Dandy Looney

Orleans Elementary - Centerpiece to a Village of Idiots? [Dandy Looney]

It Takes a Village of Idiots to Pay $23,905 to Educate a Child

Orleans Elementary School is “Special” All Right!

A couple of times a year I read something on Cape Cod Today that’s so colossally naïve that it takes my breath away.  I had to run for my nebulizer after I read a letter to the editor written in response to a recent editorial on the stunningly high costs to educate a student at Orleans Elementary School.

Fuzzy Math Rules!

To re-cap, depending on whose “new math” you believe, it costs either $23,905 or around $20,530 to educate a child for one year at the Orleans Elementary School.  The discrepancy has something to do with fuzzy math between the way the town accountant computes administrative costs and how the state accounts for them.  (Anyone remember the “new math” by Tom Lehrer? Click on video on right.)

Either way, $20,000 annually per student is too danged much to ask of the taxpayers.

Enter the letter to the editor.  The author writes of how Orleans Elementary has incredibly high “participation rates” by families of the silver-spooned urchins that attend the school.  They donate their “valuable time”, chaperone events and share their skills with the student body.

But it still costs over $20k to educate an OES student for a single year.

But It’s a “Special” Place...

The letter writer also goes on about what a “special” place the school is and seems to blame special education costs for the high budget numbers.

You know what?  That school had better be darned special at a cost of more than $20k per year!  I’m talking lunches served on china, linen napkins, tuxedo-clad table service and more.  Every elementary parent says their school is special. 

Maybe the parents could stop chaperoning events and start cleaning the building every day, or maintaining the grounds or maybe campaign to have Orleans join the Monomoy Region to save money over the bloated administration just up the road. 

Every elementary school is special in its own way – but they don’t cost the gosh-darned taxpayers $20,000 a year to educate a single child.   You know what?  If you want a community center, move to Harwich.

Shall We Blame Special Ed?

Yes, special education is expensive.  Let’s follow the writer’s lead and blame Special Ed for a minute. 

Maybe the town could pay $15,000 to every family with a special needs child to get them to move to Harwich.  This would fix that upstart Monomoy Region's wagon and it’d get the ‘undesirables” out of Orleans Elementary.  Can anyone hear Hitler cooing his approval down in Hell?  

OES could become an Aryan Playground on the order of Sandwich – and our readers know Sandwich’s schools are just a Shangri-La. 

Orleans Uber Alles?

Actually, a Fascist approach at Orleans Elementary might fit well with the approach that seems to be emerging at Nauset Middle School under Frau Professor Doktor Minkoff.  Can’t you just hear the jackboots echoing up and down Eldredge Park Way?

But seriously folks, there is no excuse for Orleans’ taxpayers to pay $20k per student for OES.  This is an epic failure from top to bottom of the school board and town government.  Taxpayers should be “mad as hell”. 

If Orleans is too broken to sort this out perhaps OES should indeed be closed.

Freaky February - Silliness in the Cape's local news

Freaky February on Cape Cod

The Strangest Things Happened This Month!

Former State Senators Robert A. O’Leary (D) and Henri S. Rauschenbach (R), are still at the public trough.I was just sitting here reading through some of this month’s articles on Cape Cod Today and it hit me:  What the heck is up with all the weird stuff that happened in February here on the Cape?  Did some alien ship hit the area with a “jackass” beam or was the moon in some really odd phase? 

Just look at some of the crazy stuff that happened…

Barnstable County appointed a wastewater commission to study county-wide planning for our poop.  Instead of appointing some distinguished MIT or Harvard-educated scientists to head this august body they tapped a couple of career politicians.  Can anyone else understand why they did that? 

• To create more bureaucracy and sinecures for themselves and their friends? 
• Two washed up hacks is the best they could do for us taxpayers?

Elizabeth Warren's quilted coat could cost her the election

Wait until the Fashion Police see Warren's quilted coat.Meanwhile the state’s Democratic Party tapped a Harvard professor to run for US Senate against career politician Scott Brown.  What???  If you want to win that Senate seat back why wouldn’t you run the popular Governor Patrick for it? 

