Touchable
Anybody see The Untouchables, a fictionalized account of Eliot Ness’ takedown of Al Capone? It’s one of ‘Puter’s favorite films. In the opening sequence, two mob goons go into a neighborhood establishment offering mob-supplied beer during Prohibition. The proprietor protests the mob beer is no good. The goons respond the beer’s not supposed to be good, it’s supposed to be bought. The proprietor refuses the mob’s offer, and the mob promptly blows up the establishment, including a young girl trying to return the briefcase holding the explosives.
It got ‘Puter to thinking about how similar today’s New York’s education system is to yesterday’s mobbed-up Chicago. Today, the role of the mob goons is played by New York’s teachers’ unions. The role of proprietor is played by New York property taxpayers. The role of the little girl is played by New York’s schoolchildren.
Raymond J. Keating writes a splendid and damning opinion piece in today’s New York Post. What makes it so damning is the reliance on undisputed facts. For example, New York ranks number one in average per pupil spending at $18,365. More facts? Sure. Here goes:
Over the decade through 2008-09, statewide per-pupil spending in the state skyrocketed at an average of 6.5 percent per year — better than 2½ times the inflation rate. And per-pupil state public-school aid has grown even faster — an average of 7.7 percent a year.
And:
Where is all this money going? For starters, New York tops the nation in per-pupil spending on teacher pay, exceeding the US average by 81 percent. Even more outrageous are our outlays for teacher benefits, where we beat the US average by 126 percent.
Teachers’ unions are holding New York taxpayers hostage, destroying the state’s economy and damning children to a sub-par education, all in order to line their pockets. It may be legal, but it’s sure as heck immoral.
Always right, unless he isn’t, the infallible Ghettoputer F. X. Gormogons claims to be an in-law of the Volgi, although no one really believes this.
’Puter carefully follows economic and financial trends, legal affairs, and serves as the Gormogons’ financial and legal advisor. He successfully defended us against a lawsuit from a liquor distributor worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid deliveries of bootleg shandies.
The Geep has an IQ so high it is untestable and attempts to measure it have resulted in dangerously unstable results as well as injuries to researchers. Coincidentally, he publishes intelligence tests as a side gig.
His sarcasm is so highly developed it borders on the psychic, and he is often able to insult a person even before meeting them. ’Puter enjoys hunting small game with 000 slugs and punt guns, correcting homilies in real time at Mass, and undermining unions. ’Puter likes to wear a hockey mask and carry an axe into public campgrounds, where he bursts into people’s tents and screams. As you might expect, he has been shot several times but remains completely undeterred.
He assures us that his obsessive fawning over news stories involving women teachers sleeping with young students is not Freudian in any way, although he admits something similar once happened to him. Uniquely, ’Puter is unable to speak, read, or write Russian, but he is able to sing it fluently.
Geep joined the order in the mid-1980s. He arrived at the Castle door with dozens of steamer trunks and an inarticulate hissing creature of astonishingly low intelligence he calls “Sleestak.” Ghettoputer appears to make his wishes known to Sleestak, although no one is sure whether this is the result of complex sign language, expert body posture reading, or simply beating Sleestak with a rubber mallet.
‘Puter suggests the Czar suck it.