Tomdispatch.com associate editor Nick Turse shows how consumer firms like Apple and Krispy Kreme profit from Iraq, and columnist Joel Stein scores some (prescription) marijuana:

Sometimes I can't believe how Californian California is. Women walk around half-naked, waiters call patrons "dude," and medical marijuana is legal. But I wondered just how legal. Could anyone buy it? Even me, who doesn't have cancer, AIDS, arthritis, glaucoma or even any previous pot-smoking experience?

Medical marijuana isn't really legal -- in 2005, the Supreme Court said federal anti-drug laws trump state laws -- but California and 11 other hippie states have been flipping off Washington for years.

The editorial board criticizes President Bush for failing to hold the Reading First program accountable, and says California's misuse of the recall process may be one reason the state is in such bad shape.

Readers discuss the election, and whether Hillary Clinton should quit. Palm Springs' Eleanor Jackson wonders, "It's difficult to understand how anyone, particularly a Democrat or independent voter, can dislike Clinton (or for that matter, Obama) so much that they would be willing to not vote or vote for John McCain. Do they not realize the consequences of a Republican victory this November?"

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) points out that the John Yoo torture memo is but one example of President Bush's hidden laws. High school junior Tom Stanley-Becker explains why opting out of an Advanced Placement class was a smart move. Columnist Patt Morrison says L.A. muralists have to fight for their work on two fronts -- taggers on one side, and numbskulls with paint rollers on the other. And columnist Rosa Brooks acknowledges that Hillary Clinton may have a right to keep campaigning, but says it isn't the right thing to do:

Tell an American he shouldn't do something, and odds are he'll respond by insisting that it's his "right" to do it, regardless of how pointless, destructive, offensive or downright stupid it may be....

Tell your 10-year-old daughter she's not allowed to buy thong underwear emblazoned with sexy slogans, and she'll give you an angry lecture about her free-expression rights.

Don't fall for it.

The editorial board agrees that it's over for Clinton:

Hillary Rodham Clinton has run a long and admirable campaign for president of the United States. The prospect of her presidency has energized voters, particularly but not exclusively women, and offered working people a champion for their cause in this time of economic malaise. She has demonstrated resolve and character. And yet, she has lost.

The board also praises the Los Angeles Unified School District's new deputy superintendent for disciplining LAUSD officials in a school sex case, and explores whether a new Sprint Nextel broadband venture could expand service across the country.

On the letters page, some readers aren't as enamored with taco trucks as the editorial board. East L.A.'s Omar Loya says, "I now have to deal with grease stains on the street, trash on the sidewalks, generators running late into the night and extra traffic."

Native wisdom--and our own memories of fooling, disobeyind and just generally tormenting substitute teachers--tells us that when the regular teacher is gone, not a whole lot of learning takes place. And in a rare confluence of academic research and common sense, it turns out this is true: Kids learn better the more their teacher is around. It's expensive, too. Subs make lousy pay, but it adds up.

So simple and yet so frustrating. according to a report in the latest Education Week. Because no matter what incentives school administrators offer--up to prizes of three-year car leases to teachers who cut down on sick leave and other absences--teachers continue to take about the same number of days off.

You'd have to expect teacher sick days to be higher than the norm...they work with crowded classrooms of sniffly kids all day long. Still, the more generous the contract is about allowing paid days off, the more days teachers take. (Conversely: Would we really want teachers showing up when they're sick, afraid of losing a day's pay?) And principals note that a disproportionate amount of illness seems to occur on Fridays and during Thanksgiving week. So what's the answer here? Doctors' notes, just like for the kids?

Journalist and food critic Alice Feiring explores why California wines aren't what they used to be:

Forget "Eureka," the new state motto can well be: "Anything worth doing is worth overdoing." Today's California wines are overblown, over-alcoholed, over-oaked, overpriced and over-manipulated.

When I first stopped drinking the Left Coast, it was because I was offended by the overuse of wood, boring flavors and lack of structure. The wines, many of which had plenty of edge and personality, seemed neutered to me. I soon learned that the other part of the story was that an arsenal of technology was deployed to make them that way: yeast, enzymes, tannin, oak and acid, as well as over-extracting techniques, micro-oxygenation, dialysis and reverse osmosis.

Columnist Gregory Rodriguez calls out Barack Obama for flip-flopping on Rev. Jeremiah A Wright Jr. And Los Angeles City Employees Retirement System trustee Kelly Candaele says CalPERS should stick to being an "activist" investor.

The editorial board warns Angelenos that a racial separatist running for judge could win if they don't get out the vote. The board also checks in on trouble in the ex-Soviet republic of Georgia and thinks California should bring fairness to its school spending.

The force driving the school reform movement is the conviction that if we don't college-educate more students, don't fare better on international tests of math and science, jobs will disappear and the U.S. economy will suffer.

The actual picture is a lot more complicated, various studies have found. The latest, which comes from the Hoover Institution, confirms that education is one important factor driving economic growth--but it's far from the only one. Other important facts are the extent to which countries value innovation, open themselves to international trade and protect property rights.

It certainly can't hurt to have a better-educated country. But looking at the issue on the ground, it's easy to see that higher-achieving kids don't always lead to booming times. Despite our reportedly lagging achievement, this country enjoyed extraordinary prosperity during the tech bubble of the late 1990s. Japan's vaunted school system didn't save it from prolonged economic downturn. It's worth remembering that India considers the lack of creativity and innovation among its students to be a major weakness in its education system.

Will having more college graduates, more scientists and techies, help? Hard to say. Already, many college grads are underemployed and underpaid. Studies show that much of the growing disparity between the incomes of college grads and high school grads isn't that the college-educated make that much more, but that the loss of unionized manufacturing jobs to non-unionized service-sector jobs has hurt the income of the less educated. After all, was assembly-line work so demanding that it called for the healthy incomes that union shops delivered? Doesn't your basic hotel maid work just as hard, while making much less money? And if we do manage to produce more well-trained programmers and other tech people, will they be able to find employment if other countries are producing people with the same training who will work for a lot less money?

Author Stefan Merrill Block remembers his home-school days:

When I tell people that I was home schooled, I frequently encounter an amalgam of awe, pity and curiosity. I can see the false images materializing behind their eyes -- a childhood spent idling in front of the TV in my pajamas, or spent subject to the fanciful whims of a flighty New Age mom, or spent imprisoned by my parents' ignorance and severity.

