Mostly Useless Baldwin-Whitehall Teachers Striking-Comments from a Former Teacher

When are we going to rid ourselves of the USELESS teacher union?

I am (un)proud to say I went to Baldwin and it hardly got me prepared for college. I needed to retake all my math classes because those A's and B's they gave me at the high school amounted next to fuckin nothing (they might as well have given me D's and F's).

I was a teacher at one of the better area high schools, I swear to God, for one year before persuing work in the business world. All the whining in the teachers' lounge and disgusting union meetings made me ill. I couldn't fathom making less money than a teacher who showed popular movies twice a week in his math class because he was too old to care anymore. What a loser.

Here are some facts to remember, before you get swept up in the Union Rhetoric:

-Teachers get off between mid-June and mid-August and have regular vacations like the rest of us (for the most part) plus most holidays the kids have. They will try and spin it that they will still have to work in the summer, and that is true for new teachers writing lessons, but anything extra they do besides lesson planning, THEY GET PAID FOR IT. One of my collegues made an extra couple grand every year being the teacher rep for some science shit, and basically showed up once a Saturday for a few weeks, plus for an event and a few after school gigs. Nice money for something they should do anyway. Trust me that old teachers NEVER do lesson planning, so their summers are spent at the beach.

-In some districts, teachers of 17-18 years make upwards of 85k! Baldwin is listed as a POOR PERFORMING SCHOOL DISTRICT and gets a near average salary for the area and pretty high for the rest of the country? Can you imagine you are paying a below average employee an average wage?

-Teachers get tenure usually after 3 years. Can you imagine, that after 3 years you never have to compete for your job again? The only stress you create is your own, because guess what, you get a PROSCIBED RAISE each year no matter how good or bad you do. Talk about socialism.

I could rant about this all day. Don't confuse this kind of union with the unions that have faught for workers rights from greedy corporations throughout history. This is a greedy union, who pushes their propaganda down to good and bad teachers alike, and makes them feel they are worth more than they really are. Like they are owed something. This isn't stealing from a greedy company, this is stealing from YOU the tax payer.

As always, I have an easy solution to all of this:
-Pay teachers a base salary, plus an amount per class they teach. This keeps it fair, and ensures you put the best teachers on the most classes.
-Eliminate tenure. NO OTHER JOBS have tenure outside of education. Eliminating tenure puts stress on teachers to keep up strong performance every year. Keep the great teachers, do away with the shitty ones.
-Not all teachers are created equal. So don't pay them that way. Pay the great ones MORE than 85k and well before that 18 year mark. Eliminate or demote to subs the shitty teachers.

Our kids deserve better. Our taxmoney and citizens deserve better. There is nothing wrong with our schools that eliminating the teacher's union won't fix.
Even Steve Jobs, founder of Apple and pretty liberal, has choice words to say about the oligarchy called the teacher union.

I can't urge you enough to defy these bums. Remember, Baldwin teachers are making an average of 55k to teach kids at a below average level. More money isn't going to help anyone but the teachers line their pocketbooks, and the union leaders have more money. It is more money PLUS newer and better teachers MINUS a teacher's union that will solve our problems. Just think back to your time and imagine that that bitchy masculine woman of a gym teacher was making 85k. Do you think your parents' tax money was worth it???

Its too bad that the minority of amazing and caring teachers out there have to get lumped in with the rest of the lazy worthless bums that are babysitters and not teachers.

Don't honk in support of them when you drive by. Throw them the finger, and a few choice words. Make this strike or any they do in the future MISERABLE for them.

Do we need a UPMC Watch blog?

I have toyed with starting a UPMC watch blog. Here is another interesting story today of how these assholes continue to make more and more money, yet provide shitty service with 50% bitchy nurses (and to be fair 50% wonderful nurses who can't stand their employer), expensive parking for family and patients, and slow and unorganized discharge plans, where people just sit...and wait...to get out, and the insurance companies and families get stuck with the extended bill. Who is watching UPMC? They never have to pay taxes, they have no one to answer to because they run 90% of the area hospitals, and they whine about their costs like a corporation, while they have two loaves of bread under their arms.

Look at this article about the revenues and profits UPMC has made in a half of its fiscal year. Sick.

Who is asking the questions? How does a hospital make so much money yet provide such shit service? I am not talking about the amazing doctors. I am not talking about that portion of compassionate nurses. Visit a close family member there for a few days and understand what I mean. Why can't they provide parking for families of terminal patients? Why can't they provide TV for free? Why can't they charge store cost for pills and meds? A tylenol can cost the price of a bottle.

