Movement Establishing a Marco Island High School for Outstanding Education has Commenced

A group of community and business leaders, parents, educators, entrepreneurs as well as representatives from several civic organizations met Saturday, January 24, 2009 to explore the opportunity of establishing a public high school dedicated to providing an outstanding education to the children of Marco Island and the surrounding communities.

Dr. Marcia Greene, Dean, College of Education at Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU) attended the meeting and expressed the University’s interest in working with Marco Island in developing an exceptional high school. She provided several excellent comments regarding both the need for such a high school and the willingness of FGCU to be involved in the staffing. It was pointed out that Dr. Fay Biles, Foundation Board of Florida Gulf Coast University and Dr. Mario Sánchez, a local resident and tenured professor at Miami Dade College had been communicating with FGCU for several years in and attempt to develop such a school.

Some of the distinguishing factors that were discussed for the envisioned high school were:

• The availability of funding
• The potential of the high school students being taught/instructed by FGCU professors
• The potential of the high school students attending classes at FGCU
• A classical, all-encompassing curriculum that supports a vast array of disciplines
• The potential of having graduate and post-graduate students, scholars, scientists and researchers from FGCU providing instruction
• Use of FGCU facilities for specialized studies, such as laboratories
• Capitalizing on the community’s highly educated and highly experienced retirees

Clearly, these and other novel ideas will extenuate the genuine educational opportunity for the approximate 2,000 school-aged children of this community.

Entrepreneurs and business leaders noted that without exception, an extraordinary level of quality education in a high school is a boon to the surrounding community. Such high schools attract families desirous in the best education possible for their children hence appreciably enhancing the economic infrastructure of the community.

In response to the concern that a long lead time is required to start such a school, the principal of our excellent charter middle school, Mr. George Abounader suggested exploring the option to introduce a high school one year at a time.

It was decided that the next step was to inform the Marco Island community of this effort and to solicit the much needed volunteer assistance to bring such a high school to the island.

Hence, there will be a town hall meeting on Saturday January 31, 2008 at 10AM at Mackle Park where all concerned citizens are encouraged to attend. The purpose of this gathering is to present the support already garnered for such an effort, solicit input from the entire community, and to request active participation in undertaking this wonderful opportunity for both our community and our children.

Dr. Mario Sánchez
for further information contact: marcohighschool@DBIQ.com

Everything vs. Education

Thomas Jefferson aptly noted that “If the children are untaught, their ignorance and vices will in future life cost us much dearer in their consequences than it would have done in their correction by a good education”. But yet, debates rage throughout this country contrasting education and the real or imagined benefits of everything else. Some of these discussions are valid and beneficial to all parties, as when school budgets are reduced leaving administrators with the unenviable task of cutting costs somewhere so as not to affect the ultimate goal – education.

However, other “discussions” center on the absurd. The amount of time, money and effort utterly wasted on such inanity as teachers’ unions protecting pedophile teachers or lawsuits to protect college professors the likes of Sami Al-Arian (supporting terrorism) and Ward Churchill (described World Trade Center victims as "little Eichmanns”) boggles the mind . These efforts serve simply one purpose – denying children an education.

But yet these types of insipid debates need not be national in scope to further undermine the country’s obligation to educate so as to preserve democracy. The discussion circulating regarding the use of track K is akin to these nefarious arguments that continually consume the educational establishment and thwart the legitimate efforts of a school system.

Given the relative autonomy of local school boards, the biggest obstacle in providing for an education are the local obstacles derived from local initiatives. The solar power scheme is such an evidently specious obstacle.

It is simply unfathomable that any board that purports to forward education in this country and especially in this state will not move expeditiously to use a gift of such magnitude as a track of land deeded for a real school.

If a school board is given one book, it should put it to use to educate one child. If a school board is given one computer, it should put it to use to educate a handful of children. If a person gives their knowledge, put it to use to educate classes of children. If a school board is given a plot of land, it should put it to use to educate hundreds of children. What alternatives can be nobler or better served? Why try to sell the book or trade the computer or deny the person knowledge or give away the plot of land for a perceived immediate gain that in reality is no gain at all?

