57 Comments - Cincinnatus - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 11:43 am: Simple answer, Rich, is yes. Not only should the locality be able to set its workplace rules, it should be allowed to decertify any public employee union. One other element in this proposal is tenure reform. I can almost understand tenure in universities. Almost. But tenure in K-12 is beyond me. It handcuffs the school administration from making personnel decisions that improve student performance, school budgeting, and ultimately school effectiveness and viability. And before anyone says I don’t know what it’s like to be a teacher, I held a Type 09 certification in Illinois and taught at disadvantage schools. - ok - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 11:46 am: So, the question is: “Should a non-elected, small board of hand-picked appointees be able to side with the school district’s hand-picked CEO to override a strike”? Doesn’t that essentially eliminate the right to strike? - Ray DelCamino - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 11:48 am: Um, no, not if you’re going to have a union in the first place. Otherwise, why have one? - dupage dan - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 11:53 am: As state employees, my co-workers and I are not allowed to strike. AFSCME seems to do OK w/out the ability to strike. Why should teachers be allowed to strike when they perform, by their own statements, such a vital public service? - cassandra - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 11:55 am: I think so. Teachers’ unions, like other public employee unions, have become disproportionately powerful in the political arena because of loose campaign finance laws and unions’ ability to affect political outcomes through huge campaign contributions. Curbing their power to strike doesn’t mean that they can’t continue to negotiate, it just means they have to keep teaching while they negotiate. It is a modest check on excessive power. - the Other Anonymous - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 11:59 am: If this means that the school boards can impose contract terms on the teacher’s union, then no. Unions exist to equalize the bargaining power between employers and employees. This provision basically takes away power from the employees. For a large employer of specialized workers (i.e., teachers in the Chicago area) giving so much power to the employer distorts the labor market. - wordslinger - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 12:02 pm: No, I think that the gives the school board too much power and keeps them from bargaining in good faith. I think a better solution would be a no-strike law that mandates binding arbitration if there’s an impasse after X number of days. That gives both sides incentive to get it done. - Fed-Up - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 12:09 pm: I don’t believe that teachers should strike but a solid negotiaion mechanism must be devised to put both parties in the process on equal footing as part of taking away the right to strike. I don’t think a final 2/3rd’s vote by a school board provides that equity. - Wonder..... - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 12:10 pm: AFSCME…. Represents Educators as well. We have a no strike clause… - lakeview - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 12:10 pm: A strike in 2012 would be the best thing that could happen to the Archdiocese of Chicago. Suddenly, everyone will be clamoring to get into Gordon Tech. - OneMan - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 12:25 pm: As for the force a contract on, no it should go to arbitration. However I like the idea of no school year length limits. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out. - deepsouth - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 12:40 pm: Is anyone tweeting the house hearings on ed. reform at 1:00? I can’t find any live streaming video either. This is huge. - John Parnell - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 12:41 pm: Take away teacher tenure, length of the school day and seniority to protect bad teachers, but the union has to be able to protect wages. If not, longer days for no pay increase seems unfair. - cermak_rd - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 1:01 pm: A 2/3 vote of an elected board of ed is one thing. But a 2/3 vote of a board appointed by one person ala the CBoE? Unable to include length of school year into contracts even if they have to work longer/more hours at no increased wage? Maybe they can get CTU to agree to that if they remove the residency rule. I think word’s right. Binding arbitration seems fairer. - GetOverIt - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 1:16 pm: I belong to a union and I like the proposal. How about we just adopt something similar to what Police and Fire? Yes. Okay deal. - Skeeter - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 1:50 pm: “Impose its own terms”? Is that sort of like saying “Our final offer is this. Take it or leave it. If you choose to pass, then when the contract expires we can hire anybody we want”? That seems to be the current situation, but for the unwillingness of the Board to stand strong in negotiations. The teachers’ union is not the problem. The problem is a Board that caves to the union. - Pot calling kettle - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 2:06 pm: No. Why would a board even negotiate? Under these terms, the union excepts the offer or has it imposed on them, case closed. Also, this would likely be applied to all of the schools in the state. Elected school boards should not have this kind of power either. Good school policy (and contracts are a part of school policy) develops through an interaction between a board and the teachers. This gives too much power to a board, especially since elected school boards have few, if any, experts on education. - Bill - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 2:13 pm: ==especially since elected school boards have few, if any, experts on education.