Permission to Cancel the Remaining Town Hall PTA Meetings Denied, The Shows Must Go On.

Now that John King's victory lap around the state where he planned to pose for a pic here and straighten out a CCSS recidivist there has turned into a scene from The Sand Pebbles, the Little Appointee Who Couldn't has hidden himself behind the skirt of NYS PTA and asked them to let him off the hook for the remaining ass whoopings, errrr, meetings. O.K. Johnny, though we hardly got to know ye, we all had a pretty good idea of the kind of gutless, ass kissing weasel you were and you showed it all when you blew up under pressure and couldn't handle "the classroom" when "the kids" got a little rowdy. In charterland you just "counsel them out" but we all know that's not reality now is it? 

So, no more stockpiling overripe tomatoes, air horns, glitter, rotten eggs and rubber chickens. Fine. We can handle that. The stupidity of King thinking for one minute that trying to mingle with the proles in a top down, "I'm the boss here" manner was going to go any other way is a glimpse into just how gone this guy is and just how little respect he has for the residents of the state he has been allowed to terrorize with his testing regimen and his Common Core-ophilia. 

I have heard it suggested by more civilized wags than me that the show must go on. What ? you ask. A Town Hall meeting sans politically appointed pinata ? What fun will that be? Well let's think about it for a second folks. Why was King given the lion's share of speaking time in the first place? Did anyone there NOT know what kind of hogwash he was going to slop? Short of anyone having a chance to have their say, the fun was going to be watching folks unload on Lil John. That's really the only reason anybody went to those things. Am I right?

It was further suggested elsewhere that a Flat Johnny -- cousin of Flat Stanley -- could be whipped up in no time and placed in front of a podium with a dead mic. Flat Meryl, Flat Andrew and Flat Bennets could also be rolled out and addressed accordingly, tried as it were for their crimes against education, reason and humanity. 

While it's tempting to veer into Beckett land or flirt with Ionesco for the sake of the performance, a perfectly straight up Town Haller could serve us just as well. Why not allow the entire 2 hours to parents, teachers and administrators who can share their agitas, their angst and their rage at the backhanded fashion in which we've all been treated by people like Tisch and Cuomo and their inept court jester King. I predict two hours of intelligent objection against the corporate created, unvetted, developmentally inappropriate Common Core and its concomitant tsunami of shittily written standardized tests will barely scratch the surface of the outrage and frustration we are feeling. It will be a good start though. 

The venue we choose for the meeting and the form we give it is immaterial really. What matters is that we don't allow John King to control " the conversation" as he is so fond of calling it. He has shown himself to be aloof, detached, arrogant and a world class shitty liar. His participation in this conversation added nothing but the sputterings of an ego that is not used to being bruised especially by people he deems to be his underlings. Inviting every mic and newspad we can scrounge up for the event will be sure to get the message the play it needs. Who knows, maybe even the Buffalo News will put their latest hagiography of a local reformer on hold and send a scribe out to see the ruckus.

We need to hold that meeting.  I would gladly listen to two hours of speakers I could applaud and hoot for than wait for my chance to drill Lil John with a snowball. The show must go on. Let's do it.