Pretty common if you were driving a 1971 Vega with its unsleeved aluminum block and cast iron head and ran with it low on oil and low on coolant as so many of them did back in the day.

These days cars require so little maintenance that many folks don't even bother with the tasks they should perform. Change the timing belt? Why? the car still runs.

So speaks the 1%, or the 1% wanna' be. Did we forget the 11 times Reagan raised taxes or how high he ran up the nation debt or how he declared open season on workers by crushing PATCO -and middle-class wages have stagnated ever since regardless of how productive the workers become or how much profit corporations rake in?

Amen!

perhaps they'll just go "old school" and park em in front o a TV set.

Already got burned by something like this when a nephew stayed with us for a few days. Children can be more clever than non-parents expect.

Was zero - but then the kid got a Wii, we piped Amazon Prime through it, and I discovered "Fringe." Since I am part-way through season 4 my viewing time will drop to next to nothing in the not too distant future...on this timeline anyway.

Used to be able to do things like that....but pushing fifty has taken care of it.

Don't be an idiot. Follow the contract which has provisions (Yes, they ALL do) to get rid of the bad teachers. If the school administrators will not do their jobs FIRE them and hire some that will. Same for the school board.

Too many bad administrators and school board members hiding behind the teacher's union contract - not bad teachers being protected by it

You don't need to set-up the bad teachers for a lawsuit that they'd win by shredding their contract.

The union and its members do NOT want poor performers in their ranks, why the hell would they? But they will, and must fight tooth and nail to protect their contract.

Really retired? Too often around here they "retire" to collect their pension, than are re-hired at an even larger salary while they collect their pension. We have pay so much to lure them back so we can continue to partake of their "experience."

See, such bullshit isn't 't just for Wall Street, it is right there on Main Street, too. The only more egregious double-dippers we have in my state are the twits that run *and get elected) to the state legislature...where they go to fuck-up education even more.

Looks like the fedora-wearing, big-boss union leader/gangster canard is out again. 1973 called and they want their generalization back.

The local union members elect their local union leaders from within their own ranks.

Baloney. Why would the union members that do their jobs want to protect the folks that aren't? Your argument does not hold water. Once an ineffective worker if fired, their replacement will generally be a member of the union as well - paying dues.

What is common to all unions is they will fight to protect the contract and make sure it is followed, regardless of whether the employee is a "good" one or a "bad" one - unions want the contract language to be followed - always and for everyone.

Because that needs to be said again.

The only lazy workers getting protected by unions (because they can blame their incompetence on the union) are lazy supervisors that refuse to do the job they are paid to do: supervise.

Pure baloney. The administration was clearly too lazy to do their jobs - meaning exercise the management right, discipline, and dismissal sections of the contract. It was clearly easier for them to commiserate with you about that awful teacher knowing if they dragged their feet long enough your child would move onto the next grade away from that teacher and the administration would not have to perform some of the "unpleasant" aspects of their job and actually discipline and possibly fire a "bad" teacher.

there is no reason the teacher's union member that are doing heir jobs and doing them well will want their union to protect "bad" teachers.

what not one of the union demonizing, canard quoting people can tell me is why would a union want to protect the poor performers?

Do you know who runs the local union? The folks from the same employer elected by local union members - not some nebulous union-boss bogey men in fedoras. Why would the folks that do their job and do it well want to protect people that aren't? Poor performers make more work for the people that actually do their jobs or make the whole group look bad - They'll resent the poor performers, not want them protected.

What a union will VIGOROUSLY do is protect the contract by making sure that the contract is followed - particularly language in the contract regarding discipline and dismissal. I guess to those with an anti-worker agenda this could look like protecting a bad worker, but it is making sure the rules are followed regardless of who is in the hot seat.

When I was chief steward there was an awful worker we all would rather have seen gone, they were a constant source of stress for everyone else with the poor attitude and performance that poisoned what ever office s/he was placed in. Why did s/he last for years? Because of union protection? No, it was because the so-called supervisors didn't want to follow the steps outlined to get ride of a poor worker - it was easier to transfer that loser around to different departments. S/he stayed not because of union protection, but because management refused to exercise the "management rights" they had enshrined in the contract.

Good to know that private enterprise is taking such good care of their infrastructure - so much better than anything the government might operate *snort*.

I am sure they will ask for a rate increase to perform the maintenance that they should have been doing all along - can't take that kind of money from the shareholders (owners.)

Keep the profits private and the losses public - that's the ticket.

That nice warm air that is laden with moisture from Lake Michigan which has been releasing that burden of moisture all over the place on the state of Michigan? That warm air?