It looks like someone isn’t happy with the way that the Ann Arbor Public Schools are being run.
42 Responses to “AAPS Snarkage”
If someone is going to invest that much time posting something like that, would it be so hard for someone to find someone else, someone possessed of an actual sense of humor, to write the jokes?
I don’t know, I thought it was funny in the “it’s on the internet, it *must* be true!” vein. I can imagine someone (like myself) who knows nothing about A2 school challenges accidently getting on that site and being a bit surprised by the content.
You do have to admit it got to be a a bit of stress relief for whoever does it.
I just wonder why people don’t dress up for photos any more. I mean, that photo of the school board is sort of sad. Or at least some of them are sort of sad.
I remember when I was relocating here from DC and was horrified when my hosts suggested we go to a “nice place” downtown for dessert. I was wearing shorts and would NEVER have been caught dead in shorts at a nice place in DC. But there were folks in sweatshirts in La Dolce Vita (is that its name?) on Main Street.
I’m still shocked when I wear pants and a shirt with a collar and people ask me why I’m so dressed up.
BTW, I think the site is funny. This town is so screwed up!
I looked at the funny pages and have to admit I read the first one twice but, Nitro’s right, the jokes were limp. Clearly this is more, ” look what I can do” and not enough, “hey, I’ve got something to say”. They should keep their day jobs.
If this is a way a responsible citizens group thinks they can affect change they are fooling themselves. Transplant, if the satire only works on outsiders it doesn’t work; I can tell my 5 year old she has ‘Snew’ all over her and make her bite, but its still a tired old joke.
At least one key figure connected to Citizens for Responsible Schools and partly responsible for the CPS website coding/content ( www.proposedhighschool.org ) is currently out of the country … which is not to say he could not have perpetrated this mischief from abroad …
Interesting that cb and transplant have raised the issue of audience in connection with the quality of the humor (and I have to say, I find the assessment of ‘limp’ a bit harsh … ). The meta keyword tag from the spoof site is: [angle brack]meta name=”keywords” content=”Ann Arbor Public Schools, aaps, bond, aaps.k12.mi.us, Karen Cross, George Fornero, Dr. Fornero, Dr. George Fornero, superintendent, school district, high school, new high school, corruption, deceipt, lies, liar, lying, boondoggle, government corruption, Ann Arbor, responsibility”[angle bracket] The authentic schools site does not include a keyword tag at all. This suggests the possibility that the intended audience is not us locals, but rather potential superitendent candidates (the first few terms suggests this … I’m not suggesting that potential job candidates will be looking for “Dr. Fornero + boondoggle”). What effect the spoof site might have on someone contemplating taking the job, I suppose we can only speculate. I’ll start: Wow, those rascals in Ann Arbor are a clever bunch of folks who ultimately really care. I think I want a job there!
HD, I take your point about the outside world, maybe that is the audience. I am not so up on meta keywords. Considering this, could not a potential superintendent candidate find this site and say “… What the hell will I be walking into there? It sounds like I will have to clean up some elses mess before I can really get started. Maybe I’ll pass on this one.”
I’m having a hard time seeing someone running into this discussion, rather than away from it.
For the record, I meant my ’speculation’ about reaction from potential superintendent candidates more humorfully than seriously (I asked too much work from the word, ‘rascals’)
So yes, your “… What the hell will I be walking into there?” pretty well nails it, specifically with respect to the new high school building project, but perhaps not in general.
And it’s a question that the school board is acutely aware will be asked by any potential (outside) replacement for Dr. Fornero. So in addition to focusing on getting the building project back on track, the board has weighed the option of hiring an interim superintendent against the alternative of trying to make a permanent hire before Dr. Fornero leaves. Most recently, it looked like the board’s strategy was to try for the permanent hire without an interim.
This could be analyzed as a tentative decision against an internal candidate for the permanent job: an interim would presumably be an internal candidate; but once installed, an interim would have a good chance to earn their way to the permanent post.