These myths have alternately amused and annoyed me, but now it seems they threaten the very survival of home schooling in California.

Hampshire College's Michael T. Klare says China and the U.S. would be wise to cooperate rather than compete for oil as the market heats up. And Bryan A. Liang of the San Diego Center for Patient Safety notes that drugs have to stay safe particularly as they grow more complex.

The Times endorses for district attorney and the Board of Supervisors, and asks the presidential candidates 10 serious questions.

Readers discuss proposals for converting carpool lanes into congestion-priced toll lanes. L.A.'s Samuel Gould says, "Charging anyone using special lanes at rush hour regardless of occupancy will merely give advantages to those who can pay and exclude those who cannot, selling convenience to the affluent."

Columnist Rosa Brooks plays Hillary Clinton:

Thank you, Pennsylvania! What an incredible margin of victory you gave me! Ten percentage points over Barack Obama. Count 'em! Ten!

All right, 9.2 points if you insist on actually counting. But they said I had to win by double digits to keep my campaign alive, and I think 9.2 points counts as double digits. And I am alive! And kicking! And punching and biting and kneeing my opponent in the groin!

Contributing editor Arianna Huffington says only a media filled with self-loathing could hire the likes of former Bush rep Tony Snow. USC emeritus professor Robert E. Tranquada argues for an independent authority to oversea L.A. county health services. And columnist Patt Morrison reveals what she and other Angelenos would do with the city budget if they had their way. (Coffee poured by the mayor at the Getty House Bed and Breakfast, anyone?)

The editorial board praises three African countries that stopped a Chinese arms shipment to Zimbabwe, looks to a 1983 report on education for present-day advice, and looks beyond the Democratic primary in Pennsylvania:

The Democratic race only seems interminable; there will be a winner, and he or she will reconcile with the loser and call for party unity. If Republicans can withstand the abrupt alliance of Sen. John McCain and Mitt Romney, why shouldn't Democrats be united by an enthusiastic endorsement of Clinton by Obama, or vice versa? After all, for all the attacks, the two Democrats aren't far apart on policy.

On the letters page, readers take on the race, as well. Valley Village's Larry Margo has this to say to Clinton-bashers: "Quick! Stop her! Force her out before she wins again!"

UCLA graduate student and Chow Digest senior editor C. Thi Nguyen bemoans L.A. County's requirement that taco trucks move after one hour, and New York attorney Scott Horton analyzes UC Berkeley professor John Yoo's role in the Bush administration's stance on torture. Former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan hopes LAUSD will repair its relationship with charter schools, and Gregory Rodriguez scratches his head at Americans' insistence that politicians act like the average Joe:

Sure, high-ranking politicians of humble origins can lay at least some claim to being "common." But that's really a ruse. Because the best politicians wouldn't get as far as they do if they hadn't already successfully convinced large numbers of people that they were distinct from -- read: better than -- the rest of us.

And therein lies our dilemma. We hold to the belief that we are all equal, yet we yearn for distinctiveness for ourselves and those we choose to represent us. In a nation whose form of government exalts the illusion of uniformity among its citizens, we are collectively engaged in a struggle to be recognized as unique by our peers.

The editorial board publishes its endorsements for 17 seats on the Los Angeles Superior Court, and puts its money behind a House bill to force 401(k) managers to clarify the fees they charge "Jack and Jill Cubicle":

Unfortunately, as this newspaper detailed in a series of articles in 2006, many employees aren't being told how much of their nest egg is being frittered away on fees paid to the companies managing their 401(k)s. Buried in the fine print of incomprehensible forms or not disclosed at all, those fees can consume thousands of dollars over time. To address that problem, several lawmakers have introduced bills that would require mutual funds, insurers and other providers of retirement plans to make complete disclosures of their fees to employers and workers. 

Readers react to the Supreme Court's decision finding legal injections humane. Writes Joy Buckley, "State-sanctioned killing is barbaric, cruel and should be highly unusual. We should join the civilized countries of the world in eliminating it."

Richard Rothstein, last seen debating the achievement gap in a Dust-Up with Russlyn Ali, takes to the lackluster Cato Unbound with an interesting take on the 25th anniversary of the report A Nation At Risk, which examined the nation's puported crisis in education. According to Rothstein, the doomsaying of 1983, like most of the doomsaying from that period, turned out to be wrong. But unlike your harmless, garden-variety doomsaying, this one had some negative results:

Because of the report’s doomsday aura, policymakers have mostly failed since 1983 to investigate the causes of these improvements - the obvious, unasked, question is, what were we doing right from 1978 to 1990 (and since), so we can do more of it?

A belief in decline has led to irresponsibility in school reform. Policymakers who believed they could do no harm because American schools were already in a state of collapse have imposed radical reforms without careful consideration of possible unintended adverse consequences. Not thinking that President Reagan’s rule (’if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’) applied to what conservatives and liberals alike assumed was an already broken school system, this irresponsibility reached its zenith in the bipartisan No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law of 2002.

I do not suggest that American schools are adequate, that American students’ level of achievement in math and reading is where it should be, that American schools have been improving as rapidly as they should, or that the achievement gap is narrowing to the extent needed to give us any satisfaction. I only suggest that we should approach fixing a system differently if we believe its outcomes are slowly improving than if we believe it is collapsing. And we owe the latter, flawed assumption, to A Nation at Risk.

Full article.

Keep it in mind next time you're presented with the secular version of Pascal's Wager. (That is, the "Hey, if it turns out we're wrong about the decline and fall of X, all we did was take enlightened action Y" line of argument, which usually precedes the "It's time to stop talking about X and just do something!" argument, and frequently ends up with "Hey, problem X seems to have solved itself, but now what do we do about all these Zs we've created?")

Author Pico Iyer finds "globalism-lite" in the airport lounge:

All the cultures of the world are here, but they're all translated into placeless ciphers of a kind; we sit before screens, drift off, plug into our machines and feel as if we've entered the global space of a Haruki Murakami novel, a food court, a minimalist white-on-white Nowhere Hotel.

This globalism-lite is what we find around us often, especially in places like L.A.; it's cooler, sleeker, more diverse than the world we grew up in, but it's not clear that it sustains us deep down. We can access Beijing in a millisecond, fly to Bangalore tomorrow -- and yet we find, when we get to either place, that they don't look so different from Ventura Boulevard or Monterey Park.

