife of Missouri Republican senator Kit Bond.

Whoops! Samaritan’s Purse ended up getting $490,000 of that 3 mil. It must have been a great time to be in with the “faith-based initiatives” crowd, because Samaritan’s Purse also received a $5.6 million grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development in 2004 to work on abstinence programs to stop the spread of AIDS in Africa (Yes, that’s millions spent for fighting AIDS without condoms).

But let’s go back to the Frist/Graham relationship. The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy proved that even among conservative Christian Republicans, you don’t get shit for free:

Senate records reveal, however, that not long before the World of Hope fundraiser, Senator Frist went to Chad, Sudan, and Kenya on a junket paid for by Samaritan’s Purse.

NCRP of course has done its own additional research on the World of Hope connections and would add the following to the AP story:

We found at least three Frist trips sponsored by Samaritan’s Purse, one shortly before the Republican convention between 8/06/04 and 8/11/04 to Chad, Sudan, and Kenya costing $1,594, a one day trip on 9/19/03 to Nashville, TN (with Mrs. Frist) costing $1,524, and a third from 8/27/03 to 9/01/03 to Namibia and Kenya (costs undetermined). Since the Convention fundraiser, Samaritan’s Purse has continued its subsidization of Frist’s trips, including a one-day trip on 9/04/05 for the Senator and his son to Mobile, AL costing $3,311 and a trip on 10/07/05 to 10/08/05, again for the Senator and Mrs. Frist to Asheville, NC for $2,130.

Graham himself was recently busted by the Charlotte Observer for pulling down $1.2 million last year from his NON-profit and his dad’s NON-profit. But I get it, they’re Republicans, we already KNOW they’re crooked, let’s move on from the boring financial stuff and get to the “psycho Christian” part.

Seriously, Google should have searched Franklin during their Super Bowl ad because this shit is HILARIOUS: asking Obama if he’s a Muslim to his face, using the U.S. military to distribute Arabic language Bibles during Desert Storm, calling Hindu refugees “bound by Satan’s power”, the whole Christian Zionist thing, on and on and on…

But it turns out Frank’s not the only Christian Zionist…

(Ed. note: Sarah, we’re living in the Jersey Shore era and that cross necklace JUST ISN’T BIG ENOUGH)

This is where it gets fun: Franklin had a Samaritan’s Purse jet fly Sarah out to see his pops during her “bus” tour, where she told him all about how she came to the J-man as a girl in bible camp and he gave her good quote:

“He’s followed her career and likes her strong stand on faith,” said son Franklin Graham, who was present for the 2 1/2-hour get-together. “Daddy feels God was using her to wake America up.”

Wake up from what??! Well, based on some recent bizarre quotes from Sarah regarding Israel, it turns out she just believes in “unconditional American support to Israel in order to bring about the end of the world and the return of Jesus Christ to earth.” Here’s a little more on this batshit crazy line of thinking. And wouldn’t you know it, Franklin Graham’s into it too!:

Muslims and other non-Jewish religious minorities in the U.S. have no standing with the Christian right; indeed, Christian Zionists are openly hostile toward Islam. Though an evangelical-Islamic dialogue has begun, it is too new to begin to counter the voices of outspoken Christian right leaders such as Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, who have consistently portrayed Islam as an evil force that will align itself with the Antichrist to attack Israel, leading to the Battle of Armageddon.

No wonder she’s called Scary Sarah…

]]> http://www.raleighgawker.com/psycho-christian-franklin-graham-lovin-that-non-profit-status/feed 2 http://www.raleighgawker.com/unc-sorority-girls-unable-to-bang-bros-of-their-dreams http://www.raleighgawker.com/unc-sorority-girls-unable-to-bang-bros-of-their-dreams#comments Mon, 08 Feb 2010 18:51:00 +0000 RG http://www.raleighgawker.com/?p=702 If you thought the headline was like something from The Onion, you’re WRONG: America’s largest newspaper went to investigate campus life at UNC, where “a student body that is nearly 60 percent female is just one of many large universities that at times feel eerily like women’s colleges.” You hear about a typical night on the town:

After midnight on a rainy night last week in Chapel Hill, N.C., a large group of sorority women at the University of North Carolina squeezed into the corner booth of a gritty basement bar. Bathed in a neon glow, they splashed beer from pitchers, traded jokes and belted out lyrics to a Taylor Swift heartache anthem thundering overhead. As a night out, it had everything — except guys.

“This is so typical, like all nights, 10 out of 10,” said Kate Andrew, a senior from Albemarle, N.C. The experience has grown tiresome: they slip on tight-fitting tops, hair sculpted, makeup just so, all for the benefit of one another, Ms. Andrew said, “because there are no guys.”

What was that line, the one about how only boring people get bored? Forget it. The NYT somehow found a cornucopia of viewpoints on the 60/40 problem from the extraordinarily vapid and narrow range of the interview list.

For instance, there’s the sure, I’m in college, but my parents are bumming me out!

But surrounded by so many other successful women, they often find it harder than expected to find a date on a Friday night.

“My parents think there is something wrong with me because I don’t have a boyfriend, and I don’t hang out with a lot of guys,” said Ms. Andrew, who had a large circle of male friends in high school.

Or what about Jayne Dallas, who took a break from bragging about getting shitfaced at the airport to let us know it’s not HER fault:

Jayne Dallas, a senior studying advertising who was seated across the table, grumbled that the population of male undergraduates was even smaller when you looked at it as a dating pool. “Out of that 40 percent, there are maybe 20 percent that we would consider, and out of those 20, 10 have girlfriends, so all the girls are fighting over that other 10 percent,” she said.

