With mid-term elections over maybe we can now have an honest and open discussion on comprehensive immigration reform.
People in both political parties want it but the extremists keep it from happening. Some Republicans want it because their business constituents need the cheap labor that comes from south of the border and some Democrats want it because they anticipate a new flock of voters.
The left is so eager for that new block of voters that they want immediate amnesty for all illegals now living here. The right objects to handing the Democrats a new block of voters, especially by rewarding people who are breaking the law by coming here illegally, plus they claim the illegals are taking jobs away from Americans.
To be sure, constructive reform will create new voters, they can be wooed by both parties. Yes, immigrants come here to work, but they are not predominantly taking jobs that Americans are willing to do and do well. This will only be true when Americans can no longer live better off government programs than off the jobs being done by immigrant labor.
The key to this discussion lies in the word “comprehensive,” which does not mean another 2,000 page bill with the rejoinder that it has to be passed so we will know what is in it, as we saw in the health and financial reform bills recently passed by congress.
Central to comprehensive reform is to untangle the bureaucratic red tape necessary so that immigrants from south of our border can get legal status in weeks rather than years. This is key and without it reform is not comprehensive and not much will change. A Sun column by Gary Latanich on Oct. 1, explains how the system now works and how unreasonable and unfair it is. I knew it was a bureaucratic mountain, but I had no idea it was a Mount McKinley rather than a Mount Magazine. His column is worth the read. Suffice it to say it is no wonder so many come here illegally.
The fact is, we need the immigrants from south of the border and they need us. The real producers in our society have been shrinking and we now have more than half of our people receiving benefits from the public treasury through one program or entitlement or another. As long as the benefits are there, our people are not going to do what the illegals will do. It reminds me of Kuwait after President George H. Bush ran Saddam Hussein’s army out. The locals were so use to living off the oil riches that they couldn’t soil their own hands to rebuild their country. They had to bring in foreigner labor to do it.
We also need more new blood than we are producing to support our Ponzi scheme called Social Security. With the Baby Boomers retiring, we are not going to have enough people paying into this scheme to make it work and politicians are cowards when it comes to significantly reforming it. We need working immigrants to support this program. We also need to capture any taxes lost by forcing them to operate clandestinely in a cash economy.
In spite of what the right wing nuts say, we need immigrant labor. I talk to farmers and contractors occasionally who hire Mexican labor and they say there is no comparison to the responsible, hard work they get from them than from resident citizens when they can find any who will work.
We also benefit from what our neighbors to the south add culturally in terms of music, art, literature, religion and celebration.
Just as importantly, they need us. The Bible counsels us not to withhold good when it is in our power to do good. People south of our border come here because they have families to feed and they can’t support them on their local economies.
Most of us would not move to a foreign country where we would be criminals just for being there, with no guarantees, unless we had to. Neither would those who immigrate here from Mexico and South America. Many of our own people are frustrated with our current difficult times, but we know things will get better. Imagine what it would be like if there were no hope of things ever getting better.
Amnesty, of course, is a big part of this discussion. Let me offer a compromise: Since the Democrats want more voters and the Republicans always fear voter fraud, Republicans could agree to quit blocking amnesty and the Democrats could agree to quit blocking a requirement for photo ID at polling places.
Whatever the various issues involved, my Libertarian instincts tell me people should be able to cross borders with as little restriction as possible and to make that happen requires comprehensive reform.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Williams Firing -- commentary
I can’t let the firing of Juan Williams, by Vivian Schiller, CEO of National Public Radio, pass without comment. First because I am a fan of Williams, and secondly because it affirms an opinion I have held since my college days in the sixties. Juan Williams and Leonard Pitts are two black journalists I have listened to and read over the years as they have both broadened my understanding of black issues. These two men bring rational arguments to bear on current issues and are more likely to change my opinions than most.
So, when someone I admire is publically treated unfairly, I feel compelled to comment, and it would appear Williams was treated unfairly. The first unfairness was for Schiller to fire him with a phone call without giving him opportunity to discuss the matter face to face. The second unfairness was to dismiss him for doing what other NPR journalists do regularly, apparently with impunity. The third unfairness was to base the dismissal on a statement that was truly taken out of context. I know public figures often declare their statements were taken out of context, whether the context matters or not. There are times, though, when a statement is taken out of context to create a pretext for some nefarious agenda, and this was one of them.
In her first statement about the issue, Schiller said the action was taken because Williams was hired as a news analyst, not an opinion columnist, and he was not supposed to express opinions whether on NPR or Fox News where he also provided commentary. I wonder how one does news analysis without expressing opinions since analysis is interpretation and interpretation is usually opinion based. I often read news analysis by the Associated Press in The Sun that is loaded with opinion. It is the nature of analysis.
News analysts from across the political spectrum immediately began to opine about this story, concluding that people with an axe to grind against Fox News or maybe the Council on American Islamic Relations were behind it. Few seemed to buy Schiller’s reason and she had to come out and deny all the other speculations, but her spin was not near as convincing as Williams who called it “evidence of one party rule and one sided thinking at NPR.”
My second reason for not letting this incident pass unnoticed is that it confirms an observation I made as a college student in the 60’s that there is nothing narrower than a broad minded liberal. At the time I came to this awareness I was a student at Alaska Methodist University, a liberal, non-sectarian school. I was probably the only vocal conservative student on the small campus. This awareness began when the dean of students banned Campus Crusade for Christ from the campus after some students complained about being proselytized, and it has often been reaffirmed since.
