Local voters may decide transit tax - www.hometownlife.com - Michigan
I'm unsure what Ferndale's city council was thinking when they passed a resolution supporting a county-wide sales tax increase to 7% at a time when the economy is sputtering and there isn't a single plan for implementing mass transit that would benefit the county, much less the city of Ferndale.
The biggest transit plan we've heard about is $600 million to widen 18 miles of I-75 from Eight Mile to M-59. That's a plan only an oil company would love. With gasoline approaching $3/gallon and the region's infrastructure stretched to its limits widening I-75 does little for citizens but great things for real estate developers. In fact, it's irresponsible. Irresponsible with taxpayers money, irresponsible to further stretch already stretched infrastructure, and irresponsible for promote longer commutes in single-passenger vehicles while soldiers are fighting someplace America would have limited interest in if it weren't to protect our oil supply.
Lastly, it's irresponsible of our city council to support any tax increase for a mass transit system that doesn't exist in real life, doesn't exist in blueprint, and only exists in our imaginations.
Friday, April 14, 2006
'Highway of blame' leads to shooting of rapper Proof - 04/14/06 - The Detroit News
'Highway of blame' leads to shooting of rapper Proof - 04/14/06 - The Detroit News
Frank Beckmann, Detroit News commentator and WJR AM radio host distributes blame for this week's shooting death of rapper Proof (Deshaun Holton) across the rapper, the club owners, liquor control commission, rap culture, rap lyrics, Detroit's budget and the cash-strapped police department, and a culture of violence inside the city.
Mr. Beckmann's list is too long. I agree the lists starts with Proof, but it also ends there. If early police reports are correct Proof was shot because he needed to be shot. No amount of bling and jaunt excuses behavior. Everything else on Mr. Beckmann's list is incidental.
Should the club still have been open at 4:30AM? No. But if no one stayed drinking the club wouldn't have stayed open. The club's liquor license should have been yanked long ago, but wasn't. Remember the INS approved visa application for 9-11 terrorists Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi six months after the attack. In the grand scheme of things a liquor license is small potatoes. It would be great if more police were available, but there already aren't enough to respond to 911 calls much less cruising blind pigs for bar fights.
Had any of the principles that morning made the choice to leave instead of agitate we wouldn't be discussing it. The club would still have a license it shouldnt', we'd still have too few police officers, we'd still have an unresponsive bureaucracy, we'd still have a derelict rap culture, and the city would still be too violent, but we wouldn't have a dead rapper and a seriously wounded soldier. More importantly, better considered individual choices and many more like them would cumulatively make Detroit a less violent city.
Frank Beckmann, Detroit News commentator and WJR AM radio host distributes blame for this week's shooting death of rapper Proof (Deshaun Holton) across the rapper, the club owners, liquor control commission, rap culture, rap lyrics, Detroit's budget and the cash-strapped police department, and a culture of violence inside the city.
Mr. Beckmann's list is too long. I agree the lists starts with Proof, but it also ends there. If early police reports are correct Proof was shot because he needed to be shot. No amount of bling and jaunt excuses behavior. Everything else on Mr. Beckmann's list is incidental.
Should the club still have been open at 4:30AM? No. But if no one stayed drinking the club wouldn't have stayed open. The club's liquor license should have been yanked long ago, but wasn't. Remember the INS approved visa application for 9-11 terrorists Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi six months after the attack. In the grand scheme of things a liquor license is small potatoes. It would be great if more police were available, but there already aren't enough to respond to 911 calls much less cruising blind pigs for bar fights.
Had any of the principles that morning made the choice to leave instead of agitate we wouldn't be discussing it. The club would still have a license it shouldnt', we'd still have too few police officers, we'd still have an unresponsive bureaucracy, we'd still have a derelict rap culture, and the city would still be too violent, but we wouldn't have a dead rapper and a seriously wounded soldier. More importantly, better considered individual choices and many more like them would cumulatively make Detroit a less violent city.