The more the pot is stirred, and the more the outside world perceives that chaos reigns in the Ann Arbor School system, the more difficult it will be for the board to achieve a permanent outside hire before Dr. Fornero’s departure. So perhaps the author of the spoof is advocating in a very indirect way for one of the potential internal candidates. Or maybe the author just wanted to thumb their nose at the school system and get a rise out of them. If so, then judging by the cease-and-desist letter, mission accomplished.
I am impressed by the journalistic digging the AA News did to uncover that the proposedhighschool.org and annarborpublicschools.org domains were both registered at the same company. But they didn’t expand on both sites being on servers in the same network - possibly in the same room. So to anyone wondering if the same person(s) is behind both, you’re probably right (or that would be one big coincidence).
the WHOIS lookup shows that the domain registration was sponsored by Go Daddy (as reported by A2 News). Go Daddy (despite their Super Bowl ads that were suggestive of something vaguely pornographic) is just a company that offers remote web hosting services (so you want to set up a website … Go Daddy is one-stop shopping for domain registration, server space, etc.).
So I thought the fact that this information coincides for the two websites might be comparable to two email addresses from yahoo.com, gmail.com, hotmail.com, etc. That is, people are creatures of habit and they tend to use what they’ve used before, so the fact that the information is the same is certainly consistent with the suspicion that it’s the same folks behind both. And there’s probably vastly more of these webhosting companies than free email providers, so the coincidence is certainly less likely than two email addresses being from yahoo.com …
But you seem to be alluding to a stronger inference that is warranted? Additional sleuthing you’ve done? (Please dish!) Or just more knowledge than the average bear (mine is limited, I assure you) about interpreting the results of a WHOIS query or assessing the probablility of coincidence for the two sets of information?
I think it’s pretty effective and, right, if there’s a cease-and-desist, mission accomplished. I was looking for some wild stuff, but it’s pretty low-key. I do like the way it lists the REAL Board Members (write them!)
It would hardly be a surprise if the sites were done by the same people. Seems kind of silly to do a lot of digging or conspiracy-theorizing. I think this site was funny and clever, and if the Ann Arbor Public Schools didn’t think of registering annarborpublicschools.org before now, well, this is what is called a “learning experience.” This is clearly a spoof. If the US government can’t get rid of whitehouse.org, I think AAPS might have a bit of a rough time getting rid of annarborpublicschools.org. Perhaps this site is a little too close for comfort for the Ann Arbor Public Schools, hmmm?
HD, I inferred a bit from the coincidence of the go daddy registrar. Although go daddy may have numerous registrations, hosting is a very cut-throat business - there are millions of hosts worldwide compared to thousands registrars. So, being registered at go daddy as well as hosted there ups the likelihood factor a lot… I confirmed that both sites are on go daddy servers with the nerd magic of “ping” and “traceroute”.
Also, looking at the HTML source both sites were created using the same editor (Dreamweaver, which leaves tell-tale comments throughout the code).
Maybe it’s not at the level as it looks I let on, but same reg, host, site topic, and HTML editor all in this small town adds up fast. Certainly not as vast as your yahoo mail analogy, but to the point where I would make a friendly wager that we’re dealing with the same person.
Just curious, since you, FAA, seem to know– then what does domainsbyproxy have to do with it? I thought they were the registrant on behalf of the evil doers…? Is it that they register via domainsbyproxy and then godaddy hosts the site?
Thanks for the ‘ping’ and ‘traceroute’ heads-up. You say, “… I would make a friendly wager that we’re dealing with the same person …” I’ll put up a bag of red M&M’s imprinted with my name. That’s pretty friendly.
And heeding the gentle admonishments of Juliew and Dale, I’ll try to steer the conversation away from the spoof-authorship question by asking:
Who out there is going to register as a write-in candidate for school board? Anybody know someone who could be persuaded to give it a go?
Westsider, I’m not sure if there is a deal between domainsbyproxy (DBP) and go daddy, but I think that when you register a name at go daddy and elect to have it be a “private” registration DBP buys the domain, retains ownership of it, and creates a contract with you giving you basically full rights to it (for a few dollars more each year, of course, for the service of keeping your name hidden).
