Today, the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments in two cases (Meredith v. Jefferson County Public Schools (Louisville, KY) and Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District (Seattle, WA)) challenging the ability of public schools to use race as a factor when assigning students to schools.
My question: why does anyone think, in 2006, that it is appropriate to use race as the basis of eligibility for ANYTHING?
While desegregation might have been a necessary tool to jerk America out of the Jim Crow south in the 1950s and 1960s, those days are long since past. At some point, we need to stop using race as a factor, even in supposedly benign ways and with the stated goal of remediating past discrimination.
Is it fair and just to bus kids (regardless of race) across town just so their neighborhood school can be "racially balanced"? No.
Is it fair and just to deny black parents the right to send their kids to a neighborhood school, if that is what they want to do? No.
Is it fair to give one kid the last spot in an elite school, at the expense of some other kid, who goes to a lessser school? No.
None of these things was fair, just or right when it was being done to black kids, and it's not fair, just or right now for anyone else.
Let's take race off the school application, the job application, and the scholarship application. Race should be as irrelevant as the color of one's eyebrows or one's height. THAT is the colorblind ideal of the civil rights movement, not blind adherence to a quota or preference system that is badly outdated.
Monday, December 04, 2006
Sunday, December 03, 2006
The Real Reason for Declining Enrollment in Champaign Schools
Jim Dey had another informative piece in Saturday's News-Gazette regarding declining enrollment in Unit 4 schools, and the corresponding increases in enrollment at private schools and schools in satellite communities such as Mahomet and St. Joe.
Of course, most of the dialogue involving our schools concerns issues of race and the continuing consent decree that mandates federal district court involvement in monitoring efforts to improve educational opportunities for racial minorities.
While I would readily concede that racism is alive and well in Champaign-Urbana (and everywhere else on this planet), I think there has been too much focus on racsim as the source of Unit 4's troubles.
The unfortunate part of the consent decree mess is that the focus has shifted from the old utilitarian "greatest good for the greatest number" to an incredible over-emphasis on student skin color and a need for administrators to weigh each decision, first and foremost, on disparate impact considerations.
In my view, the biggest part of the exodus from Unit 4 schools involves issues of class, rather than race. For the same reason that wealthy families in New England send little Muffy and Charles off to rich-kid prep schools, middle class Champaign county families send their kids to relatively expensive private schools locally: they want their kids to intereact with kids of similar socio-economic means.
While there are a handful of idealists who believe that there is educational value in having their (privileged) kids hang out with kids who live in trailer parks, there are far more who go to great lengths to avoid those kinds of interactions.
Elitist snobbery? Sure. Racism? Not so much. It's easy to confuse race and class, because a disproportionate number of blacks fall on the lower end of the economic spectrum.
My kids go to private school, not because I hate black people or poor people. They go to private school because they can get a great education and make friends with kids who come from achievement-oriented families who make education and personal success a priority. They go because order and discipline is a constant requirement, can be meted out swiftly and uniformly, and can include expulsion, where the situation demands it.
Can you attend public schools and get a great education? Sure.
Are there families of modest means (including single-parent families) who are achievement-oriented and upwardly mobile? Certainly.
Are there kids at private school (including weathly and "upper class" kids) who are a horrible influence on the kids around them, and who come from wholly-dysfunctional families? Without a doubt.
Are there kids in public schools who are brilliant and headed for a lifetime of success? Yes.
Am I somehow sheltering my kids from the 'real world'? Probably.
But what I am really doing is sending our kids to schools that, on balance, give them the best educational environment.
Of course, most of the dialogue involving our schools concerns issues of race and the continuing consent decree that mandates federal district court involvement in monitoring efforts to improve educational opportunities for racial minorities.
While I would readily concede that racism is alive and well in Champaign-Urbana (and everywhere else on this planet), I think there has been too much focus on racsim as the source of Unit 4's troubles.
The unfortunate part of the consent decree mess is that the focus has shifted from the old utilitarian "greatest good for the greatest number" to an incredible over-emphasis on student skin color and a need for administrators to weigh each decision, first and foremost, on disparate impact considerations.
In my view, the biggest part of the exodus from Unit 4 schools involves issues of class, rather than race. For the same reason that wealthy families in New England send little Muffy and Charles off to rich-kid prep schools, middle class Champaign county families send their kids to relatively expensive private schools locally: they want their kids to intereact with kids of similar socio-economic means.
While there are a handful of idealists who believe that there is educational value in having their (privileged) kids hang out with kids who live in trailer parks, there are far more who go to great lengths to avoid those kinds of interactions.
Elitist snobbery? Sure. Racism? Not so much. It's easy to confuse race and class, because a disproportionate number of blacks fall on the lower end of the economic spectrum.
My kids go to private school, not because I hate black people or poor people. They go to private school because they can get a great education and make friends with kids who come from achievement-oriented families who make education and personal success a priority. They go because order and discipline is a constant requirement, can be meted out swiftly and uniformly, and can include expulsion, where the situation demands it.
Can you attend public schools and get a great education? Sure.
Are there families of modest means (including single-parent families) who are achievement-oriented and upwardly mobile? Certainly.
Are there kids at private school (including weathly and "upper class" kids) who are a horrible influence on the kids around them, and who come from wholly-dysfunctional families? Without a doubt.
Are there kids in public schools who are brilliant and headed for a lifetime of success? Yes.
Am I somehow sheltering my kids from the 'real world'? Probably.
But what I am really doing is sending our kids to schools that, on balance, give them the best educational environment.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Unit 4 Consent Decree - October 19, 2006 Order
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
CENTRAL DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
SA'DA JOHNSON, ET AL.,
Plaintiffs,
v.
BOARD OF EDUCATION CHAMPAIGN
COMMUNITY UNIT SCHOOL
DISTRICT #4,
Defendant.
BOARD OF EDUCATION CHAMPAIGN
COMMUNITY UNIT SCHOOL
DISTRICT #4,
Defendant.
Case No. 00-1349
Having found Defendant’s brief to be largely unresponsive to the Court’s July 31, 2006 Order in that it did not, in collaboration with Plaintiff’s, adequately address specific targets, steps, and responsibility for accelerating the progress of African American students as agreed under the Second Revised Consent Decree, the Court hereby orders Defendant to work collaboratively with Plaintiffs to produce a plan that is responsive to the Court’s Order, and which addresses all areas of the Consent Decree including all objectives and goals as stated in the Education Equity Implementation Plan.
The proposed plan must be reviewed and approved by the Monitoring Team. Any disputes that arise during the negotiation of this plan should be submitted for mediation. The plan should include a mutually agreed upon process for fulfilling the District’s good faith commitment for the provision of student seats in North Champaign. The plan must be submitted to the Court no later than January 15, 2007.
ENTERED this 19th day of October, 2006.
s/Joe B. McDade
JOE BILLY McDADE
United States District Judge
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Thanks, Ken!
Thanks, Ken! Lest anyone thought that you actually have a brain, you have now gone and eliminated all doubt. In today's News-Gazette, His Idiocy has proclaimed, in pure, simple-minded fashion, that 'if we don't increase the tax rate, we haven't increased the tax.'
What a moron! Let's see, yesterday, the city taxed and spent $100. Today the city taxed and spent $120.
I know it's hard, dumb ass, but you just increased taxes by $20. Whether that increase was accomplished by increasing the rate or increasing the levy, what's the difference? Taxpayers are paying $20 more.
I guess, in Pirok's simple-minded world, if my house increases in value by 10%, the cost of everything the city does must have also increased 10%. Wake up, Ken! There is virtually NO logical relationship between increased housing values and the cost of city services. If you wanted to increase the total levy by the Consumer Price Index, that would be one thing. But to just leave the rate constant in the face of dramatically escalating values and then delude yourself into thinking that taxes are static is just dumb. Even Ken's sister, Kendra, agrees with that.
Now, unless you are a moron as big as Ken, you know that the price of providing city services increases over time, and, all things being equal, the city has to collect additional tax revenue to provide those same services.
The larger question (not sure Ken-boy has ever considered this) is whether the city could (and should) get by with less. Has it ever occurred to the city council that it would be OK, even noble, to reduce the overall tax levy?
I think all the booze has killed the 17 brain cells that KP was born with.
What a moron! Let's see, yesterday, the city taxed and spent $100. Today the city taxed and spent $120.
I know it's hard, dumb ass, but you just increased taxes by $20. Whether that increase was accomplished by increasing the rate or increasing the levy, what's the difference? Taxpayers are paying $20 more.
I guess, in Pirok's simple-minded world, if my house increases in value by 10%, the cost of everything the city does must have also increased 10%. Wake up, Ken! There is virtually NO logical relationship between increased housing values and the cost of city services. If you wanted to increase the total levy by the Consumer Price Index, that would be one thing. But to just leave the rate constant in the face of dramatically escalating values and then delude yourself into thinking that taxes are static is just dumb. Even Ken's sister, Kendra, agrees with that.
Now, unless you are a moron as big as Ken, you know that the price of providing city services increases over time, and, all things being equal, the city has to collect additional tax revenue to provide those same services.
The larger question (not sure Ken-boy has ever considered this) is whether the city could (and should) get by with less. Has it ever occurred to the city council that it would be OK, even noble, to reduce the overall tax levy?
I think all the booze has killed the 17 brain cells that KP was born with.
Monday, October 02, 2006
Mark Foley
The following is copied in its entirety from Redstate.com:
"Here's an interesting bit of transcript. This bit involved the Congressman having an explicit IM conversation with a 16 year old with whom he had sexual relations. "M" is the Congressman. "B" is the minor.
M: What you gonna wear?
B: Well, my peach underwear, like you told me to. I was hoping that we could do something really special but I see that's not gonna happen, I guess.
M: I was definitely gonna stick [. . . .] in you.
B: Really?
M: Right in my office. I was gonna [. . . .] too.
B: Really?
M: I was looking forward to it.
B: Yeah, I been thinking about a lot times we had together. We had some really good times.
M: Uh-huh, that summer when I used to [. . . .] you out south in that Riverdale apartment?