== Neither does the appointed one. - Skeeter - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 2:18 pm: “No. Why would a board even negotiate?” Because hiring an entire new workforce is costly and time-consuming. Gives too much authority to the Boards? Welcome to the real world, where the boss has all the authority. That’s how things happen. - Cincinnatus - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 2:39 pm: - Skeeter - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 2:18 pm: “Because hiring an entire new workforce is costly and time-consuming.” A large majority of the current teachers would be retained under new workplace rule. A large minority of current teachers would not be retained and replace by new, more motivated workers. Is this not one form of education reform? - Skeeter - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 2:44 pm: Absolutely, Cincy, but my point was that board’s still have an incentive to negotiate with unions. Declaring an impasse and hiring new people is not cost-free. Others here have suggested that the boards would have no incentive to negotiate. - AllMost - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 2:44 pm: ***As state employees, my co-workers and I are not allowed to strike. AFSCME seems to do OK w/out the ability to strike. *** AFSCME contract do have language that state they won’t strike during the time of that agreement. Of course Strikes can happen most often when there is a break down in bargaining a new contract and the Union takes a strike vote and goes out on strike. - lake county democrat - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 2:48 pm: No wonder so few of our best and brightest want to be teachers. Early pay is lousy, and you’re the attack object of every politician dying to keep you from any job security. I’m all for making unions give up their protection of OBJECTIVELY bad teachers, but take away the right to strike? It’s like shooting the kids with a bullet that takes five years to hit the target. - Chgotchr - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 2:53 pm: So much teacher hating. The very teachers you are responding your hate towards tought you and your children. You all seem to want to see the older teachers replaced with younger teachers which I don’t fully understand. Would you go to a doctor just out of med school or a lawyer who just passed the bar. Why would you send your child to a school full of kids just out of college. Finally, I’m sure that many of the most vocal complainers either live in the suburbs, sent their kids to catholic schools, or don’t have kids anyway. - Anonymous - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 2:57 pm: Tenure is one of the worst things about the educational system. Once a teacher is tenure, they are basically untouchable, no matter how bad at teaching they may be. ANything to correct that has my support - Cincinnatus - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 3:11 pm: Chgotrchr, I see no teacher hating here, unless it is hating ineffective teachers who are protected by tenure and unions. This is a condition all people should hate. Your comments also dusts off the beginnings of “the children” line of defense. Please don’t. One could argue that a person out of college is more in-tune to the recent advances in pedagogy, technology and the students they teach. The same can be said of recently minted doctors and lawyers, 50% of whom graduated in the bottom of their classes. The major difference is that we can choose our doctors and attorneys who are subject to market forces, and not our teachers who are protected from market forces by a monopoly reinforced by the artificial parameters of tenure and unions. - cermak_rd - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 3:21 pm: Tenure doesn’t make a teacher untouchable, it just means there’s a procedure that has to be gone through. Many principals are apparently unaware of this or unwilling to actually engage in the process. Which gets to the question of how did bad teachers get to be tenured in the first place? Principal ratings. New teachers who get bad reviews tend to self-select out of the teaching profession, thus not acquiring tenure. - Siriusly - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 3:22 pm: The CTU leadership has been telling people all of Chicago that they plan to hold a strike vote at the beginning of the 2011-12 school year. A full year before their contract expires. If that’s true, I support any efforts to remove the strike authority from