Regardless, it’s an ICANN rule that all these “private” registrations have to at least show the place where it was purchased. If you dig through the complete WHOIS info for the sites in question you’ll see:
You know, I do have a thumbs up for the AAPS (of which I am a proud graduate…glad to be done with that!)….They are better than homeschooling your kids…at least for me…
Despite the turmoil, I value the teachers and the principals my kids have or have had. And all the parent volunteers and the support staff. At Haisley…and at Forsythe — meaning the former principal at Forsythe. You remember him, Mike? The teachers at Forsythe (and most teachers at most schools) have my support for a job well done.
btw — looks like the AABofE took their eye of the noxious ball of fire that is the new HS project and had more important things to do, such as shuffle principals around. And waste money and time. And replace them with better ones? Uh, no. But that is a different discussion…
To acknowledge Peter Honeyman’s alert comment, I will donate 50% of the loot from the wager to Peter … a wager I was willing to lose just to unload these weird M & M’s … now what was it exactly that I won, FAA?? Or can I just lord it over you for all time? That could be hard to split with Peter … or maybe not so hard after all: I could take odd-numbered days for the lording-over and Peter could take evens. What’s today … an odd, so that’s me: Hey, FAA, WHOIS www.right.com? Me, that’s who!
Seriously though, no potential write-in candidates for school board yet? Westsider, with your mention of “my 7th graders” and your own experience as a student in the school system, you seem like you might run with a crowd that could produce such a person? Or might have a view on what sort of candidate it would take to win as a write in?
Okay, just to be clear, www[dot]right[dot]com is NOT me, I just didn’t reckon with the automatic hyperlink formatting or the fact that the URL actually exists … Sorry.
I am hearing a lot of discussion about the possibility of write-in candidates for school board in the (Tuesday, May 2nd) election.
Just to be clear, under the new election law, write-in candidates must file a Declaration of Intent with the county clerk’s office by 4:00 pm on Friday before the election (that’s Friday, April 28). Otherwise, votes for them DO NOT COUNT.
Hold on to that bag of M&M’s, HD… I wouldn’t settle this bet on the word of the endagered-salamander-hoax-folk’s web site.
Further evidence to my claim is both sites are using the exact same JavaScript code (and file name, date, etc.) to hide email addresses from spammers. A quick Google search could not turn up an instance of this code anywhere else in the world… Hmmm…
Seriously, in half the time of that lawyer and cease and desist business I could have set up a way to trace the origination of updates to both sites - proving they’re coming from the same source. In case anyone from (the real) AAPS wanted to know…
By the way, proposedhighschool.org has taken down their claim that they’re not involved with annarborpublicschools.org. Also, annarborpublicschools.org has gone offline.
I don’t know if that settles it, but I sure am hungry for candy-coated chocolate, preferably of the red persuasion.
Some quick comments about the annarborpublicschools.org website.
1) Sorry anyone was disappointed about it not being funny enough. Everyone knows I’m no Jon Stewart. On the other hand, in its defense, many people emailed the site with kudos for bringing out some issues, for the site’s humor, and many emailed with very funny suggestions that I just did not have time to put up on the site as I had hoped to.
2) Because I was out of the country when everything hit the fan, I was unable to properly update the site or keep up on the buzz. I was consistently about 24 hours behind the curve and so when it seemed appropriate to out myself, my name came out through other means. Oh well.
3) Thanks to Peter for his support of the site’s use of parody in terms of “Fair Use”.
4) As for the “big fucking liar” comment, everyone is entitled to his opinion of course. Know that though I am the webmaster for the CRS site, I embarked upon the parody site on my own. No one knew about the site and I never told the group officially or unofficially about it. The statement about CRS not supporting the parody site was therefore truthful and put there for several reasons:
a) CRS had nothing to do with the parody site. It was mine and mine alone. I belong to lots of other groups, some political, some not; none of them had anything to do with the parody site.
b) an AA News story mentioned the CRS site and the parody site in the same sentence.
c) with the history I have with the AAPS and its lawyers, part of me wondered if a suit was forthcoming.
d) when another AA News reporter later left a message on my cell phone here in Ann Arbor to see if the rumors might be true that I was involved with the parody site, he also mentioned another specific person’s name. I only occasionally called in for my messages and when I got that one, I felt it important to out myself right away. But it was too late; the story with my name had already run. I wanted to make sure that no one had any misconception about who was behind it but the timing was off and I didn’t have access to phones and email fast enough to get a comment, and name, into that story.