It seemed to me a liberal school should welcome opposing points of view and that college students need to learn to deal with propagandist on their own. Being editor of the school paper and a student councilman, I took the issue up with the college president and got the order reversed.
I was not surprised 45 years later to read Williams comment, “I’ve always thought the right wing was the ones who were inflexible and intolerant. Now I’m coming to realize that orthodoxy at NPR, if it’s representing the left, is just unbelievable.” Well, Juan, it is believable.
I know I am painting with too broad a brush as liberalism constitutes a spectrum. Honest liberals, please forgive me. The far left of that spectrum prefers the label progressive and their movement has been around long enough to have produced its own fundamentalist and its own orthodoxy.
I grew up in Christian fundamentalist churches and we were often accused of being narrow minded as opposed to the more virtuous broad minded liberal. That was fine with us and almost a badge of honor. We were doctrinaire absolutists, and I heard many sermons on the New Testament metaphor about the broad road that leads to destruction and the narrow road that leads to life everlasting. This could be applied to either doctrinal or moral issues. Listening to other viewpoints would only lead to heresy.
The liberals, however, pretended to be different. They claimed they were open to giving all points of view a hearing and encouraged people to make up their own minds. But, the doctrinaire liberal pretends to be broadminded while being just as narrow as any other doctrinaire group whether Christian, Muslim, or Marxist. What sets a liberal like Williams or Pitts apart is that you get the feeling they are rational, they listen, and if it makes sense, they will actually change their position.
So, when someone I admire is publically treated unfairly, I feel compelled to comment, and it would appear Williams was treated unfairly. The first unfairness was for Schiller to fire him with a phone call without giving him opportunity to discuss the matter face to face. The second unfairness was to dismiss him for doing what other NPR journalists do regularly, apparently with impunity. The third unfairness was to base the dismissal on a statement that was truly taken out of context. I know public figures often declare their statements were taken out of context, whether the context matters or not. There are times, though, when a statement is taken out of context to create a pretext for some nefarious agenda, and this was one of them.
In her first statement about the issue, Schiller said the action was taken because Williams was hired as a news analyst, not an opinion columnist, and he was not supposed to express opinions whether on NPR or Fox News where he also provided commentary. I wonder how one does news analysis without expressing opinions since analysis is interpretation and interpretation is usually opinion based. I often read news analysis by the Associated Press in The Sun that is loaded with opinion. It is the nature of analysis.
News analysts from across the political spectrum immediately began to opine about this story, concluding that people with an axe to grind against Fox News or maybe the Council on American Islamic Relations were behind it. Few seemed to buy Schiller’s reason and she had to come out and deny all the other speculations, but her spin was not near as convincing as Williams who called it “evidence of one party rule and one sided thinking at NPR.”
My second reason for not letting this incident pass unnoticed is that it confirms an observation I made as a college student in the 60’s that there is nothing narrower than a broad minded liberal. At the time I came to this awareness I was a student at Alaska Methodist University, a liberal, non-sectarian school. I was probably the only vocal conservative student on the small campus. This awareness began when the dean of students banned Campus Crusade for Christ from the campus after some students complained about being proselytized, and it has often been reaffirmed since.
It seemed to me a liberal school should welcome opposing points of view and that college students need to learn to deal with propagandist on their own. Being editor of the school paper and a student councilman, I took the issue up with the college president and got the order reversed.
I was not surprised 45 years later to read Williams comment, “I’ve always thought the right wing was the ones who were inflexible and intolerant. Now I’m coming to realize that orthodoxy at NPR, if it’s representing the left, is just unbelievable.” Well, Juan, it is believable.
I know I am painting with too broad a brush as liberalism constitutes a spectrum. Honest liberals, please forgive me. The far left of that spectrum prefers the label progressive and their movement has been around long enough to have produced its own fundamentalist and its own orthodoxy.
I grew up in Christian fundamentalist churches and we were often accused of being narrow minded as opposed to the more virtuous broad minded liberal. That was fine with us and almost a badge of honor. We were doctrinaire absolutists, and I heard many sermons on the New Testament metaphor about the broad road that leads to destruction and the narrow road that leads to life everlasting. This could be applied to either doctrinal or moral issues. Listening to other viewpoints would only lead to heresy.
The liberals, however, pretended to be different. They claimed they were open to giving all points of view a hearing and encouraged people to make up their own minds. But, the doctrinaire liberal pretends to be broadminded while being just as narrow as any other doctrinaire group whether Christian, Muslim, or Marxist. What sets a liberal like Williams or Pitts apart is that you get the feeling they are rational, they listen, and if it makes sense, they will actually change their position.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Positive Thinking -- commentary
I was a seventh grader searching the school library shelves. Television had not yet come to our neighborhood, and video games were so far into the future they hadn’t even made it into science fiction yet. Reading was still a pretty exciting thing to do.
My search that day led me to a volume that would set my course psychologically: Norman Vincent Peale’s “Power of Positive thinking.” The book is a classic for positive thinkers. I wish I could say I haven’t had a negative thought since reading the book. I can say positive thinking has served me much better over the years than the negative thinking of a fundamentalist preacher I once heard say, “Peale is appalling and the Apostle Paul is appealing.” This is clever but so telling of his fondness of negativity.