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
No more nose rings in school? - 04/11/06 - The Detroit News
The Detroit School District may expand Mackenzie High School's dress code to the entire district's 129,000 students. Predictably, students, parents, and teachers are already complaining:
Though the teacher's union has already taken a defensive position on dress codes for teachers it would be preferred if teachers wouldn't wait for their gang (er.. union) leaders and set an example by following the dress code without using it as a leverage for the next contract.
Promoting the myth that clothing expresses individuality is as superficial and wrong-headed as skin color defining your identity. We are all more than we appear to be on the outside. Reinforcing that with school dress codes may help that message get through to students, teachers, and parents alike -- and not just in Detroit, but throughout the state.
"Mackenzie sophomore Kent Wells, 16, said it constrains student identity. 'We don't get to show who we really are,' he said. 'I don't want to be like everyone else.'Ms. Hethorn sees mixed messages because adults don't know what the message is. Mackenzie High senior Candace Ogletree is pretty close:
That's the conflict that surrounds many dress codes, said Janet Hethorn, an associate professor of apparel design who specializes in youth style at the University of Delaware.
Students are told they need to value diversity, critical thinking and creativity, she said.
'Then we are telling everyone to look alike,' Hethorn said. 'We are giving such mixed messages to kids these days.'"
"[Ogletree] says she has adjusted to the code. The issue, she says, is not with distracting clothing but students' attitudes.And that's where diversity, critical thinking, and creativity belong in school, your mind. The message we need to teach kids is that their clothing doesn't make them unique. Clothing doesn't make you special. The influences that belong in school should come from reading, not FUBU. Creativity and critical thought are exercised and expressed through writing and solving mathematical problems, not body piercings and Abercrombie & Fitch. Students are members of a scholastic society that improves their lives and lifts their circumstances and prospects, something gang colors will not afford them.
'A child won't learn if they don't want to,' she said. 'It's not really about what you have on -- it's your mind.'"
Though the teacher's union has already taken a defensive position on dress codes for teachers it would be preferred if teachers wouldn't wait for their gang (er.. union) leaders and set an example by following the dress code without using it as a leverage for the next contract.
Promoting the myth that clothing expresses individuality is as superficial and wrong-headed as skin color defining your identity. We are all more than we appear to be on the outside. Reinforcing that with school dress codes may help that message get through to students, teachers, and parents alike -- and not just in Detroit, but throughout the state.
Monday, April 10, 2006
Christ Among the Partisans - New York Times
Christ Among the Partisans - New York Times
Garry Wills, a professor at Northwestern University posted a thoughtful and thought-provoking op-ed in the New York Times Sunday probing the relationship between Christianity and politics, specifically chastising any effort by political parties to shoulder the mantel of "God is on our side" as being blasphemous, or at least missing the point, and on that he and I are in agreement.
After reading the article you might agree with Mr. Wills, that Jesus wouldn't pursue a career in politics, and I'm inclined to as well. But I wasn't left wondering What Would Jesus Do (WWJD), as much as What Would Jesus Want Me to Do (WWJWMTD) or How Would Jesus Vote (HWJV)? Mr. Wills quotes scripture to suggest prayer belongs in a closet. I'm left wondering if he'd rather religion stayed in the closet forcing everything else out. But if we are religious and believe we're accountable for our actions to both God and government then we're compelled to act differently than if we feared no consequences, terrestrial or not, in this life or the next.
How would Jesus want me to vote on abortion? How would Jesus have wanted me to vote on slavery? How would Jesus want me to vote on immigration, welfare, or the preservation of marriage act? If God asks for our prayers and Caesar asks our opinion, aren't our consciences obligated to give our best to both? If whatever we do for the least of us we also do unto Jesus, would we make Jesus dependent on our charity or teach him to live by the fruit of his labors?
