On the Campaign Trail

Once upon a time it was eventually going to be the merry month of May in the city of Chicago, which, despite global warming and heartfelt hopes to the contrary, was still stuck in the corrupt county of Crook and the sorry scandal-ridden cheapskate state of Ill-A-Noise.

As the school year dwindled down to a precious few months, however, the membersheep of the CTEwe were a bit bewildered, since they had experienced a  dizzying disconnect, displayed between the standard 2007 calendars published by Haaallmark Caards, for example, and the official calendar of the Big Baad Bored of Education of the City of Chicago.

The Big Baad Bored calendar was nice, as such things go, featuring color pictures of the different styles of wrought-iron fences now surrounding the same old decaying school buildings of the Chicago Public School system; it had been privately printed on expensive paper by yet another outside firm with the requisite ignorance of local customs.

“This calendar is wrong,” observed Millicent Militant as she prepared to turn the page to the next month.

“You know, I think you’re right,” agreed her friend Ewenice, who was still Toonice for her own good.

“Now what?” sighed Nancy Naive in her typical exasperated fashion. “You two are always finding fault with something.  What is it this time?  Still complaining about too many days to work in June?”

“Nope,” they said.  “No problem there anymore, since Debbie Lynch, our former CTEwe president, changed the school calendar, and we don’t go until June 47th anymore.”

“Oh, honestly,” whined Nancy.

“Right,” agreed everyone else in the faculty lounge.

“That‘s how she was elected, baaack in the good old days,” added Millicent.

“Baaack to this Bored calendar, however. I thought the saying went  ‘Thirty days hath September, April, June and November . . .’ “

“So?”

“So look at this.”

Nancy obligingly stomped over to the bulletin board, extended her index finger, and began counting, eventually reaching  “twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one. So? 

Oh."

Everyone else was laughing.

“You know, when the Bored printed all of these things themselves, in-house, before privatizing everything, this didn’t happen. And it was much more economical, too,” said Clara Clark, the clerk.

“True,” everyone agreed.

“But then, Our Pal Paul took over, and privatization was everywhere.”

“Our Pal Paul?” asked a new, young teacher.

“None other than Paul Vallas, our previously esteemed CEO,” announced Scott Skeptic, journalism teacher-in-exile, as he joined the conversation. He still enjoyed dropping in for a chat.

“I like to think of him as the Nattering Nabob of No-bid contraacts,” said Millicent.
“The Prince of Privatization,” added Clara Clark, the clerk.

“Guess what?” said Ewenice excitedly.  “He’s coming baaack!!”

“Who?”   

“Our Pal Paul!!  It’s been on the news and everything.”

“Looks like Chicago’s loss will be Philadelphia’s gain,” said Scott. “I can see the headlines already: ‘Vallas returns to the Palace’.”

“Maybe he’ll run for mayor,” suggested Nancy.

There was stunned silence.

“Well, I was doing some research,” said Millicent, “and I understand that Our Pal Paul was invited to be the superintendent of schools for New Orleans. But he said no, and he also declined a contract extension in Philadelphia. And then, I quote,” she paused to
consult her cute little reporters notebook, “he said five years was more than enough to be a superintendent, ‘ before getting into his chauffeur-driven school district car’.”

Once upon a time, as a matter of fact, the current CTEwe contract was due to expire on June 30, 2007. Except for loud and repeated references to a strike, there had been nothing in the way of communications from the leadersheep of the CTEwe to their overtaxed and largely overworked membersheep.

No requests for membersheep input. No lists of tentative demands. No information regarding salary, insurance, pensions, job security, class size, or anything else. Nothing.

Some of the membersheep were heard to mutter, “Whaaat’s happening with our contraaact?”

If they asked that question amongst friends, there was just a lot of head shaking and eye-rolling. If they dared to try to ask it at a House of Dull-a-Gates meeting, assuming they actually made it to the Pee-Yu caucus-controlled microphones, they had to ask before the formal meeting began, since the formal question period had already been basically abolished.

“There was a question and answer period?” asked Ewenice.

“Well, they never gave any answers. Remember?”

Any of the dull-a-gates who really got to the microphone to ask the “contraact question” were immediately ruled out of order and hustled from the hall by an army of UPC sergeants-at-arms.  Sometimes their little cloven hooves didn’t even touch the floor as they were carried away by the minions of Mumbles.

Once upon a time, as another matter of fact, the upcoming CTEwe elections were set for May 18, 2007.  (Or the nineteenth, in case there were, in fact, 31 days in April, which would screw up everyone’s schedules.)

It was therefore understandable that rumors were flying, particularly the ones that insisted no negotiations had taken place, at that nothing would happen until after the so-called election.

“ ‘So-called’ is right,” said Millicent. “The whole thing is going to be one big joke. Again. Except that it isn’t very funny.”