Well, Peale got old and passed from the scene. The next prophet of positive preaching was the Rev. Robert Schuller of the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California. His book “Moving Ahead With Possibility Thinking” earned him a place of honor among positive thinkers. It reaffirmed in my mind the attitudes I had acquired from Peale. And yes, I did one time attend a Sunday service in the Crystal Cathedral. However, Schuller too is aging and probably spends most of his time now singing “Nearer My God To Thee,” or “Lord I’m Coming Home.”
The positive thinking torch has now been picked up by a young upstart, Joel Osteen, of Lakewood Church, Houston, Texas. At age 68, I no longer need my positive attitude reaffirmed. I have a lifetime of experience to affirm it for me, so I haven’t read anything by Osteen, though I do have a recent experience to share with you.
My wife, Pearl, and I drove to Houston recently to visit our son, his wife, and the grandkids. Greg wanted to take us to Lakewood Church. Being a positive thinker, I was positive I wanted to go, so we loaded the family in the car and arrived at the church as thousands of others were doing the same.
The church building began life as a stadium for an NBA team and I’m guessing it seats 20 or 30 thousand. The entryways and main floor were crowded, but we found our way to seats in the second level. As I looked up in the balconies, there were people seated here and there, but by the time the meeting started, those seats too were full, all the way up to the top of the nose bleed sections.
I began to look closely at the people and one would be hard pressed to find a more diverse gathering. There were Asians, Hispanics, Blacks and Whites. Not just a token smattering of each, but hundreds. I have watched segments of services of this church on television, but my capacity for televangelism is pretty limited, so I have never viewed an entire Lakewood Church service. I didn’t know what to expect, but one could feel drama and excitement in the air.
As Osteen ascended the platform, a rhythmic clapping started up, rising to a crescendo until he spoke. I assumed this was their traditional way of launching the service. Osteen opened the meeting and turned it over to his music man/worship leader and praise band. I believe the music man was black. There was about 30 minutes of singing of contemporary Christian music with an occasional oldie thrown in for people like myself. It was what one of my traditionalist friends calls “rock and roll church.” And the place did rock.
Both Peale and Schuller were ministers of the staid Reformed Church of America, and their services reflected the solemn traditions of their upbringing. Osteen however, follows in the footsteps of his father, a Southern Baptist preacher turned Charismatic, and the church exudes charisma. Osteen assumed leadership of the church when his father died, even though he had only preached one sermon in his life at the time.
People pretty much did what they were comfortable with, whatever seemed like appropriate worship to them: stand, sit, shout, clap, praise, wave hands. A stadium seemed like an appropriate venue, though I assume the motivations were different than when basketball fans did the same.
Osteen did not preach that morning, but rather the honors went to Bishop T.D. Jakes, a black preacher of a Pentecostal, mega-church in Dallas. I have seen segments of Jake’s preaching on television. He is a classic Pentecostal, black preacher. Like Osteen, though, he too does not dwell on negative, guilt rising preaching. He laces his sermons with lots of common sense and practical living And, this particular morning, he was in fine form.
With that visit to Lakewood Church, I can now add one more positive experience to a long list of such experiences.
My search that day led me to a volume that would set my course psychologically: Norman Vincent Peale’s “Power of Positive thinking.” The book is a classic for positive thinkers. I wish I could say I haven’t had a negative thought since reading the book. I can say positive thinking has served me much better over the years than the negative thinking of a fundamentalist preacher I once heard say, “Peale is appalling and the Apostle Paul is appealing.” This is clever but so telling of his fondness of negativity.
Well, Peale got old and passed from the scene. The next prophet of positive preaching was the Rev. Robert Schuller of the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California. His book “Moving Ahead With Possibility Thinking” earned him a place of honor among positive thinkers. It reaffirmed in my mind the attitudes I had acquired from Peale. And yes, I did one time attend a Sunday service in the Crystal Cathedral. However, Schuller too is aging and probably spends most of his time now singing “Nearer My God To Thee,” or “Lord I’m Coming Home.”
The positive thinking torch has now been picked up by a young upstart, Joel Osteen, of Lakewood Church, Houston, Texas. At age 68, I no longer need my positive attitude reaffirmed. I have a lifetime of experience to affirm it for me, so I haven’t read anything by Osteen, though I do have a recent experience to share with you.
My wife, Pearl, and I drove to Houston recently to visit our son, his wife, and the grandkids. Greg wanted to take us to Lakewood Church. Being a positive thinker, I was positive I wanted to go, so we loaded the family in the car and arrived at the church as thousands of others were doing the same.
The church building began life as a stadium for an NBA team and I’m guessing it seats 20 or 30 thousand. The entryways and main floor were crowded, but we found our way to seats in the second level. As I looked up in the balconies, there were people seated here and there, but by the time the meeting started, those seats too were full, all the way up to the top of the nose bleed sections.
I began to look closely at the people and one would be hard pressed to find a more diverse gathering. There were Asians, Hispanics, Blacks and Whites. Not just a token smattering of each, but hundreds. I have watched segments of services of this church on television, but my capacity for televangelism is pretty limited, so I have never viewed an entire Lakewood Church service. I didn’t know what to expect, but one could feel drama and excitement in the air.
As Osteen ascended the platform, a rhythmic clapping started up, rising to a crescendo until he spoke. I assumed this was their traditional way of launching the service. Osteen opened the meeting and turned it over to his music man/worship leader and praise band. I believe the music man was black. There was about 30 minutes of singing of contemporary Christian music with an occasional oldie thrown in for people like myself. It was what one of my traditionalist friends calls “rock and roll church.” And the place did rock.