And would someone please tell Elizabeth Warren to burn that quilted winter coat?  It simply ruined her ensemble this weekend! 

Maybe the drag queens in P-Town can give her a makeover.

If Joan Rivers ever sees that coat, Elizabeth is finished.

Warren’s attire is a small matter compared to the Lyndon LaRouche supporters running around Falmouth with their Obama-As-Hitler signs. 

I’m pretty disappointed in the President these days but he’s a bargain compared to Mister LaRouche.

Witch hunt in Orleans

Over in Orleans the Town Manager released a bunch of information about what seems like a witch hunt against the long-serving director of the senior center, whom I happen to think did a heck of a good job. 

Orleans Big Dig unearthed many embarrassments.If the town manager is so concerned about doing things right around town, where the heck was he during the “Big Dig” on Cove Road?

Where was he when a local school was running an unlicensed summer camp right under the nose of the health department? 

Maybe Orleans needs to send its town manager on a permanent vacation with John Klimm, but please without the six figure goodbye kiss!

Schools scuttled

In our area schools we’ve got Mashpee wringing its hands over the school budget while not doing very much to address declining enrollments or bleeding out to choice, charters and private schools – but apparently still not wanting to touch Native American Studies with a ten foot totem pole. 

Will Canfield add guards for the snake-pit locker room?Over in Sandwich they might move the seventh and eighth graders into the high school.  Hopefully Superintendent Canfield is planning to have body guards for the junior high kids when they go into that alleged snake pit of a locker room, lest they be beaten up by some over-zealous jock.  Would you let your twelve year old go to Sandwich High School?  I wouldn’t!

Whispers around town tell us that school-choice Mecca Nauset is facing an insurrection at the middle school, where something like 25 families are talking about sending their kids to Monomoy or Dennis-Yarmouth because of some recent changes made by Principal Maxine Minkoff.  Sounds to me like the principal is going to get herself skinned alive by a couple of these mothers.  Will the moms then wear Minkoff coats?

Murdoch's minions get nasty again - No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

Emily Tierney moved here to save lives, gets hammered by Cape Cod Slimes. She deserves a lot better.And then this morning I pick up the local daily rag and see one of their writers beating up on a dermatologist because, if I read it right, she’s seeing skin cancer patients before routine skin care cases in order to save lives. 

Emily Tierney is an Assistant  Professor of Dermatologist at Tufts Medical Center who moved her practice to Hyannis because of the desperate need for more dermatology surgeons in a county where a quarter of the population is over 65, and there was a shortage of dermatologists here as our baby boomers started noticing possible skin cancers.

I hope that little so-and-so who wrote the nasty story doesn’t get skin cancer on her tokus and get bumped by someone with a disturbing case of acne.

Doctor Emily Tierney's office is in the Cape Cod Healthcare's new Wilkins Outpatient Medical Complex off Attucks Lane in Hyannis where in the three months since she opened she has operated to remove so many skin cancer she had to cancel some appointments for regular skin care visits.

For this the local Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper pilloried her today. Their new motto should be "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished."

Is there something in our water at this time of year?  How could we have this much silliness in Freaky February’s news.

There are still two more news days in the month.  What could be next?

Shun the Sex Offender!

Victims of sex crimes often suffer for the rest of their lives

When Cape Cod Today published a story about the Cape’s population of registered sex offenders last week, I read the article and was sad to think of the Cape as a haven for these individuals.  I thought about it and then I moved on.

I don’t want them near my family or yours.After years of seeing notices of newly-arrived sex offenders I guess I’m desensitized to the concept.

Then I read Sunday’s letter from a writer who boasts of the low recidivism rate among sex offenders.  The writer, by the way, says that she shares her home and life with a registered sex offender who committed a sex crime as a child after suffering abuse himself.

Oh yes, that got my attention!

First of all, we require sex offenders to be registered.  We publish their pictures and name the crimes of which they were convicted.  Society limits where registered sex offenders can live and tracks where they are employed.  These measures are designed to keep the public vigilant and to push the sex offender to the very margins of society.

If our society's prevention the pound of cure required?