Everyone decries the state of education. Blame the lack of money, blame the unions, and of course blame the teachers. But the real problem with education lies simply in the sordid politics that grant favors to a select few at the expense of our children. An act more ignoble can not be conceived, yet such transactions are the norm, ergo the state of education. The problem is not the lack of money or the unions or the teachers; the problem with education is exclusively because of those villains that cynically and blindly suggest that everything they will profit from can supplant any piece of the educational pie while masqueraded as “educational”.

The Collier County School Board must deny the fallacious proposal to turn track K into some power generating facility. The Collier County School Board must work with local parents that have been desirous in building a high school for exceptional education on track K. The Collier County School Board must honor its commitment to further education in this county as when presented with land specifically deeded for that purpose.

The educational quality of any generation affects us all. It is immensely nearsighted to allow a few to profit from a questionable transaction promulgated farcically as an educational effort. It is entirely because of transactions such as the power scam being proposed that will … “cost us much dearer in their consequences”.

Two Outlooks for 2009

After a couple of rare setbacks for the syndicate with the refusal of one of its allies to seek the city attorney position and with the seeming stalling of procuring a utility company (at the citizens expense of course), the syndicate is looking ahead to 2009. Not to say that 2008 was a total loss, for after all they experienced some major triumphs the most notable of which was their candidates being morphed into the city council in a landslide victory that surprised no one except the losing candidates and their erstwhile mercurial desultory albeit highly entertaining singular de facto campaign manager.

Buttressed by the scientific poll promulgated by one of the local race tip sheets where the overwhelming majority of residents – a total of 20 – prefer a dog park over all other options for track K, the syndicate is hell-bent on using the land deeded for educational purpose as a power generating facility. Preparing a fallback position, the syndicate has decided that if track K can not be peppered with arrays of aesthetically pleasing solar panels that were purchased through favors facilitated by one of their members that just happens to be a contributor and buddy-buddy with the governor who clearly uses a lot of solar whatever on his face, and “tax” incentives, and the land at no cost for after all solar panels are educational to the children of one of the worst rated educational counties in the worst rated state in a country that ranks near last of all industrialized countries – children that 19% of which can’t identify the sun when presented with a picture of the solar system hence might just be miffed in understand what a “solar” panel does when they have no clue what or where the sun is even during the day when being presented with a picture on a computer screen as opposed to simply looking out the window, and that of course have formed a company to “sell” the electricity to God-knows who or what and thereby reap the profits (at the citizens expense of course) and that despite all of these exceedingly beneficial initiatives to none other than themselves, then they will proceed with a proposal to use track K to support a mini nuclear power plant.

“Cheap clean power that we can sell into the power grid and thereby make money on behalf of the city of Marco Island so that the city can pay for the sewer project that was never funded properly and now can’t move forward with our junk bond status in this good but confusing economy that our astute and highly experienced city councilors are correct in noting has no effect on our community – in referring to their ignorance of the economy, not their ignorance in general” proclaimed Mr. Maximus Buffoones, one of the purported heads of the syndicate. “Besides,” Mr. Buffoones went on to say, “What more of an educational purpose can the land serve than a nuclear facility where we can explain to children how nuclear fusion works!” When corrected by that there are no nuclear fusion plants in existence and that nuclear power plants produce energy indirectly via nuclear fission, Mr. Buffoones noted that he has a degree in electrical something or other and has spent over 90 years not only living on Marco Island but as a “power consultant”. After being corrected he did then go on to say “And what difference would it be fusion or fission or whatever make as to the educational use of the land? When the majority of our citizens – all 20 of them – exercise their constitutional right to take a poll and thereby dictate to the city council five and half of which are our operatives that the council should allow via referendum or statute by way of our buddy the governor that the overwhelming majority of residents would prefer, demand, necessitate, implicate and dictate their own interest propagated as something good for the community when this initiative masks our ulterior motive of commercializing the island (at the citizens expense of course), since we are the syndicate after all, and thereby require a place where canines can defecate as opposed to teaching our children about nuclear things, the majority have the right then to complain and express outrage when they patron a local vomitorium and the teenager at the register can’t make change without interminably fumbling around the keyboard when the sale is $10.50 and the nauseated customer hands over $11.” Continuing, “… We prefer to have ‘the greatest generation’ spend their twilight years collecting and disposing of dog crap as they complain bitterly about how freaking stupid kids are today some of which you would think are their own grandchildren or great grand children than to turn over a good piece of land to some absurd project like a school.”