As a Christian I don't believe God wants me to be the best Jesus I can be--he wants me to be the best Thomas Gagne I can be. He wants me to be the best husband and father I can be, and he wants me to be the best citizen I can be. I want Christ to be with me wherever I go for strength, guidance, and wisdom--and that includes the voting booth.
Garry Wills, a professor at Northwestern University posted a thoughtful and thought-provoking op-ed in the New York Times Sunday probing the relationship between Christianity and politics, specifically chastising any effort by political parties to shoulder the mantel of "God is on our side" as being blasphemous, or at least missing the point, and on that he and I are in agreement.
After reading the article you might agree with Mr. Wills, that Jesus wouldn't pursue a career in politics, and I'm inclined to as well. But I wasn't left wondering What Would Jesus Do (WWJD), as much as What Would Jesus Want Me to Do (WWJWMTD) or How Would Jesus Vote (HWJV)? Mr. Wills quotes scripture to suggest prayer belongs in a closet. I'm left wondering if he'd rather religion stayed in the closet forcing everything else out. But if we are religious and believe we're accountable for our actions to both God and government then we're compelled to act differently than if we feared no consequences, terrestrial or not, in this life or the next.
How would Jesus want me to vote on abortion? How would Jesus have wanted me to vote on slavery? How would Jesus want me to vote on immigration, welfare, or the preservation of marriage act? If God asks for our prayers and Caesar asks our opinion, aren't our consciences obligated to give our best to both? If whatever we do for the least of us we also do unto Jesus, would we make Jesus dependent on our charity or teach him to live by the fruit of his labors?
As a Christian I don't believe God wants me to be the best Jesus I can be--he wants me to be the best Thomas Gagne I can be. He wants me to be the best husband and father I can be, and he wants me to be the best citizen I can be. I want Christ to be with me wherever I go for strength, guidance, and wisdom--and that includes the voting booth.
US immigrants mobilizing for major 'action' | csmonitor.com
US immigrants mobilizing for major 'action' | csmonitor.com Everyone's been estimating how many illegal immigrants there may be in the US. Most are around 12 million. If we wanted to deport or document them how would we find them all? It may happen that the INS won't have to find them. They'll all be marching in protest parades where INS representatives could easily locate them and do with whatever the law requires.
Sunday, April 09, 2006
St. Paul Minnesota's Much Ado about Easter
Everyone takes their turn: Next to go: snowpersons
This is an update my previous posting linked above. In mid-March St. Paul Minnesota's human rights director Tyrone Terrill and city councilwomen Kathy Lantry defended their order removing a modest Happy Easter display on the grounds they didn't want to violate the First Amendment's non-establishment clause. An odd turn of events in a city named St. Paul.
Had they only done their research.
Or perhaps they could have waited for April 9th's USA Weekend article explaining how the tradition of Easter exhisted before Jesus' resurrection.
But that's not important. What is important is provincially minded people equating the display of bunnies and baskets with Constatine the Great's legitimizing Christianity in Rome or Britain's King Henry VIII break with the Vatican and the creation of the Church of England.
And am I the only one that appreciates the irony of all this coming from a city named for a Christian saint?
This is an update my previous posting linked above. In mid-March St. Paul Minnesota's human rights director Tyrone Terrill and city councilwomen Kathy Lantry defended their order removing a modest Happy Easter display on the grounds they didn't want to violate the First Amendment's non-establishment clause. An odd turn of events in a city named St. Paul.
Had they only done their research.
Or perhaps they could have waited for April 9th's USA Weekend article explaining how the tradition of Easter exhisted before Jesus' resurrection.
But that's not important. What is important is provincially minded people equating the display of bunnies and baskets with Constatine the Great's legitimizing Christianity in Rome or Britain's King Henry VIII break with the Vatican and the creation of the Church of England.
And am I the only one that appreciates the irony of all this coming from a city named for a Christian saint?