them. The teacher unions are important. But when they hold all the cards (strike for any reason they want) it makes it nearly impossible for Chicago or any school board in the state to conduct negotiations in good faith. Teacher’s right to strike should be eliminated or severely restricted. - Skeeter - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 3:52 pm: “Finally, I’m sure that many of the most vocal complainers either live in the suburbs, sent their kids to catholic schools, or don’t have kids anyway.” Actually, I send my kids to a private school. It bugs the heck out of me that I need to spend $20,000 per year per child because CPS is so bad. - reformer - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 4:17 pm: Teachers aren’t public safety workers. If we’re gong to take away their right to strike, then no public employees should have that right. On the other hand, teacher strikes nowadays are few and far between. There were actually more strikes in the years before they became legal than since. - Democrat Grrrrl - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 4:34 pm: Giving the Chicago school board that kind of absolute power would be a huge mistake, and would serve no useful purpose except to completely eliminate the teachers’ voice in trying to improve schools. More than a quarter-century of living under the teacher collective bargaining law in Illinois has reduced strikes to a mere handful each year out of the hundreds of districts that bargain contracts annually. The collective bargaining process WORKS-so why does Stand for Children want to change it? The process they recommend is so lopsided in favor of school boards and administrations that the results could be ruinous. The not-so-hidden agenda of Stand for Children has the potential to cause much harm to students, educators and communities in Chicago and throughout Illinois. - Just The Way It Is One - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 4:52 pm: Answer: sure, why not. As a former teacher in the private school sphere, I gotta tell ya. Those in control often have too much control, but witnessing strike after strike for so many years now in so many districts throughout Illinois, it’s just too much to take in the public sphere. Public school teachers in general are, frankly, overpaid for what they do–along with being unabashed, “glee”ful recipients (no pun intended) of an incredible amount of vacation time and benefits which sloughs of employees in other fields would foam at the mouth over–I worked every bit as hard as they did (maybe harder than many) in the parochial school system for 1/2 the pay they did. It sounds like a fair, reasonable compromise to me–strikes, for instance, are not ruled out–more of a later resort and the school boards (who technically represent the citizenry) retain a rightful but restrained degree of control. Propery taxes are too high, and where I live WAY higher due to WAY too high School District cuts of the pie–nope, sorry Teach and Mr. Union, reform is in the air, the election’s over, and SOME reform is needed here. Yet, as often the case, Wordslinger’s idea ain’t half bad either about binding arbitration if all else fails–I mean, it often seals the deal in baseball, America’s Pastime, why not in our school system? (And by the way, hats off to one of my revered childhood pitching icons, “Bullet Bob” Feller–I once threw a no-hitter when I was 11 or 12–he threw THREE as a pro and one on Opening Day, and that was just the tip of this man’s Pitching record iceberg–and a true American Patriot, too, as the 1ST MLBer to enlist in WW II on the day after the Pearl Harbor tragedy–truly, may he rest in peace…)! - Rich Miller - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 4:52 pm: ===, but witnessing strike after strike for so many years now in so many districts throughout Illinois=== I think there were four last year. - Wensicia - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 5:00 pm: I don’t think you can give any local public school board the right to set terms like a no strike rule, to me that would discriminate against one particular group of teachers and I’m sure the major unions would take legal action. As for the comment that young teachers are better suited to take the place of older teachers, in my district almost half of the new, first-time teachers never make it past their first three years to become tenured. They’re let go by administration or they quit. I do work in a rough, high-poverty, high-minority district, many teachers find they can’t hack it here. But, this is something else you don’t hear about, how many teachers never attain tenure. I also agree with cermak_rd’s comment. - Pot calling kettle - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 5:24 pm: It’s clear that many commenters are not familiar with tenure law. Take a little time and read 105ILCS5/24 & 24A. Tenured teachers must be evaluated every two years; if their performance is unsatisfactory, they have a 90-day remediation, if they are still unsatisfactory; they can be dismissed. Teachers subject to dismissal have the right to a hearing before an impartial hearing officer. Two reasons why teachers are rarely fired for poor performance: 1) they resign (to avoid being fired) 2) the administration doesn’t want to go to the