5) As for the original thinly-veiled anonymity, I tried to keep my identity out of it at least for a while precisely because people would focus on me rather than the issues of mismanagement and ineptitude in the AAPS administration and the use of parody to bring them out. There was some time wasted on, or at least devoted to, conjecture about who it was but at the very least the site which took away some of the impact, but for a short time, the site had a small impact (strangely, more of an impact than serious attempts at publicizing the AAPS way of doing business had had). I am sorry for my own ineptitude in handling the disclosure of my name, regardless of the phone and internet obstacles I faced while out of the country.
As for the comment about AAPS teachers and employees (some of which emailed the parody site with their support), I too am happy with most of them. My son graduated from Pioneer and but for a couple of teachers he had a good experience. It is only the administration and board that I have problems with. More generally, its people in power who are supposed to act in the public interest and instead ignore public input, are wasteful of public resources, and are arrogant about it to boot. This whole thing is of course, in the large scheme of things, a small issue. Similar but larger things happen at the national level and about those things I complain, try to educate myself, and write letters to representatives, and so on. About this, I felt an opportunity existed to act. And remember, it was parody. Supposed to be … you know … fun.
That’s all for now.
If someone is going to invest that much time posting something like that, would it be so hard for someone to find someone else, someone possessed of an actual sense of humor, to write the jokes?
It’s limp.
posted by Nitro on February 27th, 2006 at 2:07 pmI don’t know, I thought it was funny in the “it’s on the internet, it *must* be true!” vein. I can imagine someone (like myself) who knows nothing about A2 school challenges accidently getting on that site and being a bit surprised by the content.
You do have to admit it got to be a a bit of stress relief for whoever does it.
posted by Transplant on February 27th, 2006 at 4:24 pmI just wonder why people don’t dress up for photos any more. I mean, that photo of the school board is sort of sad. Or at least some of them are sort of sad.
I remember when I was relocating here from DC and was horrified when my hosts suggested we go to a “nice place” downtown for dessert. I was wearing shorts and would NEVER have been caught dead in shorts at a nice place in DC. But there were folks in sweatshirts in La Dolce Vita (is that its name?) on Main Street.
I’m still shocked when I wear pants and a shirt with a collar and people ask me why I’m so dressed up.
BTW, I think the site is funny. This town is so screwed up!
posted by Young OWSider on February 27th, 2006 at 6:15 pmi wonder if the citizens for responsible schools [sic] are behind this prank.
posted by peter honeyman on February 27th, 2006 at 7:46 pmI looked at the funny pages and have to admit I read the first one twice but, Nitro’s right, the jokes were limp. Clearly this is more, ” look what I can do” and not enough, “hey, I’ve got something to say”. They should keep their day jobs.
If this is a way a responsible citizens group thinks they can affect change they are fooling themselves. Transplant, if the satire only works on outsiders it doesn’t work; I can tell my 5 year old she has ‘Snew’ all over her and make her bite, but its still a tired old joke.
