This is supposed to be a classic example of "irony" - the use of words to express something other than presented...to present the opposite of the literal meaning - i.e. Dude WAS there to praise Ceasar...and condemn Brutus!

The only "irony" here is that this speech came to mind as I was reading the two articles below, albeit in a slightly modified form:

Friends, CATs, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Duncan, not to praise him;
The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones,
So let it be with Duncan ...

Yes, Arne Duncan has gotten on my last nerve.

It is with great humility that I say "I am no Mark Antony!" I do NOT have the presence of mind nor the patience of Job to pen an ironic tribute to Arne Duncan. When THIS Dude says he comes to bury Arne Duncan...he means it.

In less literary terms...

Yesterday, Education Week put out an evaluation of United States Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. That story was paired with an update on the first round of Race to the Top (RttT) groveling, the first-round application period deadline having just passed.

This "double dose" proved to be the straw that broke this CAT's back. I simply cannot put together another diatribe about the bold-faced ignoring of the real problems in public education by a purported Democrat who has embraced the educational policies of a discredited Republican "Education" President who couldn't even speak the English language.

Accordingly...

From this day forward, I will make every effort to NOT REPORT the daily, weekly, and monthly floggings of public school teachers by the "Federal Superintendent of Schools", Arne Duncan.

Oh, if Arne comes up with something new and outrageous, I shall do my duty and alert you...let you know that the terror threat level has been raised. (Now there's some irony for you! That members of an identified terrorist organization - the National Education Association - that we members of NEA would use the Administration's own warning devices to alert our members of escalated attempts TO BURY US! Hey, by any means necessary...)

Otherwise...I'm done with Arne Duncan and RttT.

Arne Duncan's zealous campaign to implement the failed policies of the Bush Administration's "No Child Left Behind" simply proves the truth of the Bard's observations when he wrote "The evil men do lives after them..." NCLB lives...and thrives!

All I can add is a further modification of yet another "spot on" comment, supposedly the final words of the aforementioned Julius Ceasar...

Et tu, Arne?

From Education Week...

In keeping with the "burying" spirit, rather than reproducing the two offending articles, I shall simply produce the links.

Below them you will find a third link...to voices crying in the wilderness. The descriptor for this link was...

Teachers Respond: An online forum for Letters to Obama has given classroom teachers a way to express their frustration and ask for a policymaking role, writes Anthony Cody in his commentary, "Teachers' Letters to Obama."

Hey, you take your comfort where you find it...

The links: