Tuesday, August 15, 2006
If you make fun of my Dispoz-o plastic sporks, al Qaeda will have won
Time for some local wingnuttery. Background: South Carolina public education has been under siege lately. The laughably named South Carolinians for Responsible Government (SCRG) is devoted to one goal: Dismantling public education in South Carolina. Well, that and getting government handouts for rich people to send their kids to private school. Aligned with Grover Norquist's equally laughably named "Club for Growth," it has taken dead aim at South Carolina public education and is working to have anti-public education zealots elected to political offices in SC. I imagine the Hair Club for Growth folks figured South Carolina would be sort of a soft target, given the relentlessly libertarian bent of our governor, Mark Sanford, who hates government so much he's spent the past 8 years (at least) drawing a paycheck from it.
Anyway, Sanford appointed one Karen Iacovelli, upstate spork magnate, to serve on South Carolina's Education Oversight Committee. A South Carolina blogger, "Gervais Bridges" (Ross Shealy - son of Rod, evidently, but I won't hold that against him) started Googling Ms. Iacovelli's background, and found some interesting things. Like, for example, Ms. Iacovelli's signature on a pledge favoring the end of public education. The pledge was sponsored by a group calling itself the "Alliance for Separation of School and State." As Gervais Bridges drolly noted, the Alliance for Separation of School and State probably rarely uses its acronym. Anyway, I expect Ms. Iacovelli caught a little heat for that - you can imagine that some people were disturbed that the gov. would appoint a woman who opposes public education to oversee public education. Subsequently, Ms. Iacovelli resigned from the Education Oversight Committee, whereupon the Club for Growth generously appointed her to its board.
Gervais Bridges is now, sadly, retired from blogging (his archives are here). But he wrote an amusing editorial for The State summarizing his findings about Ms. Iacovelli.
Yesterday, Ms. Iacovelli responded indignantly in The State:
I had to stop reading right there because I was laughing so hard.
Frankly, I thought bringing shame to journalism in a quantity exceeding the good that plastic disposable utensils bring to humankind was Geraldo Rivera's job. But what do I know, as I sit here behind my slippery keyboard.
In her editorial, Ms. Iacovelli goes on to deny ever signing the ASSS pledge. But thanks to the miracle of Google cache, South Carolina blogger NotVeryBright has uncovered Ms. Iacovelli's name on ASSS's pledge. So, um, maybe someone put her name on that ASSS pledge without her permission. Or maybe she's just full of it.
More here at Laurin Manning's blog.
Via Tim at Crack the Bell, who also uncovered another fun fact about Ms. Iacovelli: She thinks Vince Foster was murdered. Dollars to doughnuts she's one of those nuts who spent the second half of the '90's forwarding chain emails about the 2,378 people the Clintons murdered on their rise to the top.
UPDATE: Still more from Tim at Crack the Bell. Ms. Iacovelli has an interesting Santorum connection via the private bank that gave the Santorums a whopping loan to buy an expensive house in Virginia. You know, the house where the Santorums "cyber-schooled" their children with the help of some $67,000.00 from the taxpayers of Pennsylvania.
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Time for some local wingnuttery. Background: South Carolina public education has been under siege lately. The laughably named South Carolinians for Responsible Government (SCRG) is devoted to one goal: Dismantling public education in South Carolina. Well, that and getting government handouts for rich people to send their kids to private school. Aligned with Grover Norquist's equally laughably named "Club for Growth," it has taken dead aim at South Carolina public education and is working to have anti-public education zealots elected to political offices in SC. I imagine the Hair Club for Growth folks figured South Carolina would be sort of a soft target, given the relentlessly libertarian bent of our governor, Mark Sanford, who hates government so much he's spent the past 8 years (at least) drawing a paycheck from it.
Anyway, Sanford appointed one Karen Iacovelli, upstate spork magnate, to serve on South Carolina's Education Oversight Committee. A South Carolina blogger, "Gervais Bridges" (Ross Shealy - son of Rod, evidently, but I won't hold that against him) started Googling Ms. Iacovelli's background, and found some interesting things. Like, for example, Ms. Iacovelli's signature on a pledge favoring the end of public education. The pledge was sponsored by a group calling itself the "Alliance for Separation of School and State." As Gervais Bridges drolly noted, the Alliance for Separation of School and State probably rarely uses its acronym. Anyway, I expect Ms. Iacovelli caught a little heat for that - you can imagine that some people were disturbed that the gov. would appoint a woman who opposes public education to oversee public education. Subsequently, Ms. Iacovelli resigned from the Education Oversight Committee, whereupon the Club for Growth generously appointed her to its board.
Gervais Bridges is now, sadly, retired from blogging (his archives are here). But he wrote an amusing editorial for The State summarizing his findings about Ms. Iacovelli.
Yesterday, Ms. Iacovelli responded indignantly in The State:
Ross Shealy (“On barbecue, politics and what defies parody,” Aug. 1) exemplifies the ignorance and vitriol of the fanatical left.
Mr. Shealy is a coward hiding behind a slippery keyboard. For the record, Mr. Shealy never contacted me and does not know a wit about me, my business or the disease that 20 million people, including me, suffer from. Rather than a doctor’s note, Mr. Shealy needs a lesson in reporting facts. They are:
I have had Lyme disease for 14 years, have been hospitalized on too many occasions to recall (even when appearing pretty in pink). I sit on the Board of Dispoz-o Products Inc., a major manufacturer of plastic disposable products that has done great good for humankind, exceeded only by the greater shame Mr. Shealy brings to journalism.
I had to stop reading right there because I was laughing so hard.
Frankly, I thought bringing shame to journalism in a quantity exceeding the good that plastic disposable utensils bring to humankind was Geraldo Rivera's job. But what do I know, as I sit here behind my slippery keyboard.
In her editorial, Ms. Iacovelli goes on to deny ever signing the ASSS pledge. But thanks to the miracle of Google cache, South Carolina blogger NotVeryBright has uncovered Ms. Iacovelli's name on ASSS's pledge. So, um, maybe someone put her name on that ASSS pledge without her permission. Or maybe she's just full of it.
More here at Laurin Manning's blog.
Via Tim at Crack the Bell, who also uncovered another fun fact about Ms. Iacovelli: She thinks Vince Foster was murdered. Dollars to doughnuts she's one of those nuts who spent the second half of the '90's forwarding chain emails about the 2,378 people the Clintons murdered on their rise to the top.
UPDATE: Still more from Tim at Crack the Bell. Ms. Iacovelli has an interesting Santorum connection via the private bank that gave the Santorums a whopping loan to buy an expensive house in Virginia. You know, the house where the Santorums "cyber-schooled" their children with the help of some $67,000.00 from the taxpayers of Pennsylvania.