posted by cb on February 28th, 2006 at 8:46 amAt least one key figure connected to Citizens for Responsible Schools and partly responsible for the CPS website coding/content ( www.proposedhighschool.org ) is currently out of the country … which is not to say he could not have perpetrated this mischief from abroad …
Interesting that cb and transplant have raised the issue of audience in connection with the quality of the humor (and I have to say, I find the assessment of ‘limp’ a bit harsh … ). The meta keyword tag from the spoof site is: [angle brack]meta name=”keywords” content=”Ann Arbor Public Schools, aaps, bond, aaps.k12.mi.us, Karen Cross, George Fornero, Dr. Fornero, Dr. George Fornero, superintendent, school district, high school, new high school, corruption, deceipt, lies, liar, lying, boondoggle, government corruption, Ann Arbor, responsibility”[angle bracket] The authentic schools site does not include a keyword tag at all. This suggests the possibility that the intended audience is not us locals, but rather potential superitendent candidates (the first few terms suggests this … I’m not suggesting that potential job candidates will be looking for “Dr. Fornero + boondoggle”). What effect the spoof site might have on someone contemplating taking the job, I suppose we can only speculate. I’ll start: Wow, those rascals in Ann Arbor are a clever bunch of folks who ultimately really care. I think I want a job there!
posted by HD on February 28th, 2006 at 10:21 amwow, it even looks like the real website;
http://www.aaps.k12.mi.us/
posted by Just a Voice on February 28th, 2006 at 10:33 amToday’s Snooze says a cease-and-desist letter was sent.
posted by Anne Ar Boor on February 28th, 2006 at 10:54 amhttp://www.mlive.com/news/aanews/index.ssf?/base/news-16/1141139515235250.xml&coll=2
HD, I take your point about the outside world, maybe that is the audience. I am not so up on meta keywords. Considering this, could not a potential superintendent candidate find this site and say “… What the hell will I be walking into there? It sounds like I will have to clean up some elses mess before I can really get started. Maybe I’ll pass on this one.”
I’m having a hard time seeing someone running into this discussion, rather than away from it.
posted by cb on February 28th, 2006 at 11:51 amI’d like to think the person out of the country has a better sense of humor and better website chops than that very weak effort.
posted by Chris on February 28th, 2006 at 12:06 pmcb,
For the record, I meant my ’speculation’ about reaction from potential superintendent candidates more humorfully than seriously (I asked too much work from the word, ‘rascals’)
So yes, your “… What the hell will I be walking into there?” pretty well nails it, specifically with respect to the new high school building project, but perhaps not in general.
And it’s a question that the school board is acutely aware will be asked by any potential (outside) replacement for Dr. Fornero. So in addition to focusing on getting the building project back on track, the board has weighed the option of hiring an interim superintendent against the alternative of trying to make a permanent hire before Dr. Fornero leaves. Most recently, it looked like the board’s strategy was to try for the permanent hire without an interim.
This could be analyzed as a tentative decision against an internal candidate for the permanent job: an interim would presumably be an internal candidate; but once installed, an interim would have a good chance to earn their way to the permanent post.
The more the pot is stirred, and the more the outside world perceives that chaos reigns in the Ann Arbor School system, the more difficult it will be for the board to achieve a permanent outside hire before Dr. Fornero’s departure. So perhaps the author of the spoof is advocating in a very indirect way for one of the potential internal candidates. Or maybe the author just wanted to thumb their nose at the school system and get a rise out of them. If so, then judging by the cease-and-desist letter, mission accomplished.
posted by HD on February 28th, 2006 at 12:31 pmI am impressed by the journalistic digging the AA News did to uncover that the proposedhighschool.org and annarborpublicschools.org domains were both registered at the same company. But they didn’t expand on both sites being on servers in the same network - possibly in the same room. So to anyone wondering if the same person(s) is behind both, you’re probably right (or that would be one big coincidence).
posted by FAA on February 28th, 2006 at 3:18 pmCome on, AAiO, confess– this is your latest online creation, isn’t it?
posted by Constantine on February 28th, 2006 at 3:38 pmFAA,
the WHOIS lookup shows that the domain registration was sponsored by Go Daddy (as reported by A2 News). Go Daddy (despite their Super Bowl ads that were suggestive of something vaguely pornographic) is just a company that offers remote web hosting services (so you want to set up a website … Go Daddy is one-stop shopping for domain registration, server space, etc.).
