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Thursday, July 23, 2009

Politics Deep Thought

Posted by Dan Savage on Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 1:03 PM

Seeking a seat on the Seattle School Board should instantly disqualify someone from serving on the Seattle School Board.

Comments (14) RSS

Oldest First Unregistered On Registered On Add a comment

please elaborate...

Posted by jkjk on July 23, 2009 at 1:06 PM

Why? And, who?

Posted by flo on July 23, 2009 at 1:18 PM

So true.

Posted by Simac on July 23, 2009 at 1:18 PM

That is true for most of the cities I've lived in (New Orleans & Detroit) - the people who should stay far, far away from being on the school boards (because they are usually the batshit craziest members of the community) are usually the people most likely to run for those positions - and they usually are the ones who get elected.

Posted by Hyzenthlayk9

on July 23, 2009 at 1:19 PM

People say the same thing about having kids. I don't agree, but people say it.

Posted by Dougsf on July 23, 2009 at 1:24 PM

I saw the school board candidates last night in my hood. The only two retarded ones up there were Cullen and Patu. I liked Andre Helmestetter and Charlie Mas, they seemed non-retarded.

Posted by meks on July 23, 2009 at 1:33 PM

Somehow it worries me that he's even thinking about this. But yeah wht 1 and 2 said.

Posted by Loveschild

on July 23, 2009 at 1:39 PM

you get what you pay for.

pay them $120K each and you'd see a different kind of candidate.

Posted by PC on July 23, 2009 at 1:43 PM

That's known to be true for all political offices everywhere.

Posted by treacle on July 23, 2009 at 2:04 PM

True, but the same can be said of any elected official. Any and all. Was the Hitchhiker's Guide reference intentional? Because the second radio series ends with the main characters meeting "the man in charge" of the universe, a quite old guy who really doesn't know he's in charge, which is why he's so good at what he does.

Posted by SolCat on July 23, 2009 at 2:08 PM

I think Dan meant to say Seattle Mayor ...

Posted by Will in Seattle

on July 23, 2009 at 2:21 PM

Corollary:

"Please accept my resignation. I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member"

Groucho Marx (and then Woody Allen)

Posted by Andrew_Taylor on July 23, 2009 at 2:56 PM

been reading the republic dan? philosopher kings are hard to come by, and i doubt any of them out there are going to stew in a school board position.

Posted by creighton on July 23, 2009 at 4:35 PM

I'd like to buy a clue please, Dan.

But seriously, part a strategy proposed by national science advocacy groups to help increase the quality of science education in U.S. schools involved fighting against creationist nonsense that school boards try to fly in under the radar. And one of the best ways to make sure that school boards don't start advocating creationist crap is to put pro-science people on school boards.

I'm a middle school math teacher myself, and I plan to run for the board myself once I retire from the classroom. Granted, I'm not going for the Seattle board, but does my desire to hold the office in order to advocate for strong science standards make me ineligible?

Posted by Benji on July 24, 2009 at 5:54 AM