Both Peale and Schuller were ministers of the staid Reformed Church of America, and their services reflected the solemn traditions of their upbringing. Osteen however, follows in the footsteps of his father, a Southern Baptist preacher turned Charismatic, and the church exudes charisma. Osteen assumed leadership of the church when his father died, even though he had only preached one sermon in his life at the time.
People pretty much did what they were comfortable with, whatever seemed like appropriate worship to them: stand, sit, shout, clap, praise, wave hands. A stadium seemed like an appropriate venue, though I assume the motivations were different than when basketball fans did the same.
Osteen did not preach that morning, but rather the honors went to Bishop T.D. Jakes, a black preacher of a Pentecostal, mega-church in Dallas. I have seen segments of Jake’s preaching on television. He is a classic Pentecostal, black preacher. Like Osteen, though, he too does not dwell on negative, guilt rising preaching. He laces his sermons with lots of common sense and practical living And, this particular morning, he was in fine form.
With that visit to Lakewood Church, I can now add one more positive experience to a long list of such experiences.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Bicycling -- commentary
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood made news last March when he announced a policy change which is supposed to bring "the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of nonmotorized." The new policy states, "Walking and biking should not be an afterthought in roadway design."
Bicycling may not be an afterthought in LaHood’s mind, but it will be forever in the minds of the public. However, I like the idea so I’ll help his fantasy along. After all, history has been known to take some weird twists.
Besides, bicycling is hard to beat for exercise and recreation; it is great for both the young and the old. If you haven’t been on a bicycle for years, you should try it again. The modern bicycle is not your father's bike. Index shifting, hydraulic suspension, lighter metals, quick release hubs, quick adjust seats, ergonomically designed seats and better braking make the modern bicycle a joy to ride. My 69-year-old brother bragged that he had recently ridden a 104 mile day on his bicycle. I don't compete with him for distance, but I do ride 12 miles twice a week as part of my workout regimen.
If you are new to bicycling, I would advise you to start at a bicycle store rather than a big box store. To begin with, how you are going to use the bike is much more important than price. Do you need a mountain bike, a road bike, a hybrid, or maybe a step through? A knowledgeable sales person can help you make those choices.
If all you intend to do is pedal around the neighborhood or the RV park where you are camped for the winter, then you can forget about gears and skinny tires. If all your riding is going to be on pavement and often involves a dozen miles or more, you'd better go for gears and skinny tires.
If you are going to get off the pavement some of the time, go with a mountain bike. If you need the skinny tires for pavement, but don't like those handle bars that stretch you out like a racer, then you need a hybrid which is a cross between a road and a mountain bike with flat handlebars, allowing you to ride in an upright position.
If you are going to do a lot of uphill downhill get one with lots of gears. Gears are a wonderful invention and most bicycles now have 21 of them. Don’t let that scare you; you never use them all. Just develop a pattern. Here’s mine: There are three sprockets on the pedal crank. Think of these as high range, medium range, and low range. Then there are seven sprockets on the rear wheel. These are gears one through seven. Seven is the high gear and one is the low gear.
When the riding is easy, you ride in high range, gear seven. As it becomes more difficult, drop down to gear six, then five.
Your next shift will be to mid-range. While in mid-range, as the riding becomes more difficult, you drop down to gear four, then three.
Your next shift will be low range, and as riding becomes even more difficult, you drop down to gear two and finally gear one. By this time you are going up a pretty steep hill. If you find yourself going slower than a walk, get off and push. Around Jonesboro, I rarely find myself in low range, gear one.
As the riding gets easier, you just reverse the process. In the higher gears, you can easily move across flat ground at 15 to 20 mph, and in lower gears, the hills are easy.
In Arkansas, you can comfortably ride several months out of the year, making a bicycle commute to work possible. Up to fifteen miles would be a reasonable commute. A few years ago, maybe 20, I did a long term teacher substitute in Big Flat and lived in Mountain View. I would park by car at Fifty Six and ride my bicycle the remaining twelve uphill, downhill Ozark miles to the school.
When I taught in Grubbs, I would park my car at Little Texas Missionary Church and ride the remaining eleven flat miles to the school. The beauty of it was that since I rode the bicycle to school, I had to ride it back and this gave me two good workouts a day.
If you want to commute by bicycle, you can buy a garment bag and brief case to attach to your carrier so you can freshen up when you get to work and have your files, etc. with you. It works, it’s good for you, and it will make LaHood happy, and someday, this fantasy might really come true.
Bicycling may not be an afterthought in LaHood’s mind, but it will be forever in the minds of the public. However, I like the idea so I’ll help his fantasy along. After all, history has been known to take some weird twists.
Besides, bicycling is hard to beat for exercise and recreation; it is great for both the young and the old. If you haven’t been on a bicycle for years, you should try it again. The modern bicycle is not your father's bike. Index shifting, hydraulic suspension, lighter metals, quick release hubs, quick adjust seats, ergonomically designed seats and better braking make the modern bicycle a joy to ride. My 69-year-old brother bragged that he had recently ridden a 104 mile day on his bicycle. I don't compete with him for distance, but I do ride 12 miles twice a week as part of my workout regimen.
If you are new to bicycling, I would advise you to start at a bicycle store rather than a big box store. To begin with, how you are going to use the bike is much more important than price. Do you need a mountain bike, a road bike, a hybrid, or maybe a step through? A knowledgeable sales person can help you make those choices.
If all you intend to do is pedal around the neighborhood or the RV park where you are camped for the winter, then you can forget about gears and skinny tires. If all your riding is going to be on pavement and often involves a dozen miles or more, you'd better go for gears and skinny tires.