Maybe that’s why the recidivism statistics are so low for sex offenders these days, although apparently the readers don't agree as witnessed by this week's poll.

If you shove an offender to the edges of society, publicize where he lives, plaster his picture all over the place and tell the public where he works – isn’t it doubtful he’ll have much opportunity to re-offend?

Victims of sex crimes often suffer for the rest of their lives.  It’s only right that their assailant suffer in equal proportion, if ever such a thing was possible.

The letter writer stated that her offender-housemate had committed his crime after having been a victim himself.  That is very sad.  It does not, however, begin to  justify the horror of his victim. 

When I was growing up we had a “funny priest” in our town.  Everyone whispered about him but this was the heyday of child molestation by priests – nothing was done.  When I was growing up we had a “funny priest” in our town.  Everyone whispered about him but this was the heyday of child molestation by priests – nothing was done. 

There was one boy who we all understood was the Father’s “special boy”, and the conjugation apparently continued from his early teens until he went off to college. 

Fast forward 20 years – the “special boy”, by then a well-regarded figure in youth athletics, was arrested for raping over a dozen boys.

So, no, I don’t pity the offender who was once a victim.  That victim/offender’s ordeal doesn’t give him the right to inflict it on another victim.

Let’s keep the sex offender at the far edge of society.  Let’s keep the public aware of their whereabouts and movements.  I don’t want them near my family or yours.

Maybe repeat drunk drivers and addicts should register the way sex offenders do.  Perhaps we’d see a reduced recidivism rate among those groups, as well.

You Can't Eat a Christmas Tree!

You Can’t Eat a Christmas Tree

Find a needy family and give them… a Christmas tree?

As Thanksgiving approached both the new and old media focused on the plight of needy Massachusetts families trying to feed their children. 

The other day I read that five years ago Massachusetts’ Catholic Charities processed 5,000 pounds of food per month and now gives more like 48,000 pounds.  Project Bread is reporting that 10% of households in Massachusetts are worried about having enough to eat which is the highest percentage since the government started collecting this data in 1995.

Cape Cod Today’s own Gerald Rogovin did a nice story Thanksgiving week about the challenges facing local food pantries.  Rogovin reports that the Cape’s food pantries’ demand is up 25% this year, along with a 23% increase observed at the Greater Boston Food Bank.

The Clueless to the Rescue

A lot of other stories like this crossed my screen in recent days.  Then I saw a flyer from a local benevolent group – a group I usually respect – with their solution to the woe facing the Cape’s needy families this year.

Quite simply, they want to give Christmas Trees to the needy.  That’s right, Christmas trees.

Folks, you can’t eat a Christmas tree!

You can’t wear a Christmas tree.  Heck, you can’t even heat your house with a live Christmas tree until the wood is seasoned.

No matter.  This misguided group wants its members to donate $40 to provide a Christmas tree that will “help bring a smile to a child and their family for Christmas”. 

How Nice is That? 

We’re hearing far and wide that working parents are having trouble feeding their children, that laid-off parents can’t maintain housing and are forced to live in motels, that many folks are challenged to find the money to buy proper winter coats for their kids.

But these guys want to give them a Christmas tree.  How nice is that? 

They even have the temerity to call it a “Christmas dream”.

Won’t these misguided people feel like jackasses when they deliver a tree to a 50 degree house and walk past the kids eating their supper of Ramen Noodles?  Won’t they feel awkward about bringing that tree to a home that might not have the money to put any gifts under that tree?  Wouldn’t they be embarrassed to realize the family doesn’t have a proper tree stand to hold their tree so it can bring the promised smile to their faces?

I’m not going to name this group.  I have too much respect for the good work they do as a whole.  Maybe the Christmas dreamers are a fringe group whose cheese is slowly slipping off their crackers.