Columnist Gregory Rodriguez explains the border fence as a shrine to American insecurity. Authoer Maureen Ogle remembers the happy day 70 75* years ago when beer returned to the U.S.

The editorial board wants Ramon C. Cortines to return to LAUSD, this time in the No. 2 management position. The board also continutes its editorial series on water, and says it's time Californians let development follow water, not the other way around:

Even as our state continues to grow, sprawl can no longer be our birthright. Hydrologically remote regions cannot depend on new sources of imported water for human needs, much less for verdant lawns.

Readers respond to an article about the ties between Mormons and Muslims. Palm Desert's Sunny Kreis Collins writes, "it can only be a good thing that any two philosophies, however disparate, can come together peacefully and find commonality and mutual respect."

*Thanks to reader M. Bouffant for the correction.

Author and UCLA lecturer Lawrence Grobel finds his past on sale at Amazon.com:

We printed 2,000 copies of each issue and sold them for 50 cents each. So, imagine my surprise when I recently discovered that Amazon.com had a listing under my name that said: "SATYR . Paperback. Used. $366."

$366! Was this a joke?

I went to the site offering the three issues for sale, and sure enough, it was for real. Only at Zubal.com they were listed at $348.20. It was also offering a first edition of my 812-page biography, "The Hustons," for $1.

Columnist Joel Stein discovers a shady journalistic cover-up: celeb mag editors-at-large aren't really editors, they just play them on TV. Human Rights Watch's Jennifer Daskal and Leslie Lefkow say that U.S. policy suffers when missile strikes on alleged terrorists go awry.

The editorial board criticizes John McCain's answer to the credit crisis, examines what lies ahead for new UC President Mark Yudof, and hails Starbucks and the upscaling of America:

[T]he Starbucks model -- a global-village blend of faux-Italianate lingo, American efficiency and post-modern abundance of selection, all built on the easy international flow of coffee beans -- is everywhere, readily reproduced by McDonald's, Dunkin' Donuts and any old bodega.

It's the happy flip-side of living in a country where even the poor people are fat.

On the letters page, readers discuss Jonah Goldberg's column claiming we were having a race conversation long before Barack Obama's speech. Phil Boiarsky of Columbus, Ohio disagrees, saying, " I am 63 years old, and this is the first time I have heard the 'white' side of the issue."

Columnist Gregory Rodriguez says Barack Obama's speech on race may have been brilliant, but it was the wrong move:

Throughout the campaign, Hillary Rodham Clinton's surrogates repeatedly tried to bait Obama into talking about race; they worked to pigeonhole him (and marginalize him) as the "black candidate." But in the end, it was Obama's own alliances that tripped him up and obliged him to directly address a subject (one that he now says we "cannot afford to ignore") that he had so deftly avoided -- or as the Obamaphiles had it, transcended. For all the kudos the Illinois senator has received for his candor, the very act of delivering Tuesday's address was a defeat. Obama was a much more powerful force for racial progress when he so effortlessly symbolized it, rather than when he called on us to address "old wounds."

Assemblyman Van Tran (R-Garden Grove) argues that SAT subject tests should stay, in part because they give recent immigrants a chance to show their strengths. Loyola Law Schools' Karl Manheim and Consumer Watchdog's Jamie Court say health insurance mandates of the Clinton and Obama kind may not pass constitutional muster. And writer Joe Queenan wonders why Garth Brooks gets a spot in his kid's academic calendar.

The editorial board notes new Census numbers showing that California sprawl is slowing down, and looks at why double amputee Oscar Pistorius was barred from the Olympics for being too fast. The board also explores why Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger dismissed fellow film icon Clint Eastwood and brother-in-law Bobby Shriver from a state commission.

Readers react to the violence in Tibet. Sherman Oaks' Elke Heitmyer says, "Tibet has been 'another Burma' for a long time already."

On this anniversary of the Iraq war, columnist Rosa Brooks is getting a five-year itch:

But I don't want to dwell on the bad times, because we did have some good times, didn't we? Remember those peaceful days between "Mission Accomplished" -- I think that was May 1, 2003 -- and ... and ... well, July 2003 or so, when we could still stroll around Baghdad at dusk, interrupted only by occasional small-arms fire? Those were the days, before the car bombs and IEDs.

We were happy then, weren't we, War?... But you can't go back again, can you?

Reason's Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch notice that all those voters moving to the center and calling themselves independent have a lot in common with Libertarians. University of Missouri-St. Louis professor Richard Rosenfeld says that when it comes to the uptick in homicides, the buck actually doesn't stop with Police Chief Bratton. And columnist Patt Morrison thinks Councilman Tom LaBonge may be ready for mayorship... of the honorary kind, in Hollywood.

Can you shoot spitballs in home school? If so, Walter P. Coombs and Ralph E. Shaffer had better watch out, because home schoolers are fuming about their recent Blowback "Regulating home schoolers."  Commenters are all over the story — you can add your own two cents in the message board — and several readers were motivated to break out the old stone table and send an old-fashioned letter to the editor. Some samples:

Homeschooling Works Well Without State Oversight

As a homeschooling mom I am so encouraged by the many who choose to show their support for homeschooling and  those of us who choose to do so. However, I am surprised by how many of those who think that a proven method of teaching would be "improved" by state oversight.

If one does not wish to to consider the successful people both in history as well as those who are walking among us in workplaces and colleges that were homeschooled, perhaps you might want to consider your pocketbook. 

Regulating Homeschools would cost you big money in taxes that this state cannot afford right now. Do we really need a new section in the department of education to fund?

Wouldn't it make more sense to use all available money on the children currently in public schools?

In January, Education Week's comprehensive report card gave California a grade of "D+" when it comes to funding our schools, a "C-" on the teaching profession, and a "D" on K-12 achievement. Taken along with the California high school drop-out rate I find it odd that so many are calling for homeschoolers to be regulated now.

Do your research! Homeschooling works best without heavy regulation!

Angie Weaver
Garberville

---

Editors,

What a shame authors Walter P. Coombs and Ralph E. Shaffer hadn't yet shared their self-professed insights into the motives and intentions of home schoolers some 20 years ago when I began homeschooling for a number of years.  Maybe if they had my homeschooled kid would have been able to know some academic success in her life instead of graduating from UCLA.

