How dare you eat a burger with fries, you should eat a carrot, just like a donkey being led into the trailer.
A whole bunch of years ago following a Christmas Eve service at my father's church the donkey used in the manger scene was to be loaded into the trailer but he flat out refused to budge. Several Firemen at the station across the street watched the spectacle for a bit then walked over to the trailer and offered their services. However, after several minutes of pushing and straining they found they had met their match. That Donkey was not moving. ( see this is why the dems have a donk for a mascot) Then an older neighbor lady came out of her house with a nice crisp carrot and gently led the stubborn beast into the trailer.
Ever since my DRIVE SMART days in the mountains I have argued that passing a law is never as effective as creating an incentive. All the nasty images of carnage has only managed to temporarily change teen driving behaviors then they go right back to doing reckless stuff. The same is true with adults. It takes years to ingrain a habit of doing something like buckling up your seat belt. I never did. However, when it became a clear condition of my employment with the Sheriff's Department even though Colorado had an exemption for cops, I willing did so. The incentive was my job. My natural inclination is to refuse for no other reason than because of my desire to decide for myself.
Just like the article below suggests, Americans are fiercely desirous of not being told what to do and I think when government intervenes too much there is a push back and perhaps if the push back is not directly against the law in question there may be secondary areas where that resistance manifests itself.
Tim
Wednesday March 7th, 2012 informationliberation.com
Coercive Nannies (Jeffrey Tucker)
The term "nanny state" actually dates to the 1960s, and that's not surprising. It was about this time that government ran out of ideas for improving society -- it didn't really improve us, but it claimed to -- and turned its attention to hectoring us about all the things we do to ourselves that it wants us not to do. That turns out to be just about everything.
The phrase "nanny state" captures the spirit of this push to regulate our consumption in all areas of life. But the phrase misses the mark when it comes to the methods themselves. Nannies are respectable market institutions. To be sure, if you hired a nanny with jackboots, Tasers and guns with real bullets who punished disobedience with jail and even death, that would be a closer approximation to what we are dealing with every day in the Land of the Free.
Of course, we would never hire a nanny like this. But then again, we never hired the government, either. It just presumes ownership over our bodies, property, businesses and lives and issues edicts about them every day. It is impossible to keep up with the outrages. Nothing is untouched by these people.
And it really does amount to a different style of government. If the government builds a dam, carves presidential profiles in a mountain, constructs a highway or sends some people to traipse around the moon, that affects you and me mostly in what we pay in taxes. These things don't directly intrude into other choices we make. We are forced to pay for idiotic government programs, but the pain in the neck mostly starts and stops with the bills we are forced to pay.
The shift to the nanny state was really a change because it invites government right into our kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms, backyards, garages, medicine cabinets, refrigerators and cubicles at work. Nothing is off-limits. What that means, in reality, is that there is no more freedom, since the idea of freedom is bound up with the right to make mistakes. We are not merely paying; we are obeying (or being told to obey) every minute of the day.
For all these reasons, I'm happy that someone bothered to attempt a nearly comprehensive chronicle. The wonderfully infuriating and deeply alarming book is Nanny State by David Harsanyi. And check out the subtitle: How Food Fascists, Teetotaling Do-Gooders, Priggish Moralists and Other Boneheaded Bureaucrats Are Turning America Into a Nation of Children.
"When exactly did we lose our right to be unhealthy, unsafe, immoral and politically incorrect?" the author asks. "What if I want to be fat, drunk, immoral or intolerably stupid?"
These are salient questions. No one asked us. It just happened bit by bit, over the course of half a century. Daily, this trend is ramping up. We think we live in a free country, and then we actually try to do something different, risky, wonderful, productive or whatever and suddenly discover that we are living in a legal minefield, all in the name of making us safer, better, more caring or whatever.
Everything is regulated allegedly for our own good, but there are gigantic problems. First, insofar as the dictates are actually good for us, these are often redundant with existing cultural and market trends (life insurance premiums have done more to cut smoking than all the government warnings). Second, they are universal regulations and allow no dissent and, therefore, violate human liberty (if someone wants to be bad, that's their business). Third, much of what they dictate isn't really good for us all (the attack on domestic water use has made our homes much dirtier).
As I read this book, I kept thinking about the irony of this whole trend:
Government says it is making us safe. Meanwhile, the government’s wars kill tens of thousands and put Americans in harm's way, and the domestic police state has never been so violent
Government says that it is forcing us not to harm ourselves, but government threatens us with harm constantly with its guns, fines, courts and 10 million micro-coercions, not to mention its relentless looting of our bank accounts and purchasing power
Government says it is making us polite and civil, but it unleashes an army of bureaucrats who are the very soul of rudeness, hence coarsening society in so many ways.
What's also crazy is the high moral tone of all these rules and regulations. We are led to believe that not wearing seat belts is not just unwise, but completely immoral and evil. So it is with smoking, eating fatty foods, drinking raw milk, drinking a glass of wine before driving and telling an off-color joke. A civil religion of sorts has replaced traditional religion, and hectoring political dictates have crowded out traditional moral rules and norms that were self-policing.
The nanny state goes far beyond obvious issues such as smoking and eating, as Harsanyi points out. In New York, it is illegal to feed pigeons, sit on a milk crate in public, put a plastic frame around your license plate, take up a subway seat with a grocery bag, ride a bike without your feet on the pedals and other such outrages. All over the country, we are seeing bans on advertising, restrictions on happy hours and ladies' nights and every manner of legal carrots and sticks used to force us to eat more carrots and look like sticks.
Nor is this restricted to the left or right alone. Everyone with power has an agenda on how to manipulate our lives and make us all better people, as he defines that phrase.
The book opens with a chapter called "Twinkie Fascists." I'm thrilled by the phrase because I'm personally fed up with these invasive, coercive, pietistic demands concerning what we eat. It's gone way too far. It is none of the government's business. And the more the government attempts to legislate diets, the less Americans care to examine the issue of diets and health themselves.