Good point.

The audit committee to audit the shell game masking the Ponzi scheme which is the city expenditures is right on course with the usual suspects doing some sort of citizen work pontificating for the cameras as to where all of the money went as if we did not know already. Nothing expected here unless you are Captain Louis Renault. Major Strasser is somehow involved in the budget committee that is sure to increase taxes and thereby increase expenditures with deference to the few readers that actually took an economic class, especially one outside of Southwest Florida for they know that more spending when the basis drops is deleterious to sane fiscal responsibility as proven time and time again since the time of the Pharaohs to the times of Keynes and Friedman but such universal truths are of no relevance to the syndicate since we must spend the money that we don’t have on such projects as …

A green utility building. The syndicate went to great lengths to get this one by the laugh meters and for that we are grateful into eternity which is just about when all of this stealing and lying leading to bankruptcy will pan out, an inarguably great idea since by then the same stupid kids that can’t make change because the geniuses running the nascent socialism system that was once a great experiment at democracy formulated by the now derided idiots like Jefferson and Madison and Jay and Adams decided to turn opportunities for education into opportunities for further conning the part time residents and part time thinkers and less time doers hence by then when these kids will be arguably in charge and won’t know what hit them or even how to count to many trillions nationwide and how many hundreds of millions locally? Spend the money of a citizenry drowning in the worst recession since before the greatest generation whom mostly are living beyond the means to support the syndicate’s interminable financial escapades – like a green building or any other building. Yes, green just like the new city hall and police building and Collier boulevard’s sprinklers that water the road more than the plants and numerous deep injection wells to further pollute the aquifer as opposed to reclaiming and processing that water for irrigation and the Collier boulevard’s lighting fixtures that we are certain are equipped with solar panels to help cut down on electrical consumption given that there are unnecessarily too many of them but they look pretty despite their alignment having been done by Ray Charles.

May we suggest using the waterways as a revenue scheme not to be confused with the governor’s revenue scam of turning Alligator Alley over to commercial interests so big business with the inside track to the power brokers can continue the raping that the good ol’ boys started when they made millions at the expense of how many young lives in the square grouper trade even if to defend those ignoble fisherman. The waterways that occasionally become contaminated courtesy of the new sewage system with 18,000 gallons of raw sewage infused with other wonderful mixtures of environmentally friendly toxic chemicals such as Prozac and Viagra can be leased to the U.S. Navy so they can hide their Ohio-class submarines armed with hundreds of Trident II and Tomahawk nuclear tipped and nuclear fueled missiles which in the syndicate line of thinking is an ideal “synergism” given their nuclear project fall back on track K despite the fact that the planned nuclear reactor for track K has absolutely no similarities to a nuclear device or a nuclear fueled missile other than the word “nuclear” which to the syndicate is all that is needed to get the 5 and one half they control and write ghost editorials for to make half-wit speeches akin to the now infamous “there be fecal in the waterways” speech as to why we need the nuclear power plant to “support the troops” that use nuclear powered subs and missiles to protect all of us regretfully including the syndicate.

