The Lavish Life of Teachers

Jon Stewart challenges the criticism of the benefits that public employees have - compensation packages that "Papa Bear" Bill O'Reilly calls "lavish."

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I am generally satisfied with my compensation after twenty years of teaching and seventy-five graduate hours past my Master's degree in English. However, I don't even use my employer-sponsored health coverage for my family because it is so expensive. Instead, I have catastrophic policy for my wife and children for which I pay all expenses - including no co-pay office visits and prescriptions - out of pocket up to a $7,000 deductible.

Clearly, like many veteran teachers, I live a comfortable middle-class lifestyle. But, lavish? Give me a break, Bill.

Most Prosperous And Free Countries Socialist?

For those who value their freedom of expression as much as health, wealth, and prosperity, then Finland is the place to be, with an index ranking the Nordic nation the best in the world.
The 2009 Legatum Prosperity Index, published on Tuesday and compiled by the Legatum Institute, an independent policy, advocacy and advisory organization, ranked 104 countries which are home to 90 percent of the world's population.

The index is based on a definition of prosperity that combines economic growth with the level of personal freedoms and democracy in a country as well as measures of happiness and quality of life. With the exception of Switzerland, which came in at number 2, Nordic countries dominated the top 5 slots, with Sweden in third place followed by Denmark and Norway.

Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity really ought to check this out. Of course, I remember an interview on the O'Reilly Factor years ago where Bill was discussing life with the Swedish Minister of Tourism. O'Reilly said, "OK, give me one good reason why I should move to Sweden."

The Swede responded, "Well, hopefully you won't."

Booyah!!!!!

O'Reilly Goes Ballistic

In case you haven't seen it, on Jay Greene's blog, I watched six minutes off Bill O'Reilly going completely crazy while interviewing Barney Frank. As disturbing as it was, I’m glad I watched the painful six minutes of this clip because it is indicative of much that is wrong with American culture in terms of political discourse. Years ago, I ran across the Bill O’Reilly show and was amused for a while, and I thought, “Hey, this is interesting. This guy is like Morton Downey, Jr., but with a brain.” Sadly, I overestimated the “brain” part.

Certainly, Barney Frank and the Democrats need to answer for the status of FNM/FRE, but this display was, quite simply, a disgusting display of ranting “info-tainment.” Nothing good can come from people tuning in to this show seeking information. I can’t imagine why anyone, including Bill O’Reilly, thinks this is productive. Sadly, 10-14 million people get their news from shows like this each week.

Years ago, in his work “Amusing Ourselves to Death,” Neil Postman noted that all the information contained in an hour-long television news show could be found on one page of a newspaper. That is a disturbing statistic, especially when the amount is probably lessened by a “Factor” of ten when Bill O’Reilly is screaming “that’s Bull!”

Being an educator, I weep for the days before this kind of drivel, and I hold out hope that someday shows like this will again become the realm of only cheap, late-night, local cable access like Morton Downey, Jr.