But there is something else even more remarkable about this movement. The more it pushes, the more people themselves push back. I was at an Applebee's restaurant the other night, fighting for a table. On my way to my spot, I passed by table after table at which people were eating gigantic portions of hamburgers, fries, greasy everything, followed with massive desserts washed down with larger-than-life beers and per-person portions that would have fed whole families a few decades ago. It's crazy stuff. Yet I celebrate it all as acts of private defiance.
In fact, such defiance is all around us. We will not be controlled. Take a trip to the local playground and you will see the results of what Harsanyi chronicles in his chapter on "The Playground Despots." Gone is anything metal. Seesaws, jungle gyms, sky-high swings are all replaced by plastic tubes and other things that are so safe that they are fun. This was not a market decision; it was imposed by government decree.
But observe how the kids use them. Instead of climbing through tubes or sitting contentedly in a sea of plastic balls, many kids balance themselves dangerously on top of the tubes on which they are not supposed to be, and hurling those plastic balls at each other in wicked war games. This is the way adolescent rebels deal with the nanny state: Just as the adults, they find their fun in acts of defiance.
Other acts of defiance are easy to document. Go to a local convenience store and ask the manager the main source of the store's profitability. The answer will come quickly: cigarettes and beer. If that is not a testament to the utter failure of the nanny state, I don't know what is. As for those stores in states where such sales are restricted, it's a wonder they make money at all.
Not enough people have taken notice of the shift in government policy that took place in the 1960s. Harsanyi seems to believe that it stems from a tendency of public officials to treat us like children and themselves as parents. There is certainly truth in that, but I'm inclined to suspect a more-malevolent motive here. The state is even more geared toward removing choice in our lives and forbidding what we want and imposing what it wants. In other words, it is spreading misery, mostly because that's all it has really ever been good at.
This is all a sign that public policy the world over has gone through an identity crisis of sorts. It is discovering the inner truth about itself -- that it really is and has always been at war with our well-being. The only difference now is that it is reaching further into our lives, wrecking them at every turn and daring to try to convince us that we should be grateful for this.
Harsanyi's book raises consciousness. That's the first step to overthrowing the central plan for our lives and thereby taking back our rights and liberties.
__
Jeffrey Tucker, publisher and executive editor of Laissez-Faire Books, is author of Bourbon for Breakfast: Living Outside the Statist Quo and It's a Jetsons World. You can write him directly here.
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Act Of valor
We went to see this movie this evening. By we I mean my family, Sam, Ty, Nan and I. Brett had to work but it was funny because it was the first time I have gone to a theater in so long I do not recall the last time but I know it was the first time we were all at the theater together since a Mother's day outing in Denver long ago.
It was such an event because of the nature of the film. My family takes the whole Patriotic and Military issue seriously and we all wanted to go and support this film based on all the reports and reviews.
That said we were riveted to our seats and the adrenalin was intense. I found myself clenched and tense and at times the emotions welled up as I watched the action take place on the screen. I've never been in situations like that but I have prepared for violent confrontation in my past and some of the scenes took me back. The real reason for the visceral reaction was we already knew the actors were not Hollywood fakes but they were the real deal. The Navy Seals that starred in the movie did not have the Hugh Jackman or Samuel L Jackson or John Travolta swagger nor did the bad guys look like the usual Hollywood suspects but instead they were a little more real because of that very fact. Especially the Seals. They came across as real people with families and lives not so different as our own but they have another aspect the rest of us do not...
they are warriors and damn good ones. Their acting may be weak but their convincing skills are superb.
The story is good if not formula. The bad guys are bad and they die...quickly. There is no James Bond vs Bloefeld debate about life which always gives the villain a second chance. No in this movie the good guys kill the bad guys with the expedient expertise we would hope our elite Seals have. It is so good to know they are on our side and bad guys everywhere need to be very afraid.
There is one particular scene where the Seals are being extracted and at precisely the moment they need it most there is support from the teams sent to pick them up that is nothing short of AWESOME. I had a chill of goose bumps watching the sheer unleashing of hellfire and damnation by the good guys upon the bad guys that made me want to jump up and cheer. I didn't but probably should have.
How good was the movie....when it ended the whole theater remained seated and silent. Finally we got up and began to exit but there was only hushed murmurs and whispers.
I urge you all to go see this movie for a myriad of reasons. 1) Support it because it is not Hollywood, prove the critics not just wrong but very wrong. 2) Make a show of support for our military by making this movie a statement of that love and respect we owe them. 3) Take your kids...I would say it is totally appropriate for any child old enough to understand and as parents you already know if they do. It is violent but not nearly as much so as most of the Hollywood crap. 4) Enjoy for a change plausible special effects not the Ironman or Transformer garbage. This is actually believable. 5) Go because we all need to be inspired and reminded of the good in our country, that there are those that stand between evil and us and despite the failures of Washington and an arrogant ruling class that derides and prefers to pretend we do not need a strong military, except when they do... these few are there for us.
Go to the theater to see this movie. Go so you can see others like yourselves in public supporting something better than the usual Hollywood nonsense. You can always watch it again later at home on DVD. I never go to the movies anymore but I'm glad I did tonight.
Tim Woodsome
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Hemorrhoids and Textbooks
My family has contributed a whopping $1000 to the economy this week, $750 in medical fees and another $250 for a college textbook. I’ll get back to that outrage in a bit.
First a bit of perspective, I think the whole country is pretty sensitive to the whole recession and down economy that America
I am a conservative capitalist and I oppose more government intervention in my life but at the same time I recognize that some of the institutions and services in this country are really screwed up. Even though I do not believe more taxes on the rich are any sort of solution to our problems I fear that a percieved widening gap between rich and poor is going to cause some real trouble if we can not address the anger that is simmering.