If you are going to get off the pavement some of the time, go with a mountain bike. If you need the skinny tires for pavement, but don't like those handle bars that stretch you out like a racer, then you need a hybrid which is a cross between a road and a mountain bike with flat handlebars, allowing you to ride in an upright position.
If you are going to do a lot of uphill downhill get one with lots of gears. Gears are a wonderful invention and most bicycles now have 21 of them. Don’t let that scare you; you never use them all. Just develop a pattern. Here’s mine: There are three sprockets on the pedal crank. Think of these as high range, medium range, and low range. Then there are seven sprockets on the rear wheel. These are gears one through seven. Seven is the high gear and one is the low gear.
When the riding is easy, you ride in high range, gear seven. As it becomes more difficult, drop down to gear six, then five.
Your next shift will be to mid-range. While in mid-range, as the riding becomes more difficult, you drop down to gear four, then three.
Your next shift will be low range, and as riding becomes even more difficult, you drop down to gear two and finally gear one. By this time you are going up a pretty steep hill. If you find yourself going slower than a walk, get off and push. Around Jonesboro, I rarely find myself in low range, gear one.
As the riding gets easier, you just reverse the process. In the higher gears, you can easily move across flat ground at 15 to 20 mph, and in lower gears, the hills are easy.
In Arkansas, you can comfortably ride several months out of the year, making a bicycle commute to work possible. Up to fifteen miles would be a reasonable commute. A few years ago, maybe 20, I did a long term teacher substitute in Big Flat and lived in Mountain View. I would park by car at Fifty Six and ride my bicycle the remaining twelve uphill, downhill Ozark miles to the school.
When I taught in Grubbs, I would park my car at Little Texas Missionary Church and ride the remaining eleven flat miles to the school. The beauty of it was that since I rode the bicycle to school, I had to ride it back and this gave me two good workouts a day.
If you want to commute by bicycle, you can buy a garment bag and brief case to attach to your carrier so you can freshen up when you get to work and have your files, etc. with you. It works, it’s good for you, and it will make LaHood happy, and someday, this fantasy might really come true.
School Bus Safety -- commentary
Three recent school bus accidents in Arkansas prompt me to again mount my hobby horse of school bus safety. There are many things we could do to make school buses safer. We could make the seat backs higher. We could put seat belts on every seat. We could put air bags at every seat. Every one of these has serious unintended consequences. We could put a trained, adult monitor on every bus.
Every one of these suggestions is expensive and every dollar spent on them takes away from something else in the educational system, and there is never enough money to do the necessary things for many school districts.
What we are dealing with in most school bus accidents is a distracted driver. Distracted drivers are big in the news lately because of ever increasing cell phone use. A school bus driver should have enough sense not to use a cell phone while driving; however, the legislature deemed it necessary to make it illegal.
Yet, the bigger distraction remains: The behavior of the students behind the driver. Every second the driver looks in his mirror to monitor student behavior is a second he is not looking at the road. At 30 mph, that bus travels 44 feet for every second that driver’s attention is not on the road. The solution to this problem requires a change of attitude on the part of school administrators.
Administrators, here is a common sense solution that won’t cost a dime: Quit treating school bus discipline the same way you treat classroom discipline. Make it a zero tolerance matter. Any misbehavior on the school bus should mean a forfeiture of bus privileges, starting with the first infraction.
The average classroom is about 750 square feet and by law can only accommodate 30 students, fewer in some elementary grades. The classroom is headed by a teacher who has been trained in classroom management. Plus the teacher has several ways to handle misbehavior from standing next to the disruptive student, to moving the student, to isolating him, to removing him from the classroom.
The average 200 square foot school bus, however, can legally accommodate 60 passengers or more. It often travels down the road at the speed limit. The driver must not only drive the bus safely, but must also manage the load, which distracts from the driving and which he is usually not trained to do.
When considering the potential outcome stemming from disorderly behavior in the classroom verses on the bus, common sense says there is no way these two should be treated the same when it comes to punishment. Normal classroom misbehavior should be thought a misdemeanor and bus misbehavior a felony. Yet, the most common complaint of school bus drivers is that discipline is not taken seriously.
While the law says your child must go to school, it does not compel the school to provide transportation. Riding a school bus is a privilege that should be readily taken away.
There was a time when students respected authority more than they do today, and often older high school kids were hired to drive the buses. The duty often fell to the kid who lived at the end of the route. The students respected the young driver’s authority. We probably cannot bring those days back, but we can put the trouble makers off the bus, thus making the ride safer for the rest of the riders. But, most schools won’t take such a drastic action until a student has been written up for disruptive behavior several times. As a result, neither the student nor his parents, take the matter seriously, knowing he gets several chances.
It only takes one distraction to cause an accident. When the bus driver has to look in his rear view mirror to monitor student misbehavior, his eyes are not on the road and his attention is not on his driving.
I was at a training session recently, and we got on this topic. A fellow from St. Croix in the Caribbean related when he was a kid, the school met bus discipline by simply eliminating the entire route for a period of time. That was certainly a bit extreme since most kids really do behave themselves on the bus. But it certainly should be used individually, starting with the first offense.
The only way to solve this problem is with parental involvement and nothing will get them involved quicker than having to deliver their own kids to school. And if that doesn’t get them involved, then the kid needs to walk. Just as it was not fair for the school in St. Croix to punish all the kids, neither is it fair for us to jeopardize all the kids over the misbehavior of a few.
