The political arm wrestling about the state budget is at its peak right now, but it’s hardly worth mentioning. Despite his recent attempts at spinning the news to portray himself as a non-partisan sort, Governor Arnold is promoting a decidedly Republican sort of budget, more prisons, nothing for education, stick it to welfare and social services, and all the transportation budget still goes for pavement. The budget is what drives everything else at the capitol. Your favorite bill can pass through every committee and be signed by the governor, but if it’s not funded in the budget, you’ve got nothing. The budget is a document that makes War and Peace look like a pamphlet, and it gets rewritten every year. Only a handful of people ever understand the whole thing. For the rest of us, it’s too big and too boring to read, except in those places where our own ox is being gored. That’s probably as it should be, but it opens the door for a lot of little things which can take us by surprise later.

The education stories aren’t all about the money, however. First, I read that California’s high school graduation rate for the class of ‘06 dipped to 61%. Last year’s was the first class subjected to the state’s "exit exam." A senior can show up for every class, do all the assignments and ace every test, but if he or she blows the exit exam, no diploma. Also, the state issues an annual academic performance index which is used by parents to select schools and used by real estate agents to sell houses to those parents. Actually, the statewide graduation rate doesn’t count for much. Some districts graduate 98% of their students and some graduate 48%. The link to the exit exam is more interesting. The big argument in the education biz these days is about teaching for knowledge vs. teaching for tests. All of us public school victims remember the concept. You hated the teacher and you didn’t care much for the subject, so all you wanted to do was pass that final and quickly forget the whole thing. The Bush Gang’s "no child left behind" policy is turning the entire public education system into one of those classes. Every nickel allotted by the feds is tied to test scores, forcing the states to resort to things like the exit exam, and forcing the educators to swallow some of their ideals about teaching.

The next day, we got the story of the public school teacher in Indiana who was asked by a student if she would ever join a peace march. She replied, "I honk for peace," and said that people should seek peaceful solutions before going to war. For those remarks, she was fired. Last week, the US Supreme Court upheld the school district’s action, saying that teachers are hired as mouthpieces for the government. The teacher who was fired, Deborah Mayer said, "You might just as well get a big TV and put it in front of the students in the classroom." When it comes to bleeping out the dirty words, the FCC could take a lesson from the public schools, where "peace" has made the list. Right now, school administrators are frantically reading books that must be banned for discussing peace.

Even the crime stories have an education connection. The cops try to serve a search warrant on a guy who was said to be selling marijuana out of a room at the National Hotel. Instead of opening the door, he blows his own brains out. The Union reports that he was using methamphetamine and publishes letters from readers demanding more be done about our out-of-control drug problem. Then the superintendent of schools makes an announcement that kids who have a medical marijuana recommendation can’t bring the stuff to school. In that announcement, he trots out the old "marijuana as a gateway drug" analysis, saying that it leads to methamphetamines and oxycontin. When I was in high school, all the amphetamines were made by drug companies and oxycontin hadn’t been invented, so they just told us marijuana led to heroin. Somehow, I don’t think all the dots have been connected in this story.

Just a little bit of presidential politics: Alberto Gonzalez should have gone into rehab by now, but he’s still clinging by his fingernails to the Attorney General’s desk. He’s still being grilled by the Senate, even Republicans are telling him to quit, and last week his top assistant, the last of his inner circle resigned, leaving Gonzalez isolated inside his job title, his only power coming from the name on his door. This guy could be just like the Iraq War, carrying on until the end of Bush’s term in office despite overwhelming public opinion against him.

The Republican presidential candidates held another so-called debate last week in South Carolina. Two observations: Despite the presence of 10 candidates, polls show that a significant number of Republican voters want to see more choices. And all 10 guys are trying to out-conservative each other. All of them seem to think that "conservative" still is a popular label to wear, not realizing that the Bush gang has pretty well run that sucker into the ground. The voters may not be ready for the "L" word, but these neo cons are widely recognized for screwing everything up. One pundit I read blamed both the Democrats and the Republicans for political inconsistency, but credited Dubya with being more consistent than anyone in Washington–consistently wrong.

Finally, have you wondered why humpback whales occasionally attempt swimming to Sacramento? I think I know. Humpbacks like to eat anchovies. While I know that I eat some every time I eat a proper Caesar salad, by themselves anchovies are a singularly distasteful and foul-smelling commodity. It must be similar to the odors wafting from under the Capitol dome.