I do not resent Mitt Romney making a lot of money and I think other Republican candidates attacking him for being successful is harmful to the conservative argument but I cringe when I hear him make references to $350 K being, “not vey much”. Perhaps when you have $250 million it does seem minor but $350K is huge to most citizens, me included. I am really tired of the fact that in order to be able to run for president you have to be not just wealthy but super wealthy. I am tired of our politicians exempting themselves from the same conditions the rest of us must settle for.
In a Republic, we should have representation that essentially is like us. Congress is not royalty and yet they have benefits that far exceed anything the general population can ever expect. If they had to live with the same rules they pass for the citizens they would quickly reform their positions and undo the damage. Just the swamp of Obama Care
My wife and I are healthy. We eat carefully, exercise, take our vitamins and watch our weight. We minimize our sugar and fat intake, rarely eat out and maintain high hygiene standards for ourselves and home. We are very seldom sick and usually only see a doctor for regular checkups. When I was a cop I took a total of two sick days in 15 years, and one of those was for a sick child (and I was a government employee). So we are not really in the high medical consumer category. 5% of the US
Because we are not high maintenance we save on our health premiums and we have a rather high deductible which also means we pay a lot before the insurance kicks in. A couple of weeks ago my wife went in for the annual routine mammogram which is covered by our insurance and last week she got a call saying that they wanted her to come back in, there was an area of concern and they wanted another look. Well that news can sure let the air out of your sails. We really did not talk much about it but Tuesday she went back in for the second test and was presented with a bill prior to the test for $750. Wow! Are you kidding me? $750… out of pocket, right now, before you get the test. Hmmn, what to do… Well who is going to say No, I’ll pass, I’m sure it is not necessary?
Not in this day and age of hyper sensitivity to Breast Cancer and pink everything. Are you kidding? So Nan charged the $750 and had the re-screening and waited for the results while I was at the store waiting to hear form Nan . If positive then everything changes, the whole focus of what we’re doing changes doesn’t it. It turns out that it was nothing unusual, just a misreading of the first results, In fact, the pictures matched the ones from previous screenings, ooops. Our Bad. But hey, it’s worth it to be sure right? Except it is a whopping $750 that we, just like most Americans, other than a politician can hardly afford to waste. I mean why is a screening, a mammogram $750 and yet every single passenger and bag at the airport gets x-rayed for free? Why does our annual eye exams, where they use pretty sophisticated equipment these days, only cost the two of us $250. Why does the dentist not even come close to $750?
This is where the health and medical costs get so crazy. The screening is ok regardless of cost as long as someone else is paying for it. The first one was covered as routine prevention, the second is not but the facility charges for both. Why ? When I mis-diagnose or have a re-do or what in my field we refer to as a comeback, it is on me not the customer. My time and machinery is valuable too, but your motorcycle does not get the dreaded C word. In this case they misread the first exam. I understand that it could be very easy to do and hell, I want them to be sure. I do not want any mistakes, Nan ’s life is at stake. I mean are we not literally scared to death by all of the messages to get the tests to prevent and to diagnose?
This summer I went to see a doctor that specializes in the other end of the anatomy. I had a little family of democrats hanging around causing problems and the doctor performed a quick and simple procedure, ( that reinforced my conviction that I am definitely heterosexual ) and removed Nancy and Harry leaving me with a less troublesome Debbie and Chuck. He advised me to schedule a colorectoral exam to ensure there were no other contributing factors. I met with the nice lady whose job it is to schedule such nightmares and she explained that the nuclear fluid you drink today is now flavored and tastes much less awful. However, I did not get the second roto-rooter exam because I had within sufficiently recent time already passed that experience with a clean bill of health and as I was certain that my affliction was purely the cause of my life’s experience of carrying the burden of working for those that will not… besides I was unwilling to waste $400 just to have an examination of my sewer system when I will undoubtedly be required to under go it again in a few years. Anyway, I had just gone through TSA check ups twice in September. The difference was I was not under immediate stress nor concerned about the “C” word and was able to make that decision not to spend my own money. The situation was in my favor but I’m sure for many individuals it would not be and thus this cost of being sure, just in case would have to be born by either the patient or the insurance company.
The frustration with having to pay so much for this mammogram is just what it is, frustration. Is it necessary for it to cost so much? Much more than the cost of the machine and the skilled labor to operate it is involved. There is the liability insurance and the regulations and everything associated with it that makes this health care so expensive. I understand all of that. But will Obama Care make this better or worse? Will the costs be so high that an overseer watching the costs could say no to a re-screening? Would someone have the job of deciding no in this case and yes in that one? What if there had been a problem?
The evening after this eventful and expensive day, Nan and I went to Sam’s Club for some things. While there we saw a whole family of 7 definitely in the 5%. They were all obese, and gaining weight while I watched. They hit the snack counter and were downing giant mega cups of soft drinks and likely waiting for Pizza or something similar. Their cart was overflowing with food and few if any vegetables or fruit. It was depressing. They might be nice people but Hey ! They were a health care nightmare that are going to drive my costs up even more.
We are in a situation where we are going to have to make some very important choices. Our country is bankrupt and unless we bring back a sense of personal responsibility for our own condition and behavior we will see the government start doing it for us. I do not want an employee for a bureaucratic agency to decide weather or not I or my wife are allowed to have a needed procedure. I prefer to have that be my responsibility and to confer with my doctor(s) to discuss my needs. I also really resent watching another segment of our society suck up so much of our healthcare resources while taking no responsibility for their health condition thus driving up my costs penalizing me for being healthy.
My healthcare insurance needs to be more like my home and car insurance. No claims, lower premiums and once in a while when I really need them, no questions and come through the way it was agreed upon. For the other 5% ers, they need to have a different policy that I do not have to pay for.