Every one of these suggestions is expensive and every dollar spent on them takes away from something else in the educational system, and there is never enough money to do the necessary things for many school districts.
What we are dealing with in most school bus accidents is a distracted driver. Distracted drivers are big in the news lately because of ever increasing cell phone use. A school bus driver should have enough sense not to use a cell phone while driving; however, the legislature deemed it necessary to make it illegal.
Yet, the bigger distraction remains: The behavior of the students behind the driver. Every second the driver looks in his mirror to monitor student behavior is a second he is not looking at the road. At 30 mph, that bus travels 44 feet for every second that driver’s attention is not on the road. The solution to this problem requires a change of attitude on the part of school administrators.
Administrators, here is a common sense solution that won’t cost a dime: Quit treating school bus discipline the same way you treat classroom discipline. Make it a zero tolerance matter. Any misbehavior on the school bus should mean a forfeiture of bus privileges, starting with the first infraction.
The average classroom is about 750 square feet and by law can only accommodate 30 students, fewer in some elementary grades. The classroom is headed by a teacher who has been trained in classroom management. Plus the teacher has several ways to handle misbehavior from standing next to the disruptive student, to moving the student, to isolating him, to removing him from the classroom.
The average 200 square foot school bus, however, can legally accommodate 60 passengers or more. It often travels down the road at the speed limit. The driver must not only drive the bus safely, but must also manage the load, which distracts from the driving and which he is usually not trained to do.
When considering the potential outcome stemming from disorderly behavior in the classroom verses on the bus, common sense says there is no way these two should be treated the same when it comes to punishment. Normal classroom misbehavior should be thought a misdemeanor and bus misbehavior a felony. Yet, the most common complaint of school bus drivers is that discipline is not taken seriously.
While the law says your child must go to school, it does not compel the school to provide transportation. Riding a school bus is a privilege that should be readily taken away.
There was a time when students respected authority more than they do today, and often older high school kids were hired to drive the buses. The duty often fell to the kid who lived at the end of the route. The students respected the young driver’s authority. We probably cannot bring those days back, but we can put the trouble makers off the bus, thus making the ride safer for the rest of the riders. But, most schools won’t take such a drastic action until a student has been written up for disruptive behavior several times. As a result, neither the student nor his parents, take the matter seriously, knowing he gets several chances.
It only takes one distraction to cause an accident. When the bus driver has to look in his rear view mirror to monitor student misbehavior, his eyes are not on the road and his attention is not on his driving.
I was at a training session recently, and we got on this topic. A fellow from St. Croix in the Caribbean related when he was a kid, the school met bus discipline by simply eliminating the entire route for a period of time. That was certainly a bit extreme since most kids really do behave themselves on the bus. But it certainly should be used individually, starting with the first offense.
The only way to solve this problem is with parental involvement and nothing will get them involved quicker than having to deliver their own kids to school. And if that doesn’t get them involved, then the kid needs to walk. Just as it was not fair for the school in St. Croix to punish all the kids, neither is it fair for us to jeopardize all the kids over the misbehavior of a few.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Back in the Saddle -- commentary
As the old western song implies, it is good to be back in the saddle again, only I’m talking motorcycles not horses. Nearly two years have transpired since the last time I got to throw my leg over one of these two wheel addictions.
My last ride morphed into my first helicopter ride. I had always wanted to take a helicopter ride, but not to an emergency room, and I would like to have had a memory of it. Also, the $17,000 airfare was a little steep. Fortunately I didn’t have to pay for it.
But, old addictions die hard and when all the legal aspects of my ride and a paltry settlement were completed, there was enough money left to buy an inexpensive, new ride, so I did.
Motorcycling is admittedly risky, and people think those of us who ride are a little crazy, and we may be, but I’m puzzled no one thinks the same when I ride a bicycle, which I do often for health reasons. Look at bicycle stats: 662 bicyclists killed in the U.S. in 2002 with 48,000 injured. Since we started keeping records in 1932, 47,000 bicyclists have been killed in accidents. (Next column I’ll talk about bicycling.)
Admittedly, it takes a little rationalizing to maintain this addiction. My rationalization involves the science of probabilities. The probability of one serious accident is low: the probability of two is nearly non-existent. And so, the rock climber who had to amputate his own arm is back to rock climbing and the teenage girl surfer who lost her arm to a shark is back to surfing.
I suppose, however, if you asked former Alaska Senator Stevens, and it would take a spiritual medium to do so, he would say though the probability of being in two airplane crashes is nearly non-existent, it can happen. It was the highly improbable crash that got him.
I’m amused by religious people who argue against evolution on the basis of probabilities. If there is any probability that something could happen, even one in a gazillion, it could happen. I remain agnostic on the issue, but for those who would argue this issue on probabilities, either declare it a zero probability or find a better argument.
There is a story about the fellow who wouldn’t fly for fear there would be a bomb on the plane. There came a time in his career when he was going to have to fly. He went to his friend, an insurance actuary, and asked him to figure the probabilities he would get on a plane with a bomb on it. His friend came back with the answer: one in a million. The fellow wasn’t comfortable with those odds, so he asked him to calculate the odds of getting on a plane with two bombs. The answer came back one in ten billion. Now the fellow says, “That’s why I always carry a bomb in my suitcase whenever I fly.”
Getting back to motorcycles, what is it about these two wheel machines that attract riders and make them willing to take the risk? Some say only a dog riding in a car with his head out the window and pointed into the wind really knows, but he can’t say.