Dana Strunk
U.H.S.P. (Uncredentialed Home Schooling Parent) Redlands

---

Dear Editor,

In reference to “Regulating Homeschoolers,” Op-Ed page, 3/13/08: To borrow a phrase, “there has always been something decidedly…anti-democratic in” traditional schooling. What could possibly be less democratic than top-down curriculum aimed almost wholly at raising test scores to keep the funds coming in? Ask any public school teacher who has a principal or district curriculum heavy breathing down her neck to make sure that she is on the right page in the language arts text book or is reading from the script in her teacher’s manual. In terms of the students, public school classrooms are at best benevolent dictatorships. With state standards and benchmarks to keep time with how could you possibly let students choose their own course of study? I imagine that the authors would also say that the bullying and teasing that goes on in traditional schools is character building and homeschooled children are missing out on that important part of growing up in a democracy. The fact is, state regulations have put a stranglehold on the public schools. The result is a disaffected populace. I think that Coombs and Shaffer would do well to check with their colleagues, college professors who look forward to having homeschooled students in their classes because those students have not had their passion bulldozed out of them, still can think for themselves, and are self-directed learners. Those, in my opinion, are the kinds of citizens we want in a democracy.

-Susie Stonefield Miller
Sebastopol,

---

It seems to me that Coombs and Shaffer protest too much. Although our older child was public schooled, we chose to educate our younger child at home. We have been able to teach him at the rate and level that fits him. He is ahead of his peers in all subjects, but one, where he we are taking extra time with him.

When my older child with similar abilities was in second grade the teacher told us that she was sorry he was bored; we should provide advanced work for him ourselves at home. We provide a secular education, sans TV, and are both scientists. There are many like us. Just as credentialed public school teachers regularly make the news for various abuses, there are abuses that occur and make the news among all groups of people. This cannot be defended, but neither can it be regulated away.

Our tax dollars pay do not support the schooling of our younger child - they go to the public schools. These same California public schools provide a popular program, abbreviated CAVA, which provides school at home. The children learn from a computer program and their parents.

Please do not promote misunderstanding through stereotypes, professors. There are many, many secular home schoolers who provide top-notch educations to their children. Studies conclude that home schooled children are better educated than their public schooled peers. Public schools admit they are having trouble teaching the children they already have. What would they do with over 166,000 more?

Lisa Whelan
Goleta

---

As a secular homeschooler I strongly resent Professors Coombs & Shafffer's attempt to pigeonhole all homeschoolers as some kind of religious nut cases who leave the education of their children to television. My six year-old daughter is studying American history, geography, grammar, spelling, vocabulary, cursive handwriting, literature, mathematics, and science. In addition she takes ballet and art lessons and has more friends than I am able to keep track of. A child's education, like a child's upbringing ought to be a parent's responsibility and prerogative. In the absence of specific evidence of abuse or neglect the state has no right to interfere.

Gideon Reich
Aliso Viejo

Professors John G. Geer and Ken Goldstein give a stirring defense of negative campaigning, and documentary maker Manchan Magan chronicles his attempt to speak only Irish as he traveled through the Emerald Isle. Writer Barry Gottlieb wonders why the Vatican tacked pollution onto an already long list of sins, and in Geraldine Ferraro's race-tinged comments on Obama's success, Gregory Rodriguez discovers that white suspicion toward successful minorities is alive and kicking:

If Ferraro had clarified her remarks (and she had oh so many television minutes last week to do so) -- perhaps explaining that what she meant was that Obama's blackness has played a role in his appeal -- she might have saved her role in the Clinton campaign, but she still would have been only partly right.

Because what's impressive about Obama is not so much his African American identity as the way he wields it. He uses both the language of group pride and national unity. Unlike so many -- often media-created -- black leaders, Obama doesn't use a parochial message of victimhood or the zero-sum logic of "us versus them." Rather than spend a lot of time talking about racism, historical or otherwise, he preaches a form of collective can-doism. He sells himself as a symbol of reconciliation and knows that at this point in history, cries of racism are the quickest way to turn off white voters who are tired of being made to feel guilty for racial injustice.

The editorial board glances over its shoulder at encroaching electronic surveillance, and burns a hole in President Bush's overrulling of the EPA's ozone standards. The board also flunks L.A. Unified School District for its "textbook incompetence" involving a principal accused of molesting a 13-year-old student:

The alleged molestation of a 13-year-old girl who attends Markham Middle School is a gut-wrenching example of the weaknesses in management of the Los Angeles Unified School District. An egregious gaffe by top administrators on the 24th floor of the central office who are too distant from the kids on the ground to put their needs first. An initial attempt to downplay the significance of what happened, followed by an apology and an action plan to prevent such problems. The plan usually involves adding more layers to an already giant bureaucracy.

This story even has a familiar subplot, the "dance of the lemons," in which the district shuffles problem personnel around -- usually to a troubled school in a poor area -- to avoid the task of booting them out the door.

Readers react to Rosa Brooks' column on Hillary Clinton's stance on prostitution -- and support of Eliot Spitzer. Margaret Daugherty writes:

Clinton's inclusion of both Eliot Spitzer and his family in her expression of goodwill seems to me like empathy and good manners -- not evidence of some festering character defect. Wouldn't it have been better just to print a statement saying, "Rosa Brooks stills hates Hillary Clinton; check this space periodically for updates"?

Because the news out of South L.A. often is of crime and poverty, it's easy for those who don't live there to forget that these are neighborhoods, and often beloved neighborhoods. Nothing brings that home faster or more painfully than seeing residents pleading not to have a new school built at a certain location because, through eminent domain, it would displace so many of them. That was the scene at part of Tuesday's school board meeting for the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The message, delivered by a parade of older African American residents with strong ties to the neighborhood, was unwavering: We love schools, we support schools, but many of these people are elderly, we are all friends, we are connected, please don't disrupt our lives. The story of one 72-year-old woman, especially, made listeners wince with sympathy. She had been a longtime teacher in LAUSD and had lived in her home for 30 years. Her community was there. Her friends were there. Everyone she interacted with on a day-to-day basis was there.

The change confronting this community was made all the more obvious by the sole speaker in favor of the school — a young Latino woman, holding a preschooler and speaking through an interpreter. The school was necessary, she said. Nearby elementaries couldn't follow normal two-semester schedules because of overcrowding.