Hey, but that is America now that it has officially become socialist by virtue of its representatives who voted to own banks, insurance companies, investment firms and automobile companies that deride their own workers in the automobile unions despite the white collar bureaucrats at the company being solely responsible for designed planned obsolescence and for the Pinto death trap and for cars that rusted in one year and for placing fuel tanks on the outside of the frame and for autos that rolled over when the driver sneezed and for overlooking to include a rubber seal between the tank and the spout and for giving us the Corvair “unsafe at any speed” while the same people that were decimated with Little Boy and Fat Boy designed and built with the same union workers cars that lasted and did not explode on a 5MPH impact, but never mind for even the obtuse can run the farm before they too were sold out to the conglomerates that took all of us for a ride first with genetically modified grains that they swore with a straight face would not contaminate other grains even when a very few of us raised our hands from the back of the classrooms and asked the insipid question “how are you going to prevent bees from cross pollinating genetically modified crops with non-genetically modified crops?” … perhaps by simply doing away with the bees we thought cynically then, and now witness the annihilation of worker bees by sheer coincidence we’re sure, and now with the greatest scam to hit this great country since the first imaginary black president Clinton, dealing in the ethanol-flex fuel charade that makes the ignorant happy they are driving tanks (AKA SUVs) on “flex fuel” and ethanol but to the same aghast few at the back of the room shake our heads given that ethanol not only costs more to make but also uses more petroleum than the equivalence of a gallon of gasoline. Straight from the you can’t make this up category, the ethanol industry has asked for a bailout – the second industry this week that has joined the bandwagon (the other industry this week to ask for help was the Nevada prostitutes). Has anyone tried to buy corn oil lately to accomplish that primordial need called cooking despite any foodstuff based on corn is eight times more expensive than diesel fuel so thank you ethanol and flex fuel users. FYI; sugar cane is cheaper and appreciably better for making ethanol but … oh, that’s right the same governor that is buddy buddy with local syndicate dandiprats just paid how many billions of our money to the sugar industry so that they would stop growing sugar cane and turn millions of acres into a preserve that can be monitored by the ever vigilant Florida Dunces at Environmental Pollution that not only ignored for decades how the sugar barons destroyed Florida Bay and parts of the Everglades and continued to do such a great job, you know, just like how they prevented the serial violations here on Marco Island and thereby prosecuted those that contaminated Marco Island’s waterways and air and soil. Keep dreaming.

Speaking of soil, did anyone find it ironic that last year’s Christmas tree, tree lighting and related festivities were held on the same ground where the asbestos was dumped and buried?

Oh, by the way, the seawalls will all need to be modernized so that your house doesn’t fall into the waterways damaged by the dumping of millions of gallons of effluent laced with hydrogen sulfide when the submarines go by and create a wake the size of … your house. This scam will pass by some citizen committee chosen by the 5 and a half that are in effect chosen by the syndicate so get ready. Anybody want to guess who is going to own or who will be the only seawall rebuilding companies? No, no, no, not the guy that beats his wife. Come on now, think like they do.

The syndicate looks to the same coverage of man-bites-dog stories (in addition to the myriad listings by the order takers now desperate for the good old days of flipping) by the local race tip sheets masquerading as newspapers though that nomenclature has long been revoked given how they abdicated what constitutional scholars unanimously agree as a constitutional obligation to inform the public ergo that quaint and rustic verbiage written into the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution that is more obsolete than the slide ruler so we mind as well give it to the Iraqis and save them all the trouble and money of writing their own at our expense of course since we are not using it – the constitution that is – anymore. And just in case some “reporter” doesn’t get the memo you better not report on anything other than what the syndicate ministry of propaganda gnathonicly known as the city’s Public Information somethingorother spews out lest you find yourself holding hands with Ed the sympathetic drunk or covering papal ecumenical treatises in the middle of the swamp.

For every good soul that has the temerity to write an article about how they are losing friends due to both the economic hardship and the cynically despotic policies of the ongoing governance, the syndicate ushers out an op-ed piece about how great things are or pens an incoherent insipidly banal article to be put forth as if original by one of their 5 and a half. It’s as if Holocaust deniers became tired of that story and are now denying this mess. Everything is just fine says the syndicate, and you better believe it or shut up otherwise you won’t get to serve on some Vichy styled committee or you’ll wind up with serial warnings how your grass is a picometer too tall or your house will simply be vandalized by god-knows-who since the “investigation” will lead exactly to the same place that the investigation of the vandalism to the house of the citizen stupid enough to exercise his first amendment right directly to the one of the five and half led to and that the asbestos dumping investigation led to which in both cases was absolutely nowhere.

But wait, the latest sage opining about the real estate market is claiming with all of the customary legal disclaimers that the market is ready for a rebound. Fine, but think about this for a minute: do you honestly believe that the shenanigans by some of the locals in this “profession” went unnoticed by the feds? Stay tuned – and not to the local race tip sheets for god forbid (notice the lower case G) they lose their revenue stream. But don’t worry about their revenue for the food establishments haven’t yet received the memo about the water.