trouble of documenting poor performance. #2 means the problem is a poor administrator. The reason why teachers need tenure protection is that the best teachers are going to challenge their students, which will challenge the parents, some of whom will challenge the administration and school board which will be tempted to get rid of the teacher. Tenure allows the administrator or board member to avoid arguing with the parent by saying, “Sorry, that teacher has tenure.” Unfortunately, the upset parent views the challenging teacher as a “bad” teacher protected by tenure. Are some tenured teachers bad teachers? Of course. But the administrators can, and should, take the time to document and dismiss. - Wensicia - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 6:16 pm: ===Tenured teachers must be evaluated every two years; if their performance is unsatisfactory, they have a 90-day remediation, if they are still unsatisfactory; they can be dismissed.=== Not so. In my district, as in others, tenured teachers can avoid evaluation by administration for years by mentoring new teachers or other such options. Administrators love this exception because it cuts down the number of teachers they must evaluate. I believe this exception should end. - ok - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 6:18 pm: So you spend 20 grand a year to send your kids to a school full of teachers who couldn’t get jobs in better-paying CPS. Smart. - Wensicia - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 6:18 pm: BTW — The above exception does not prevent an administrator from documenting a teacher with on the job issues. - DoubleD - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 6:39 pm: While I understand the concerns posted here, the truth is that poor teachers can be let go provided the administration and school boards are willing to do their leg work. We all know of single minded board members who damage good educational systems. Furthermore, it seems funny how everyone here rails that we can’t get rid of bad teachers, can’t get rid of bad politicians, can’t do business under current laws….gee what’s the common thread here? Give me a break. The business interests are only concerned with schools because of the taxes required to run them. Once again the conservative crew wants something for nothing…hey everyone get a clue that’s how we got this 13 billion dollar mess in the first place. Please take a long, long, long look in the mirror before pointing everywhere else to solve our problems. - Burnham Wannabe - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 7:18 pm: ==Not so. In my district, as in others, tenured teachers can avoid evaluation by administration for years by mentoring new teachers or other such options. Administrators love this exception because it cuts down the number of teachers they must evaluate. I believe this exception should end. == @Wensecia - I would guess this is your board policy - and a bad one, at that. There’s nothing in the tenure law that allows you to opt out of it. Why aren’t administrators every put in the crosshairs here? How many bad teachers become administrators simply because they a) can’t teach or b) want a bigger check? It’s unfair to say all, but in the 3 schools I’ve worked in, 4 of the 7 administrators fit that description. Admin (Principals/APs/Supers/etc) do indeed have leverage. IEA/IFT will step in and defend employees only to make sure their rights are protected. Not them, or their jobs. I, for one, have a job because a TENURED teacher was an idiot, and ushered out. Only that won’t show up in any statistic because he resigned when he saw the writing on the way. Which, terribly, allows him to easily get a job at another school. Not enough heat falls on administrators for their consistent failures. - Wensicia - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 7:50 pm: ==@Wensecia - I would guess this is your board policy - and a bad one, at that.== Actually, no. It was a collective bargaining agreement. As I said, one that our administrators were happy to agree to. ==Not enough heat falls on administrators for their consistent failures.== So true. - VanillaMan - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 8:48 pm: Would you send your kids to public schools in Chicago? If you are, then you are in an ever shrinking minority. Throughout my lifetime, Chicago public schools have not worked as advertised. I have children now. How long are we supposed to play games with this problem? How many kids have to be forced through this massive clusterf**k of public education to keep you believing in your outdated views of education? Chicago isn’t working here. Families are choosing to live elsewhere. You cannot keep a future in a city without families or children. Not Chicago. Maybe Sun City West of Provincetown, but not Chicago. Try this. Try anything. Right now we are losing. Families are choosing any other form of education other than Chicago Public Schools, if they remain in the City. Why are these schools existing anyway? For whose benefits? It sounds like folks are fighting over adults’ roles, rules and policies, not children. Unions do not represent children. They represent the working adults within the schools. School boards do not represent children, they represent the sounding board