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His solution for Obama's pragmatic pick? Protest.

Obama is not a monarch -- Arne Duncan is not education czar -- and we are not his subjects. If we want a foreign policy based on justice, for example, we ought to get busy organizing a robust anti-imperialist peace movement; if we want to end the death penalty we better get smart about changing the dominant narrative concerning crime and punishment. We are not allowed to sit quietly in a democracy awaiting salvation from above. We are all equal, and we all need to speak up and speak out right now.

No more math and science either. They are just tools of every authoritarian regime.

Much of what we call schooling forecloses or shuts down or walls off meaningful choice-making. Much of it is based on obedience and conformity, the hallmarks of every authoritarian regime. Much of it banishes the unpopular, squirms in the presence of the unorthodox, hides the unpleasant. There's no space for skepticism, irreverence, or even doubt. While many of us long for teaching as something transcendent and powerful, we find ourselves too-often locked in situations that reduce teaching to a kind of glorified clerking, passing along a curriculum of received wisdom and predigested and often false bits of information. This is a recipe for disaster in the long run.

Would-be Sen. Roland Burris has asked the Illinois Supreme Court to force the state’s secretary of state to certify his appointment — an effort to prevent Senate Democrats from using the lack of certification as a way to block Burris from taking Barack Obama’s vacant Senate seat. 

But Senate Democrats have a “Plan B” to keep Burris from being sworn in, regardless how the Illinois Supreme Court rules. Senate officials tell Politico that if presented with Burris’ appointment, they are likely to give the Rules Committee 90 days to determine the propriety of it by looking into such issues as whether Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich received anything in return for it. 

“A motion to refer credentials to the committee has the effect of delaying seating,” a Senate Democratic aide said. “The motion is debatable and amendable.” 

Another official explained: “That buys us 90 days.” 

That should be enough so the senators won’t have to act to prevent Burris from joining the chamber. Blagojevich’s defiance inflamed Illinois legislators, speeding up the impeachment process.