Of course that was Mel Reynolds, not Mark Foley. And Mel got a pardon from Bill Clinton." Credits: www.redstate.com; www.polipundit.com
"Here's an interesting bit of transcript. This bit involved the Congressman having an explicit IM conversation with a 16 year old with whom he had sexual relations. "M" is the Congressman. "B" is the minor.
M: What you gonna wear?
B: Well, my peach underwear, like you told me to. I was hoping that we could do something really special but I see that's not gonna happen, I guess.
M: I was definitely gonna stick [. . . .] in you.
B: Really?
M: Right in my office. I was gonna [. . . .] too.
B: Really?
M: I was looking forward to it.
B: Yeah, I been thinking about a lot times we had together. We had some really good times.
M: Uh-huh, that summer when I used to [. . . .] you out south in that Riverdale apartment?
Of course that was Mel Reynolds, not Mark Foley. And Mel got a pardon from Bill Clinton." Credits: www.redstate.com; www.polipundit.com
Saturday, September 30, 2006
Gas Prices and Politics - The Phantom Connection
Brent Baker credits Brian Williams for adding to the silly speculation about a link between the recent decline in gasoline prices and the upcoming mid-term elections.
USA Today dutifully reports a statistical relationship between gas prices and President Bush's popularity rating.
OK, one more time. I'll go slow.
1. Retail gasoline prices are driven by several 'macro' factors. What the President of the United States or his Big Oil friends want those prices to be is not one of those factors.
The biggest factor is the price of crude oil in the world market, a market that is dominated by OPEC, the oil cartel.
The second biggest factor is refining, as refiners change the mix of their production among gasoline, diesel fuel, kerosene, and other petroleum-based products. Those refining decisions, in turn, are affected by wholesale prices (refiners produce what will bring the highest price).
The third factor is consumer demand. In the fall, demand for gasoline drops, as consumers' summer travel is over. Plus, persistent high prices may have finally caused people to drive less, to save money. Demand for heating oil increases, as consumers in northern climes fill their tank for the winter heating season. So, the late September drop in gasoline prices is completely consistent with declining demand for gasoline.
2. Basic Economic Theory. Sorry, I probably didn't go slow enough on one point, which is this: the most basic element of microeconomic theory is that the price of a good is a function of the relationship of the supply of that good with the demand for it. If demand is constant, a greater supply means that prices will decline, as buyers have leverage against sellers and can price shop. A decreased supply means that prices increase. This is pretty intuitive.
A slightly more advanced concept is that suppliers adapt to the marketplace. When gas prices are high, refiners will produce more, thus lowering the price. Of course, that takes time, as producers may have existing contractual obligations to deliver alternative products, for somme period of time, or may have to make changes to their production process to switch to a more profitiable product.
3. The President Doesn't Have That Much Power. There are a lot of things the POTUS can do: declare war, hand out discretionary funds, establish relationships with foreign governments.
But there are a lot of things the President can't do jack squat about: he can't control the capital markets (though in times of turmoil he might give a rah-rah speech to calm everyone down), interest rates, gas prices, or oil prices.
He doesn't have that power, and his "big oil" buddies don't either. The whole thing is driven by huge, worldwide economic forces that are beyond EVERYONE's control (yes, even OPEC, to a great extent).
4. Everything You See Is Not a Conspiracy. Grow a brain, and realize that, in this big, crazy world we live in, every little happening or occurrence is NOT a big conspiracy. Sometimes we, as 'little people,' imagine that there are big, powerful people out there with lots of strings to pull and lots of things to control.
While there is such a thing as influence, and people DO manipulate governments and markets, those manipulations are on a tiny, micro level. They are things like getting your 3-acre lot re-zoned, or getting a $100,000 grant from corrupt Governor Blagojevich.
Huge, world-wide commodities markets are not manipulated by a guy who spends most of his day meeting with the Girl Scout troop from Cleveland who sold the most Girl Scout cookies.
USA Today dutifully reports a statistical relationship between gas prices and President Bush's popularity rating.
OK, one more time. I'll go slow.
1. Retail gasoline prices are driven by several 'macro' factors. What the President of the United States or his Big Oil friends want those prices to be is not one of those factors.
The biggest factor is the price of crude oil in the world market, a market that is dominated by OPEC, the oil cartel.
The second biggest factor is refining, as refiners change the mix of their production among gasoline, diesel fuel, kerosene, and other petroleum-based products. Those refining decisions, in turn, are affected by wholesale prices (refiners produce what will bring the highest price).
The third factor is consumer demand. In the fall, demand for gasoline drops, as consumers' summer travel is over. Plus, persistent high prices may have finally caused people to drive less, to save money. Demand for heating oil increases, as consumers in northern climes fill their tank for the winter heating season. So, the late September drop in gasoline prices is completely consistent with declining demand for gasoline.
2. Basic Economic Theory. Sorry, I probably didn't go slow enough on one point, which is this: the most basic element of microeconomic theory is that the price of a good is a function of the relationship of the supply of that good with the demand for it. If demand is constant, a greater supply means that prices will decline, as buyers have leverage against sellers and can price shop. A decreased supply means that prices increase. This is pretty intuitive.
A slightly more advanced concept is that suppliers adapt to the marketplace. When gas prices are high, refiners will produce more, thus lowering the price. Of course, that takes time, as producers may have existing contractual obligations to deliver alternative products, for somme period of time, or may have to make changes to their production process to switch to a more profitiable product.
3. The President Doesn't Have That Much Power. There are a lot of things the POTUS can do: declare war, hand out discretionary funds, establish relationships with foreign governments.
But there are a lot of things the President can't do jack squat about: he can't control the capital markets (though in times of turmoil he might give a rah-rah speech to calm everyone down), interest rates, gas prices, or oil prices.
He doesn't have that power, and his "big oil" buddies don't either. The whole thing is driven by huge, worldwide economic forces that are beyond EVERYONE's control (yes, even OPEC, to a great extent).
4. Everything You See Is Not a Conspiracy. Grow a brain, and realize that, in this big, crazy world we live in, every little happening or occurrence is NOT a big conspiracy. Sometimes we, as 'little people,' imagine that there are big, powerful people out there with lots of strings to pull and lots of things to control.
While there is such a thing as influence, and people DO manipulate governments and markets, those manipulations are on a tiny, micro level. They are things like getting your 3-acre lot re-zoned, or getting a $100,000 grant from corrupt Governor Blagojevich.
Huge, world-wide commodities markets are not manipulated by a guy who spends most of his day meeting with the Girl Scout troop from Cleveland who sold the most Girl Scout cookies.
Ken Pirok is Misunderstood
Ken Pirok has plead guilty to drunk driving in Champaign County court on Friday. You will recall that he turned the White Horse parking lot into a bumper car game in the wee hours of August 11, 2006.
In the classic manuever of trying to turn the tables, now it turns out that my hero Ken is a victim of a police smear campaign. He didn't try to drive away after he parked into a car, he says, he went back into the bar to find the owner. No word on whether he was hoisting a fresh drink when Johnny Law found him.
I'm surprised that Ken can even stand to be in bars, given that, for the moment, they remain all smoked up and unhealthy. Thanks to Progressive Ken, however, that will chnage soon. Then Ken can go out, get tanked up, and endanger everyone else without the inconvenience of having to wash his clothes when he gets home.
In the classic manuever of trying to turn the tables, now it turns out that my hero Ken is a victim of a police smear campaign. He didn't try to drive away after he parked into a car, he says, he went back into the bar to find the owner. No word on whether he was hoisting a fresh drink when Johnny Law found him.
I'm surprised that Ken can even stand to be in bars, given that, for the moment, they remain all smoked up and unhealthy. Thanks to Progressive Ken, however, that will chnage soon. Then Ken can go out, get tanked up, and endanger everyone else without the inconvenience of having to wash his clothes when he gets home.
I Don't Get the Anti-Chief Crowd
Here's what I don't get about the anti-Chief crowd, i.e., the Charlene Teeters, the Debbie Reeses:
Do they identify with Chief IIliniwek and imagine that THEY are somehow related to him?
Or are they taking the viewpoint of unnamed others who they think might identify with him?
Or are they just imagining that majority white society really believes that stereotypic depictions of American Indians are accurate?
Here's the thing: as a part of that majority white society, I don't take offense to depictions of drunk or evil white people as anyone that I have a connection to. If I see the classic "cowboy" movie on television, I don't think for a minute that people living on the frontier really dressed, talked or acted like that. Nor do I worry that I will be confused with evil, white trash hillbillies running amok on the plains.
My ancestors came from Germany in the 1870's. But I don't get offended when I see or hear things about Krauts or Germans or their particular qualities. I don't get all worked up when I hear about Aryan skinheads, and worry that somehow I will be lumped in with their particular brand of politics.
Similarly, I do not for a minute imagine that the depictions of Indians as "savages" are accurate representations of what those people were actually about.
I do not define myself by my membership in any particular racial or ethnic group, and I don't give a damn if others do. I don't really care if you call me a racist bigot. You are the people with a perceived problem, and apparently not a lot else to worry about.
That's what I don't get about the anti-Chief whiners.
Do they identify with Chief IIliniwek and imagine that THEY are somehow related to him?
Or are they taking the viewpoint of unnamed others who they think might identify with him?
Or are they just imagining that majority white society really believes that stereotypic depictions of American Indians are accurate?
Here's the thing: as a part of that majority white society, I don't take offense to depictions of drunk or evil white people as anyone that I have a connection to. If I see the classic "cowboy" movie on television, I don't think for a minute that people living on the frontier really dressed, talked or acted like that. Nor do I worry that I will be confused with evil, white trash hillbillies running amok on the plains.
My ancestors came from Germany in the 1870's. But I don't get offended when I see or hear things about Krauts or Germans or their particular qualities. I don't get all worked up when I hear about Aryan skinheads, and worry that somehow I will be lumped in with their particular brand of politics.
Similarly, I do not for a minute imagine that the depictions of Indians as "savages" are accurate representations of what those people were actually about.