where adults debate politics and policies. It is so unbelievably ironic that we are allowing a system with such a proven record of failure to grade our children. This system doesn’t work. Do something new. Anything. It simply cannot get worse than it already is. - Skeeter - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 8:59 pm: “So you spend 20 grand a year to send your kids to a school full of teachers who couldn’t get jobs in better-paying CPS” Are you actually claiming that the teachers at Latin, British, Parker and Catherine Cook are at those schools only because they could not get jobs at CPS? Spoken like a true CPS teacher (or administrator). Money is everything. Quality is nothing. - Pot calling kettle - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 9:26 pm: ==Do something new. Anything.== That’s the problem. Every few years they “do something new. Anything.” Why not make improvements based on 100+ years of educational research? Instead we get: “Gut tenure and allow school boards the latitude to impose their will on the teachers.” I would love to see the research that shows this will work. I also find it curious that charter school haven’t provided us with some wonderful models with which we can improve the rest of the schools. Aren’t they supposed to report their successes so they can be disseminated? - Marty - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 9:41 pm: Even FDR and Frances Perkins resisted public sector unions because they understood that such unions, operating under rules appropriate for the private sector, would eventually destroy government’s ability to function. When someone can explain to me why FDR was wrong, I’ll consider saying teachers should have the same right to strike as private sector employees who provide non-essential services to a non-governmental employer. - VanillaMan - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 9:45 pm: You would love to see research that shows that empowering school boards to handle their teachers solves problems? There is no research for that because that kind of research is done by folks who teach. Reality obviously shows success, but not research. Research isn’t all it is cracked up to be. Reach higher. Try reality. We have great colleges because they have to compete. There is no competition within public schools. If you want elementary schools to be as great as our colleges, perhaps we can try injecting some kind of competition into them. My school sucked. It still sucks. And I don’t mean like “Happy Days” school sucks. I mean violence, truancy, gangs, murders, drive-bys, crimes, 40% drop out, dangerous learning environment sucks. Anyone in town with any hope of education attends the massive Catholic school and scrapes together everything they can to pay for it. 100 years of educational research is available at the crappy public schools I despised. 2000 years of educational dedication is available at the Catholic high school we all hoped to attend, but couldn’t afford. Those who depend upon research lack the opportunities reality affords the rest of us. - x ace - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 9:45 pm: Mother Jones is rollin over in her Mt Olive, IL grave. Strike Now, Strike Hard. It’s your right, don’t let them take Your Right to Strike. - Pot calling kettle - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 10:36 pm: Who says school boards aren’t empowered? I’m suggesting that giving them the power to impose contracts and fire teachers at will won’t lead to improvement. How is it that some schools with strong unions are doing an excellent job, while others aren’t? The answer is that real reform is much more complex, and, therefore, politically untenable. Real reform would look at the students’ environment, which includes teachers, but also the classroom, the class size, the school physical plant, the neighborhood, and their family situation. Catholic schools (and most private schools) can select their students, require family participation, and do other things that treat the whole student. Public schools are not always as holistic; if they were, perhaps things would improve. Of course teachers should be held responsible, but only for those things that are within their control. When teachers are put in a poor learning environment and punished for things beyond their control, how do we expect them to behave? My children go to a public school that has reasonable class sizes, good equipment, and engaged parents. The school produces a good crop of graduates every year. We have good teachers (unionized), but it’s the total package that results in success. - The REAL Anonymous fka Anonymous - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 10:59 pm: =Instead we get: “Gut tenure and allow school boards the latitude to impose their will on the teachers.”