Monday, April 03, 2006
BAMN borrows from Taylor's Liberia
By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) has been using some surprising tactics to keep the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI) off the November ballot. True to their moniker, their outbursts have disrupted Board of Canvasser and other official meetings with shouting and up-ended furniture. Though nothing of their reasoning is especially noteworthy (though perhaps newsworthy) one of their tactics that is especially disturbing is their manipulation of children as foot soldiers in their war on civil rights.
Political consultant and blogger Chetly Zarko has followed BAMN's antics for months. BAMN has made a habit of using students in their protests from the beginning, and has marched them (OK, bused them) to Lansing more than once when they should have been in school. Just last week BAMN was connected to a student protest in Detroit presumably against the loss of a Free Dress Day. Eight students were arrested. On Saturday, April 1, BAMN showed up in Lansing again with 12 buses, 500 people including students to shout slogans and bang on windows (eventually breaking one). Their use of children is analogous to former Liberian president Charles Taylor's using children as soldiers in that country's civil war.
Though Taylor's recruiting children into his army with lethal outcomes is more reprehensible than BAMN's accessorizing their protests with students, both situations demonstrate the extremes desperate political activists will go to further their cause By Any Means Necessary -- even if it includes abusing children. BAMN uses children for its dirty work and as decorations, hoping their participation will pull sympathetic strings from politicians and voters alike.
Children are not adults. They haven't the education or experience to discern motivations or bias. Regardless what Denver-area teach Jay Brennish may believe they haven't internalized the processes of critical thought necessary to reason their way to informed opinion, or perhaps even to recognize it. Studies have shown adolescent brains have under-developed frontal lobes, used for reasoning, and depend more on other parts of the brain controlled by emotion. This certainly makes them more easily manipulated than adults.
BAMN steals pages from the play-books of the most despicable regimes in modern times -- manipulating children to be foot soldiers as Liberia's Charles Taylor and others have done, and hiding behind and among them as terrorists hide behind and among civilians. These actions are criminal at one extreme and inexcusable at the other.
Though it's unlikely BAMN will be sued for violating children's civil rights it would be best if they voluntarily refrained from using them in future demonstrations, but that's unlikely since they are desperate and their tactics keep them in the press.
Political consultant and blogger Chetly Zarko has followed BAMN's antics for months. BAMN has made a habit of using students in their protests from the beginning, and has marched them (OK, bused them) to Lansing more than once when they should have been in school. Just last week BAMN was connected to a student protest in Detroit presumably against the loss of a Free Dress Day. Eight students were arrested. On Saturday, April 1, BAMN showed up in Lansing again with 12 buses, 500 people including students to shout slogans and bang on windows (eventually breaking one). Their use of children is analogous to former Liberian president Charles Taylor's using children as soldiers in that country's civil war.
Though Taylor's recruiting children into his army with lethal outcomes is more reprehensible than BAMN's accessorizing their protests with students, both situations demonstrate the extremes desperate political activists will go to further their cause By Any Means Necessary -- even if it includes abusing children. BAMN uses children for its dirty work and as decorations, hoping their participation will pull sympathetic strings from politicians and voters alike.
Children are not adults. They haven't the education or experience to discern motivations or bias. Regardless what Denver-area teach Jay Brennish may believe they haven't internalized the processes of critical thought necessary to reason their way to informed opinion, or perhaps even to recognize it. Studies have shown adolescent brains have under-developed frontal lobes, used for reasoning, and depend more on other parts of the brain controlled by emotion. This certainly makes them more easily manipulated than adults.
BAMN steals pages from the play-books of the most despicable regimes in modern times -- manipulating children to be foot soldiers as Liberia's Charles Taylor and others have done, and hiding behind and among them as terrorists hide behind and among civilians. These actions are criminal at one extreme and inexcusable at the other.
Though it's unlikely BAMN will be sued for violating children's civil rights it would be best if they voluntarily refrained from using them in future demonstrations, but that's unlikely since they are desperate and their tactics keep them in the press.
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