A Dope and A Dentist

I am writing to alert you regarding two news stories this morning that tickled my fancy. Well to be truthful one tickled the aforementioned fancy and the other one sickened me and further prove that our elected government is dragging our society further into the next realm of Dante’s Inferno (which is different from Disco Inferno.)

Let’s start with the positive; it is the holiday season after all. We begin with the story of Dr. Arthur Nelson, DDS. He is 67 and a dentist in Long Island. He also happens to be a fan of the New York Knickerbockers. Let me rephrase that. He has been a long standing fan of the NY Knicks who was thrown out of a game the other night for having a “printed sign” with him. What was written on the sign that was bad enough to get him thrown out of the game? Did it contain a vulgarity that the 9 year olds in attendance wouldn’t hear on the streets outside of Madison Square Garden after the game? No. Did he hold up a sign that sponsored a company who is in competition with one of the arena, league, or teams’ major corporate partners? Nope. He held up a sign that said “Fire Isiah” (in reference to the Knicks sexually harassing head coach.) Well Mr. Nelson didn’t take this lying down. No way Jose (or Isiah as the case may be). He set up a press conference yesterday in front of the Garden and displayed a 9ft tall “Pink Slip” that he would like James Dollan, head of the Garden who owns the Knicks, to deliver to Isiah Thomas. You can read the whole story here in today’s NY Post

I applaud Dr. Nelson (although I’m not sure I want him working on my teeth). We should all stand up and deliver a similar message to our President and Representatives, especially after reading this story.

The first comes courtesy of our friend Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) It seems the honorable lady from the Bayou has seen it fit to direct over $2 million to DC City schools over the past few years to bolster that city’s failing reading programs. It sounds like Congress has finally realized that the citizens of DC are people too and not just road bumps and obstacles to be avoided on their way to work and when going out for drinks after work. But wait, there’s more. According to an expose in today’s Washington Post, the fine Senator stipulated that those funds have to be used to purchase the Voyager Expanded Learning literacy program. It turns out that Voyager raised quite a bit of money for the Senator (to the tune of over $80,000). What was that you say? Is that a politician directing Federal tax dollars to a specific company while interfering in the District’s education program? Yep. The funny thing is you’d think Senator Landrieu might have directed that money to the New Orleans city school system. Oh I don’t know, they are still reeling in a post-Katrina rebuilding process and I’m sure $2 million would have come in very handy. I would even accept if she directed the same money to DC schools for a “reading program” with no stipulation as to which program/vendor they had to use. We saw Landrieu’s incompetence during the Katrina aftermath and we see it again a lot closer to home. Senator, do me a favor, spend some time teaching reading to kids in the DC schools. You could make a real difference instead of taking money and suckling at the government teat.