The plagiarizing senator with no shame

This is just plain embarrassing, and should be grounds for disqualification for even being considered a national political candidate, let alone for a senate seat: Plagiarism in your academic thesis.

But alas, PAN still decided to nominate María del Pilar Ortega Martínez as a suplente, or alternate/substitute candidate, as it were for the late Alonso Lujambio, which means she was just "promoted" to occupy his senate seat for the remainder of the 6-year term, which has just started.

The short story: Ortega Martínez was in 2008 revealed to have handed in a thesis for Harvard University, no less, that was simply lifted from the works of others, and to boot put together in final form by her own staff! Reportedly  dr. Kelly Gallagher of Harvard as a consequence sought to have her expelled from the university. I wonder what kind of interventions took place behind the scenes to protect the then-federal deputy.

It speaks to just how low the conservative PAN has sunk when it comes to the quality of their nominations for national office.

Here's a photo of the now-Senator. Sin vergüenza!

SPD Noticias

Source:
Suplente de Lujambio “plagió” en Harvard. El Universal, Sept. 26, 2012

Teacher March Madness

The past days, teachers have been causing complete mayhem in Mexico City, shutting down main thoroughfares and causing economic losses in the tens of millions - the thousands of police having to safeguard the process, the lost hours of productive for people not getting to work, the loss to business forced to shut along the protest routes, etc. In Michoacán, Guerrero, Oaxaca, and other states, hundreds of thousands of school children were not able to go to class.

This time the protest is not organized by the national SNTE, but by a dissident teacher union, CNTE, founded in 1979. But sad to say, they resort to exactly the same practices so many are fed up with from SNTE.

What is it that they want?

1) They want a "plaza" or a teaching position, for life - for life. That is, they want to be appointed, and not ever have to bother about looking for another job. This is especially perturbing, as they also
2)  Oppose any evaluation of their skills or lack thereof. They don't want any exam, review, skills test at all, to determine whether they are fit for teaching.

But they still want a job for life. They are also protesting that the national SNTE has negotiated, finally, with the federal government what appears to be at least the beginning of a very rudimentary evaluation of their fit for the teaching profession. SNTE has in general opposed this since its foundation in the 1940s.

Meanwhile, and related, Michoacán, bus companies halted all services, following the "commandeering" of dozens of buses - that is, teachers and teacher students simply stole several buses for their own use. After days of conflict, and following an ultimatum from Governor Fausto Vallejo Figueroa, teacher students finally released "22 passenger buses, four trucks of perishable goods and eight drivers who remained detained for six days," which led finally to the reopening of the Morelia main bus station.

In a related development, former secretary of health José Ángel Córdova Villalobos, just appointed, and surprisingly, secretary of education, insisted that the national tests, negotiated with SNTE, will proceed. Córdova for his part referred to embattled SNTE head Elba Esther Gordillo as "a great leader." Really?


His predecessor, Alonso Lujambio, presently fighting for his life in a battle with cancer, was, it must be said, completely subservient to SNTE, barely admonishing it for outrageous illegal acts such as distributing taxpayer-funded teaching materials that also called for a vote for its PANAL party and for children to hand over personal information as well as that of their parents. I hope Córdova will show some more backbone.

Alonso Lujambio declines - what's next?

It was hardly a surprise that Alonso Lujambio declined to seek the PAN's presidential nomination; the more interesting issue is what he will pursue next: A senate seat? Or even mayor of Mexico City?

Devastating analysis of presidential hopeful Alonso Lujambio, by Denise Dresser

Denise Dresser, writing in Proceso (which appears to have opened up access to its articles), has a devastating analysis of education secretary Alonso Lujambio that is well worth a read.

Essentially, she argues Lujambio has not achieved much at all, and does not have the required "fire in the belly" to become president, and simply does not have a full understanding of Mexico's current difficult situation or indeed, political reality.

Illiteracy in Mexico: 6.9 percent

Alonso Lujambio, secretary of education, said the level of illiteracy in Mexico is currently 6.9 percent, with 1.6 percent illiteracy in the 15-24-years group.

It is here I am yet again annoyed by the practice of Mexican newspapers of "strict reporting" rather than actual journalism. Any comparative context? Is illiteracy rising or falling? One would think it would be quite natural to include this context in a story on illiteracy.