I do not define myself by my membership in any particular racial or ethnic group, and I don't give a damn if others do. I don't really care if you call me a racist bigot. You are the people with a perceived problem, and apparently not a lot else to worry about.
That's what I don't get about the anti-Chief whiners.
Friday, September 29, 2006
Fight Back America
Lest we need another reminder, the disturbing news about the murder of 16-year-old Emily Keyes in a school shooting in Bailey, Colorado this week confirms it. This country needs to toughen up.
Everyone, now: turn to your kids, your parents, your loved ones, your colleagues and co-workers, and tell them that they have to save themselves, and that they should not hesitate to do it.
If and when some deranged clown comes in to your school, or onto your plane, or into your office, or your restaurant, or your shopping mall,waving a gun and intending harm, get out if you can. But if you can't, or if you believe that you can intervene and do some good, TAKE THAT CLOWN OUT!
Naturally, it's easier said than done, and when loud blasts start going off down the hall, our human instinct is to cut and run, duck and cover, get out alive. And that's probably a good idea. Let's be clear: I am not in any way being critical of anything anyone has done who actually been in such a situation. In some cases, it might be best to lay low. And not all of us are inclined to jump a gunman.
But when conflict with the gunman is inevitable, when you or others are backed into a corner, or your only choice is to submit and turn your life and safety over to a stranger who means you harm, don't hesitate. Go at him or her with everything you have.
We need to be like the brave souls on Flight 93, and defend ourselves. Let's face it: there aren't enough cops or troops or airline security screeners to do a damn thing for you when the stuff hits the fan.
I tell my kids: if someone comes up to you with a gun and tells you to get in his car, DON'T DO IT. Run like hell. They probably won't shoot, and even if they do, you're better off being dead or injured than getting in that car and putting your very existence in his hands.
And if you are a kid in school, run like hell. Don't wait for anyone to give you permission. Don't expect your principal or your teacher to get control of the situation. They are undoubtedly good and conscientious people, and you should give them the benefit of the doubt. But if you see a way to get clear of a bad situation, take it.
Or, if you have some size and confidence, and the situation is such that you can overcome the killer, don't wait. Jump in. Better to go down trying than go down cowering or pleading. And if you are in a situation, and someone tackles the murderer, pile on. Grab the gun. Shoot the bad guy. Kick him in the head. Drop a rock on him. Poke a scissors into his eye.
Katrina should have taught us: don't wait for the cavalry to show up with the evacuation bus: get on your own two feet and get out of town on your own power. Carry someone else on your back.
Flight 93 should have taught us: if the choices are bad and worse, do what you can to get the hell out. Even if your odds aren't good. Better to go down swinging than to duck and cover. Don't passively prepare to die; prepare to conquer your attacker.
Fight back, America! (People are trying to kill us).
Everyone, now: turn to your kids, your parents, your loved ones, your colleagues and co-workers, and tell them that they have to save themselves, and that they should not hesitate to do it.
If and when some deranged clown comes in to your school, or onto your plane, or into your office, or your restaurant, or your shopping mall,waving a gun and intending harm, get out if you can. But if you can't, or if you believe that you can intervene and do some good, TAKE THAT CLOWN OUT!
Naturally, it's easier said than done, and when loud blasts start going off down the hall, our human instinct is to cut and run, duck and cover, get out alive. And that's probably a good idea. Let's be clear: I am not in any way being critical of anything anyone has done who actually been in such a situation. In some cases, it might be best to lay low. And not all of us are inclined to jump a gunman.
But when conflict with the gunman is inevitable, when you or others are backed into a corner, or your only choice is to submit and turn your life and safety over to a stranger who means you harm, don't hesitate. Go at him or her with everything you have.
We need to be like the brave souls on Flight 93, and defend ourselves. Let's face it: there aren't enough cops or troops or airline security screeners to do a damn thing for you when the stuff hits the fan.
I tell my kids: if someone comes up to you with a gun and tells you to get in his car, DON'T DO IT. Run like hell. They probably won't shoot, and even if they do, you're better off being dead or injured than getting in that car and putting your very existence in his hands.
And if you are a kid in school, run like hell. Don't wait for anyone to give you permission. Don't expect your principal or your teacher to get control of the situation. They are undoubtedly good and conscientious people, and you should give them the benefit of the doubt. But if you see a way to get clear of a bad situation, take it.
Or, if you have some size and confidence, and the situation is such that you can overcome the killer, don't wait. Jump in. Better to go down trying than go down cowering or pleading. And if you are in a situation, and someone tackles the murderer, pile on. Grab the gun. Shoot the bad guy. Kick him in the head. Drop a rock on him. Poke a scissors into his eye.
Katrina should have taught us: don't wait for the cavalry to show up with the evacuation bus: get on your own two feet and get out of town on your own power. Carry someone else on your back.
Flight 93 should have taught us: if the choices are bad and worse, do what you can to get the hell out. Even if your odds aren't good. Better to go down swinging than to duck and cover. Don't passively prepare to die; prepare to conquer your attacker.
Fight back, America! (People are trying to kill us).
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Kaufman Kills Future of Illini Sports
NOOOOOooooooooooooooo!
Now that wacky and irrepressible prof Stephen Kaufman has gone and done it! He has upped the ante and will really put the screws to the University of Illinois administration by {gulp} sending out mailers to prospective athletes! News-Gazette (September 21, 206)
The mailers (24 pages strong!) will "inform potential student athletes of the racial discrimination and stereotyping the university chooses to maintain." U of I professor Phillip Phillips (still a bit pissed at his parents for the fun they had filling out the name on his birth certificate) and some other prof types will assist Special K.
Well, folks, it was a good run, but now it's over. Once would-be Illini learn that there is a group of dim but well-meaning sandal-wearers (middle-aged white guys from somewhere else, in the case of Kaufman) who want to dictate the "right" way to celebrate Native American culture to the less enlightened, well, those guys and gals will want to take their ball somewhere else.
Ok, they won't take it to North Dakota (Fighting Sioux and LOTS of Native American names plastered on everything from roads to coffee mugs); or Bradley (oh, wait, I think they are changing their name to the Bradley Brave (no 'S'), so maybe they're OK now).
Let's see, you're 17 or 18, and you have a chance to play football or basketball at the University of Illinois. You're all set to put your John Henry on your national letter of intent, but then pause, noticing the large, impressive envelope from the school of your choice. You open it, and your worst fears are confirmed -- that WAS a white kid doing the halftime performance at the football game that you attended last weekend!
Shocked and horrified, you put down the pen. You'll have to tell your parents.
"Mom?. . . Dad? . . . I . . . I'm not going to Illinois."
Why not, son? What's happened?
"They . . . discriminate against . . . Native Americans. They have this Chief symbol thing . . . something about tribes that used to live in IIlinois. They've been doing it for 80 years. But now some people say it's wrong, but they won't stop. It's horrible."
Son, those must be some bad, ugly people over there in Urbana-Champaign (or is it Champaign-Urbana?). If they hate Indians so much, I bet they'll hate you too. Damn hillbillies. I think you should look at a different school. How 'bout Indiana? They don't have an offensive mascot, and guess what, their coach is a real Indian!
"Good thinking, Dad. Cuz' that's what I really care about. Not the school,or the coaches, or the microbiology department (although I hear there are some very caring and sensitive professors), the practice facilities, or the quality of the athletic programs. Nope, what I care about is going to a school where no one has to be offended."
That's the spirit, Jimmy!
One question, though, Dad. Isn't "Indiana" derived from the fact that Native Americans lived there? Aren't they just as bad as Illinois?
No, son, because they don't even try to remember the Indian culture. They are progressive and have moved on to the "Hoosier" as their great symbol.
Oh, I get it. Since no one knows what it is, no one can be offended by it. That's smart. And progressive. AND they are in the same state as NCAA headquarters, where they are trying to put a stop to ugly racism like Chief IIliniwek. I want to go to school there. One last thing, though, Dad.
Yes, son.
Do they still . . . smoke . . . in Indiana?
Now that wacky and irrepressible prof Stephen Kaufman has gone and done it! He has upped the ante and will really put the screws to the University of Illinois administration by {gulp} sending out mailers to prospective athletes! News-Gazette (September 21, 206)
The mailers (24 pages strong!) will "inform potential student athletes of the racial discrimination and stereotyping the university chooses to maintain." U of I professor Phillip Phillips (still a bit pissed at his parents for the fun they had filling out the name on his birth certificate) and some other prof types will assist Special K.
Well, folks, it was a good run, but now it's over. Once would-be Illini learn that there is a group of dim but well-meaning sandal-wearers (middle-aged white guys from somewhere else, in the case of Kaufman) who want to dictate the "right" way to celebrate Native American culture to the less enlightened, well, those guys and gals will want to take their ball somewhere else.
Ok, they won't take it to North Dakota (Fighting Sioux and LOTS of Native American names plastered on everything from roads to coffee mugs); or Bradley (oh, wait, I think they are changing their name to the Bradley Brave (no 'S'), so maybe they're OK now).
Let's see, you're 17 or 18, and you have a chance to play football or basketball at the University of Illinois. You're all set to put your John Henry on your national letter of intent, but then pause, noticing the large, impressive envelope from the school of your choice. You open it, and your worst fears are confirmed -- that WAS a white kid doing the halftime performance at the football game that you attended last weekend!
Shocked and horrified, you put down the pen. You'll have to tell your parents.
"Mom?. . . Dad? . . . I . . . I'm not going to Illinois."
Why not, son? What's happened?
"They . . . discriminate against . . . Native Americans. They have this Chief symbol thing . . . something about tribes that used to live in IIlinois. They've been doing it for 80 years. But now some people say it's wrong, but they won't stop. It's horrible."
Son, those must be some bad, ugly people over there in Urbana-Champaign (or is it Champaign-Urbana?). If they hate Indians so much, I bet they'll hate you too. Damn hillbillies. I think you should look at a different school. How 'bout Indiana? They don't have an offensive mascot, and guess what, their coach is a real Indian!