So I thought the fact that this information coincides for the two websites might be comparable to two email addresses from yahoo.com, gmail.com, hotmail.com, etc. That is, people are creatures of habit and they tend to use what they’ve used before, so the fact that the information is the same is certainly consistent with the suspicion that it’s the same folks behind both. And there’s probably vastly more of these webhosting companies than free email providers, so the coincidence is certainly less likely than two email addresses being from yahoo.com …
But you seem to be alluding to a stronger inference that is warranted? Additional sleuthing you’ve done? (Please dish!) Or just more knowledge than the average bear (mine is limited, I assure you) about interpreting the results of a WHOIS query or assessing the probablility of coincidence for the two sets of information?
posted by HD on February 28th, 2006 at 4:16 pmI think the phony web site is the most hilarious thing I have seen in a long time!
As for the school administration sending a cease-and-desist letter: get a grip.
posted by DaveCahill on February 28th, 2006 at 5:04 pmActually do a “whois” at GoDaddy.com and you will see that the actual company that registered the site is http://www.domainsbyproxy.com/.
posted by Westsider on February 28th, 2006 at 5:16 pmI think it’s pretty effective and, right, if there’s a cease-and-desist, mission accomplished. I was looking for some wild stuff, but it’s pretty low-key. I do like the way it lists the REAL Board Members (write them!)
posted by Westsider on February 28th, 2006 at 5:19 pmIt would hardly be a surprise if the sites were done by the same people. Seems kind of silly to do a lot of digging or conspiracy-theorizing. I think this site was funny and clever, and if the Ann Arbor Public Schools didn’t think of registering annarborpublicschools.org before now, well, this is what is called a “learning experience.” This is clearly a spoof. If the US government can’t get rid of whitehouse.org, I think AAPS might have a bit of a rough time getting rid of annarborpublicschools.org. Perhaps this site is a little too close for comfort for the Ann Arbor Public Schools, hmmm?
posted by Juliew on February 28th, 2006 at 5:27 pmDammit, who is going to FOIA AAPS for a copy of the cease-and-desist letter?! This mundane situation cannot go unscrutinized.
posted by Dale on February 28th, 2006 at 6:04 pmHD, I inferred a bit from the coincidence of the go daddy registrar. Although go daddy may have numerous registrations, hosting is a very cut-throat business - there are millions of hosts worldwide compared to thousands registrars. So, being registered at go daddy as well as hosted there ups the likelihood factor a lot… I confirmed that both sites are on go daddy servers with the nerd magic of “ping” and “traceroute”.
Also, looking at the HTML source both sites were created using the same editor (Dreamweaver, which leaves tell-tale comments throughout the code).
Maybe it’s not at the level as it looks I let on, but same reg, host, site topic, and HTML editor all in this small town adds up fast. Certainly not as vast as your yahoo mail analogy, but to the point where I would make a friendly wager that we’re dealing with the same person.
posted by FAA on February 28th, 2006 at 6:07 pmJust curious, since you, FAA, seem to know– then what does domainsbyproxy have to do with it? I thought they were the registrant on behalf of the evil doers…? Is it that they register via domainsbyproxy and then godaddy hosts the site?
posted by Westsider on February 28th, 2006 at 6:39 pmFAA,
Thanks for the ‘ping’ and ‘traceroute’ heads-up. You say, “… I would make a friendly wager that we’re dealing with the same person …” I’ll put up a bag of red M&M’s imprinted with my name. That’s pretty friendly.
And heeding the gentle admonishments of Juliew and Dale, I’ll try to steer the conversation away from the spoof-authorship question by asking:
Who out there is going to register as a write-in candidate for school board? Anybody know someone who could be persuaded to give it a go?
posted by HD on February 28th, 2006 at 6:56 pmWestsider, I’m not sure if there is a deal between domainsbyproxy (DBP) and go daddy, but I think that when you register a name at go daddy and elect to have it be a “private” registration DBP buys the domain, retains ownership of it, and creates a contract with you giving you basically full rights to it (for a few dollars more each year, of course, for the service of keeping your name hidden).
Regardless, it’s an ICANN rule that all these “private” registrations have to at least show the place where it was purchased. If you dig through the complete WHOIS info for the sites in question you’ll see:
Sponsoring Registrar:Go Daddy Software, Inc.