There wasn't much the board could do for the first group. It already had delayed its decision to see if there were options. There were no options; no one had been able to locate another suitable piece of land in the neighborhood. If overcrowding weren't reason enough, the district is under a consent decree to restore normal academic calendars to all its schools. The school would be built.

Neighborhoods of older, settled people give way to the future. But then there's that 72-year-old woman. She was probably certain that at this point in her life, after having given years of service to young people in the city, she was settled down to quiet golden years in her neighborhood, with everyone familiar.  Chances are it won't be that way, and it's not easy to chase away imagined images of her in a disorienting new setting, searching for familiar faces.

Where did they get this idea — from the Catholic Personnel Management Handbook?

A page-one story today by my Times colleagues describes how a high school assistant principal in the LAUSD had been investigated for allegedly having sex with a student and pulling a gun on her stepfather. His punishment? Being transferred to a Watts middle school — where he has now been arrested for molesting a 13-year-old girl.

Where have we heard this management technique before? Let me think … oh yes: from the Catholic Church. Priests accused of molesting young parishioners were often transferred from parish to parish, where all they did was … molest more parishioners.

This tactic has cost the Catholic Church hundreds of millions of dollars in payouts, and incalculable damage to the church’s reputation.

Yeah, the LAUSD can sure afford to take those kinds of hits.

And to dump Steve Thomas Rooney at Markham, a middle school that is just emerging from trouble and strife to start looking like a model for the district, with donations for computers, uniforms, its own Boys and Girls Club, more discipline, better security, a full-throttle community effort to turn Markham around — it bespeaks contempt for the school, the students, the teachers, the parents and the neighborhood. Sure, dump the guy at Markham — they won’t care.

Police investigated Rooney after he allegedly pulled a gun on the stepfather of the 17-year-old girl he was allegedly having a relationship with, but the charges went unproven; the girl refused to cooperate with investigators. During the investigation, Rooney was put in a non-school job, and when the investigation went nowhere, he went to Markham.

Do principals and assistant principals have a union? If this ultimate "dance of the lemons" transfer turns out to have happened because the district would rather invite trouble with the law, with students and with parents than trouble with a union — that will send a message about the district’s priorities. Exactly who is ‘’unified’’ around here, and for what?

Evolutionary biologist David P. Barash says Eliot Spitzer can blame biology for his urge to stray:

One of the most startling discoveries of the last 15 years has been the extent of sexual infidelity (scientists call it "extra-pair copulations" or EPCs) among animals long thought to be monogamous. It's clear that social monogamy -- physical association and child rearing between a male and a female -- and sexual monogamy are very different things. The former is common; the latter is rare....

Power-as-pheromone is pretty much the default among mammals. Elk, elephant seal, baboon or chimpanzee, in a wide array of species, females eagerly mate with dominant males while disdaining subordinates. And they do so, more or less, in harems.

Contributing editor Max Boot argues that Navy Adm. William "Fox" Fallon's departure as head of CENTCOM is good news. Columnist Tim Rutten tells the City Council to quit its turf war and work to stop gang violence. USC's Sara Catania wants a stop to the springtime rite of "tree topping."

The editorial board asks if there is a constitutional right to home school your kids, and points out that daylight saving time really doesn't save anything....

Whatever you've got to say about the murder of 17-year-old Jamiel Shaw or the arrest of 19-year-old Pedro Espinoza for the crime, start your engines. Please keep it clean: no threats, bullying, bogarting or unamusing ad hominems will be accepted. I'll approve as fast as I can. Some scenes from Shaw's funeral may give the conversation a little focus.

A survey of American high schoolers asked them to name the most famous people in the nation's history, dating back to Columbus. The results, at least at first glance (read beyond the list) are a big surprise. Here they are, in order of how often they were listed by the 2,000 students, across the country:

1. Martin Luther King

2. Rose Parks

3. Harriet Tubman

4. Susan B. Anthony

5. Benjamin Franklin

6. Ameila Earhardt

7. Oprah Winfrey

8. Marilyn Monroe

9. Thomas Edison

10. Albert Einstein

An extraordinary showing by women and African Americans that quite possibly points to a new awareness caused by changes in the curriculum. But of course, you're wondering, as I did, these kids think Harriet Tubman is more famous than Abraham Lincoln? George Washington? Turns out they were told to leave presidents out of their lists. Further, they were asked in a separate list to name the five most famous women, and those numbers were added to whatever names game up on the first list, giving a huge boost to women.

This is scholarship? (I'm not talking about the kids, but the professor who conducted the study.)  Well, at least we can take hope from Britney and Lindsay not being on the list. Actually, the most surprising name of all: How on earth did high schoolers even hear of Marilyn Monroe? Then there's always the quite large possibility that the kids were listing the people they thought they were supposed to say, not the ones they would put down if they were hanging out with friends.

Every couple of days, the U.S. Department of Education sends out another press release saying that Education Secretary Margaret Spellings is talking about the No Child Left Behind Act in Texas, or Minnesota, or whatever state her neverending pitch for the law is taking her.

Spellings has been a major improvement over predecessor Rod Paige. She has tried to make implementation of the school accountability law more flexible, more sane. But traveling around the country spouting predictable phrases about school reform are not going to make an insane law sound sane to the masses.

NCLB was a well-intentioned law. It was a truly bipartisan law. Accountability is a good idea for schools that for too long have promoted and graduated kids with deplorable reading and math skills. But it's a remarkably badly written law. Good schools along with bad suffered under its "failing" labels and sanctions while sanctimonious lawmakers refused to consider changes. Imagine a law that actually punishes states for setting high standards, and you've got NCLB. Now that the law has come up for reauthorization, at least one of those lawmakers, California's Rep. George Miller, would like to make substantial changes, while the Bush administration wants the law kept almost exactly as it is. Other lawmakers would just like the law to die, period. With the current stalemate, that's a real possibility. It would become just another relic and the schools would be right back where they were six years ago.

All the press conferences around the heartland are not going to make people love this law. Instead of going on the road to promote NCLB, Spellings should be beating a regular path to the White House to convince the president that NCLB  needs a major rewrite. Otherwise, it will be hard for anyone to mourn its premature death.

When you're looking for creative ways to deal with failing schools and budget cuts ... bring in a tank! From the Sacramento Bee:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has a new rewards program for schoolkids: Stay in school, take a tank for a spin.

The Republican governor is bringing home an Austrian army tank he loaned the Motts Military Museum in Columbus, Ohio, and he said Wednesday he plans to use it to drive around inner-city children who do well in school, say "no" to drugs and avoid gangs in the Los Angeles area.