$40 Still Buys a Lot

I wanted to make sure I wasn’t overreacting to this thing, so I sent the flyer to a few of my friends in local charities.  A representative sample of their feedback…Take our Poll:
How should local benevolent groups help needy families this Christmas?
[ ] Give them food, clothing and other essentials
[ ] Give them toys for the kids
[ ] Give them a Christmas tree
[ ] Give them absolutely nothing
No opinion

• “What genius came up with this?”  
• “Who are these people?” 
• “How out of touch can someone get?” 
• “My clients would thank them for the tree and then sell it on the street for food money.” 
• “Who’s going to pay for the $15 Christmas tree stand?” 
• “Tell those guys not to put the tree too close to the space heater my client’s been using since they ran out of oil.” 
• “Talk about a Christmas nightmare…”

Rather than give a $40 Christmas tree to a needy family, why not give them a Stop & Shop or Shaw’s gift card?  That way they could buy what they need, not what some do-gooder thinks will put a smile on their face.  $40 buys a lot of basic food items:  breads, cereals, milk, soup, canned veggies and more.  If the family received a $40 gift card to one of the dollar stores, imagine how much food they could bring home – and maybe even throw in a couple pairs of mittens or hats.

But no, a Christmas tree will put a smile on their faces.  It might not warm their belly or their hearth, but it’ll warm their hearts. 

I swear I think someone in that group is watching too much Bad Santa.   This is surely one of those “let them eat cake” moments of incredible naiveté.

To do something nice for families in need at Christmas – or any other time of the year – is a laudable thing.   But let’s make it something useful.  Help a family put food on the table, oil in the furnace, warm coats on the youngsters or maybe wrap up a small toy or two from Santa Claus. 

I promise you, the kids will like those toys just as much without the $40 Christmas tree.

Camp Good News is Bad News

Camp Good BAD News – Commando Camp or Magic Underpants?
An almost Freudian omission

Last night someone told me that Camp Good News is trying re-open.  I went to their web site and, sure enough, the headline proudly proclaims;

“The time has come to unlock the gates at Camp Good News”.

Yes, that Camp Good News.  The one in Sandwich.  The camp where Senator Scott Brown was allegedly molested.  The camp that’s under investigation by the DA.  The camp that’s generating so much business for child molestation law firms.  Yes, that camp!

Camp Good News staff is the same old bad news people

Their web site brags about their “improvements that include a team of year around staff and volunteers”.  When I looked at the “camp leadership” link on their “About Us” link, I found members of the Willard/Brooks family and nobody new.

Isn’t this a bit like re-opening “Camp Crystal Lake” of Friday the Thirteenth infamy after Jason Voorhees went on a few killing rampages?  In Friday the Thirteenth Part II, some people who tried to re-open the murder camp at least tried to change the name – not that it helped things much.

Well, I figured I’d give them the benefit of the doubt for a few minutes, so I browsed through their web site a little more.  I came upon the list of “Items to Bring”.  That was interesting, especially the part about bringing a Bible.  It is a Christian camp, after all.

Magic Mormon Underwear to the Rescue?

There was one omission that felt a bit “off”.  Nowhere on the list do they mention underwear.  Most summer camps that I checked seemed to recommend that parents send enough underwear so the child has two pair for every day he or she is at camp.

Granted, CGN didn’t have underwear on the list of things not to bring to camp.  Still, isn’t that a bit of a strange omission – especially with a camp that “chose to take a year off” to re-organize after last spring’s revelations?  Yes, I realize they probably just forgot to list underwear…

Then I remembered something I read about Mitt Romney and his magic underwear.  Could it be that Camp Good News is going to issue “magic underpants” to the campers?  Could the Mormon Temple Garments be a secret, evangelical silver bullet to ward off pedophiles?

Yes, I know Camp Good News isn’t a Mormon affiliated organization.  Frankly I don’t think the Mormons would put up with that kind of scandal for five minutes.   But the idea of magic underpants is a much more appealing thought than a bunch of “commando style” adolescent boys with their junk flopping around, don’t you think?

Who would send their kid to CGN after everything that has come out this year?  Even if the tuition was free and my child wanted to go, I’d still be too nervous to send her there. Maybe they won’t get their permits or they won’t get enough registrations to let them open.  One can only pray.

I’m sorry but I think the gates over there should stay locked and someone should hide the key until the waterfront real estate developers show up.