I’ll stop being a geek now, I swear.
HD, that’s not only friendly, that’s hilarious.
posted by FAA on February 28th, 2006 at 7:37 pmThanks FAA for the geek lesson. I’m sure it is CRS. Wouldn’t bet my 7th graders on it, but..whataminute, on second thougt…
posted by Westsider on February 28th, 2006 at 7:49 pmann arbor sucks the life out of the funk
posted by ccp@ccpalmer.com on February 28th, 2006 at 11:27 pmperhaps, but your neighborhood is the best, nay?
posted by stella on March 1st, 2006 at 6:51 amand if you want da funk, come sit and drink that coffee on the porch couch on band practice nights.
Come on, AAiO, confess– this is your latest online creation, isn’t it?
Well, I thought it was worth one last-ditch effort to fix the AAPS before I start homeschooling my kids.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on March 1st, 2006 at 9:54 amYou’re going to home-school all 8 of your kids? Very ambitious…
posted by FAA on March 1st, 2006 at 11:47 amEveryone is an editor.
posted by logtar on March 1st, 2006 at 3:37 pmYou know, I do have a thumbs up for the AAPS (of which I am a proud graduate…glad to be done with that!)….They are better than homeschooling your kids…at least for me…
Despite the turmoil, I value the teachers and the principals my kids have or have had. And all the parent volunteers and the support staff. At Haisley…and at Forsythe — meaning the former principal at Forsythe. You remember him, Mike? The teachers at Forsythe (and most teachers at most schools) have my support for a job well done.
btw — looks like the AABofE took their eye of the noxious ball of fire that is the new HS project and had more important things to do, such as shuffle principals around. And waste money and time. And replace them with better ones? Uh, no. But that is a different discussion…
posted by Westsider on March 1st, 2006 at 4:29 pm…But related. Had to add that.
posted by Westsider on March 1st, 2006 at 4:30 pmi found this on the CRS site:
Citizens for Responsible Schools and this, its website, www.proposedhighschool.org, do not support the annarborpublicschools.org website.
well, that settles it, then.
posted by peter honeyman on March 1st, 2006 at 9:35 pmTo acknowledge Peter Honeyman’s alert comment, I will donate 50% of the loot from the wager to Peter … a wager I was willing to lose just to unload these weird M & M’s … now what was it exactly that I won, FAA?? Or can I just lord it over you for all time? That could be hard to split with Peter … or maybe not so hard after all: I could take odd-numbered days for the lording-over and Peter could take evens. What’s today … an odd, so that’s me: Hey, FAA, WHOIS www.right.com? Me, that’s who!
Seriously though, no potential write-in candidates for school board yet? Westsider, with your mention of “my 7th graders” and your own experience as a student in the school system, you seem like you might run with a crowd that could produce such a person? Or might have a view on what sort of candidate it would take to win as a write in?
posted by HD on March 1st, 2006 at 11:43 pmOkay, just to be clear, www[dot]right[dot]com is NOT me, I just didn’t reckon with the automatic hyperlink formatting or the fact that the URL actually exists … Sorry.
posted by HD on March 1st, 2006 at 11:45 pmI am hearing a lot of discussion about the possibility of write-in candidates for school board in the (Tuesday, May 2nd) election.
Just to be clear, under the new election law, write-in candidates must file a Declaration of Intent with the county clerk’s office by 4:00 pm on Friday before the election (that’s Friday, April 28). Otherwise, votes for them DO NOT COUNT.
There’s a pdf of the Declaration of Intent available here: http://www.michigan.gov/documents/Dec-Int-Write-In_94360_7.pdf
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on March 2nd, 2006 at 1:10 amHold on to that bag of M&M’s, HD… I wouldn’t settle this bet on the word of the endagered-salamander-hoax-folk’s web site.