Standing outside the Northwood Elementary School in North Sacramento, where he promoted his plan to assist 97 troubled school districts, Schwarzenegger said he plans to take kids for a ride one day a month.

Though the future looks bleak, I now have newfound hope for the Year of Education. And my little brother will be psyched.

Author T.C. Boyle remembers his first trip to the soon-to-be-shuttered Dutton's Books in Brentwood:

It was like stumbling into a Borgesian reality in which everything was made of books -- the walls, the floors, the ceilings, even the employees. Before I could think, there was Scott Wannberg, one of the true literary zealots of our time, exploding from behind a cordillera of books to greet me. Within minutes, I'd signed the well-represented editions of my own titles, which were on permanent display right alongside those of all the authors I most admired, and then Scott was piling my arms high with books I absolutely just had to read. He had a sixth sense, knowing exactly what I wanted and needed, and from then on, though it was a bit of a haul from Woodland Hills, Dutton's was my bookshop.

Columnist Tim Rutten asks who'll stop L.A.'s gangs. Deputy U.S. Atty. Gen. Craig Morford says crack criminals should be kept in prison. And Claremont Review of Books associate editor Joseph Tartakovsky explains why writers love to booze.

The editorial board chastises the Bush administration for lying to Britain about its rendition flights. The board also offers an update on the situation in Kenya after mediation fell apart, and compares Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's star-studded schools team with the LAUSD's vacancy-riddled roster.

Readers react to the Health Net scandal. San Luis Obispo's M.J. Johnson says, "Health Net's dropping of Patsy Bates in the midst of chemotherapy proves that wrong. The fact is, healthcare and the corporate profit motive are incompatible."

Columnist Gregory Rodriguez finds out who's behind the hit blog, Stuff White People Like:

Six weeks ago, 29-year-old Culver City Internet copy writer Christian Lander started a blog, stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com, on a whim, thinking he'd poke fun at himself and fellow white people....

Lander, who arrived in L.A. from Toronto 2 1/2 years ago, came up with the idea for the blog after talking to a Filipino friend about how much they both liked the HBO police drama "The Wire." For some reason he's already forgotten, they both wished that more white people watched the show. Which got him thinking: What exactly do white people like?

Author Christopher D. Cook says mass recalls show we're all playing meat roulette. Writer Jim Henley argues that an $8 million program isn't enough to get Americans reading again. Yale Law School student Ronan Farrow explores a growing conflict in Ethiopia, where the army is attacking its people.

The editorial board launches a series on water in Los Angeles and around the world:

The early history of Los Angeles was defined by its struggle to get water wherever, and whenever, it could. William Mulholland and his colleagues did such a good job of securing water supplies...that those of us living here today take for granted our lush gardens and year-round blooms. They appear a native bounty when they are, in fact, a work of man. We offer pious lip service to the notion that water is scarce when the weather is dry, only to forget our concerns at the fall of the first raindrop. Implicitly, we behave as if water will always be available and unlimited.

This must change.

Readers react to the city's plan to require homeowners to pay more for sidewalk repairs. Sherman Oaks' Gerry Swider says, "Is the city also going to grant homeowners the right to control usage of their sidewalks as a way to limit possible damage?"

Stanford University announced Wednesday that it will join Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and the other elite universities who waive tuition for students whose families earn less than $100,000 a year, throwing in free room and board for families who make less than $60,000.

This mind-boggling observation, from the San Jose Mercury News:

[T]he changes mean Stanford could be cheaper than state schools. For instance, a youth from a family with an annual adjusted gross income of $55,000 would pay $4,400 to $4,900 a year at Berkeley after scholarships. They'd get a free ride at Stanford.

This is great news for brainy high schoolers whose families otherwise might not be able to cover Stanford’s $36,000 yearly tuition tab, right?

Of course. There's just this catch: first they have to become one of the lucky few (around 11%) who make the cut.

Colleges, especially those offering blockbuster student aid deals like Stanford, are receiving record numbers of applications this year. Writes Audrey Kahane, a private college admissions counselor in West Hills:

Cornell's applications are up 7.5 percent this year and an incredible 57 percent since 2004. Northwestern's applications have climbed almost 14 percent this year and 54 percent in just the last three years. University of Chicago has 14 percent more applications this year, and Amherst is up 17 percent. Harvard has had a 19 percent increase in applications this year, which will lower last year's 9.1 percent acceptance rate to 7.7 percent this year.

...Here in California, University of California campuses have received 121,000 applications, an increase of 9 percent. Applications to Cal State campuses are up 11 percent.

With that kind of competition afoot, even safety schools aren’t sure things anymore. Blame it in part on the ease of filling out applications online. Blame it in part on the sheer numbers of boomer spawn swimming their way through secondary school these days (an estimated 3.2 million this year, expected to peak next year.) Whatever the reason, Stanford’s new program won’t make life any easier for most college-bound 12th graders, who, in addition to having to compete for scarce admissions slots, face a student loan credit crunch and rapidly rising tuition bills at most other schools, which don't have $17 billion endowments like Stanford's.

Party on, kids.

In a college class on psycholinguistics, the professor told us about a study in which researchers had sorted letters depending on how many features they had in common—horizontal lines, left-facing curves, etc. Then they flashed the letters in front of subjects and tested their recall.

They found that the more features two letters had in common, the more likely subjects were to mistake them for each other. In other words, subjects confused E and F more frequently than, say, E and U.
The obvious question here was: You mean, somebody actually spent time and money to discover that letters that look more alike really do look more alike?

I was reminded of that class when I read about the new study out of UC Santa Barbara on dropouts. A professor ranked California schools on their dropout rates and found that the schools with the worst dropout rates were alternative schools created to help students most at risk of dropping out. In many cases, these are students who already left regular schools, often years ago, and are, bit by bit, building up credits toward a diploma.

So did we just get a study that found out the students most likely to drop out really are more likely to drop out?

I’m uncertain, and the researcher, Professor Russell Rumberger, was honest enough to say he wasn’t certain either. He said the study wasn’t supposed to answer questions about why certain schools had higher dropout rates, but to provide basic statistics for future research.

Still, when a university puts out a press release, as UC Santa Barbara did, and a professor holds a telephone press conference, they’ve got to be aware that the study doesn’t simply come off as fodder for more research. Especially when so many of the schools catering to the highest-risk students are charter schools, always a hot- button issue in the education world.

