Occasionally in the news we come across an item that requires a re-read. Did I get that right? we ask.<\/p>\n
A week ago there was an item in the Albuquerque Journal about a man \u00e2\u20ac\u201d James Roger Madalena \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the second-longest-serving member of the New Mexico Legislature, who asserted that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d never read a particular document that relates to how a politician goes about receiving donations and what to do when he\/she receives them.<\/p>\n
Specifically, Madalena has joined several other lawmakers who \u00e2\u20ac\u201d oh so suddenly \u00e2\u20ac\u201d discovered that some of his campaign expenses might not have been legitimate, such as paying for a surgery copay, clothing, Internet service and for help for a needy family.<\/p>\n
When confronted about the spurious spending, the 31-year House member first said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153In my years in our State Legislature I have never seen nor read our Campaign Reporting Act.<\/p>\n
A few days later, he changed his story. It turns out he was a co-signer of the Campaign Reporting Act, and his hand-in-the-cookie-jar explanation was, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Of course I have read the Campaign Finance Reporting Act. In fact, I co-sponsored the Act.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
That reversal ought to remind us of the role Jon Lovitz played on Saturday Night Live. The comedian would say things like, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yes, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve heard of the National Anthem; in fact, I composed it.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Madalena said that explanation, ostensibly, was to make a point to Secretary of State Dianna Duran\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s office that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153they need to do more on campaign finance reporting.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d In case you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re wondering, Duran herself faces a slew of charges relating to the alleged use of campaign funds to feed a massive gambling addiction.<\/p>\n
Nice going, Rep. Madalena. Nice way to shift the blame. Should the public ever wish to retain a politician who brags about his failure to read up on regulations that he co-sponsors? In addition, Madalena, attempting to justify his penchant for spending the public\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s money on questionable items, used this excuse: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153All I heard from my House colleagues was, use your campaign funds relative to your campaign . . . I was told.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Then he said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hindsight being 20\/20, I feel I have been misled verbally.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Madalena\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s excuses certainly are imaginative. And notice the use of the passive voice: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I have been misled verbally.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d That flabby grammatical construction apparently absolves him of any responsibility.<\/p>\n
Now what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been going on during the time that Madalena was being pressured to \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcfess up? The thousands of dollars that the secretary of state was losing in casinos were the hot-button issue.
\nYou see, a former Republican Party Chairman, Harvey Yates Jr., questioned Madalena about the expenses. And because of the fervid political climate, it became convenient for Madalena to call the whole thing a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153distraction.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Oh yes. Now we get it. Madalena, a Democrat, is being picked on to take the heat off Republican Duran.<\/p>\n
My! How predictable have been all of Madalena\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s contentions.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n
Before I retired, I was invited to serve on orals committees for several students working on their master\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s degrees. The dozen times I served, I was an \u00e2\u20ac\u0153outside\u00e2\u20ac\u009d member of the committee, a practice that was common. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s often helpful to invite someone from a different department and discipline to serve. That meant that some of the questions that person would ask might have nothing to do with the subject matter but instead zero in on things like the research process or even the M.A. candidate\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s plans on how to use the degree.<\/p>\n
Toward the end of my tenure at Highlands, I received a copy of a student\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s master\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s project and could barely get through it, as it was fraught with spelling and grammatical errors that raise a teacher\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hackles. I tried to explain that it would have helped immensely if she were to go through the entire 75 pages and correct every single error in grammar and spelling. It may take a few days, but at least the content would be much clearer.<\/p>\n
Without flinching, the M.A. candidate answered, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Well, nobody told me I had made errors.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Perhaps not, but every master\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s student \u00e2\u20ac\u201d irrespective of the subject \u00e2\u20ac\u201d ought to employ correct usage. I was made to feel that it was the committee\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fault for failing to circle every single misuse of your\/you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re\/there, a lot\/alot, and the dozens of instances of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153suppose to\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153use to.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Now we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not talking about an eighth-grader\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s theme or even a college freshman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s book report. We referring to the work of a person seeking the highest degree Highlands University offers.<\/p>\n
But particularly bothersome was the student\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s implication that it was OUR job to identify every error and, in effect, make the corrections for her. And her \u00e2\u20ac\u0153nobody told me\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is such a cop-out.<\/p>\n
My almost 30 years as a comma chaser at Highlands convinced me that too many students (and some professors as well) believe that correct spelling is in the purview only of English teachers. So if you teach history or philosophy or virtually any other discipline, you needn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t check for errors.<\/p>\n
As a freshman, at Highlands, I admired the way my Music Appreciation professor left big bold red marks on a paper I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d submitted. Yes, I knew how to spell and punctuate, but I was also lazy and I believed that music teachers, involved with scales, timbre, flats and sharps, wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t care about punctuation and spelling.<\/p>\n
This one did.<\/p>\n
Even though every English teacher may demand precision, other teachers may and should care as well about accuracy in college work.<\/p>\n
So what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the connection between the M.A. student\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s orals performance and our long-serving state legislator?<\/p>\n
Both of them seem to believe that since \u00e2\u20ac\u0153nobody told me,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that absolved them of any responsibility to do things right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Occasionally in the news we come across an item that requires a re-read. Did I get that right? we ask. A week ago there was an item in the Albuquerque Journal about a man \u00e2\u20ac\u201d James Roger Madalena \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the second-longest-serving member of the New Mexico Legislature, who asserted that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d never read a particular […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1419"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1419"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1420,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1419\/revisions\/1420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}