Jack & Jill Politics

On board Air Force One with the traveling press, legendary baseball Hall-of-Famer Willie Mays said on the day Barack Obama was elected he cried for most of the night and stayed up until 7 or 8 in the morning.

“I reminded him that I dreamed about this day,” Mays said when asked what he and Obama had been talking about during the president’s flight from Detroit to St. Louis Tuesday. “Not being on Air Force One, but dreamed about someone in my race being president. Not knowing that anyone would be. But I reminded him that I cried for most of the night in Chicago.”

Mays got emotional as he continued, recalling election night. “Stayed up all night,” he said. “I went to sleep about 7, maybe 8 in the morning I was so proud. So that tells me all the things I went through, it was for good things. So I’m just proud of him, you know.”

Mays said that he gave POTUS just one tip for his first pitch as president: “Follow through.”

“I’m telling him follow through,” Mays said. “He’s gonna do fine, I guarantee you. He’ll be fine. I just want to make sure he follows through.”
More after the jump... Mays, who lives in San Francisco, joined Obama in Detroit after the president’s speech at Macomb County Community College. He was accompanying POTUS to Busch Stadium in St. Louis for the All-Star Game, where Obama will throw out his first pitch as president.

Obama, who changed into jeans and sneakers mid-flight, is set to watch the game from an exclusive box with guests that include Hank Aaron and his wife.

At 76 years of age, Mays appeared humble by the occasion. Asked what he thought of Air Force One, he replied: “I’m impressed. I don’t know about you.”

Bantering with reporters, Mays chided Dodgers and Cubs fans in the audience -- and took issue when one predicted the American League would win tonight’s game.

“Wait a minute,” he said. “When I played, we didn’t lose a game – we didn’t lose a game from 1954 to 1973. And you say that American is gonna win? Who they got?”

Asked what was it like to go up against Sandy Koufax, Mays said: “Well, it’s like sleeping. You don’t know what you’re gonna do.”

Toughest pitcher to face today? “I’m 76 years old,” Mays said. “If I can bunt, than I’ll be fine."

Things got briefly serious – asked about his godson, Barry Bonds, Mays said he hasn’t talked to him in a bit and couldn’t say if he was still thinking about returning to the game.

It wasn't just reporters who enjoyed the moment. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs joked: “I’ve never seen this much excitement from the press on one of these trips.” (6:57 p.m.)

While we were distracted with the pool story:Detroit gives control of lagging schools to private sector

Detroit -- Detroit Public Schools Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb announced Friday that he has hired four educational management companies to turn around 17 of the worst-performing high schools in the district, a move that marks what leaders say is the largest public school district overhaul of its kind in the nation.

"We have not been making the grade," Bobb said at a press conference at Central High School.

School board members expressed shock and dismay Friday -- just one day after they rolled out their own academic plan that they've asked Bobb to fund. Some accused Bobb of overstepping his bounds as a financial manager by launching an academic plan that will affect 20,000 students in three-quarters of the district's high schools without the board's knowledge.

Earlier story: Detroit Schools May Consider Bankruptcy to Resolve Deficit

July 13 (Bloomberg) -- Detroit Public Schools may consider reorganizing under bankruptcy protection to cut costs after seven years of budget deficits, a district spokesman said.



Robert C. Bobb, who Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm appointed in January as emergency financial manager for the 15th-largest U.S. school system, recommended bankruptcy as one option for addressing the deficit, said Steven Wasko, district spokesman.



Bobb proposed a $1.18 billion budget for fiscal 2010, which began July 1, that would result in the district generating $17.4 million more revenue than it spends. That doesn’t erase its $276.8 million deficit from fiscal 2009 and prior years, according to a budget report.



“To cut spending to the levels needed to pay off this deficit would take 80 percent to 90 percent of our revenue,” Wasko said. “That’s not something parents would have any interest in accepting.”

In majority minority school districts if the kids aren't being farmed out to the private sector they are being farmed out to the military.

The Military Invades U.S. Schools: How Military Academies Are Being Used to Destroy Public Education

In Chicago, there's a push to replace public schools with military academies. This model may soon spread to the rest of the country.


For the past four years, I have observed the military occupation of the high school where I teach science. Currently, Chicago's Senn High School houses Rickover Naval Academy (RNA). I use the term "occupation" because part of our building was taken away despite student, parent, teacher and community opposition to RNA's opening.


Senn students are made to feel like second-class citizens inside their own school, due to inequalities. The facilities and resources are better on the RNA side. RNA students are allowed to walk on the Senn side, while Senn students cannot walk on the RNA side. RNA "disenrolls" students and we accept those students who get kicked out if they live within our attendance boundaries. This practice is against Chicago policy, but goes unchecked. All of these things maintain a two-tiered system within the same school building.


This phenomenon is not restricted to Senn. Chicago has more military academies and more students in JROTC than any other city in the US. As the tentacles of school militarization reach beyond Chicago, the process used in this city seems to serve as a model of expansion. There was a Marine Academy planned for Georgia's Dekalb County, which includes 10 percent of Atlanta. Fortunately, due to protest, the school has been postponed until 2010. Despite it being postponed, it is still useful to analyze the rhetoric used to rationalize the Marine Academy. Many of the lies and excuses used to justify school militarization in Chicago and Georgia may well be used in other cities as militarism grows.