Lest the opposition comprised of the few remaining good souls wins the lottery by discovering and rallying around a strong non-egomaniac with no desire to get named in the papers or take credit for everything that torpedoes albeit temporarily the plans of the syndicate, then some of us will spend 2009 jumping how high with the latest emanation of the syndicate’s its ours to rape modality, some of us will merely regurgitate at such ideas that invariably get Vaseline-ed through the city council of the people by the people for the people as long as the people are not “those people” and the majority will return eagerly to the Nebraska’s of the north and think of this place only when they get their ever increasing property taxes and utility bill with one of the new surcharges to pay for the solar panels or to bury the spent nuclear fuel which can merely be driven three blocks and buried along with the asbestos so that Christmas trees can be lit “naturally, green!” for the next 704 million years (that’s the half-life of Uranium-235 for the benefit of Mr. Buffoones, you know, the comosellama that spent his whole life as a “power consultant”) which are the years just about when solar energy will become economically viable were it not being subsidized by lying to the citizens. “Hey, Bertha, look at that, the tree glows an odd shade of green without lights!” “That’s right Fred, Marco Island is so ‘green’ now”.

We pray (literally) that the disloyal opposition to the incumbency and their handlers realize that the serial farces put forth by the syndicate are worth no salt and serve nothing more than to expose them for what they are. The syndicate wants to buy a utility, and the opposition jumps and screams and issues 119 request that will be obfuscated at the minimum and ignored most likely. The syndicate is exposed for unbalanced books and missing funds, and the opposition jumps and screams and issues 119 request that will be obfuscated at the minimum and ignored most likely. The syndicate lies about “there be fecal in the waterways” and the opposition jumps and screams and issues 119 request that will be obfuscated at the minimum and ignored most likely. Four years go by without testing the water that passes through broken water mains made with asbestos only to be exposed via a 119 request to the galoots at the FDEP that after months of threats finally complied with in part since they omitted the good stuff resulting in a collective yawn by the citizenry since after all the public works director thought nothing of people consuming asbestos. And on and on. Has it ever occurred to anyone that despite myriad violations of the myriad 119 requests no one has ever been prosecuted? Oh, and let’s not overlook the “insights” by the departed and partially departed that are well intentioned but fall on the deaf ears of the five and half as if they could understand anyway. Talk about futility akin to Henry David Thoreau’s admonition that it would be nobler to shoot woodcocks which is ironically akin to the shooting the syndicate was recorded screaming which speaking more of shootings and the futility of nitpicking at the guffaws of the syndicate is the even more apt observation by the Reverend Al Sharpton when commenting how police shot repeatedly unarmed rappers then reloaded and fired again and then reloaded and fired again concluding poignantly and sardonically “at some point you would think that the police would realize that no one was shooting back”. Here is a novel thought – the disloyal opposition comprised of the honest albeit nearly vanquished good citizens of the island and stewards of the environment come up with their own initiatives. Oh, but wait, some of us tried, in fact one soul came up with 99 positive initiatives for the island nation under the nom de guerre Paradise Promise only to watch how the egos denigrated the ideas because after all it wasn’t theirs and the few that gave the initiatives notice argued about how the goals shouldn’t be called Paradise Promise but Paradise Made or Paradise Goals or Marco Promise or “THEIR FIRST NAME” Promise and hence the whole set of ideas went down the sewer – literally. And is there any wonder why the syndicate is in charge?

Succinctly the honorable and hence disloyal opposition simply nips at their heels, a Sysiphusian labor that occasionally causes an abrasion while the beast marches on content and unrepentant.

If we want honest and open representatives with vision and temerity while initiating actions as opposed to being led by the nose by the “staff”; if we have resigned from our obligation due to the revulsion of how the city’s affairs and treasury are being manipulated for the benefit of special interests; if we want to jettison the sleaze and stamp out behind-the-scenes dealings and manipulation; if we want leaders with a proactive vision; if we want to reduce taxes while at the same time ensuring the solvency and permanence of the city … we have but one course of action. We call for a Congress of Concerned Citizens.

Otherwise we will be entreated to another year of a very few chasing the syndicate’s latest sham, the conscientious majority will remain ghastly reticent, all will pay more, and we will simply reprint this article in twelve months time.

And lest we consider these musings are those of a doryphore, there is always hope that federal indictments won’t come soon enough.