If you are going to continue peeing in my pool, then you are going to have to leave and get your own pool. Good luck.
Now for that text book….Really? $250 for an economics text book? It better have some really new information and those solutions had better be a whole lot better than the ones presently being used by Congress and the Whitehouse. How did we as grownups, who went to college ourselves, ever allow our children to pay $250 for a stupid book? Folks we have been asleep, playing Rip Van Winkle while the institutions of higher learning have been in bed with the textbook companies stealing our savings. As we all know, the text book is pretty much obsolete. This is all about keeping a decaying industry on life support and about lining someone’s pockets for as long as possible till we remember the famous words of Nancy Reagan, “JUST SAY NO”. Every student in college today is computer literate and has a smart phone at hand and can likely access every tidbit of information needed in moments. Most of them hate books and prefer to do all their reading on a screen of some sort. The text book should be an E-book that is down loadable and something they could have with them all the time for any opportunity to read whatever it is they need to read. I mean in the age of the Kindle, what student would want to lug around a $250 stupid econ book. If I had had this technology at my disposal back in College I would have been a lot happier and likely have done a lot better.
Let me pose this simple question…. Do you still use a phone book? When was the last time you used the yellow pages? We don’t even advertise in them any more, they’re useless. How about if I was to offer you a fine set of Funk And Wagnels encyclopedias? Only $500 for the set and you get another volume every year for the next umpteen years to keep your set up to date. Not likely because they are out of date before they go to print.
I have several whole books right on my phone that I can either listen to while I travel or read at my leisure. I even have a copy of the US Constitution on there. I wish Obama had a copy…
Final thoughts…. It is said “You Can’t fix Stupid !”. That’s funny when Ron White says it but we had better start trying to or we may just find out we are the stupid ones.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Waiting For Superman
Waiting for Superman is a recent docu-movie that every American needs to watch.
Follow this link to learn more about the film: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1566648/
I would have been a good teacher. I always wanted to be a teacher but I decided against it after my second year in college after realizing that teaching was corrupted by the system. When I graduated from High School I was pretty sure I could do better than some of the ones I had most recently experienced and yet by the second year of taking education courses in college I realized the system was the problem and I knew I was not cut out to follow the rules they had laid out.
I had some really great teachers, Vivian Phelps and Alta Abrams were most influential when I was young and attended a one room school house in Kenya. Even more important in my education were the teachers at Delamare Boys secondary school in Nairobi. It was a British school with only boys... that means no girls. Uniforms and very strict enforcement of the rules. I loved it and I had a great education there. Teachers like Mr. French who taught History, Mrs. Sofat, a pretty Indian lady that always wore a sari taught English and sexy Miss. Pinto that taught art, (she was hot). The PE coach was Mr. Velzine who also was an Olympic coach for the Kenyan running teams. Why do you suppose I remember their names? It is because they were important in my success. Not a single one of them was easy but rather they made us work hard and they made us better. They were tough. And corporal punishment was administered freely.
In 1971 I attended Anderson High School in Anderson Indiana for my senior year. Except for auto shop it was basically a useless waste of my time. I was in an economics class one afternoon with Mr. Denny and he was sound asleep snoring loudly. Everyone in the class was goofing off and laughing but I was so mad I went to the office and asked to meet with the principal. I was shown to the office of Mr. Chadbourne, the VP and he explained "Tenure" to me. I was so disgusted I asked my dad about it later ( he was a former teacher) and he assured me that what I had been told was true but there was nothing anyone could do about it. Simply amazing, you could not be fired for being inept!
Yet I still wanted to teach and I still think I would have been good at it. I sort of had my chance while I was a Deputy Sheriff and was a DARE instructor and an SRO. In fact after five years of having been at Conifer High School and battling with the principal most of the time he finally told me that he really thought I should go into education.....he said I would be a good teacher. Yes!
However, I had learned during my ten years of working in the schools that the education system in America is broken. I was once asked to observe a calss by a very popular junior high teacher that had one class from hell. She simply wanted someone to know what she faced every day and be a witness in case one day one of her students killed her. She bravely faced that class every day but feared that someday it could go badly. I advised her afterwards that I was deeply concerned that the administration would allow that situation to exist at all. I discovered that she was far from alone in that kind of experience. Never would that enviornment have been tolerated at Delamare.
The very same system that protects a lazy bum of a teacher from being fired also allows a very good and dedicated teacher to be fearful of personal harm from her class. That's just plain stupid, but as Ron White says, "You Can't Fix Stupid ". If I was king for a day I would abolish the NEA and the Department of Education. I would privatize all schools and let them work to make a profit instead of being a sink hole of despair with no bottom.
Now let me be clear, I was priveleged to work with a whole bunch of really great teachers in the time I spent in the schools. Most of them were very qualified and very dedicated to their craft. I saw year after year of their students leave their classes better human beings than when they arrived. I also worked with a few tremendous principals that made their schools great learning environments. The thing is they performed wonderfully inspite of the system that resists change. Nearly every one of those miracle workers shared frustrations with me about what they thought could make education better. I never ran into a teacher that went into the profession so they could have the summer off and an easy job. But at the same time they never planned on being a social worker and a policeman and a parent to the students.
The movie "Waiting for Superman" is excellent. It is long over due and is the most important expose on the failure of our public school system in a long time. I urge you to watch it. The facts are simple and plain for all to see. This illustrates once again that our public schools are no longer doing the job. There are solutions but are we ever going to be ready to implement them. Charter schools and vouchers are a good start but the most important thing we could do would be to attach the funds to the student. Start making the schools compete for the students and the money. As good schools began to draw good families the rest would change the way they do business.
In this movie listen to Bill Gates..... he does know what he is talking about.