The gloves are off

From Alonso Lujambio, sec. of education, responding to PRI leader Humberto Moreira, and not exactly holding back here:

"I'm tired of listening to the PRI say they know how to govern. They blew up the economy of family households with the 'Error of December' in 1994, they blew up the economy of family households when they allowed a delirious runaway inflation in the 1980s; they cried, Jose Lopez Portillo cried in Congress because he didn't know how to rule... what better proof do we have that they do not know how to govern the country? In 1976 [PRI]  again blew up the family economy with the devaluation, and in 1968 they killed students. Who is that knows how to govern?

What planet does sec. of education Alonso Lujambio live on? Crime a "moral" issue

Alonso Lujambio, Calderón's secretary of education, who wants badly to be president but in his job has utterly failed to challenge the choke hold the SNTE teachers' "union" is having on Mexico's education levels, manage to serve this gold grain of wisdom on crime:

"I categorically reject the hypothesis that poverty leads social groups to associate with illegal activities. Those who do opt for this option, do it freely."

Despite that the relationship between crime, inequality, and poverty is among the most solid and well documented in the social science literature, Lujambio wants to let Mexicans know that poverty has nothing to do with Mexico's crime levels; rather, it is a "moral choice," an elección moral.

It is not about ideology, but simply empirical reality. And to think that this Neanderthal is nominally in charge of Mexico's education: that, rather, is a moral choice, and a poor one at that.

Alonso Lujambio: A great academic, yet a pathetically timid secretary of education

It seems by now clear that Alonso Lujambio, secretary of education, will do absolutely nothing to stop the SNTE teacher union from, in Baja California Sur, handing out propaganda material for its PANAL party to children, soliciting sensitive information from them and their parents, and using schools for open political activities in favor of PANAL, such as forcing children to stuff envelopes in Mexico State.

Lujambio first said schools "under no circumstances should be places for political proselytizing," yet then quickly dismissed the occurrences as "an isolated event" - which it is not - and in a sorry display of Pontius Pilate-like hand washing, said the matter belonged with electoral and legal authorities, not with the secretary of education. It was a remarkably open admittance that Lujambio will do absolutely nothing to stand up to the all-to-powerful Elba Esther Gordillo. How on earth is it possible to simply dismiss this as "it is not my responsibility"? You are the secretary of education!

At least in Baja California Sur, SNTE dissidents opposed to Gordillo has denounced  the matter to the attorney general. Several deputies in Congress have demanded that the federal government cut SNTE's funding and privileges. Wherever any action may come from as a result of SNTE/PANAL's outrageous actions, one is hard pressed to expect anything at all from Alonso Lujambio Irazábal -  a great academic (and a PhD from Yale) yet a man, we now know, with unfortunately very little political backbone.

New rule: If you want to be president, you can't be afraid of Elba Esther Gordillo

Senators of all political stripes demand that the Education ministry (SEP), headed by Alonso Lujambio, take action against the outrageous action of Elba Esther Gordillo's SNTE union, which has handed out electoral material to children in primary and secondary schools, and solicited private data from them and their parents.

Even PAN senators such as Ricardo García Cervantes accuse education secretary Lujambio of not having the guts to take on the all-powerful Gordillo. Note that Lujambio has on more than one occasion hinted at his desire to be president of Mexico. In this regard, standing up, for just once in his career, to Gordillo would be a first positive step toward his PAN nomination

Feigned anger as Alonso Lujambio marks territory as presidential candidate.

Federal Secretary of Education Alonso Lujambio, in an attack on both Marcelo Ebrard and Enrique Peña Nieto, made his biggest step yet toward presenting himself as a contender for the 2012 presidency. In Madrid, Spain, in what would have been the first debate  between the three "pre-candidates," Lujambio criticized both his possible future opponents for failing to show up this would-be coming-out party, a forum arranged by Fundación Botín, bankrolled by Banco Santander, to engage in a first open debate with the education secretary. Neither Ebrard nor Peña Nieto attended the forum. 


Lujambio huffed and puffed at this perceived affront: Against Peña Nieto, he noted:

"It alarms me that señor Peña Nieto has become an example of unilateral communication. From the monologue of the [political television/internet] ad, or that of paid news stories. It alarms me that he will only appear publicly in controlled environments, encapsulated for smiles and photos."

Yet his anger was more than a tad feigned: It was revealed that Peña Nieto had announced days ago he would not attend; as for Ebrard, when his team learned about the participation of former president Carlos Salinas, a figure loathed by the left, in the said forum, Ebrard backed straight out of it. 

What the incident did serve to do, however, was to present Alonso Lujambio as a candidate for the nomination to be PAN's presidential candidate - if any doubt remained, that is.