"Good thinking, Dad. Cuz' that's what I really care about. Not the school,or the coaches, or the microbiology department (although I hear there are some very caring and sensitive professors), the practice facilities, or the quality of the athletic programs. Nope, what I care about is going to a school where no one has to be offended."
That's the spirit, Jimmy!
One question, though, Dad. Isn't "Indiana" derived from the fact that Native Americans lived there? Aren't they just as bad as Illinois?
No, son, because they don't even try to remember the Indian culture. They are progressive and have moved on to the "Hoosier" as their great symbol.
Oh, I get it. Since no one knows what it is, no one can be offended by it. That's smart. And progressive. AND they are in the same state as NCAA headquarters, where they are trying to put a stop to ugly racism like Chief IIliniwek. I want to go to school there. One last thing, though, Dad.
Yes, son.
Do they still . . . smoke . . . in Indiana?
Saturday, September 09, 2006
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Deconstructing Tom Bruno, Ken Pirok
As if we needed more evidence that they are morons, Tom Bruno and Ken Pirok supplied more ammunition in the May 31 News-Gazette.
First, Bruno, who believes deeply in this great country, and is sure that all of these hookah bar owners can still be successful, if they only change the fundamental nature of their business:
tomorrow you will, overnight, become a best-selling author. Not too likely, in either case.
Then we have Ken "I Want to Be Like Chicago" Pirok, who believes, like so many who live here, that we are a bunch of yokels who need to think and act more like the big city folk.
Pirok's Message:
1. Being a small town is bad (being a 'big town' is good?)
2. Smoking in public places inhibits economic growth. (Someone should tell Charlotte or Raleigh-Durham, NC, which continue to experience exponential growth).
3. Champaign should aspire to be "sophisticated." (Like Paris, France?)
4. The act of imposing a smoking ban makes C-U "forward-looking," and will enable the cities to support a "world-class university." (Wow, I thought that C-U had been that way all along).
The real answer is that the Gang of Five got sucked in by political correctness, the concerted efforts of a few, and a desire (born out of a basic inferiority complex, I guess) to jump on the bandwagon).
I think that next they are going to make the metric system mandatory for all City of Champaign employees, to "catch up" with Europe.
First, Bruno, who believes deeply in this great country, and is sure that all of these hookah bar owners can still be successful, if they only change the fundamental nature of their business:
"It's going to put the hookah out of business, not the bar," Bruno said. "If he (the owner) has a nice atmosphere and a good clientele, he can stay in business."Sure, he can, Tom. And I suppose if they take your law license
tomorrow you will, overnight, become a best-selling author. Not too likely, in either case.
Then we have Ken "I Want to Be Like Chicago" Pirok, who believes, like so many who live here, that we are a bunch of yokels who need to think and act more like the big city folk.
"A lot of people want us to remain a small town like we were 25 years ago," he said. "Everything we do fits together: establishing a (tax increment finance) district downtown, having a smoking ban and providing economic development funds to the (UI) research park. The long-term goal is to become bigger and more sophisticated and becoming a forward-looking city that will support a world-class university."Whether he knows it or not, Pirok has just pissed all over the small bar owners in the City of Champaign, and those who would patronize them.
Pirok's Message:
1. Being a small town is bad (being a 'big town' is good?)
2. Smoking in public places inhibits economic growth. (Someone should tell Charlotte or Raleigh-Durham, NC, which continue to experience exponential growth).
3. Champaign should aspire to be "sophisticated." (Like Paris, France?)
4. The act of imposing a smoking ban makes C-U "forward-looking," and will enable the cities to support a "world-class university." (Wow, I thought that C-U had been that way all along).
The real answer is that the Gang of Five got sucked in by political correctness, the concerted efforts of a few, and a desire (born out of a basic inferiority complex, I guess) to jump on the bandwagon).
I think that next they are going to make the metric system mandatory for all City of Champaign employees, to "catch up" with Europe.
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Ban Ken Pirok
The time to start planning for the future of Champaign city governance is now.
In the aftermath of the ill-considered smoking ban, it is time for concerned business owners in Champaign to identify and rally around viable candidates who understand that the primary role of city government is not to set social policy, but to efficiently allocate public resources for the benefit of all.
If you haven't had enough of Ken Pirok and his passive-agressive brand of socialism, compare his recent vote on the C-U smoking ban to this quote from (what!?) only 8 months earlier:
"I do see a difference between restaurants and bars," he explained. "One, you eat at a restaurant and, two, children go to restaurants. I was OK at banning smoking in restaurants, but I draw the line at banning smoking at bars."
(News-Gazette, Sept. 19, 2005)
Way to go, Ken! Way to "draw that line".
Well, thankfully Ken explained his change of heart at the council meeting. Except that, he didn't. He didn't say a word. So much for his desire to be on the council to 'debate the issues.' (Feb. 19, 2002 Champaign City Council meeting minutes: "[Pirok] feels the fact that the Council can debate issues is what a democracy is all about."
Let's actively encourage some civic participation by candidates who believe that:
1. Government should support, not destroy, local businesses by getting out of their way.
2. Tax rates CAN and sometimes SHOULD be adjusted downward. (Mayor Jerry thinks that, unless it puts $1,000 in everybody's pocket, let's don't bother to give back a revenue surplus).
I pledge here that I will blanket the local blogosphere raising funds for any qualified candidate who promises to inform city council debate with the concerns of citizens (not carptetbaggers from upstate New York who fancy themselves as grassroots activists).
In the aftermath of the ill-considered smoking ban, it is time for concerned business owners in Champaign to identify and rally around viable candidates who understand that the primary role of city government is not to set social policy, but to efficiently allocate public resources for the benefit of all.
If you haven't had enough of Ken Pirok and his passive-agressive brand of socialism, compare his recent vote on the C-U smoking ban to this quote from (what!?) only 8 months earlier:
"I do see a difference between restaurants and bars," he explained. "One, you eat at a restaurant and, two, children go to restaurants. I was OK at banning smoking in restaurants, but I draw the line at banning smoking at bars."
(News-Gazette, Sept. 19, 2005)
Way to go, Ken! Way to "draw that line".
Well, thankfully Ken explained his change of heart at the council meeting. Except that, he didn't. He didn't say a word. So much for his desire to be on the council to 'debate the issues.' (Feb. 19, 2002 Champaign City Council meeting minutes: "[Pirok] feels the fact that the Council can debate issues is what a democracy is all about."
Let's actively encourage some civic participation by candidates who believe that:
1. Government should support, not destroy, local businesses by getting out of their way.
2. Tax rates CAN and sometimes SHOULD be adjusted downward. (Mayor Jerry thinks that, unless it puts $1,000 in everybody's pocket, let's don't bother to give back a revenue surplus).
I pledge here that I will blanket the local blogosphere raising funds for any qualified candidate who promises to inform city council debate with the concerns of citizens (not carptetbaggers from upstate New York who fancy themselves as grassroots activists).
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
People's Republic of . . . Champaign?
Well, it's finally happened. Thanks to the likes of Tom Bruno, Ken Pirok, Marci Dodds, Giraldo Rosales, and Gina Jackson, the City of Champaign has thrown all kinds of private property and personal rights out the window, egged on by a tiny but determined minority of do-gooders who are sure they know what is best for all of us.
Given the stakes for lots of small business owners, and a raft of opportunities for fine-tuning a proposed ordinance of sweeping proportions, this act looks more than a little reckless. While lots of people, including me, would support a ban on smoking in true restaurants (let's don't confuse bars that serve food), a ban in bars like the Tumble Inn, Hubers, and the Esquire is asinine.
Something tells me we haven't heard the last of this issue. Once the above-named yokels realize what they have voted for, they may be convinced to add some exceptions before the ordinance goes into effect on August 1.
Remmber to vote against Bruno, Pirok, Dodds, Rosales and Jackson, aka "the Politburo."
Given the stakes for lots of small business owners, and a raft of opportunities for fine-tuning a proposed ordinance of sweeping proportions, this act looks more than a little reckless. While lots of people, including me, would support a ban on smoking in true restaurants (let's don't confuse bars that serve food), a ban in bars like the Tumble Inn, Hubers, and the Esquire is asinine.
Something tells me we haven't heard the last of this issue. Once the above-named yokels realize what they have voted for, they may be convinced to add some exceptions before the ordinance goes into effect on August 1.
Remmber to vote against Bruno, Pirok, Dodds, Rosales and Jackson, aka "the Politburo."
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
All Men are NOT Created Equal
In 1961, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., wrote a much-anthologized short story titled "Harrison Bergeron." The complete text of the story is completed below, and it is part of a book of short stories by Vonnegut entitled Welcome to the Monkey House.
The point of the story is that, not only are we not equal, we shouldn't even strive to be, at least in the sense that we try to pretend that we are all equally intelligent, talented, and capable. Equality before the law? A laudable and more or less attainable ideal.
What galls, however, is the somehow mixed up idea that all races, sexes, and body types are equal and identical in all respects. Where did that inane idea come from? Why does it persist?
One of the harder, colder and more fundamental facts that we all have to face on this earth is that WE ARE NOT ALL CREATED EQUAL. And (consistent with today's theme over at IlliniPundit), that also means that life usually ISN'T FAIR.
Some people are smarter than you, some are stronger, some are more physically attractive, a lot are probably wealthier, and a lot are probably a lot happier. You can piss and moan about it, or face it and move on, remembering that, while others may have things and attributes that you don't, you probably have some great qualities too.
Now that we've cleared that up, let's get to the meat of this post:
1. If you're kids don't get good grades, it's not necessarily the fault of the school, the teacher, the principal, or the textbook. Maybe your kid isn't God's gift to academia.
2. The Man doesn't really exist.
3. There are way more African-Americans in the NBA than there are caucasians, Asians, or Native Americans. As a white boy, that doesn't bother me. For whatever reason (including the very real possibility that they have fewer alternatives for childhood recreation), they must be better ballers.
4. Some people sleep in $500 a night hotel rooms; other people clean them.
5. Bad things happen to good people, and vice versa.
6. We will not all have the same things. Ever.
7. You can be punished for good deeds, and rewarded handsomely for doing doodly squat. Sometimes someone buys you a drink, sometimes you buy for the whole damn bar.
