The Summer of Love is Over; Welcome to the Summer of Kiko

Sunshine came softly through the Unruly Advocate office windows today. We could’ve tripped out easy, in fact, that’s what we’ve been doing these past months in lieu of publishing the Advocate. Everybody’s hustlin’ just to have a little scene, including our entrepreneurial management team. Longtime readers of the Advocate know our goal to establish a multinational media conglomerate often takes precedent over our American endeavors as public education watchdogs. As we’re sure you read in the Canadian press, our bid to take over the Toronto Globe and Mail fell through in April. Cause we made our minds up we thought the Globe and Mail would be ours by any trick in the book, now baby, that we could find.

Live and learn. Though we failed in Toronto, other holdings such as the Reykjavik Daily Telegraph, the Bratislavia Post, and the Antananarivo Grocer’s Weekly Savings Guide have focused the attention of our talented team of crackerjack professionals on important international issues, like Madagascar’s agricultural futures and Iceland’s economic price index.

Despite the exponential growth in our world media holdings, a strong desire to pick up our Quixotic education lance continued to flicker in the tapers of our hearts. It must’ve happened in May when our thoughts turned back to simpler times, to the mission that brought us all together two years ago. Maybe it was fishboy, a member of the fabulous Unruly Advocate forum, who poignantly asked “What happened to the Advocate?” (If you want to join or check out our fabulous forum, select the FORUM button on the menu bar on the left side of our pages.). Perhaps a journalist’s realization brought to light that one can only report on so many Slovakian parliamentary figures being arrested for public drunkenness. Nay, dear reader, in the end a special birthday reminded us all that our unruly work is not finished.

Kiko turned two.

Those unfamiliar with this website need only turn to our extensive archives to learn about the infamous Dr. Esperanza Zendejas whose abhorrent management style led to the largest unnecessary layoff in California public education history. This website stood in defiance of her totalitarian management style, and when we needed a mascot, we turned to the last word in the hobby section of her odd resume: ventriloquism. Dr. Zendejas had a dummy. We needed to satirize a dummy. Kiko’s star was born.

Kiko’s status at the advocate has evolved from his humble beginnings as a figure of satiric ridicule against the petty tyrant who pulled his lovable strings to a symbol of, well, satiric ridicule of all petty tyrants whose hands should never be allowed to traverse the open backs of those in the trenches we lovingly dub the puppet proletariat. In September the Advocate introduced what was intended to be a bi-monthly feature: The Kiko Award, given to administrators and public education officials whose heinous crimes merited the scorn of those who truly care about the state and profession of public education. Having suffered two years of autocratic management under Esperanza Zendejas, the Kiko Award specifically targeted dictatorial policy makers and administrators whose totalitarian bent decimated employee morale and sent exemplary educators running to the private sector, forever damaging the most noble of professions in the process. In the post-Zendejas era, the Kiko Award has been our grandest achievement. Too bad we got sidetracked with all the Reykjavikian aqua vitae and smoked salmon to publish consistently.

Until now.

This issue of the Unruly Advocate is dedicated to our mascot Kiko’s important awards as we take you on a journey through the level of Hell Dante and Milton forgot and Blake only envisioned after a few stout pints from the hand-drawn pump: public education administrative politics. Pack up the Volkswagon Campmobile, stock up the standard equipment air-cooled refrigerator, pop in the Quicksilver Messenger Service tape, wear the tie-dye if you must, and take a long trip to a beach where, baby, it never ends. Award recipients, cover your genitals! We’re taking a road trip through hell, from Oakland to New York and a few points in between. The Summer of Love is history. This is the Summer of Kiko.

With humble apologies to Donovan Lietch.