I categorize travel according to how it allows the traveler to interact with the environment. Walking is the best form of transportation for maximum interaction with environment. You experience every shift in the wind, every change in smell, and every change in temperature. You feel it when a cloud hides the sun. You see the butterflies, the flowers, the deer, or the snake slithering across the road. The problem is 30 or 40 miles a day is max for the person in good condition.
Bicycling is one step back. You can still fully experience those things around you, while extending your distance to 80 or 90 miles a day if you are in good condition, though it still takes a lot of energy.
On a motorcycle, you still get to experience important aspects of your environment, such as temperatures, smells, and unobstructed sights while going the speed of an automobile.
The worst form of travel is the automobile because it cuts you off completely from the environment. You are in an air conditioned atmosphere and might as well be viewing your surroundings from a television screen. Motorcyclists refer to cars as cages and those who occupy them as cagers.
If you enjoy riding around in a cage, I only ask that you quit doing things that distract you, causing you to wander into my lane and that you look twice before entering a highway from a driveway or side street. Look specifically for motorcycles. It might surprise you how many you see. Look twice, save lives.
My last ride morphed into my first helicopter ride. I had always wanted to take a helicopter ride, but not to an emergency room, and I would like to have had a memory of it. Also, the $17,000 airfare was a little steep. Fortunately I didn’t have to pay for it.
But, old addictions die hard and when all the legal aspects of my ride and a paltry settlement were completed, there was enough money left to buy an inexpensive, new ride, so I did.
Motorcycling is admittedly risky, and people think those of us who ride are a little crazy, and we may be, but I’m puzzled no one thinks the same when I ride a bicycle, which I do often for health reasons. Look at bicycle stats: 662 bicyclists killed in the U.S. in 2002 with 48,000 injured. Since we started keeping records in 1932, 47,000 bicyclists have been killed in accidents. (Next column I’ll talk about bicycling.)
Admittedly, it takes a little rationalizing to maintain this addiction. My rationalization involves the science of probabilities. The probability of one serious accident is low: the probability of two is nearly non-existent. And so, the rock climber who had to amputate his own arm is back to rock climbing and the teenage girl surfer who lost her arm to a shark is back to surfing.
I suppose, however, if you asked former Alaska Senator Stevens, and it would take a spiritual medium to do so, he would say though the probability of being in two airplane crashes is nearly non-existent, it can happen. It was the highly improbable crash that got him.
I’m amused by religious people who argue against evolution on the basis of probabilities. If there is any probability that something could happen, even one in a gazillion, it could happen. I remain agnostic on the issue, but for those who would argue this issue on probabilities, either declare it a zero probability or find a better argument.
There is a story about the fellow who wouldn’t fly for fear there would be a bomb on the plane. There came a time in his career when he was going to have to fly. He went to his friend, an insurance actuary, and asked him to figure the probabilities he would get on a plane with a bomb on it. His friend came back with the answer: one in a million. The fellow wasn’t comfortable with those odds, so he asked him to calculate the odds of getting on a plane with two bombs. The answer came back one in ten billion. Now the fellow says, “That’s why I always carry a bomb in my suitcase whenever I fly.”
Getting back to motorcycles, what is it about these two wheel machines that attract riders and make them willing to take the risk? Some say only a dog riding in a car with his head out the window and pointed into the wind really knows, but he can’t say.
I categorize travel according to how it allows the traveler to interact with the environment. Walking is the best form of transportation for maximum interaction with environment. You experience every shift in the wind, every change in smell, and every change in temperature. You feel it when a cloud hides the sun. You see the butterflies, the flowers, the deer, or the snake slithering across the road. The problem is 30 or 40 miles a day is max for the person in good condition.
Bicycling is one step back. You can still fully experience those things around you, while extending your distance to 80 or 90 miles a day if you are in good condition, though it still takes a lot of energy.
On a motorcycle, you still get to experience important aspects of your environment, such as temperatures, smells, and unobstructed sights while going the speed of an automobile.
The worst form of travel is the automobile because it cuts you off completely from the environment. You are in an air conditioned atmosphere and might as well be viewing your surroundings from a television screen. Motorcyclists refer to cars as cages and those who occupy them as cagers.
If you enjoy riding around in a cage, I only ask that you quit doing things that distract you, causing you to wander into my lane and that you look twice before entering a highway from a driveway or side street. Look specifically for motorcycles. It might surprise you how many you see. Look twice, save lives.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Frame It Right -- commentary
The success or failure of a discourse is usually determined by the way a debate gets framed. Those who favor allowing the Muslims to build a mosque next to ground zero of the 9/11 disaster have tried to frame the debate as a freedom of religion issue, and for reasons he will probably not articulate, President Obama tried to help them out. When his comments created a swift backlash, he of course backed off.
Those who support building the mosque want to frame it as a freedom of religion issue because such freedom is a cherished part of our culture and is guaranteed by the First Amendment of our Constitution. Framing it as such allows them to pull on one of our emotional heart strings, hoping it will be more powerful than the negative emotions evoked by their actions.
Anyone who has ever built a church knows that there is a difference between freedom of worship and the freedom to build a building wherever one wishes, even on private property. Most cities of any size have zoning laws to control what is built where.
I don’t know about here, but I know that in Anchorage, Alaska, where I oversaw the renovation of an existing church, there were no zones for church buildings. That meant every church building project required a zoning exemption. This meant holding a public hearing where all those with objections could voice them. If the church would negatively impact the area or if there were a significant number of people or even a few significant people who opposed the project, the exemption could be denied. I suspect New York City too has zoning laws with which projects can be denied. The most common issue is traffic patterns and how it impacts a neighborhood.