The point of the story is that, not only are we not equal, we shouldn't even strive to be, at least in the sense that we try to pretend that we are all equally intelligent, talented, and capable. Equality before the law? A laudable and more or less attainable ideal.
What galls, however, is the somehow mixed up idea that all races, sexes, and body types are equal and identical in all respects. Where did that inane idea come from? Why does it persist?
One of the harder, colder and more fundamental facts that we all have to face on this earth is that WE ARE NOT ALL CREATED EQUAL. And (consistent with today's theme over at IlliniPundit), that also means that life usually ISN'T FAIR.
Some people are smarter than you, some are stronger, some are more physically attractive, a lot are probably wealthier, and a lot are probably a lot happier. You can piss and moan about it, or face it and move on, remembering that, while others may have things and attributes that you don't, you probably have some great qualities too.
Now that we've cleared that up, let's get to the meat of this post:
1. If you're kids don't get good grades, it's not necessarily the fault of the school, the teacher, the principal, or the textbook. Maybe your kid isn't God's gift to academia.
2. The Man doesn't really exist.
3. There are way more African-Americans in the NBA than there are caucasians, Asians, or Native Americans. As a white boy, that doesn't bother me. For whatever reason (including the very real possibility that they have fewer alternatives for childhood recreation), they must be better ballers.
4. Some people sleep in $500 a night hotel rooms; other people clean them.
5. Bad things happen to good people, and vice versa.
6. We will not all have the same things. Ever.
7. You can be punished for good deeds, and rewarded handsomely for doing doodly squat. Sometimes someone buys you a drink, sometimes you buy for the whole damn bar.
**********
Harrison Bergeron
by Kurt Vonnegut (1961)
Harrison Bergeron
by Kurt Vonnegut (1961)
THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.
Some things about living still weren’t quite right, though. April, for instance, still drove people crazy by not being springtime. And it was in that clammy month that the H-G men took George and Hazel Bergeron’s fourteen-year-old son, Harrison, away.
It was tragic, all right, but George and Hazel couldn’t think about it very hard. Hazel had a perfectly average intelligence, which meant she couldn’t think about anything except in short bursts. And George, while his intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear. He was required by law to wear it at all times. It was tuned to a government transmitter. Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains.
George and Hazel were watching television. There were tears on Hazel’s cheeks, but she’d forgotten for the moment what they were about.
On the television screen were ballerinas.
A buzzer sounded in George’s head. His thoughts fled in panic, like bandits from a burglar alarm.
"That was a real pretty dance, that dance they just did,” said Hazel.
"Huh?” said George.
"That dance – it was nice,” said Hazel.
"Yup,” said George. He tried to think a little about the ballerinas. They weren’t really very good – no better than anybody else would have been, anyway. They were burdened with sashweights and bags of birdshot, and their faces were masked, so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face, would feel like something the cat drug in. George was toying with the vague notion that maybe dancers shouldn’t be handicapped. But he didn’t get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts.
George winced. So did two out of the eight ballerinas.
Hazel saw him wince. Having no mental handicap herself she had to ask George what the latest sound had been.
"Sounded like somebody hitting a milk bottle with a ball peen hammer,” said George.
“I’d think it would be real interesting, hearing all the different sounds,” said Hazel, a little envious. “All the things they think up.”
"Um,” said George.
“Only, if I was Handicapper General, you know what I would do?” said Hazel. Hazel, as a matter of fact, bore a strong resemblance to the Handicapper General, a woman named Diana Moon Glampers. “If I was Diana Moon Glampers,” said Hazel, “I’d have chimes on Sunday – just chimes. Kind of in honor of religion.”
“I could think, if it was just chimes,” said George.
“Well – maybe make ‘em real loud,” said Hazel. “I think I’d make a good Handicapper General.”
“Good as anybody else,” said George.
“Who knows better’n I do what normal is?” said Hazel.
“Right,” said George. He began to think glimmeringly about his abnormal son who was now in jail, about Harrison, but a twenty-one-gun salute in his head stopped that.
“Boy!” said Hazel, “that was a doozy, wasn’t it?”
It was such a doozy that George was white and trembling and tears stood on the rims of his red eyes. Two of the eight ballerinas had collapsed to the studio floor, were holding their temples.
“All of a sudden you look so tired,” said Hazel. “Why don’t you stretch out on the sofa, so’s you can rest your handicap bag on the pillows, honeybunch.” She was referring to the forty-seven pounds of birdshot in canvas bag, which was padlocked around George’s neck. “Go on and rest the bag for a little while,” she said. “I don’t care if you’re not equal to me for a while.”
George weighed the bag with his hands. “I don’t mind it,” he said. “I don’t notice it any more. It’s just a part of me.
“You been so tired lately – kind of wore out,” said Hazel. “If there was just some way we could make a little hole in the bottom of the bag, and just take out a few of them lead balls. Just a few.”
“Two years in prison and two thousand dollars fine for every ball I took out,” said George. “I don’t call that a bargain.”
“If you could just take a few out when you came home from work,” said Hazel. “I mean – you don’t compete with anybody around here. You just set around.”
“If I tried to get away with it,” said George, “then other people’d get away with it and pretty soon we’d be right back to the dark ages again, with everybody competing against everybody else. You wouldn’t like that, would you?”
“I’d hate it,” said Hazel.
“There you are,” said George. “The minute people start cheating on laws, what do you think happens to society?”
If Hazel hadn’t been able to come up with an answer to this question, George couldn’t have supplied one. A siren was going off in his head.
“Reckon it’d fall all apart,” said Hazel.
“What would?” said George blankly.
“Society,” said Hazel uncertainly. “Wasn’t that what you just said?”
“Who knows?” said George.
The television program was suddenly interrupted for a news bulletin. It wasn’t clear at first as to what the bulletin was about, since the announcer, like all announcers, had a serious speech impediment. For about half a minute, and in a state of high excitement, the announcer tried to say, “Ladies and gentlemen – ”
He finally gave up, handed the bulletin to a ballerina to read.
"That’s all right –” Hazel said of the announcer, “he tried. That’s the big thing. He tried to do the best he could with what God gave him. He should get a nice raise for trying so hard.”
“Ladies and gentlemen” said the ballerina, reading the bulletin. She must have been extraordinarily beautiful, because the mask she wore was hideous. And it was easy to see that she was the strongest and most graceful of all the dancers, for her handicap bags were as big as those worn by two-hundred-pound men.
And she had to apologize at once for her voice, which was a very unfair voice for a woman to use. Her voice was a warm, luminous, timeless melody. “Excuse me – ” she said, and she began again, making her voice absolutely uncompetitive.
“Harrison Bergeron, age fourteen,” she said in a grackle squawk, “has just escaped from jail, where he was held on suspicion of plotting to overthrow the government. He is a genius and an athlete, is under–handicapped, and should be regarded as extremely dangerous.”
A police photograph of Harrison Bergeron was flashed on the screen – upside down, then sideways, upside down again, then right side up. The picture showed the full length of Harrison against a background calibrated in feet and inches. He was exactly seven feet tall.
The rest of Harrison’s appearance was Halloween and hardware. Nobody had ever worn heavier handicaps. He had outgrown hindrances faster than the H–G men could think them up. Instead of a little ear radio for a mental handicap, he wore a tremendous pair of earphones, and spectacles with thick wavy lenses. The spectacles were intended to make him not only half blind, but to give him whanging headaches besides.
Scrap metal was hung all over him. Ordinarily, there was a certain symmetry, a military neatness to the handicaps issued to strong people, but Harrison looked like a walking junkyard. In the race of life, Harrison carried three hundred pounds.
And to offset his good looks, the H–G men required that he wear at all times a red rubber ball for a nose, keep his eyebrows shaved off, and cover his even white teeth with black caps at snaggle–tooth random.
“If you see this boy,” said the ballerina, “do not – I repeat, do not – try to reason with him.”
There was the shriek of a door being torn from its hinges.
Screams and barking cries of consternation came from the television set. The photograph of Harrison Bergeron on the screen jumped again and again, as though dancing to the tune of an earthquake.
George Bergeron correctly identified the earthquake, and well he might have – for many was the time his own home had danced to the same crashing tune. “My God –” said George, “that must be Harrison!”
The realization was blasted from his mind instantly by the sound of an automobile collision in his head.
When George could open his eyes again, the photograph of Harrison was gone. A living, breathing Harrison filled the screen.
Clanking, clownish, and huge, Harrison stood in the center of the studio. The knob of the uprooted studio door was still in his hand. Ballerinas, technicians, musicians, and announcers cowered on their knees before him, expecting to die.
“I am the Emperor!” cried Harrison. “Do you hear? I am the Emperor! Everybody must do what I say at once!” He stamped his foot and the studio shook.
"Even as I stand here –” he bellowed, “crippled, hobbled, sickened – I am a greater ruler than any man who ever lived! Now watch me become what I can become!”
Harrison tore the straps of his handicap harness like wet tissue paper, tore straps guaranteed to support five thousand pounds.
Harrison’s scrap–iron handicaps crashed to the floor.
Harrison thrust his thumbs under the bar of the padlock that secured his head harness. The bar snapped like celery. Harrison smashed his headphones and spectacles against the wall.
He flung away his rubber–ball nose, revealed a man that would have awed Thor, the god of thunder.
“I shall now select my Empress!” he said, looking down on the cowering people. “Let the first woman who dares rise to her feet claim her mate and her throne!”
A moment passed, and then a ballerina arose, swaying like a willow.
Harrison plucked the mental handicap from her ear, snapped off her physical handicaps with marvelous delicacy. Last of all, he removed her mask.
She was blindingly beautiful.
Now” said Harrison, taking her hand, “shall we show the people the meaning of the word dance? Music!” he commanded.
The musicians scrambled back into their chairs, and Harrison stripped them of their handicaps, too. “Play your best,” he told them, “and I’ll make you barons and dukes and earls.”