“Right,” said Ewenice. “They have their newspaper  —”

“You mean the photo gallery?” asked Les Izmore. “With those poor captive teachers chained to the tables, listening to them go on and on? And did you ever count how many captives are even there?”

“Right. It looks like maybe ten people, spread around the room, looking bored.”

“But as incumbents-for-life, they have many advantages. The CUD — Chicago Union Digest — gives them free publicity and a place for their propaganda. If anyone else wants to mail things to the membersheep, they have to pay for it themselves. It’s not fair.”

“So?” said Nancy. “That’s what happens when you lose.”

Scott was flipping though pages of his notebook. “Tell me, Nancy. Did you vote in the last CTEwe election?”

She looked puzzled. “You mean me, myself? Like, did I physically place a mark on the ballot?”

“Right.”

“Well, sort of.”

“Sort of? What does that mean?”

“Well,” she squirmed, “I was actually on a field trip that day, but my dull-a-gate said he would take care of it. And also anyone who was absent that day, because they had a right to vote. And I’m sure he did it, because my party won!!” she concluded triumphantly.

“I know this is Chicago,” mused Millicent, “and, unfortunately, that’s the traditional way to run an election.”

“Not honest,” added Ewenice, “but traditional.”

Once upon a time, the membersheep of the CTEwe were concerned about other, more important issues. Like their credit scores and the potential for problems that the Big Baad Bored, in its perennial pursuit for privatization, had unleashed. They were all receiving letters informing them that their personal information may have been compromised during a highly publicized heist from CPS headquarters.
“And the Big Baad Bored is paying for credit check for a whole year for all of us!!” exclaimed Nancy. “That’s the CTEwe at work for you. They have been so busy with this that they haven’t had the time to squeeze in those silly negotiations. And they are being so generous. Even the ones who aren’t dues-paying members of  our caucus will get the credit service. I guess,” she pouted.

Meanwhile, baaack at the opulent riverfront office suites of the CTEwe leadersheep, much planning was afoot. Now that they had a secure hoofhold back at the IFT, the leadersheep were busy finding other ways of controlling House-of-Dull-a-Gates meetings.

Quorum calls were popular, of course. Miscounting voice and standing votes was an old, time-honored tradition dating back to the Robert Healey era. Well, transposing the numbers always sounded better than miscounting, of course, but the result was always the same.

Then, intimidation through giant hulking sergeants-at-arms at the microphones was another off-putting method, as was actually yanking the microphone out of someone’s hand. Or turning them off altogether. “Call the electrician” had been the watchword at many a meeting.

Moving the question-and-answer period to the end of the meeting, following several monotonous, droning reports, virtually guaranteed that none of the membersheep would stay. Or that they could. Membersheep of the CTEwe work at difficult jobs, and the human brain and body can take only so much punishment before enough is enough.
So, as the election drew near, the leadersheep were certain that everything was just the way they wanted it: House meetings under control, in-house newspaper printing their side of everything while costing their caucus nothing, and apparent capitulation from the reporters on the Scum-Times and Scabune, who believed and printed whatever they were told.

All of which made what happened next so wonderful, so priceless, so totally delicious.

Once upon a time there was a question at the House meeting. It concerned the time limits for campaign speeches by the presidential candidates, which had previously been ten minutes per candidate. A new rule by the CTEwe leadersheep had reduced it to a mere five minutes, and some dull-a-gates wanted to debate the issue.
While it was a foregone conclusion that no one wanted to listen to president Marilyn “Mumbles” Stewart for even two minutes, there was the possibility that Debbie Lynch might have some important issues. The membersheep were interested, and the debate, however unexpected, was on.

Which caused Pammy Pretty, triple-dipping overpaid and underworked CTEwe
lobbyist, to leap from her lofty perch with the leadersheep in order to address the question from the floor, just as her old nemesis, Mr. Pester, was likewise speaking to the same issue.“It was always ten minutes,” he said.

“It was always five minutes,” she said.

“Ten.”

“Five.”

“Was too.”

“Was not!!  It was always five minutes!!” she repeated, starting the ear-splitting screech for which she was justly famous.

“Oh, come on, Pammy,” he said. “Tell the truth for once.”

“Listen here, you little #%^@$^&$(*$&^%#!!!” she screamed.

And then the unthinkable occurred. Marilyn “Mumbles” herself did it. In front  of everyone.

”Pammy,” she intoned in a surprisingly distinct manner, “you are out of order. I will not have that kind of language here. Sit down.”   

“BUT—”

“Sit down and be quiet.”

There was stunned silence. Everyone held his or her breath, waiting for an explosion. But, surprisingly, Pammy just sat there, fuming, and not looking very pretty.

“I can see the headlines now,” said Scott. “Picture this:”

“Mumbles Muzzles Pammy Pottymouth over Pester Polemic.”

“Oh, I see,” they laughed.  “O.I.C.”