It was never a freedom of religion issue in Anchorage as there were dozens of places in the city where people of all faiths could worship, as is true in New York City. It was a freedom to build issue and apparently the constitution does not guarantee that freedom.
Surely an Ivy League elitist and experienced community organizer like President Obama knows this and yet he tries to frame it, at first, as a freedom of religion issue. Instead of trying to spin it this way, he needs to tell us his real reason for supporting construction of the mosque on this site, unless of course he spoke from ignorance. His best course of action would have been to have stayed out of it. Those who feel passionate about the issue aren’t going to be swayed by the freedom of religion argument and he just runs the risk of antagonizing the voters.
Just to remain bipartisan, let me say that in my memory, the most disastrous example of a president framing a discussion wrongly was George W. Bush’s argument for going to war with Iraq. It was the right decision but the wrong argument. He argued that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction (WMD’s) that had to be neutralized.
With that argument, Bush could only win if WMD’s were found when our troops invaded, and they weren’t, so he lost the discussion and his credibility. This wrong argument plagued him the rest of his presidency.
To understand what his argument should have been, we need to go back to his father’s presidency. If you remember, Saddam invaded and occupied Kuwait. The United Nations came to the defense of Kuwait by asking the United States to go in and remove Saddam’s occupational forces, which we did.
Unfortunately, the wimpy UN saved Saddam the embarrassment of a surrender. They agreed to allow him to get by with only a cease fire agreement. They didn’t even make his generals suffer the embarrassment of surrendering their weapons while at the signing of the cease fire agreement.
As is always the case, a cease fire agreement carries with it conditions, and in this case, those conditions included Saddam allowing free and open inspections to assure the world that he did not have and was not developing WMD’s. And of course, Saddam did not live up to these agreements and had no intention of doing so.
With this background, Bush’s argument should have been that a failure to keep the cease fire agreement made it null and void. This means the hostilities resume as the basis on which they were stopped is no longer valid. With this argument, the fact that there were no WMD’s would have just been an interesting detail. The important fact would have been that at last we had our free and open inspections and the truth could now be confirmed.
So, Mr. President, be careful how you help frame an argument. If you do it wrongly, it will always come back to bite you.
Those who support building the mosque want to frame it as a freedom of religion issue because such freedom is a cherished part of our culture and is guaranteed by the First Amendment of our Constitution. Framing it as such allows them to pull on one of our emotional heart strings, hoping it will be more powerful than the negative emotions evoked by their actions.
Anyone who has ever built a church knows that there is a difference between freedom of worship and the freedom to build a building wherever one wishes, even on private property. Most cities of any size have zoning laws to control what is built where.
I don’t know about here, but I know that in Anchorage, Alaska, where I oversaw the renovation of an existing church, there were no zones for church buildings. That meant every church building project required a zoning exemption. This meant holding a public hearing where all those with objections could voice them. If the church would negatively impact the area or if there were a significant number of people or even a few significant people who opposed the project, the exemption could be denied. I suspect New York City too has zoning laws with which projects can be denied. The most common issue is traffic patterns and how it impacts a neighborhood.
It was never a freedom of religion issue in Anchorage as there were dozens of places in the city where people of all faiths could worship, as is true in New York City. It was a freedom to build issue and apparently the constitution does not guarantee that freedom.
Surely an Ivy League elitist and experienced community organizer like President Obama knows this and yet he tries to frame it, at first, as a freedom of religion issue. Instead of trying to spin it this way, he needs to tell us his real reason for supporting construction of the mosque on this site, unless of course he spoke from ignorance. His best course of action would have been to have stayed out of it. Those who feel passionate about the issue aren’t going to be swayed by the freedom of religion argument and he just runs the risk of antagonizing the voters.
Just to remain bipartisan, let me say that in my memory, the most disastrous example of a president framing a discussion wrongly was George W. Bush’s argument for going to war with Iraq. It was the right decision but the wrong argument. He argued that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction (WMD’s) that had to be neutralized.
With that argument, Bush could only win if WMD’s were found when our troops invaded, and they weren’t, so he lost the discussion and his credibility. This wrong argument plagued him the rest of his presidency.
To understand what his argument should have been, we need to go back to his father’s presidency. If you remember, Saddam invaded and occupied Kuwait. The United Nations came to the defense of Kuwait by asking the United States to go in and remove Saddam’s occupational forces, which we did.
Unfortunately, the wimpy UN saved Saddam the embarrassment of a surrender. They agreed to allow him to get by with only a cease fire agreement. They didn’t even make his generals suffer the embarrassment of surrendering their weapons while at the signing of the cease fire agreement.
As is always the case, a cease fire agreement carries with it conditions, and in this case, those conditions included Saddam allowing free and open inspections to assure the world that he did not have and was not developing WMD’s. And of course, Saddam did not live up to these agreements and had no intention of doing so.
With this background, Bush’s argument should have been that a failure to keep the cease fire agreement made it null and void. This means the hostilities resume as the basis on which they were stopped is no longer valid. With this argument, the fact that there were no WMD’s would have just been an interesting detail. The important fact would have been that at last we had our free and open inspections and the truth could now be confirmed.
So, Mr. President, be careful how you help frame an argument. If you do it wrongly, it will always come back to bite you.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)