Tim
Follow this link to learn more about the film: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1566648/
I would have been a good teacher. I always wanted to be a teacher but I decided against it after my second year in college after realizing that teaching was corrupted by the system. When I graduated from High School I was pretty sure I could do better than some of the ones I had most recently experienced and yet by the second year of taking education courses in college I realized the system was the problem and I knew I was not cut out to follow the rules they had laid out.
I had some really great teachers, Vivian Phelps and Alta Abrams were most influential when I was young and attended a one room school house in Kenya. Even more important in my education were the teachers at Delamare Boys secondary school in Nairobi. It was a British school with only boys... that means no girls. Uniforms and very strict enforcement of the rules. I loved it and I had a great education there. Teachers like Mr. French who taught History, Mrs. Sofat, a pretty Indian lady that always wore a sari taught English and sexy Miss. Pinto that taught art, (she was hot). The PE coach was Mr. Velzine who also was an Olympic coach for the Kenyan running teams. Why do you suppose I remember their names? It is because they were important in my success. Not a single one of them was easy but rather they made us work hard and they made us better. They were tough. And corporal punishment was administered freely.
In 1971 I attended Anderson High School in Anderson Indiana for my senior year. Except for auto shop it was basically a useless waste of my time. I was in an economics class one afternoon with Mr. Denny and he was sound asleep snoring loudly. Everyone in the class was goofing off and laughing but I was so mad I went to the office and asked to meet with the principal. I was shown to the office of Mr. Chadbourne, the VP and he explained "Tenure" to me. I was so disgusted I asked my dad about it later ( he was a former teacher) and he assured me that what I had been told was true but there was nothing anyone could do about it. Simply amazing, you could not be fired for being inept!
Yet I still wanted to teach and I still think I would have been good at it. I sort of had my chance while I was a Deputy Sheriff and was a DARE instructor and an SRO. In fact after five years of having been at Conifer High School and battling with the principal most of the time he finally told me that he really thought I should go into education.....he said I would be a good teacher. Yes!
However, I had learned during my ten years of working in the schools that the education system in America is broken. I was once asked to observe a calss by a very popular junior high teacher that had one class from hell. She simply wanted someone to know what she faced every day and be a witness in case one day one of her students killed her. She bravely faced that class every day but feared that someday it could go badly. I advised her afterwards that I was deeply concerned that the administration would allow that situation to exist at all. I discovered that she was far from alone in that kind of experience. Never would that enviornment have been tolerated at Delamare.
The very same system that protects a lazy bum of a teacher from being fired also allows a very good and dedicated teacher to be fearful of personal harm from her class. That's just plain stupid, but as Ron White says, "You Can't Fix Stupid ". If I was king for a day I would abolish the NEA and the Department of Education. I would privatize all schools and let them work to make a profit instead of being a sink hole of despair with no bottom.
Now let me be clear, I was priveleged to work with a whole bunch of really great teachers in the time I spent in the schools. Most of them were very qualified and very dedicated to their craft. I saw year after year of their students leave their classes better human beings than when they arrived. I also worked with a few tremendous principals that made their schools great learning environments. The thing is they performed wonderfully inspite of the system that resists change. Nearly every one of those miracle workers shared frustrations with me about what they thought could make education better. I never ran into a teacher that went into the profession so they could have the summer off and an easy job. But at the same time they never planned on being a social worker and a policeman and a parent to the students.
The movie "Waiting for Superman" is excellent. It is long over due and is the most important expose on the failure of our public school system in a long time. I urge you to watch it. The facts are simple and plain for all to see. This illustrates once again that our public schools are no longer doing the job. There are solutions but are we ever going to be ready to implement them. Charter schools and vouchers are a good start but the most important thing we could do would be to attach the funds to the student. Start making the schools compete for the students and the money. As good schools began to draw good families the rest would change the way they do business.
In this movie listen to Bill Gates..... he does know what he is talking about.
Tim
Monday, March 7, 2011
Define Folly
Define folly: a costly and foolish undertaking; unwise investment or expenditure.
The following is an excellent piece that illustrates why destroying our own productivity in the interest of reducing global warming while the rest of the world races ahead is detrimental and futile.
The best chance for the earth is American ingenuity. Through our own progress and technology we have the best chance of overcoming the problems and finding the solutions. However, it will not happen if we destroy our ability to do so.
It is time to acknowledge that there is a major segment of our society that is convinced that the only thing great about America is that we are the problem. America is greedy, abusive and exploitative and therefore America must be punished and the way to achieve this is through restrictive limitations on our success.
What faster way to achieve this goal than through crippling our economy and our energy independence.
It is time to ask, "What Is The Real Agenda ?" Why are we not fast tracking development our own oil resources? The President is hinting that he may be willing to open our Strategic Oil Reserves. This is a 38 day supply at present consumption, that once used up... then what. This needs to be off limits, saved for the potential catastrophic event that would by nature have already eliminated the vast majority of daily oil
consumption. In that scenario we will undoubtedly be under martial law.
If the President does open the reserves, then you need to ask some very hard questions. If we know it only makes a very small difference for a very short time then why do it? Sabotage?
If much of the world, Russia, China, Venezuela, Mexico and obviously the Muslim Middle East all hate the USA but love our dollars as long as we continue to send them by the shipload, what will they do when we can't send the money? Can you imagine one of the above that would not love an opportunity to shut off our supply, to create an embargo just as we have done to each of them? Add to this that about half of this country is unwilling to fight to actually win a war in the middle of the worlds most volatile battle ground.
We are not fighting just a radical jihadist ideology in the Middle East but also a radical liberal elitist progressive element here in America. The environmentalists, the socialists and big labor entitlement mobs have hijacked the Democrat party with the complicity of the main stream media who refuses to tell the simple truth that our country is broke.
Our news and talk shows all like to have expert guests on to discuss the problems in the world and here at home. But they really want to get back to the more important issues like Charlie Sheen and other celebrity nonsense. What we need is for America to call in to the Dave Ramsey Show. Imagine what he would tell Uncle Sam. Why is it that everyone knows that he is right when he tells you to get out of debt, stop using the credit card and plan for the future but for some ridiculous reason none of that advice is relevant for our country.