Do you think Elizabeth Edwards thought John was part of that 10 percent when she was at UNC?!

Fortunately for the above douches, not every woman gets discouraged. We get treated to a little insight into how UNC’s bottom-feeding turned Tucker Max into the coolbag he is today:

Rachel Sasser, a senior history major at the table, said that before she and her boyfriend started dating, he had “hooked up with a least five of my friends in my sorority — that I know of.”

As for a man’s cheating, “that’s a thing that girls let slide, because you have to,” said Emily Kennard, a junior at North Carolina. “If you don’t let it slide, you don’t have a boyfriend.”

Just remember, ladies, you HAVE to play the game or you’ll risk looking pathetic!

Thanks to simple laws of supply and demand, it is often the women who must assert themselves romantically or be left alone on Valentine’s Day, staring down a George Clooney movie over a half-empty pizza box.

So how obvious is it that a guy wrote this article?

images via NYT & flickr

You wouldn’t believe how stoked non-smokers were about this switch. It was just so dead serious: “YES FINALLY those chain-smokers are gone! The ONLY gross thing about the Jackpot has been removed!” I don’t like leaving smelling like smoke & ass either, but come on, the callous attitude towards your fellow nicotine’d man was a little ridiculous. It’s an addiction! I mean, what’s next from you guys? “God, those cokeheads are so arrogant and rude!!!!”

Place the blame on cigarette COMPANIES, man! You remember those lovable dudes, the ones who had to be told by a fucking judge to stop marketing to children, or to put it in terms a Jackpot patron would understand, the ones using indie rock bands as shills to peddle their bullshit:

If you bothered to pick up an actual print copy of last month’s 40th Anniversary issue of Rolling Stone (instead of just perusing the ass-backwards ‘digital edition’ that Wenner Media tried to make such a big deal about), you probably flipped right to a 4-page pull-out section near the front of the book entitled the “Indie Rock Universe.” The fold-out poster – a bizarre illustration that lists dozens of Pitchfork-centric bands grouped around representations of various planets and animals – is nestled in between five pages of advertisements for “The Farm,” Camel Cigarettes’ indie band and label-focused promotion.

You can view the “Indie Rock Universe” section here. Grizzly Bear, Animal Collective, Will Oldham, Fucked Up, Xiu Xiu, they’re all there! (the last two bands sued over the “content,” and lost) But the ad was just one prong of Camel’s corporate strategy: they’re also real into sponsoring shows where they hand out packs of cigs for free, including at my beloved Russian Circles.

Frown face.

It’s a weird synergy, I’ll admit…fuming at the corporate mining of our culture while secretly hoping someone, anyone defies the smoking ban at JP. Maybe it’s borne of desperation: if today were five years ago, all my friends would be writing anti-Goldman zines; instead, I’m liable to see them shitfaced at our little vapid cultural mecca than anywhere else.

I also see Raleigh’s business leaders anointing us as the chosen ones and us just not doing a goddamn thing with that (unless the expectations are talking cash shit and adamantly denying we’re one of those h-words, in which case, we GOOD). Addicts violating a meaningless smoking ban might seem more like “defiance” than the actual definition, but what the hell, we have to start SOMEWHERE…

Look, you guys, things happen when we work together!

Photos via Goodnight Raleigh! & flickr

Let’s start with Brad. Matt Taibbi traced Brad’s complete fraud w/r/t the Iraq war:

“No one has been stronger in this race [than Bowles] in supporting President Bush in the war on terror and his efforts to effect a regime change in Iraq,” said Bowles’s spokesman, Brad Woodhouse.

– Charlotte Observer, 9/20/02

That was when Brad was working on Foreskine’s (failed) Senate campaign. Now fast forward four years, when Democrats have a majority in the House and Brad is president of the anti-war Americans United for Change.

“We’re disappointed that the war drags on with no end in sight,” [Woodhouse] told Reuters, “but realize Democratic leaders can only accomplish what they have the votes for.”

Ignore the flip-flopping. Every politician does that. What you should be pissed at “peace activist” Brad for is this: instead of pressing House leaders to tell Bush to fuck off and refuse any further war spending, he took a superficial stand against Iraq while the war raged on for two years so Democrats could take political advantage in 2008.

Silence while prolonging a deadly conflict in order to grab the presidency…of course, OF COURSE Brad was rewarded for this kind of behavior. He is now Communications Director for the Democratic National Committee, where “he will help craft the party’s message and political strategy at a time when Democrats control both houses of Congress and the White House.” Yep, he’s that dude who “crafted the message” out-Foxed by deranged hick Sarah Palin(R-Facebook) and stood idly by while Republicans took a Taco Bell Grande meal-sized dump on any proposal that could benefit ordinary Americans.

…and he’s the DEMOCRAT!

Now, Dallas is really something else. Named one of the N&O’s 10 to watch in 2010, Dallas is the N.C. director of Americans for Prosperity, and has been making his ultra-ultra-conservative interest group proud by driving busloads up to Washington to protest health-care reform and sparring with his brother on CNN.

The brothers LOVE arguing! Especially on national television. They love it almost as much as the media, who just can’t avoid fawning over a charged “left”/far-right political debate while unemployment is in double digits and people can’t afford to pay their bills.

So that’s Dallas and Brad. Clearly, every Raleigh resident can relate to one of the two brothers. I think I’m more like Dallas: I’m really into being a dick WHILE I’m being a dick, you know, combining the whole words and actions thing, and oh, what I fucking LOVE is when I dupe angry, desperate people into organizing against their own interests. That’s my shit, right there!

images via Politico