It would be worth knowing whether those charter schools are succeeding at their mission. Are they worth the continued public investment? That’s a study I’d like to see.

But when I see a university put out a chart that claims the dropout rate for Los Angeles Unified School District is 5.1% (others have pegged it at anywhere from 25% to nearly half), I have to wonder how close to reality this is.  It’s not Rumberger’s fault that California does an awful job of counting its dropouts, but that’s all the more reason to be careful with the numbers and what they look like they’re showing.

Writer Todd Balf wonders if race was a factor in the demonization of ex-Olympian Marion Jones, and cartoonist Nick Anderson takes a shot at Congress and its steroid-use hearings. Israeli novelist Amos Oz argues for a cease-fire with Hamas in Gaza, and Ronald Brownstein gives a play-by-play of Obama's eight-contest sweep. Joel Stein discovers the Christian Oscars aren't so different from the nondenominational ones — except when they are:

Though the Christian Oscars looked just like any other awards show, there were some differences. The Oscars don't start with a prayer. And they don't have a letter in their program from President Bush wishing them a successful event. I stared at it for a long time, wondering if all his correspondence begins, "I send greetings." I got the feeling that Bush expected that, during his presidency, he'd get to meet aliens.

The editorial board gets tangled up in the tussle between free speech and campaign finance law, and wonders why Germany, the erstwhile "sick man of Europe," is beating the U.S. in export rates. The board also cheers on the University of Southern California's 25-year lease deal with the Coliseum Commission:

USC gets to stay at home. And there can be little doubt that the Coliseum is home. The university's consistent presence over the life of the stadium has protected the asset's value. Olympics -- two of them -- came and went, as did two NFL teams, but the Trojans have been a constant and deserve the long-term commitment that the commission has finally provided.

Readers respond to the board's take on charter schools and the Los Angeles Unified School District. "It's important that the charter schools not measure student achievement exclusively in terms of success on a college track," Joyce Wolfe points out, and Dain Olsen shoots back:

The Times is advocating the wholesale abandonment of the LAUSD's secondary schools to the charter movement. If this is not tantamount to a radical dismissal of the foundations of democracy, of equality and access to a free, high-quality education for all, I don't know what is.

In a special send-off of the WGA strike, writers tell tales of picket lines, bad lines and even bread lines. From Kevin Levine, a writer for "MASH," "Cheers" and "Frasier":

The great American novel that I started four strikes ago is almost done. I figure one more strike, two at the most, and I'll be ready to send it to my editor (who I hope is still alive; I haven't heard from him since 1985). So I've got a target date of 2014, but I'm close. Really close. I can feel it.

Also on the Op-Ed page, Tim Rutten compliments reporter Joel Rubin's article on LAUSD's payroll problems, and clowns the district for its handling of the situation.

The editorial board dismisses the administration's latest attempt to help struggling homeowners, and awkwardly admits that disenfranchised voters aren't all that funny when they're not in Florida. The board also reacts to a report on LAPD use-of-force complaints, and wonders how far police reform has to go:

The real concern arises from the way the complaints about handcuffing or verbal abuse -- or even disturbing allegations about excessive use of force -- are handled. Too often, they are apparently being dismissed without genuine investigation.

For example, one complainant said an officer slammed his head against a bench after he tried to write down the officer's badge number. There was a witness who backed up his statement, and some grainy video footage -- but the complaint was dismissed as "unfounded."

Readers diagnose the failures of the nation's emergency rooms. Bill Serantoni asks,

Imagine an auto repair shop where people could bring broken cars and the proprietor had to repair the vehicles brought to him whether he was paid for the work or not. How could he run that business?

Until the question of payment for service is answered, the crisis will continue.

Gregory Rodriguez explores the unabashedly pro-American culture along the northern Mexican border, and Boston University professor Andrew J. Bacevich shakes the U.S. out of its NATO pipe dream. New America Foundation senior fellow Andrés Martinez bashes California's leaders for dragging their feet on free-trade agreements, and cartoonist Jimmy Margulies targets 'electability' issues. Writer and self-hating liberal Garret Keizer wonders why progressives can be so annoying:

I mean that mix of blithe presumption and fussy preference that so often marks the self-described "progressive." I mean that ostentatiously dissatisfied person whose every gesture displays passive-aggressive tendencies, who gets most of his information from the blogosphere and most of his minimal get-up-and-go from a caffeinated drink prepared to his exacting specifications. I mean a person who belongs, as my wife will gently remind me, to "our tribe," whether I like it or not.

There's the rub. I don't like it. I don't like it one bit. I don't like the fact that so many of the people who share my politics are so obnoxious. I don't like the fact that I am often seized by an urge to grab one of them by the collar and say, "Do you want to know what makes decent, seemingly rational people vote for a character like Bush? It is their utter distaste for characters like you." Or should I say, "for characters like us"?

The editorial board presents a plan to "Reimagine LAUSD," and marks teachers down for poor attendance and participation in UTLA affairs:

As the first debate got underway, 16 candidates sat at the front of the multipurpose room at Grover Cleveland High School Facing htem were 16 audience members scattered among 240 chairs set in neat rows.

Right there, that could be the biggest challenge contfronting United Teachers Los Angeles ...

Readers bid Mitt Romney a none-too-fond farewell. Ken Shmidt makes the best of the erstwhile Republican hopeful's decision:

At last we have a candidate who has recognized that it was his patriotic duty to drop out of the presidential race. May we hope that this becomes a trend.

The Kennedy clan isn't a united front for Barack Obama, it seems. Three Kennedys write in support of Hillary Clinton and compare her to their father, Robert F. Kennedy:

Like our father, Hillary has devoted her life to embracing and including those on the bottom rung of society's ladder -- giving voice to the alienated and disenfranchised and working to alleviate poverty and injustice, while urging that we cannot advance ourselves as a nation by leaving our poorer brothers and sisters behind.

She's been an equally effective champion for human rights and for women's rights, a worldwide cause that will profit enormously by her elevation to the presidency.

Columnist Jonah Goldberg remembers that Bush and Clinton promised change, too, and everybody suffered when they delivered. Author Craig Childs asks how much treasure museums really need. And English teacher Alan Warhaftig wonders what the teachers union will do in the post-A.J. Duffy era.