I'm fed up with watching it all and feeling like there is nothing I can do. I'm increasingly angry that our elected politicians seem more and more inept listening to them bicker with each other. It is a lot like the bickering we criticize when we see images of Arab politicians in the Middle East. Just different suits. Watching the nonsense in Wisconsin, Indiana, New jersey and Ohio along with the issues in California and Arizona and along our Southern Border really concerns me. We are in desperate need of some real leadership.
If I could send a message to our president it would be this:
Mr. President, it is time for you to make two phone calls. No not to Glenn Beck's red phone.
The 1st call needs to be to Dr. Phill . You need to discuss your animosity toward this country that has placed it's trust in you and has elected you to lead in these perilous times. Get over the whole neo-colonialist anti imperialist white guilt issue. Your own father's former boss Jomo Kenyatta coined the phrase, "Forget the past." and "Harrambe" Swahili for lets pull together. You are OUR president.
2nd call needs to be to Dave Ramsey. You need to listen to some sound financial advice from someone who is not in politics and not from Chicago, but from Tennessee, a state that does not even have an income tax. But that is another debate...........
Mr President, imagine what you could accomplish if you embraced this amazing country called America?
Here for a quick look at our potential watch this short video of Americans at work...
It's an amazing country....I'm just sayin,
Tim Woodsome
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Obama's rage and why it matters.
I recently became aware of a new book about President Obama by Dinesh D'Souza titled The Roots Of Obama's Rage. Mr. D'Souza is Indian and understands perfectly the relationship of colonialism and independence because of the history of the British rule in India just as they did in Kenya. He makes the case that Obama is heavily influenced by the experiences of his father and grandfather at the hands of the British and carries the "Rage" against both America and England. He does not insinuate that he bears a grievance against the American people but does want to "fundamentally change" America. Some of the things he has done so far in his first two years have seemed confusing on their own such as the returning of the Bust Of Churhill, a gift to the White House from England, but in light of this book it makes sense. You may want to pick up a copy and check it out.
Immediately after the election in November 2008, I wrote the following piece asking what have we done by electing this unknown man to the Presidency? I think Dinesh D'Souza is asking the same question.
110508
So, what has just happened? Explain to me how this happened.
Imagine if back in 1948, just seven years after Pearl Harbor, America elected as president not Harry Truman but instead chose an American Japanese. What if in 1948 Americans elected someone of German or Russian decent? Would that have been possible? I know people today that still will not buy Japanese products because of the war with Japan. My Grandfather never forgave the Japanese. I have customers who ask specifically if the motorcycles we sell are made in America and not Japan because they still have strong feelings handed down to them from a parent or Grandparent.
Just seven years ago Arab Muslims perpetrated and carried out a viscous attack on our country killing 3000 American citizens and subsequently another 3000 plus have died fighting Muslim extremists in the war in Iraq and more in Afghanistan. Now we have elected to the highest office and to the most powerful leadership position in the world a man of African descent with an Arabic name with Muslim influences as a child.
Despite all of his potentially questionable relationships with his preacher, William Ayers and Chicago politics and being endorsed by someone like Louis Farrakhan there remain many questions. Clearly, without laying any blame whatsoever on Barak Obama for the actions of the terrorists on 911, the significance of our electing this man to the presidency on the rest of the world cannot be overlooked.
Barak Obama is no ordinary black American. He does not share the same "Black Experience" African Americans have other than deciding to say he does. Barak Obama's father was a Kenyan. I grew up in Kenya. I went to school with Kenyan's. Kenyan's do not have any of the Black American experience. They do not have any of our history of slavery and civil rights and prejudice common to black Americans. They have their own struggles to be sure but their frame of reference is not the same.
Barak Obama is an American African. By that I mean that he is an American citizen with an African father. That may not mean much to people in this country but in Africa, in Kenya, that is a big deal. They never ask who your mother was but who was your father. A man can have several wives but the children all have one father and his name is most important. So in Kenya, this morning Barak Obama being elected is a very big deal. In today's East African Standard, the daily newspaper, they are celebrating the election as if he is one of their own, which in a way he is. We may not understand for a while just how big of an issue this is but Africa now has a connection to US politics they have not enjoyed before.
The significance of the name Barak Hussein Obama in the Arab and Muslim world is huge. They must be praising Allah today for America has chosen the one man that puts an Arab name on the Presidency of the United States of America. I am in shock because I never dreamed this would be possible in just seven years from the worst terrorist attack in our history. To have given our enemies this kind of inspirational victory is astounding and dreadful while our solders are still in combat. Just go to the Al Jazeera web site to see their reactions.
As for what this election means here at home consider the many reasons that Barak Obama's promise of Change appealed to the voters. It is always exciting when promises of new and better and bigger things to come are proposed. Americans love to Supersize and to have the latest greatest everything. We are so used to hearing this we expect it to work whether it is a play-station game or an new clean and free source of energy.
But what kind of change will we get? Mostly I heard things that worry me. We can be assured that we will not be doing any drilling off our shores for oil nor will we be drilling in Alaska. There won't be any new nuclear power plants, no new refineries, and no new coal powered facilities. He said that he would make the cost of new coal powered plants so expensive that to build one would bankrupt the builder. He also said that the cost of energy will necessarily have to become expensive in order to get the people to cut down on consumption. They will have to learn to turn off the lights and turn down the thermostats and of course business will have to pass their increased costs on to their customers.