The music began. It was normal at first – cheap, silly, false. But Harrison snatched two musicians from their chairs, waved them like batons as he sang the music as he wanted it played. He slammed them back into their chairs.
The music began again and was much improved.
Harrison and his Empress merely listened to the music for a while – listened gravely, as though synchronizing their heartbeats with it.
They shifted their weights to their toes.
Harrison placed his big hands on the girl’s tiny waist, letting her sense the weightlessness that would soon be hers.
And then, in an explosion of joy and grace, into the air they sprang!
Not only were the laws of the land abandoned, but the law of gravity and the laws of motion as well.
They reeled, whirled, swiveled, flounced, capered, gamboled, and spun.
They leaped like deer on the moon.
The studio ceiling was thirty feet high, but each leap brought the dancers nearer to it. It became their obvious intention to kiss the ceiling.
They kissed it.
And then, neutralizing gravity with love and pure will, they remained suspended in air inches below the ceiling, and they kissed each other for a long, long time.
It was then that Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General, came into the studio with a double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun. She fired twice, and the Emperor and the Empress were dead before they hit the floor.
Diana Moon Glampers loaded the gun again. She aimed it at the musicians and told them they had ten seconds to get their handicaps back on.
It was then that the Bergerons’ television tube burned out.
Hazel turned to comment about the blackout to George.
But George had gone out into the kitchen for a can of beer.
George came back in with the beer, paused while a handicap signal shook him up. And then he sat down again. “You been crying?” he said to Hazel.
“Yup,” she said,
“What about?” he said.
“I forget,” she said. “Something real sad on television.”
“What was it?” he said.
“It’s all kind of mixed up in my mind,” said Hazel.
“Forget sad things,” said George.
“I always do,” said Hazel.
“That’s my girl,” said George. He winced. There was the sound of a riveting gun in his head.
“Gee – I could tell that one was a doozy,” said Hazel.
“You can say that again,” said George.
“Gee –” said Hazel, “I could tell that one was a doozy.”
Some things about living still weren’t quite right, though. April, for instance, still drove people crazy by not being springtime. And it was in that clammy month that the H-G men took George and Hazel Bergeron’s fourteen-year-old son, Harrison, away.
It was tragic, all right, but George and Hazel couldn’t think about it very hard. Hazel had a perfectly average intelligence, which meant she couldn’t think about anything except in short bursts. And George, while his intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear. He was required by law to wear it at all times. It was tuned to a government transmitter. Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains.
George and Hazel were watching television. There were tears on Hazel’s cheeks, but she’d forgotten for the moment what they were about.
On the television screen were ballerinas.
A buzzer sounded in George’s head. His thoughts fled in panic, like bandits from a burglar alarm.
"That was a real pretty dance, that dance they just did,” said Hazel.
"Huh?” said George.
"That dance – it was nice,” said Hazel.
"Yup,” said George. He tried to think a little about the ballerinas. They weren’t really very good – no better than anybody else would have been, anyway. They were burdened with sashweights and bags of birdshot, and their faces were masked, so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face, would feel like something the cat drug in. George was toying with the vague notion that maybe dancers shouldn’t be handicapped. But he didn’t get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts.
George winced. So did two out of the eight ballerinas.
Hazel saw him wince. Having no mental handicap herself she had to ask George what the latest sound had been.
"Sounded like somebody hitting a milk bottle with a ball peen hammer,” said George.
“I’d think it would be real interesting, hearing all the different sounds,” said Hazel, a little envious. “All the things they think up.”
"Um,” said George.
“Only, if I was Handicapper General, you know what I would do?” said Hazel. Hazel, as a matter of fact, bore a strong resemblance to the Handicapper General, a woman named Diana Moon Glampers. “If I was Diana Moon Glampers,” said Hazel, “I’d have chimes on Sunday – just chimes. Kind of in honor of religion.”
“I could think, if it was just chimes,” said George.
“Well – maybe make ‘em real loud,” said Hazel. “I think I’d make a good Handicapper General.”
“Good as anybody else,” said George.
“Who knows better’n I do what normal is?” said Hazel.
“Right,” said George. He began to think glimmeringly about his abnormal son who was now in jail, about Harrison, but a twenty-one-gun salute in his head stopped that.
“Boy!” said Hazel, “that was a doozy, wasn’t it?”
It was such a doozy that George was white and trembling and tears stood on the rims of his red eyes. Two of the eight ballerinas had collapsed to the studio floor, were holding their temples.
“All of a sudden you look so tired,” said Hazel. “Why don’t you stretch out on the sofa, so’s you can rest your handicap bag on the pillows, honeybunch.” She was referring to the forty-seven pounds of birdshot in canvas bag, which was padlocked around George’s neck. “Go on and rest the bag for a little while,” she said. “I don’t care if you’re not equal to me for a while.”
George weighed the bag with his hands. “I don’t mind it,” he said. “I don’t notice it any more. It’s just a part of me.
“You been so tired lately – kind of wore out,” said Hazel. “If there was just some way we could make a little hole in the bottom of the bag, and just take out a few of them lead balls. Just a few.”
“Two years in prison and two thousand dollars fine for every ball I took out,” said George. “I don’t call that a bargain.”
“If you could just take a few out when you came home from work,” said Hazel. “I mean – you don’t compete with anybody around here. You just set around.”
“If I tried to get away with it,” said George, “then other people’d get away with it and pretty soon we’d be right back to the dark ages again, with everybody competing against everybody else. You wouldn’t like that, would you?”
“I’d hate it,” said Hazel.
“There you are,” said George. “The minute people start cheating on laws, what do you think happens to society?”
If Hazel hadn’t been able to come up with an answer to this question, George couldn’t have supplied one. A siren was going off in his head.
“Reckon it’d fall all apart,” said Hazel.
“What would?” said George blankly.
“Society,” said Hazel uncertainly. “Wasn’t that what you just said?”
“Who knows?” said George.
The television program was suddenly interrupted for a news bulletin. It wasn’t clear at first as to what the bulletin was about, since the announcer, like all announcers, had a serious speech impediment. For about half a minute, and in a state of high excitement, the announcer tried to say, “Ladies and gentlemen – ”
He finally gave up, handed the bulletin to a ballerina to read.
"That’s all right –” Hazel said of the announcer, “he tried. That’s the big thing. He tried to do the best he could with what God gave him. He should get a nice raise for trying so hard.”
“Ladies and gentlemen” said the ballerina, reading the bulletin. She must have been extraordinarily beautiful, because the mask she wore was hideous. And it was easy to see that she was the strongest and most graceful of all the dancers, for her handicap bags were as big as those worn by two-hundred-pound men.
And she had to apologize at once for her voice, which was a very unfair voice for a woman to use. Her voice was a warm, luminous, timeless melody. “Excuse me – ” she said, and she began again, making her voice absolutely uncompetitive.
“Harrison Bergeron, age fourteen,” she said in a grackle squawk, “has just escaped from jail, where he was held on suspicion of plotting to overthrow the government. He is a genius and an athlete, is under–handicapped, and should be regarded as extremely dangerous.”
A police photograph of Harrison Bergeron was flashed on the screen – upside down, then sideways, upside down again, then right side up. The picture showed the full length of Harrison against a background calibrated in feet and inches. He was exactly seven feet tall.
The rest of Harrison’s appearance was Halloween and hardware. Nobody had ever worn heavier handicaps. He had outgrown hindrances faster than the H–G men could think them up. Instead of a little ear radio for a mental handicap, he wore a tremendous pair of earphones, and spectacles with thick wavy lenses. The spectacles were intended to make him not only half blind, but to give him whanging headaches besides.
Scrap metal was hung all over him. Ordinarily, there was a certain symmetry, a military neatness to the handicaps issued to strong people, but Harrison looked like a walking junkyard. In the race of life, Harrison carried three hundred pounds.
And to offset his good looks, the H–G men required that he wear at all times a red rubber ball for a nose, keep his eyebrows shaved off, and cover his even white teeth with black caps at snaggle–tooth random.
“If you see this boy,” said the ballerina, “do not – I repeat, do not – try to reason with him.”
There was the shriek of a door being torn from its hinges.
Screams and barking cries of consternation came from the television set. The photograph of Harrison Bergeron on the screen jumped again and again, as though dancing to the tune of an earthquake.
George Bergeron correctly identified the earthquake, and well he might have – for many was the time his own home had danced to the same crashing tune. “My God –” said George, “that must be Harrison!”
The realization was blasted from his mind instantly by the sound of an automobile collision in his head.
When George could open his eyes again, the photograph of Harrison was gone. A living, breathing Harrison filled the screen.
Clanking, clownish, and huge, Harrison stood in the center of the studio. The knob of the uprooted studio door was still in his hand. Ballerinas, technicians, musicians, and announcers cowered on their knees before him, expecting to die.
“I am the Emperor!” cried Harrison. “Do you hear? I am the Emperor! Everybody must do what I say at once!” He stamped his foot and the studio shook.
"Even as I stand here –” he bellowed, “crippled, hobbled, sickened – I am a greater ruler than any man who ever lived! Now watch me become what I can become!”
Harrison tore the straps of his handicap harness like wet tissue paper, tore straps guaranteed to support five thousand pounds.
Harrison’s scrap–iron handicaps crashed to the floor.
Harrison thrust his thumbs under the bar of the padlock that secured his head harness. The bar snapped like celery. Harrison smashed his headphones and spectacles against the wall.
He flung away his rubber–ball nose, revealed a man that would have awed Thor, the god of thunder.
“I shall now select my Empress!” he said, looking down on the cowering people. “Let the first woman who dares rise to her feet claim her mate and her throne!”
A moment passed, and then a ballerina arose, swaying like a willow.
Harrison plucked the mental handicap from her ear, snapped off her physical handicaps with marvelous delicacy. Last of all, he removed her mask.
She was blindingly beautiful.
Now” said Harrison, taking her hand, “shall we show the people the meaning of the word dance? Music!” he commanded.
The musicians scrambled back into their chairs, and Harrison stripped them of their handicaps, too. “Play your best,” he told them, “and I’ll make you barons and dukes and earls.”
