I’ve been standing to one side while bloggers and commenters have at one another. There seems to be a good deal of passionate intensity on both sides of this cat fight. Accusations of racism and hidden racism are exchanged; claims of dark Communist plots are countered by shrill claims of police-state brutality; the establishment is “Shocked…shocked” by the inappropriateness of student sit-ins. “How could they?”

All of those issues make entertaining (and potentially informative) topics for debate, but they really miss the point. The important point is that MAS is an educational strategy that engages the interest and energy of students not otherwise engaged.

MAS students do better on standardized tests than non-MAS students. It keeps them learning, and it apparently reduces the drop-out numbers for Hispanic students.

That settles it for me.

Representative Steve Court’s naive belief that given time and grooming he can get his dog to hunt is really touching. It’s going to take more than a spin-and-cosmetics campaign. If you doubt this, take a look at the letters to the editor in this morning’s Arizona Daily Star, or read the comments on line.

Not explicitly commented on has been the fact that Court’s proposal would do away with deductions, among them charitable deductions. The exact effect of this on the health, welfare, and quality of life of all Arizonans has not been calculated, but I can’t help but believe that it would be enormous as it could seriously impact charitable giving.

Slyly unmentioned in this legislation were tax credits, which apparently would be left untouched. Tax credits for gifts to schools (private and public) are direct write-offs from taxes owed. The wealthy can more easily afford them than can the folks who are barely scraping by, and they directly reduce money paid into the general fund…which supports public education.

I have been surprised by the failure of its (mostly conservative) critics to understand what the Baja Arizona movement is all about. It is not about high seriousness, it’s about Dada. It is Dada.

It is really the only response possible to the absurd behavior of the Republican dominated state legislature, which has substituted political silliness for anything that might even faintly be considered serious attention to the state’s problems.

A state gun? Birther legislation? Guns in classrooms? Refusing to follow federal laws? Continuing to cut taxes, rather than considering rational reform of the state’s tax structure? Refusal of birthright citizenship?  it’s all Dada…Dada…Dada

So why not secede? If you can take all that silliness seriously you can certainly embrace Baja Arizona. In light of what goes on up in Phoenix secession seems almost weirdly, absurdly, reasonable.

The Governor and the Republican legislators should be ashamed of their performance that, in the systematic avoidance of attention to our state’s real problems, has amounted to malfeasance.