This is definitely going to be change but I think we will not find it to our liking. Mostly this will discourage our productivity and our zest and enthusiasm for doing things we like to do. This may be a tactic that the Liberal Left feels will bring about cleaner air or less reliance on fossil fuels and I know they desire this but a wind powered NASCAR race is likely to reduce attendance at the events. The same thing happens when you tax something into oblivion like ammunition. Who wants to go shooting if you can't afford the bullets. It happens when we make an activity so difficult, loaded down with regulations, fees and conditions that it is easier to do something else. Snowmobiling comes to mind where a sport and an industry suffer because of government interference. Try regulating the kids on a playground at recess. See if they continue to have fun and still want to play. Grown ups are not very different.
America works best with the least government intervention and our productivity is its highest when we do things ourselves. We are very good at self regulation and at solving problems when it is time to do so. Which I suppose means we should be able to solve this one too. This may require throwing a few of our own incumbents (read dead wood) out and replacing them with our own rock stars. Too many of the members of congress have become entrenched in the way of Washington and have forgotten what life in the rest of the country is really like. When was the last time any of them, including John McCain, held real jobs like Joe the Plumber or you and I. That is why we liked Sarah Palin so much, she was one of us and despite her flaws she was not one of them. Ask yourself, if you were a young person would you be inspired by any of the boring talking heads of either party in Washington? The young people that turned out for Barak Obama responded to his youth, his looks, his exuberant style and his techno savvy approach to the campaign. I assure you they were not voting for Joe Bidenhistime. In fact the best thing in our favor is that Barak Obama is restrained not by the Republicans but by the 'Ball and Chains' of his running mate a dinosaur of a politician, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reed, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Chris Dodd, Barney Franks, Chuck Schumer, and both of the Clintons.
We have but a little time to locate and prepare our next candidate. I'm suggesting this year. That person will need to be on top of his or her game. No Ron Pauls, no Ross Perot's and they better have the appeal and charisma necessary to compete in an American Idol atmosphere. We have to have a smarter battle plan this time, the message is simple. The conservative ideals of Ronald Reagan are still relevant, we just need to revive them and apply them again.
Tim Woodsome
110508
Immediately after the election in November 2008, I wrote the following piece asking what have we done by electing this unknown man to the Presidency? I think Dinesh D'Souza is asking the same question.
110508
So, what has just happened? Explain to me how this happened.
Imagine if back in 1948, just seven years after Pearl Harbor, America elected as president not Harry Truman but instead chose an American Japanese. What if in 1948 Americans elected someone of German or Russian decent? Would that have been possible? I know people today that still will not buy Japanese products because of the war with Japan. My Grandfather never forgave the Japanese. I have customers who ask specifically if the motorcycles we sell are made in America and not Japan because they still have strong feelings handed down to them from a parent or Grandparent.
Just seven years ago Arab Muslims perpetrated and carried out a viscous attack on our country killing 3000 American citizens and subsequently another 3000 plus have died fighting Muslim extremists in the war in Iraq and more in Afghanistan. Now we have elected to the highest office and to the most powerful leadership position in the world a man of African descent with an Arabic name with Muslim influences as a child.
Despite all of his potentially questionable relationships with his preacher, William Ayers and Chicago politics and being endorsed by someone like Louis Farrakhan there remain many questions. Clearly, without laying any blame whatsoever on Barak Obama for the actions of the terrorists on 911, the significance of our electing this man to the presidency on the rest of the world cannot be overlooked.
Barak Obama is no ordinary black American. He does not share the same "Black Experience" African Americans have other than deciding to say he does. Barak Obama's father was a Kenyan. I grew up in Kenya. I went to school with Kenyan's. Kenyan's do not have any of the Black American experience. They do not have any of our history of slavery and civil rights and prejudice common to black Americans. They have their own struggles to be sure but their frame of reference is not the same.
Barak Obama is an American African. By that I mean that he is an American citizen with an African father. That may not mean much to people in this country but in Africa, in Kenya, that is a big deal. They never ask who your mother was but who was your father. A man can have several wives but the children all have one father and his name is most important. So in Kenya, this morning Barak Obama being elected is a very big deal. In today's East African Standard, the daily newspaper, they are celebrating the election as if he is one of their own, which in a way he is. We may not understand for a while just how big of an issue this is but Africa now has a connection to US politics they have not enjoyed before.
The significance of the name Barak Hussein Obama in the Arab and Muslim world is huge. They must be praising Allah today for America has chosen the one man that puts an Arab name on the Presidency of the United States of America. I am in shock because I never dreamed this would be possible in just seven years from the worst terrorist attack in our history. To have given our enemies this kind of inspirational victory is astounding and dreadful while our solders are still in combat. Just go to the Al Jazeera web site to see their reactions.
As for what this election means here at home consider the many reasons that Barak Obama's promise of Change appealed to the voters. It is always exciting when promises of new and better and bigger things to come are proposed. Americans love to Supersize and to have the latest greatest everything. We are so used to hearing this we expect it to work whether it is a play-station game or an new clean and free source of energy.
But what kind of change will we get? Mostly I heard things that worry me. We can be assured that we will not be doing any drilling off our shores for oil nor will we be drilling in Alaska. There won't be any new nuclear power plants, no new refineries, and no new coal powered facilities. He said that he would make the cost of new coal powered plants so expensive that to build one would bankrupt the builder. He also said that the cost of energy will necessarily have to become expensive in order to get the people to cut down on consumption. They will have to learn to turn off the lights and turn down the thermostats and of course business will have to pass their increased costs on to their customers.
This is definitely going to be change but I think we will not find it to our liking. Mostly this will discourage our productivity and our zest and enthusiasm for doing things we like to do. This may be a tactic that the Liberal Left feels will bring about cleaner air or less reliance on fossil fuels and I know they desire this but a wind powered NASCAR race is likely to reduce attendance at the events. The same thing happens when you tax something into oblivion like ammunition. Who wants to go shooting if you can't afford the bullets. It happens when we make an activity so difficult, loaded down with regulations, fees and conditions that it is easier to do something else. Snowmobiling comes to mind where a sport and an industry suffer because of government interference. Try regulating the kids on a playground at recess. See if they continue to have fun and still want to play. Grown ups are not very different.
