Yes, Virginia, earthquakes happen in California, too

Oh boy, for a news junkie like me, what a day!  I mean, what a day!

From the West Coast, which is known for literal and metaphorical earthshaking:

A shallow magnitude 3.0 earthquake was reported Tuesday evening eight miles from Ridgemark, Calif., according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Ok, that is not the one, but this:

Judge Rolf M. Treu ruled, in effect, that it was too easy for teachers to gain strong job protections and too difficult to dismiss those who performed poorly in the classroom. If the ruling stands, California will have to craft new rules for hiring and firing teachers.

Gee, I am shocked, shocked that (awful) teachers with tenure are a major part of the education mess.  I had no idea!  (Yes, I am being gleefully sarcastic!)

Could this ruling get us out of the Jurassic Age of the education system?

The lawsuit, brought on behalf of nine schoolchildren, concentrated on three areas: teacher tenure, dismissal procedures and the seniority rules. The plaintiffs had argued that the rules resulted in grossly ineffective teachers obtaining and retaining permanent employment, and these teachers were disproportionately in schools serving low-income and minority students. The judge said this violated fundamental rights to equal education. "There is also no dispute that there are a significant number of grossly ineffective teachers currently active in California classrooms," he said, adding that “the evidence is compelling. Indeed it shocks the conscience.” 

Indeed.  Remember that lengthy New Yorker piece on the awful teachers who cannot be fired?  The Rubber Room?

Meanwhile, on the other coast, a huge political earthquake:

 In one of the most stunning primary election upsets in congressional history, the House majority leader, Eric Cantor, was soundly defeated on Tuesday by a Tea Party-backed economics professor who had hammered him for being insufficiently conservative.

I can't decide which earth-shattering news excites me more; damn, couldn't they have happened on two separate days so that I could have enjoyed them, savored them, both!

Compared with Cantor, Speaker Boehner was a "moderate."  And how does Cantor compare with the guy who beat him in the primary?  And what does it mean for the next two years of Obama's lamest of lame duck presidency?

“How do you get that or anything done now? Eric is too liberal? This was the guy holding Boehner back.”

Muahahaha.  Eric Cantor is a liberal as far as the Tea Party is concerned.  On that scale, Nancy Pelosi is more of a communist than all the communists of the world put together.

The good ol' US of A, where the political theatre can be even more exciting than the one in the old country!

Yes, I am sufficiently entertained! ;)

It is not merely Massachusetts. Remember Virginia and New Jersey?

Losing the seat held by a Kennedy since 1953 in a very blue state is, of course, a huge loss to the Democratic Party.  But, this is being seen as some kind of a one crazy shot out of nowhere.  Well, how quickly we forget other results that were not too long ago:
This is how the NY Times reported the results of the elections in Virginia--elections held just over two months ago, on November 3, 2009:

Robert F. McDonnell, a Republican and a former state attorney general, won a decisive victory in Virginia’s governor’s race Tuesday, a stark reversal of fortune for Democrats who have held control in Richmond for the past eight years.
Mr. McDonnell defeated the Democratic candidate, R. Creigh Deeds, an 18-year state senator from rural Bath County in western Virginia. With 99 percent of the precincts reporting, Mr. McDonnell had 59 percent of the vote, and Mr. Deeds 41 percent.
Republicans cited the victory as a repudiation of the Obama administration and the national Democratic Party’s agenda, especially that of departing Gov. Tim Kaine, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

And, there was one other election that same day, in New Jersey.  And what happened there?  Over to the NY Times again--after all, this was in their backyard:

In New Jersey, a former federal prosecutor, Christopher J. Christie, became the first Republican to win statewide in 12 years by vowing to attack the state’s fiscal problems with the same aggressiveness he used to lock up corrupt politicians.
He overcame a huge Democratic voter advantage and a relentless barrage of negative commercials to defeat Jon S. Corzine, an unpopular incumbent who outspent him by more than two to one and drew heavily on political help from the White House, including three visits to the state from President Obama.

The way I read the results is this: none of the election results was about Obama per se.  We Americans are less comfortable with one-party rule, and we way prefer divided governance.  Bush would have experienced similar situations, if not for the events of 9/11 and then the wars that got him and the Republicans the extra vote needed to win seats.

I am used to people expressing their preference for a divided government.  It used to happen all too often in the state, Tamil Nadu, where I lived until I came here to the US.  Electors routinely would send one party's candidates to the parilament but elect the other party's candidates for the state government.

So, as far as I am concerned, both the Republicans and Democrats are making a mistake when they interpret the election of Brown as some kind of a statement on healthcare, Obama, ..... whatever.
BTW, it also seems like voters are making a clear distinction between Obama's popularity and the issues on which they have to vote.  So, whether it is the Olympics, or NJ governor race, or the MA senate race, well, Obama might attract crowds, but if the proof is in eating the pudding, well, ....