Yeah, I know, you're thinking, anti-Perry rally? What? You thought there was a rally in Austin today to "support" teachers, didn't you? Um, hmm, you did. That wasn't exactly what you got, was it? Nope. What you got was more of the same old 'Gov. Perry is da debbil' stuff that we are used to hearing from the far left. Some teacher rally this was. Not.

Houston Chronicle intern Nolan Hicks reported on the event. Here is a crowd shot that he included on his blog, attributed to Rene Renteria Photography and reproduced here for educational purposes:

The educational purpose is this: when you hear someone say that there were tens of thousands at this 'rally', please point them to this picture. I was being generous when I told tweeted that it looked more like 2,000 than the claimed 11,000. I doubt there are more than 1,200 in that crowd.

Mr. Hicks had a couple of other photos that were of interest to me. This was one:

Hmm. Physical education teacher, eh? He looks rather, um, "large", don't you think? Or maybe that he is just "jolly", like me! 'course, I ain't no phys ed teacher. If Mr. Hasley spent a bit of time in his gym, instead of making signs about Gov. Perry, he might actually look like the picture he has on his MySpace account:

Just sayin'.

Mr. Hicks also included a photo of Dr. John Folks, Superintendent at Northside ISD in Bexar County. Dr. Folks sure 'nuff thinks that Gov. Perry and them big, bad Republicans are hurting "the children".

"We don't want to fire teachers, we want to hire teachers and keep on teaching," Folks called out before revving for the emotional zenith of his speech. "Do not balance this budget on the backs of our school children."

Really? I wonder why Mr. Hicks didn't bother to inform his readers that Dr. Folks makes a very folksy salary of $270,000 per year? I found that out on the handy guide that Texas Tribune published. Why didn't Mr. Hicks tell his readers that Northside ISD has a total of 13,264 staff members (not counting subs and part-timers) and of that total, only 6,563 are teachers? That'd be less than half for my buddies in the trailer park. Or what about the tax rate of Northside ISD? It is listed at $1.04 - did you know that they could hold an election and raise that rate? Hmm? I mean, the voters in that district obviously support the board, seeing as how they have approved $1.9 BILLION in bonds and that they are now $1.6 BILLION in debt? What's a few more pennies to those folks? I wonder why Mr. Hicks wouldn't tell he readers those things?

Here is a photo that Mr. Hicks should have included if he wanted Houston Chronicle readers to get the whole picture of this 'rally':

Heh. That picture comes courtesy of Holly Hansen who blogs at Smart Girl Politics. You should follow her on Twitter, she's kinda funny.

Nothing like a good socialist rally. For the children, ya know.