America works best with the least government intervention and our productivity is its highest when we do things ourselves. We are very good at self regulation and at solving problems when it is time to do so. Which I suppose means we should be able to solve this one too. This may require throwing a few of our own incumbents (read dead wood) out and replacing them with our own rock stars. Too many of the members of congress have become entrenched in the way of Washington and have forgotten what life in the rest of the country is really like. When was the last time any of them, including John McCain, held real jobs like Joe the Plumber or you and I. That is why we liked Sarah Palin so much, she was one of us and despite her flaws she was not one of them. Ask yourself, if you were a young person would you be inspired by any of the boring talking heads of either party in Washington? The young people that turned out for Barak Obama responded to his youth, his looks, his exuberant style and his techno savvy approach to the campaign. I assure you they were not voting for Joe Bidenhistime. In fact the best thing in our favor is that Barak Obama is restrained not by the Republicans but by the 'Ball and Chains' of his running mate a dinosaur of a politician, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reed, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Chris Dodd, Barney Franks, Chuck Schumer, and both of the Clintons.
We have but a little time to locate and prepare our next candidate. I'm suggesting this year. That person will need to be on top of his or her game. No Ron Pauls, no Ross Perot's and they better have the appeal and charisma necessary to compete in an American Idol atmosphere. We have to have a smarter battle plan this time, the message is simple. The conservative ideals of Ronald Reagan are still relevant, we just need to revive them and apply them again.
Tim Woodsome
110508
Monday, July 19, 2010
Art or Vandalism
http://www.autoblog.com/2010/07/15/renowned-street-artist-banksy-tags-detroit-ignites-controversy/?icid=mainhtmlws-main-ndl8link3http%3A%2F%2Fwww.autoblog.com%2F2010%2F07%2F15%2Frenowned-street-artist-banksy-tags-detroit-ignites-controversy%2F
Take a quick look at this news story. Then ask the simple question WHY? Only in America and in a goofy city like Detroit and in this present age of idiocy could this even be a question.
The place is basically a disaster cleanup site and needs to be viewed so. The graffiti is just that, Just because a so called celebrity did it neither makes it valuable nor legitimate. Suppose the building was say City Hall, it would be outright vandalism and he would be charged. It isn't even very good, almost childish. I'll get back to this point in a moment.
As for what to do about the site...... the "state" has no difficulty imposing Eminent Domain when it suits them and they could do so now more easily than usual but Detroit is broke and wants someone else to foot the bill. Else why would they want to figure out who owns the property?
The federal government under President Obama wants desperately to spend our money. They ramble on about shovel ready projects. They love giving work to Union workers. They hate cars and the auto industry. They love the whole save the earth and green theology. They like seizing other peoples property and claiming it for themselves, I mean for "the people".
So here is the solution. The feds should seize the nuisance Packard property under the law of eminent domain and spend lots of stimulus money to hire local laid off union workers to go to work on this obvious shovel ready project turning it into a green earth friendly park that incorporates some parts of the historic buildings that are structurally sound and interesting and they could even place this piece of graffiti in a central location so it could be a shrine to aspiring taggers. The park could be a dual monument that is both a tribute to the once mighty auto industry and a testament to the cost of entitlements. They could have a museum that reflected the history of what once may have been the most important city in the world.
Personally, I don't care. I won't be visiting Detroit any time soon if ever. As for Bansky's little drawing? I'm not impressed and his tag line is nonsense since he does not remember when "all this was trees", I doubt there are any that do.
Lastly, I said I would get back to the point of Bansky and his simple art. While it might be interesting it really is not all that good. If you care to see some good art work on buildings, check out the link below:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1187338/Off-wall-The-astonishing-3D-murals-painted-sides-buildings-trompe-loeil-artist.html
I'm Just sayin....
Tim
Take a quick look at this news story. Then ask the simple question WHY? Only in America and in a goofy city like Detroit and in this present age of idiocy could this even be a question.
The place is basically a disaster cleanup site and needs to be viewed so. The graffiti is just that, Just because a so called celebrity did it neither makes it valuable nor legitimate. Suppose the building was say City Hall, it would be outright vandalism and he would be charged. It isn't even very good, almost childish. I'll get back to this point in a moment.
As for what to do about the site...... the "state" has no difficulty imposing Eminent Domain when it suits them and they could do so now more easily than usual but Detroit is broke and wants someone else to foot the bill. Else why would they want to figure out who owns the property?
The federal government under President Obama wants desperately to spend our money. They ramble on about shovel ready projects. They love giving work to Union workers. They hate cars and the auto industry. They love the whole save the earth and green theology. They like seizing other peoples property and claiming it for themselves, I mean for "the people".
So here is the solution. The feds should seize the nuisance Packard property under the law of eminent domain and spend lots of stimulus money to hire local laid off union workers to go to work on this obvious shovel ready project turning it into a green earth friendly park that incorporates some parts of the historic buildings that are structurally sound and interesting and they could even place this piece of graffiti in a central location so it could be a shrine to aspiring taggers. The park could be a dual monument that is both a tribute to the once mighty auto industry and a testament to the cost of entitlements. They could have a museum that reflected the history of what once may have been the most important city in the world.
Personally, I don't care. I won't be visiting Detroit any time soon if ever. As for Bansky's little drawing? I'm not impressed and his tag line is nonsense since he does not remember when "all this was trees", I doubt there are any that do.
Lastly, I said I would get back to the point of Bansky and his simple art. While it might be interesting it really is not all that good. If you care to see some good art work on buildings, check out the link below:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1187338/Off-wall-The-astonishing-3D-murals-painted-sides-buildings-trompe-loeil-artist.html
I'm Just sayin....
Tim
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