The editorial board reacts to the State of the Union, finding that Bush's speech about trust reflected his distrust of his own government. The board notes that Bush will spend anything -- including multiple trillions -- to secure Iraq, Afghanistan, and his legacy. The board also says that the Foothill South tollway is a disaster waiting to happen, no matter what the governor says.

Readers react to Obama's South Carolina win. Mary McLemore of Pike Road, Ala., isn't so sure about his prospects: "One wonders whether, after the Clinton machine makes road kill of Obama, minorities will suddenly wonder why they have allowed the Democratic Party to use and abuse them for decades."

The editorial board says it's time for the world to live up to its promises to Sudan:

Appeasement and negotiation from a position of weakness have not and will not stop the thuggery of the oil-rich Sudanese regime. Only muscle will do. But the "civilized" world has done next to nothing to enforce meaningful economic sanctions, hasn't even moved to arrestthe indicted war criminals and, disgracefully, has yet to provide even one of the helicopters that U.N. peacekeepers need. It's time to face facts: Unless the U.N. gets far more political, economic and military support from its posturing but so-far feckless members, it may as well pack up its blue helmets and go home.

The board also examines the bipartisan "stimulus package" for the economy, and reacts to state schools chief Jack O'Connell's annual education address.

"Beasts of No Nation" author Uzodinma Iweala argues race is still a problem in supposedly "post-racial" America. Voices and Faces Project founder Anne K. Ream asks if a rapist deserves a military burial. And columnist Tim Rutten says the City Council should let LAPD reform go forward.

On the letters page, readers react to a court's decision to deny experimental drugs to the terminally ill. Encinitas' Steve Weller says, "This is yet another instance of compassionate conservatives killing people in order to protect them. Iraq comes to mind."

Columnist Joel Stein's Golden Globes invite lands him in a loud suit and a moral quandary:

[E! News anchor Giuliana Rancic] was concerned because at rehearsals a few hours earlier, the producers told her to ad lib an intro and she didn't know what to say. She was thinking of expressing support for the striking writers but was unsure.

This presented the greatest moral dilemma I had ever faced. I could help her -- and get a pro-union message broadcast on the three networks -- but I would have to violate the union's strike rules to do it.

Sometimes a man has to risk everything for what he believes is right. I wrote for Rancic. And I don't regret it. Though I do regret it wasn't funnier.

In another writers strike subplot, Directors Guild President Michael Apted issues an apologia for the union's deal with the studios. Former Housing and Urban Development secretary Jack Kemp throws his weight behind a bill that would save some homeowners from bankruptcy and foreclosure. Ronald Brownstein gives a rundown of the Republican race, and cartoonist Jeff Danziger sizes up the Democrats' high-stakes game in Nevada.

The editorial board hopes the striking writers will take their cues from the Directors Guild deal, and it cheers on billionaire Eli Broad's latest donation to charter schools. The board grows apprehensive at the unveiling of the affordable but pollutive Nano by Tata Motors, worried that "the vehicle's tiny price tag -- about $2,500 -- will make car ownership possible for millions of Indians, which could well render the rest of the world's efforts to combat global warming moot."

Readers run through options for the city's transportation problems. Writes Nihar Patel:

In truth, Los Angeles has only one hope to promote transit use among all income groups: increasing options with buses and trains. We need a grid where a day pass gets you off a train to a bus, or vice versa, as in London.

Until that day, from Hollywood, a 20-minute train ride downtown sure beats a never-ending rush-hour bus ride. Join me sometime if you disagree.

Columnist Patt Morrison imagines a Britney's Law for mental healthcare in California:

[T]here are heartbroken families begging the courts time and again to intervene on behalf of loved ones who won't take medicine, won't see doctors. Spears' family's frustration, if the tabloids are to be believed, is the same: How can we get help for her if she refuses?

Proposition 63, which is generating upward of $2 billion since the law passed, can accomplish a lot -- but it can't change that conundrum. Laura's Law was passed to try to strike a balance. It's named for honor student Laura Wilcox, who was working in a California mental health center when she was killed by a delusional man who couldn't be forced to take medication. Thanks to the law, judges now can order outpatient treatment for people after medical and legal hearings.

What, I wonder, would a Britney's Law look like? Would it make it easier to require treatment, especially if the outburst gets 100,000 hits on YouTube?

Columnist Rosa Brooks says race and sex don't matter for Gen. Y voters. Author Barry Gottlieb thinks it's time you pimped your fridge. And Sacramento State University's Tim Hodson has a litmus test for ballot measures.

The editorial board looks at Pakistani public opinion and finds little support for a U.S.-manned operation against Osama bin Laden. The board says a state gender discrimination law for students should stand, and it evaluates a state plan to ease the public employee benefits mess.

Readers respond to an editorial proposing ways to end the city's gridlock. Studio City's Gary Aminoff objects to a plan to make solo drivers pay: "This is not New York or Washington. If the destination is not within a few blocks of a bus or subway stop, people still have to get there by car. Solo drivers are not the cause of the problem; ineffective planning is."

The fight between the University of California and grad students enrolled in 2003 looks like a warped version of the typical underdog story — you know, the one where the little guy keeps getting beat down but bounces back to go for the win? Except, in this case, the little guy (students fighting to recover fees that UC improperly raised) won, but the university (which owes 35,000 graduate students about $40,000,000) just won't give up.

In 2003, UC graduate and professional school students saw their fees shoot through the roof, even though UC documents promised that they would not rise for continuing students. In July, some of the affected students filed suit, and the situation has been tied up in court ever since.

When the appeals court decision came down in November, I figured UC would throw in the towel and exit the ring as gracefully as possible. I was wrong. According to the San Jose Mercury News:

Every month that passes adds more than $300,000 in interest to the award, said an attorney for the plaintiffs. But a UC lawyer said the university believes it can still win the case.

"You have to make a judgment whether accumulation of interest outweighs the legal strengths of the case," said the UC attorney, Chris Patti. "We decided that it did not.

"It's going to be a big ticket, whether we have to pay now or in the future."

Translation: We're screwed either way, so why not spend a few million more, especially when we can take it out of student pockets?

It's kind of like writer's strike syndrome: There's no reason not to settle the whole thing and move on, so that I can get my weekly dose of NBC's Chuck — but the two parties are so embittered that they're going to see the other side buried.

The problem with that attitude? They each dig their own holes, and they both still get covered in crap.