Editor-In-Chief
NEW YORK, N.Y. - The most serious news here centers on the basketball player many say may be the best in the world, one LeBron James. It is said Mssr. James alone can save the pitiful New York Knicks, most recently doormats of the National Basketball Association. Who knows? Dreams of getting the spectacular James to play for the Knicks has New Yorkers in a tizzy; that, and, oh yeah, morbid fear that the messy oil plumes currently savaging the country's Gulf Coast will begin to slide around Florida and ooze up the Atlantic Coast.
Next in line on the news-of-the-day ledger is a story in the New York Times that would absolutely rock any small town or state battling budget woes, namely a tale of this city's practice of sending troubled schoolteachers (suspensions) to something called the Rubber Room, where they sit and play cards all day long while remaining on the payroll. A few have been known to master the Rubik's Cube thingee, others to leave at the end of the day with a completed Times crossword puzzle. As of today, however, the Rubber Room is out of business. The end of an era, thanks to a compromise agreed-to by the Department of Education and the powerful New York Teachers Union. And so it went for an astonishing 700 teachers who found themselves battling charges of transgressions that ranged from abusing students to persistent tardiness to sexually harassing students.
"We're pretty much the epitome of uselessness," one teacher told the Times as the last day came to a close. In a corner of one of the rooms, according to the Times, a teacher who'd taken up the guitar while on suspension began to play "Let It Be," which, in turn, led a fellow teacher to say, to him, "You sound like a sick cat." All will now be re-assigned. As he was being told to leave for the last time, the guitar-playing teacher unloaded the words that fit the occasion perfectly: "Once a reject, always a reject."
It was the end of Monday in the city.
And nowhere was anyone talking about the Texas-Mexico border, about the drug cartels bloodying each other, about some Mexican politician being assassinated, about the season's first hurricane making land by mid-week. All that was someplace else, over there, far, far away...
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3 comments:
That Alex Hurricane, coming this way.. For most of the R.G.V. is like Disney coming to us, People that had never pass the Border, and out of the Rancho Grande valley, this is a major entertainment and exhiting stuff. FOOD STAMP TIME: Fajitas will be flying out of the grill, cheap american beer willl be spinning out of those " Yeleras " and that Circus= Ridiculous music by " La Mafia " and by " MASS ".
.> Enjoy
Anonymous, you are too hard on the Valley. Are you local or from some where up North??
Nothing personal, but you are forever, critizing the culture. May I ask, have you ever considered moving to Oregon or Ohio??
I think, you would be better suited for the culture up North.
Untill they begin to stereo type you.
Damn Rigth girl, I am from Harlingen, Texas !
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