The music began. It was normal at first – cheap, silly, false. But Harrison snatched two musicians from their chairs, waved them like batons as he sang the music as he wanted it played. He slammed them back into their chairs.
The music began again and was much improved.
Harrison and his Empress merely listened to the music for a while – listened gravely, as though synchronizing their heartbeats with it.
They shifted their weights to their toes.
Harrison placed his big hands on the girl’s tiny waist, letting her sense the weightlessness that would soon be hers.
And then, in an explosion of joy and grace, into the air they sprang!
Not only were the laws of the land abandoned, but the law of gravity and the laws of motion as well.
They reeled, whirled, swiveled, flounced, capered, gamboled, and spun.
They leaped like deer on the moon.
The studio ceiling was thirty feet high, but each leap brought the dancers nearer to it. It became their obvious intention to kiss the ceiling.
They kissed it.
And then, neutralizing gravity with love and pure will, they remained suspended in air inches below the ceiling, and they kissed each other for a long, long time.
It was then that Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General, came into the studio with a double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun. She fired twice, and the Emperor and the Empress were dead before they hit the floor.
Diana Moon Glampers loaded the gun again. She aimed it at the musicians and told them they had ten seconds to get their handicaps back on.
It was then that the Bergerons’ television tube burned out.
Hazel turned to comment about the blackout to George.
But George had gone out into the kitchen for a can of beer.
George came back in with the beer, paused while a handicap signal shook him up. And then he sat down again. “You been crying?” he said to Hazel.
“Yup,” she said,
“What about?” he said.
“I forget,” she said. “Something real sad on television.”
“What was it?” he said.
“It’s all kind of mixed up in my mind,” said Hazel.
“Forget sad things,” said George.
“I always do,” said Hazel.
“That’s my girl,” said George. He winced. There was the sound of a riveting gun in his head.
“Gee – I could tell that one was a doozy,” said Hazel.
“You can say that again,” said George.
“Gee –” said Hazel, “I could tell that one was a doozy.”
Thursday, May 04, 2006
The High Price of Gasoline
Gasbuddy.com has a map which shows gasoline prices, by county, for the whole country.
Yeah, gasoline prices have skyrocketed in the last year. Yeah, I've noticed, and so have you. And yes, that means I have less money to spend on other stuff. And, yes, finally, I don't like it. But I haven't mentioned it to anyone, because I am a big boy and, if it's a real problem, maybe I could drive less.
All of that being said, let's clarify a few things for all of you damn whiners out there:
1. Don't expect your elected officials to do a thing to help you. They can't. Gov. Blago could push through a temporary cut in the state's gasoline tax in a snap, but the truth is, Rod needs those revenues to fill some big holes in the state's budget.
2. Gas prices are not going down below $2.00 / gallon again anytime soon, if ever.
3. Gas prices are still a very, very small fraction of most people's budget. If you drive 12,000 miles per year, and your car gets 20 miles per gallon, a fifty cent ($0.50) per gallon increase in price costs you an additional $300 per year. To put that in perspective, you probably spend eight times that much ($2400) or more per year for gas & electric to your home. If you took a family of 4 to Great America for the day, you would spend at least that much, if not more.
4. Sure oil companies make big profits; they are immense, worldwide organizations with billions in sales. So do lots of other companies; should we investigate all of them, too? Last time I checked (just last week), we are a CAPITALIST society and economy.
5. High gas prices are good in the long run, as they will (a) spur oil companies to work harder to develop hard to access oil reserves, (b) encourage people to conserve and auto makers to innovate, and (c) encourage development and refinement of alternative fuels.
Any questions?
Yeah, gasoline prices have skyrocketed in the last year. Yeah, I've noticed, and so have you. And yes, that means I have less money to spend on other stuff. And, yes, finally, I don't like it. But I haven't mentioned it to anyone, because I am a big boy and, if it's a real problem, maybe I could drive less.
All of that being said, let's clarify a few things for all of you damn whiners out there:
1. Don't expect your elected officials to do a thing to help you. They can't. Gov. Blago could push through a temporary cut in the state's gasoline tax in a snap, but the truth is, Rod needs those revenues to fill some big holes in the state's budget.
2. Gas prices are not going down below $2.00 / gallon again anytime soon, if ever.
3. Gas prices are still a very, very small fraction of most people's budget. If you drive 12,000 miles per year, and your car gets 20 miles per gallon, a fifty cent ($0.50) per gallon increase in price costs you an additional $300 per year. To put that in perspective, you probably spend eight times that much ($2400) or more per year for gas & electric to your home. If you took a family of 4 to Great America for the day, you would spend at least that much, if not more.
4. Sure oil companies make big profits; they are immense, worldwide organizations with billions in sales. So do lots of other companies; should we investigate all of them, too? Last time I checked (just last week), we are a CAPITALIST society and economy.
5. High gas prices are good in the long run, as they will (a) spur oil companies to work harder to develop hard to access oil reserves, (b) encourage people to conserve and auto makers to innovate, and (c) encourage development and refinement of alternative fuels.
Any questions?
Friday, April 28, 2006
Deport the Illegals NOW
If you want to live here, DO this: apply for status as a legal immigrant, and wait to be accepted. When you come here, work hard and behave, and you will do fine.
DON'T:
1. Sneak in across the border in the dark of the night.
2. Hold rallies to protest not getting amnesty.
3. Complain about how important you are to the economy, and yet how unappreciated.
4. Record a loose translation of the Star-Spangled banner IN SPANISH.
5. Mount a "protest" by not showing up for your job, and thinking that anyone will care.
FIRST: None of these things will endear you to the people in your chosen new country.
SECOND: Let's use this opportunity to get a list from suspected employers of illegals. Get the list of their absent employees on Mon. May 1, and investigate the status of those people.
THIRD: Permitting illegal aliens to remain in this country WHILE THEY finally apply for legal status is AMNESTY and IS PUTTING THEM IN THE FRONT OF THE LINE.
DON'T:
1. Sneak in across the border in the dark of the night.
2. Hold rallies to protest not getting amnesty.
3. Complain about how important you are to the economy, and yet how unappreciated.
4. Record a loose translation of the Star-Spangled banner IN SPANISH.
5. Mount a "protest" by not showing up for your job, and thinking that anyone will care.
FIRST: None of these things will endear you to the people in your chosen new country.
SECOND: Let's use this opportunity to get a list from suspected employers of illegals. Get the list of their absent employees on Mon. May 1, and investigate the status of those people.
THIRD: Permitting illegal aliens to remain in this country WHILE THEY finally apply for legal status is AMNESTY and IS PUTTING THEM IN THE FRONT OF THE LINE.
Friday, April 21, 2006
Just Say NO to Smoking Ban
Per the News-Gazette, both Champaign and Urbana will consider a general SMOKING BAN in May. This courtesy of the high-minded folks at the "C-U Smoke Free Alliance" (just who is an 'ally' of the Alliance is not clear to me).
This is just another example of a vocal minority seeking to impose its will on everyone else. It can be an effective strategy, if the minority is seeking to curtail an activity that doesn't involve a right or activity that is important to most people. Public bodies and civic boards are impressed that 100 people show up at their meeting to advocate the will of the minority. They may not realize that the "silent majority" is simply not moved enough to speak their mind, they may not have unbiased facts on the topic, and they may get worn down by repeated attempts.
Say that the "Alliance" decides that chain saws smoke too much too, and petitions local city councils to ban them, too:
____________________________
"I can't be around the exhaust from those gasoline engines. If they are trimming trees in the park, I can't go there."
"Why do they have to use gas engines, can't they use electric?"
"It's not fair for the workers using those chain saws; they shouldn't have to inhale fumes all day while working with their chain saw."
____________________________
Anyway, 50 professional activists show up at the City Council meeting. The only people who show up to oppose the ban are 4 people who happen to own landscaping / tree trimmng businesses.
Meanwhile, 60,000 others sit at home, unmotivated by the issue, but believing that chain saws are not the devil incarnate.
City council members who are so inclined listen to the 60 who show up, and imagine they are a burgeoning grass roots movement. "They make some good points. Everyone should be able to go outside and not listen to chain saws or suck in their exhaust."
____________________________
You know, other people do lots of things that I wouldn't do. And they do lots of things that I don't like. And they do lots of things that aren't good for them. And they do things that keep me from going places and doing things that I might otherwise be inclined to do.
Yet, I don't seek to rein in people from exercising their freedoms, even if I don't like what it is they do. I don't do it because, as we are all so fond of saying, IT IS A FREE COUNTRY. Government in this country doesn't regulate behavior unless it has a compelling interest in doing so.
I haven't heard the compelling interest yet. Just a bunch of whining about the 'rights of non-smokers.' Yah, just what we need; another special interest group (full of victims).
Oh, by the way, I am neither a shill for Big Tobacco nor a smoker. I just hate to have to listen to the whiny vocal minority in their quest for attention. And, according to the American Lung Association, about 21% of adults in the U.S. are smokers.
This is just another example of a vocal minority seeking to impose its will on everyone else. It can be an effective strategy, if the minority is seeking to curtail an activity that doesn't involve a right or activity that is important to most people. Public bodies and civic boards are impressed that 100 people show up at their meeting to advocate the will of the minority. They may not realize that the "silent majority" is simply not moved enough to speak their mind, they may not have unbiased facts on the topic, and they may get worn down by repeated attempts.
Say that the "Alliance" decides that chain saws smoke too much too, and petitions local city councils to ban them, too:
____________________________
"I can't be around the exhaust from those gasoline engines. If they are trimming trees in the park, I can't go there."
"Why do they have to use gas engines, can't they use electric?"
"It's not fair for the workers using those chain saws; they shouldn't have to inhale fumes all day while working with their chain saw."
____________________________
Anyway, 50 professional activists show up at the City Council meeting. The only people who show up to oppose the ban are 4 people who happen to own landscaping / tree trimmng businesses.
Meanwhile, 60,000 others sit at home, unmotivated by the issue, but believing that chain saws are not the devil incarnate.