= Interesting comment. I remember a “great administrator” once responding to criticism regarding “getting rid of the previous baggage” in another context, saying something along the lines of “well, then how do you run efficiently, if you get rid of those with experience”? Tenure. An odd concept for those who believe in performance and contribution. Tenure seems to be grounded in the ability to survive–often politically, with disregard to contribution, while being judged based on your performance and contribution, seems to be grounded in the ability to meet the ever-changing goals of an organization, or even the “will of the people”. Therefore, you could draw the conclusion that those who are “tenured” can either make a positive difference, or not–and those who are new, can also make a positive difference, or not. Odd, I know, trying to compare the private and public sectors, but to those who say that’s an impossibility…pfffft. - Do the research - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 11:01 pm: The only difference between a failing school and a great school is the parental support. Every teacher I know works their butt off. Nights, weekends, and even during breaks. By the same theory that I keep hearing I could assume that Chicago police are nowhere near as good as Oak Brook police if you look at crime rates. This might be true if you look at one stat only, but if you know the two areas it’s easy to see that the crime rates have little to do with the police and more to do with who lives in the area. The same is true for schools. The poor areas don’t score as well because of a lack of parental values in regards to education. Also, if teachers have such an easy and overpaying job then why don’t more people become teachers? I also think that our politicians need to look in the mirror before they go attacking others. The last time I checked Illinois has been run into the ground by these same people. Funny that a group of people who clearly can’t perform their job, try to point the finger elsewhere. - The REAL Anonymous fka Anonymous - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 11:10 pm: And I’ll add another thing, which isn’t necessarily popular in *some” communities. Educational “snobbishness” doesn’t always support entreprenuers, SMALL BUSINESS (which is supposed to be the new upcoming “jolt” to our economy), and innovation, does it? I don’t believe that ALL of those who have been successful in creating job opportunities for Americans had degrees from Ivy League schools. Have they? - The REAL Anonymous fka Anonymous - Thursday, Dec 16, 10 @ 11:25 pm: =The only difference between a failing school and a great school is the parental support.= I agree to a CERTAIN extent. Having been a single mom of a youngster during a great economy…yeah, it’s easy to stay almost obsessively involved in your child’s well-being. During times when you can barely put food on the table…it becomes a little tougher. Actually walking in someone else’s shoes–v. imagining what it’s like to walk in someone else’s shoes, is a great eye-opener. - ok - Friday, Dec 17, 10 @ 12:03 am: Skeeter - not a teacher or an administrator. But I do know many young teachers, including some who have worked at Parker and Latin. Every single one would ditch (and has ditched) those private schools for a CPS job at a north side school if they could get one. Parents may think or say they are paying for their child to go to those non-catholic private schools for a better education. All they are really doing is seeking and getting a “different” student body. - The REAL Anonymous fka Anonymous - Friday, Dec 17, 10 @ 1:56 am: Completely OT, but the comment re: Parker and The Latin School brought to mind an EXTREME example of the difference a great educator can make in the lives of little ones. Latin (the “unspoken” language) was cut from a particular middle school one year (ages ago) because the dollars “just weren’t there”, though one of the teachers was a tenured Latin teacher and there was a group of students (lower mid-class) who were passionate about gaining entry into the program because they had dreams of becoming not only the first college grads in their families, but the first JDs or MDs. The teacher somehow managed to teach that group of children Latin (with the students’ parents’ permission) under the guise of Spanish for an entire year without anyone catching on–and then paid for most of the funding required to bring them to IJCL at the end of the year. They were absolutely victorious at the Convention, winning a good portion of the awards in all categories against middle-schoolers from other areas who were already in Latin 1.5 and even 2.0. Last I heard, the teacher got a reprieve because of the success of students at the Convention. Sort of mixed feelings about that one based on “breaking rank”, but having watched those kids in competition, I’m willing to bet that there are quite a few families out there who will soon be celebrating in a big way the first JDs and MDs in their families thanks, in part, to that one “unusual” year. - Skeeter - Friday, Dec 17, 10 @ 7:57 am: Ok, Great. You send your kids to CPS. I will send mine to their current school. If your kids ever learn to read, my kids might hire your kids. - Skeeter - Friday, Dec 17, 10 @ 7:58 am: But seriously, the idea that any decent teacher would leave Parker, Latin etc. for CPS for more money is just insane. Maybe the bad ones. - wordslinger - Friday, Dec 17, 10 @ 10:23 am: Hey VMan, what’ the story with the word “sucks?” Every post you have is littered with it. Are we supposed to take a drink or something every time you drop it? Is it Pee-Wee’s or Groucho’s secret word of the day? Expand your vocabulary, dude. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.