Joplin Globe "guest columnist" continues to push idea that Joplin School Board candidates are Turner puppets

While it would probably be best to leave the ramblings of Joplin Globe "guest columnist" Anson Burlingame on his blog where they would not be seen by many, I once again am going to drive some traffic his way.

The main reason is because Burlingame, as he did throughout my problems last year with C. J. Huff and the Joplin R-8 Administration, is passing along a collection of mistruths, truths twisted beyond recognition, and outright fabrications, and then trying to impress his readers by pointing out what a learned man he is.

It would be better off to leave his personal blog (the one that used to be a Joplin Globe blog before those were canceled) alone, except that in this case, he is making it obvious that he plans to continue to push the idea C. J. Huff is trying to get across- that anyone who is not an R-8 Board of Education incumbent or who has not been selected by the powers that be to join that group- is a puppet and I am the one who is pulling the strings.

I am not concerned about his personal blog. Ten readers do not sway an election. Unfortunately, the Joplin Globe provides Burlingame with unfettered access to its opinion pages, including those in the more widely read Sunday edition, and Burlingame indicates he intends to take an active role in seeing to it that the "right" people are the ones who are elected in April.

In his latest blog post, he writes the following:

The real crux of the issue for local voters deciding on who should be appointed to our local BOE is clearly stated in that column. In case you missed it, it was deciding whether we wanted a “hands on” BOE that would set clear policies to guide our public education in Joplin, or instead have “politicians” wanting to remain in office at any cost and let people like Randy Turner and his followers reign supreme in our classrooms. I will support the former type of candidate (no names yet) and reject out of hand those that adhere to Turner’s approach to public education.

At another point he attempts to hammer home that thought:

I don’t know Randy Turner personally and bear him no personal animus. But I have read with interest his public writing on matters related to public education and listened intently to the entire 10 hour hearing that resulted in his termination as a Joplin teacher. He refers in his blog to his status as a “retired teacher” now. I disagree. He was flat out fired as a teacher in Joplin, no retirement mentioned. He may receive a pension but he sure will not earn a salary any longer in Joplin public schools. And if he wants to relitigate that matter, he himself should run for the BOE, not put “front men” in such positions, at least in my view.

Anson Burlingame is an idiot; the Joplin School Board race is not about me

I don't make a habit of calling people idiots, even when their behavior would certainly seem to indicate the label applies.

That being said, Anson Burlingame is an idiot.

One sign of how far the Joplin Globe has fallen over the past few years has been its eagerness to make this man out to be some sort of wise thinker whose columns should appear in the newspaper's pages. The Globe tried a failed experiment a few years back of setting up certain people in the area as bloggers. At first glance, it seemed like the blogs were a success; they were filled with reader comments.

Unfortunately for the Globe, most of the comments were from their own bloggers, bickering with each other.

How much they were paying these people for their wisdom I have no idea, but the experiment came to a screeching halt a couple of years ago.

Since then, the Globe has propped up the two "conservative" bloggers, Burlingame and Geoff Caldwell, by providing them with regular space on the editorial pages as "guest columnists." Both of them were featured on today's opinion page.

Burlingame's column shows just how little the man knows about what is going on in Joplin.