City council members who are so inclined listen to the 60 who show up, and imagine they are a burgeoning grass roots movement. "They make some good points. Everyone should be able to go outside and not listen to chain saws or suck in their exhaust."
____________________________
You know, other people do lots of things that I wouldn't do. And they do lots of things that I don't like. And they do lots of things that aren't good for them. And they do things that keep me from going places and doing things that I might otherwise be inclined to do.
Yet, I don't seek to rein in people from exercising their freedoms, even if I don't like what it is they do. I don't do it because, as we are all so fond of saying, IT IS A FREE COUNTRY. Government in this country doesn't regulate behavior unless it has a compelling interest in doing so.
I haven't heard the compelling interest yet. Just a bunch of whining about the 'rights of non-smokers.' Yah, just what we need; another special interest group (full of victims).
Oh, by the way, I am neither a shill for Big Tobacco nor a smoker. I just hate to have to listen to the whiny vocal minority in their quest for attention. And, according to the American Lung Association, about 21% of adults in the U.S. are smokers.
Thursday, April 20, 2006
SROs in, Troublemakers Out?
At its meeting on Monday, April 17, 2006, the Champaign Unit 4 school district approved the use of polices officers (dubbed "School Resource Officers" or "SROs") in middle schools and high schools in the district. News-Gazette April 18.
Today's big news is that some parents in the district are threatening to take their children out of the school district "in protest of the decision to put armed police officers in the schools." News-Gazette April 20.
_______________________________
[Parent Natalie] Freeman "is concerned about unequal treatment for black children because the Champaign school district is under a consent decree in which the educational achievement and discipline of black children is being monitored, and because a study released last year showed minorities are more likely to be pulled over for traffic stops by Champaign police."
"We already know the children who are going to be targeted (by the officers) are African-American," she said.
_______________________________
The News-Gazette article goes on to quote the parents' views that (a) the kids aren't learning anything anyway, so why not pull them out of school, (b) you can't expect police officers with only 40 hours of training to be "social workers and educate our kids", and (c) pulling kids out will cost Unit 4 federal school lunch aid money and state aid based on attendance.
Wow, where to start.
First, ladies, know that you are not hurting anyone by trying to home school your kids, other than them. You don't appear to have college degrees, guess what, the teachers of Unit 4 DO! They are trained experts in educating kids!
Second, I don't think the cops at school are going to be "targeting" anyone, anymore than they "target" offenders out on the mean streets. Unless by 'target' you mean 'go after kids who are causing trouble.' Yes, they will be going after them, but I'm sure that won't include your little angels.
Third, if you yank your kids, you won't have anyone to blame when things don't turn out well.
Finally, the consent decree should not be the basis for taking your kids out of the Unit 4 schools, rather it should be the reason you want them there, i.e., lots of things have happened and continue to happen to make Unit 4 schools better for your children.
In a perfect world, there would be no cops in schools. In this world, it seems to have become a necessity. Were that it wasn't so.
Today's big news is that some parents in the district are threatening to take their children out of the school district "in protest of the decision to put armed police officers in the schools." News-Gazette April 20.
_______________________________
[Parent Natalie] Freeman "is concerned about unequal treatment for black children because the Champaign school district is under a consent decree in which the educational achievement and discipline of black children is being monitored, and because a study released last year showed minorities are more likely to be pulled over for traffic stops by Champaign police."
"We already know the children who are going to be targeted (by the officers) are African-American," she said.
_______________________________
The News-Gazette article goes on to quote the parents' views that (a) the kids aren't learning anything anyway, so why not pull them out of school, (b) you can't expect police officers with only 40 hours of training to be "social workers and educate our kids", and (c) pulling kids out will cost Unit 4 federal school lunch aid money and state aid based on attendance.
Wow, where to start.
First, ladies, know that you are not hurting anyone by trying to home school your kids, other than them. You don't appear to have college degrees, guess what, the teachers of Unit 4 DO! They are trained experts in educating kids!
Second, I don't think the cops at school are going to be "targeting" anyone, anymore than they "target" offenders out on the mean streets. Unless by 'target' you mean 'go after kids who are causing trouble.' Yes, they will be going after them, but I'm sure that won't include your little angels.
Third, if you yank your kids, you won't have anyone to blame when things don't turn out well.
Finally, the consent decree should not be the basis for taking your kids out of the Unit 4 schools, rather it should be the reason you want them there, i.e., lots of things have happened and continue to happen to make Unit 4 schools better for your children.
In a perfect world, there would be no cops in schools. In this world, it seems to have become a necessity. Were that it wasn't so.
Two Questions From Andy T
From my boy AndyT:
1. I love reading your stuff and often agree. May I submit to you a political question? It seems to me that the current system is a total failure no matter which party is in charge. They both have their good and bad points. My priority is liberty and neither party is delivering. How come the libertarians can't field viable candidates? It seems like their party supports all the ideals we stand for but everyone who runs on their ticket is a nut job. What's up with that?
I think the problem is that Libertarians in general are a cranky, curmudgeonly group with a terrifically diverse membership which shouts"fringe" to anyone who is serious about running for national office. By merely tempering their rhetoric and easing their positions toward themiddle, would-be Libertarian candidates can shoehorn themselves into one of the major parties. The candidatesI have seen here in Ilinois are people who burn wood to heat their homes, have beards, and think they don't have to pay income taxes. Fun and everything, but not going anywhere with regard to getting elected.
2. Related question: In my experience the dems offer appeasement, high taxes and a better economy for poor folks (me). The GOP offers war, lower taxes and a better econmoy for rich folks. Your thoughts? I base this on direct personal experience (i.e. ability to get and keep a 'good' job).Is that your experience? Explain. This is an honest question not an invitation to a flame war. :-)
You can split it out a million different ways, of course, but I think the Democrat party appeals to people who (a) need or want help in their lives, (b) want to help others, (c) believe that all people are (or should be) more or less equal and interchangeable, and (d) think we can settle all of our differences if we just sit down and talk about it. Basically, the Dems appeal to people who think government helps people in their lives.
Meanwhile, the GOP works for (a) people who think they don't need any help, (b) want to help people, if at all, without government involvement, (c) believe that people have innate differences which mean that not everyone is a "winner" in the game of life, and (d) think that there are relatively bright lines of "right" and "wrong" in many cases.
Neither of the major parties are going to help you or anyone else get or keep a "good" job. No government will help you do that. I believe that, other than creating government positions, Democrat principles will not get you a job (something about more taxes and more government being antithetical to business). Repubs believe that, when government is business friendly (low regulation, low taxes), private businesses create jobs.
The truth is, those who are young, poor, and "other-directed" swing toward the Dems; those who are older, established, wealthier, and self-interested swing toward the Repubs. Dems believe government can make a big difference in the lives of people; Repubs think government should get out of their way, and let everyone make their own life.
I personally believe that the differences between the parties are more imagined than real 95% of the time. Most people are attracted to a party based on a very short list of issues: taxes, gay rights, abortion, environmental issues.
Based on what I've seen from you, AndyT, you are going to do fine in this life without regard to any political party or government policy. There's no way that I could sell you on any party, because that would be like exaggerating the differences between a Toyota and a Honda. While there are some differences, in the big picture you just pick the one that fits your arse. (A little Brit humor there).
My whole thing is, I want people to put away their hankies, get off their ass, take care of themselves, help others every chance they get, and quit their damn WHINING!
1. I love reading your stuff and often agree. May I submit to you a political question? It seems to me that the current system is a total failure no matter which party is in charge. They both have their good and bad points. My priority is liberty and neither party is delivering. How come the libertarians can't field viable candidates? It seems like their party supports all the ideals we stand for but everyone who runs on their ticket is a nut job. What's up with that?
I think the problem is that Libertarians in general are a cranky, curmudgeonly group with a terrifically diverse membership which shouts"fringe" to anyone who is serious about running for national office. By merely tempering their rhetoric and easing their positions toward themiddle, would-be Libertarian candidates can shoehorn themselves into one of the major parties. The candidatesI have seen here in Ilinois are people who burn wood to heat their homes, have beards, and think they don't have to pay income taxes. Fun and everything, but not going anywhere with regard to getting elected.
2. Related question: In my experience the dems offer appeasement, high taxes and a better economy for poor folks (me). The GOP offers war, lower taxes and a better econmoy for rich folks. Your thoughts? I base this on direct personal experience (i.e. ability to get and keep a 'good' job).Is that your experience? Explain. This is an honest question not an invitation to a flame war. :-)
You can split it out a million different ways, of course, but I think the Democrat party appeals to people who (a) need or want help in their lives, (b) want to help others, (c) believe that all people are (or should be) more or less equal and interchangeable, and (d) think we can settle all of our differences if we just sit down and talk about it. Basically, the Dems appeal to people who think government helps people in their lives.
Meanwhile, the GOP works for (a) people who think they don't need any help, (b) want to help people, if at all, without government involvement, (c) believe that people have innate differences which mean that not everyone is a "winner" in the game of life, and (d) think that there are relatively bright lines of "right" and "wrong" in many cases.
Neither of the major parties are going to help you or anyone else get or keep a "good" job. No government will help you do that. I believe that, other than creating government positions, Democrat principles will not get you a job (something about more taxes and more government being antithetical to business). Repubs believe that, when government is business friendly (low regulation, low taxes), private businesses create jobs.
The truth is, those who are young, poor, and "other-directed" swing toward the Dems; those who are older, established, wealthier, and self-interested swing toward the Repubs. Dems believe government can make a big difference in the lives of people; Repubs think government should get out of their way, and let everyone make their own life.
I personally believe that the differences between the parties are more imagined than real 95% of the time. Most people are attracted to a party based on a very short list of issues: taxes, gay rights, abortion, environmental issues.
Based on what I've seen from you, AndyT, you are going to do fine in this life without regard to any political party or government policy. There's no way that I could sell you on any party, because that would be like exaggerating the differences between a Toyota and a Honda. While there are some differences, in the big picture you just pick the one that fits your arse. (A little Brit humor there).
My whole thing is, I want people to put away their hankies, get off their ass, take care of themselves, help others every chance they get, and quit their damn WHINING!
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