Further evidence to my claim is both sites are using the exact same JavaScript code (and file name, date, etc.) to hide email addresses from spammers. A quick Google search could not turn up an instance of this code anywhere else in the world… Hmmm…
Seriously, in half the time of that lawyer and cease and desist business I could have set up a way to trace the origination of updates to both sites - proving they’re coming from the same source. In case anyone from (the real) AAPS wanted to know…
posted by FAA on March 2nd, 2006 at 11:30 amregarding my earlier post about the disclaimed relationship between the two web sites …
… looks like someone is a BIG FUCKING LIAR.
posted by peter honeyman on March 9th, 2006 at 11:45 pmHa ha!
By the way, proposedhighschool.org has taken down their claim that they’re not involved with annarborpublicschools.org. Also, annarborpublicschools.org has gone offline.
I don’t know if that settles it, but I sure am hungry for candy-coated chocolate, preferably of the red persuasion.
posted by FAA on March 10th, 2006 at 12:44 pmFAA,
We should set up a drop off-thread. Shoot me an email. A bonus bag of treats for making it as cloak-and-daggery as possible.
HD
posted by HD on March 10th, 2006 at 12:52 pmYeah, I was pretty disappointed, too. I was sure he’d have been funnier about it all.
posted by Chris on March 10th, 2006 at 12:59 pmSome quick comments about the annarborpublicschools.org website.
posted by Alan Pagliere on March 19th, 2006 at 4:25 pm1) Sorry anyone was disappointed about it not being funny enough. Everyone knows I’m no Jon Stewart. On the other hand, in its defense, many people emailed the site with kudos for bringing out some issues, for the site’s humor, and many emailed with very funny suggestions that I just did not have time to put up on the site as I had hoped to.
2) Because I was out of the country when everything hit the fan, I was unable to properly update the site or keep up on the buzz. I was consistently about 24 hours behind the curve and so when it seemed appropriate to out myself, my name came out through other means. Oh well.
3) Thanks to Peter for his support of the site’s use of parody in terms of “Fair Use”.
4) As for the “big fucking liar” comment, everyone is entitled to his opinion of course. Know that though I am the webmaster for the CRS site, I embarked upon the parody site on my own. No one knew about the site and I never told the group officially or unofficially about it. The statement about CRS not supporting the parody site was therefore truthful and put there for several reasons:
a) CRS had nothing to do with the parody site. It was mine and mine alone. I belong to lots of other groups, some political, some not; none of them had anything to do with the parody site.
b) an AA News story mentioned the CRS site and the parody site in the same sentence.
c) with the history I have with the AAPS and its lawyers, part of me wondered if a suit was forthcoming.
d) when another AA News reporter later left a message on my cell phone here in Ann Arbor to see if the rumors might be true that I was involved with the parody site, he also mentioned another specific person’s name. I only occasionally called in for my messages and when I got that one, I felt it important to out myself right away. But it was too late; the story with my name had already run. I wanted to make sure that no one had any misconception about who was behind it but the timing was off and I didn’t have access to phones and email fast enough to get a comment, and name, into that story.
5) As for the original thinly-veiled anonymity, I tried to keep my identity out of it at least for a while precisely because people would focus on me rather than the issues of mismanagement and ineptitude in the AAPS administration and the use of parody to bring them out. There was some time wasted on, or at least devoted to, conjecture about who it was but at the very least the site which took away some of the impact, but for a short time, the site had a small impact (strangely, more of an impact than serious attempts at publicizing the AAPS way of doing business had had). I am sorry for my own ineptitude in handling the disclosure of my name, regardless of the phone and internet obstacles I faced while out of the country.
As for the comment about AAPS teachers and employees (some of which emailed the parody site with their support), I too am happy with most of them. My son graduated from Pioneer and but for a couple of teachers he had a good experience. It is only the administration and board that I have problems with. More generally, its people in power who are supposed to act in the public interest and instead ignore public input, are wasteful of public resources, and are arrogant about it to boot. This whole thing is of course, in the large scheme of things, a small issue. Similar but larger things happen at the national level and about those things I complain, try to educate myself, and write letters to representatives, and so on. About this, I felt an opportunity existed to act. And remember, it was parody. Supposed to be … you know … fun.
That’s all for now.
You people need to get a life!
posted by DG on August 27th, 2006 at 11:32 am