Stop being jagoffs and blaming the insurance companies. No wonder they don't want to pay for shit because they are getting ripped off too! Why can't UPMC sell shares like a public company, because I would love to be in on some of this cash.

I can diss Romoff all day, but that jerkoff and his minions are sharp, and while making that kind of money he will never leave that unaccountable position.

Hey Ravelchild, this is your chance to be a real mayor and ask some questions, instead of an overgrown frat boy tough guy.

Gym Ettiquete Part 2-Tips for Gym users

Here is part two of my thrilling gym ettiquete installment:

Here are some tips for gym users:
-There is NO NEED TO BE NAKED in the locker room more than a minute to change clothes. Why do you have to walk around naked? Recently at the gym, this young guy talked on his cell phone, naked, for about 15 minutes, periodically staring down at his balls, and then the mirror. That boggles my mind-do you want to bang yourself? This isn't a 1950's gym class, or the army. Put your clothes on. Just because some hag told you that you had a great knob 20 years ago doesn't mean the rest of us give a shit. And old guys, WOW do you have pathetically small dicks. I thought I was small...

-Clean off the machine when you're done. That's why those spray bottles are all around. See that slimy patch where your head was? Clean it up. And stop sweating already for fuck's sake.

-Stop bullshitting and lift weights, especially if you are holding up the only Smith Machine in the joint. I have shit to do and so do others, so if you want to talk on the phone, go grab your cell and head out the door. I know you steroids love talking about your workouts, but I don't have time for that shit.

-Don't scream when you lift. I understand there is grunting involved, especially when you are pressing, but you aren't Schwartzenegger, or even close to being a professional. No need to bang weights either, for that matter.

-The water fountain is meant for SHORT drinks. See that line behind you? Stop filling your water bottle for 5 minutes asshole. If you are filling and see someone behind you, move out of the way.

-Quit using multiple machines fucko. Maybe the "hot" workout thing is supersetting, but it wastes valuable space and everyone else's time.

-Don't use your cell phone IN the gym. Can't you walk outside or to the locker room?

-Fat people...stop wasting your time. The first step to weight loss is to STOP EATING!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can make this article about 10 times longer, but I think these are great action steps for losers who use the gym for recreation like others use clubs, bars or vaginas.

Amphitheater + Homestead Waterfront = MORONIC IDEA.

Everyone is touching themselves over this: The Amphitheater at Station Square is moving to the Waterfront in Homestead. Happy day. We're moving near the water and its beautiful, now cue the doves.

The truth is the opposite. If you thought trying to get in and out of Station Square is bad, whoever decided to put the Amphitheater in the Waterfront should get Syphillis. As a person who lives near the Waterfront, I can tell you that it is the worst planned project EVER. They must have thought it would be another Pittsburgh Mills (AKA piece of shit with stores no one has heard of) and that it would be used sporatically. Not true. Just about every store you can find in any big Pittsburgh Venue is there. Obviously Homestead's bumbling ass mayor and the council of idiots never took anytime to decide how much traffic would be impacted. They just saw dollar signs.

The bridge has been under construction for like 2 years. And if you drive on the bridge, you see it remain closed with people only working on it during an 9-5 shift. That bridge should be worked on ROUND THE CLOCK. God knows Homestead gets loads of taxes from the Waterfront. Where do they all go? Probably to overpaid contractors on the bridge who work 28 hours/week after breaks.

There are three ways out of the Waterfront, all as easily as accessible as the exit doors in Alcatraz. One is over a silly tressle that takes you to Kennywood. It enters a main road, so of course the moron Homestead engineer doesn't have the common sense to time the light correctly, so the line out of the Waterfront is always really long, and not a single car crosses on the main road while you sit...and wait...and wait. The second exit is across the train tracks. FOUR SETS of train tracks that is, where it is not too uncommon to have to wait for two trains to pass instead of one. And the last exit is onto that piece of shit bridge, where even with the return of four lanes sometime in 2040, traffic will still be horrendous. Take some of that tax money and put timers on the lights like one very innovative and hip foreign country did, divert those trains, and EXPAND THE BRIDGE WHILE YOU HAVE IT CLOSED OR FIRE THE USELESS CONTRACTORS.

What does Mayor Dumbdak of West Homestead say about it? "I don't care about the traffic. It means we're alive.'' Thank God this guy is like 80, he is very hip.

You don't care, Dindick, because you get extra tax money for it. But we do care, stupid. With the extra tax money, build a few more roads in and out, because its a problem already, and God knows how it will change after the "Amphitheater" takes hold. What can we expect from an idiot mayor who wanted to sell the naming rights of Homestead like it was a fuckin arena. Jackass.