Atomictumor

The pic’s a little small, but this is Mattel’s newest creation, My Scene My Bling Bling Barbie.

Yes, she’s dressed like a hooker.  Why do you ask?

Upon coming home from the SunShine MonkeyShines show at the Oak Ridge Library, 5-year old Spotz informs me:

“Mom, Curious George is a pansy.”

Me: “Oh…really? What do you mean?”

Spotz: “You know, a pansy. The ones that don’t have any tails. He’s an im pansy.”

Me: “Ohhhhhh, okay….a chimpanzee.”

End of brief conversation with Spotz.

So, big news today (other than BP taking one on the chin in the name of global proliferation of oil company profits by “supply disasters”) is that the Fine 2709 is going on strike.

Which got me to thinking. Now, I’m painfully ignorant on this topic, as I am on so many others, but way I see it, they get paid more than I do for a largely unskilled job (nobody has a doctorate in welding there, I’d imagine), they get nice assed benefits, as the Oakridger reports, without a cost increase, which I haven’t seen happen in years, and they still stike? Because they’d be dealing with non-unioned?

Now, we’re all down with Joe Hill, and I know a lot of people took some lumps so I don’t have to buy crap at the company store (and can blog from the work office, shhh), but seems that unions haven’t done much for the worker in the past 40 years or so. I’d even go as far as to say that because of union sponsored shenanagans that the cost of a great many things (GM, anybody?) has gone up quite a bit. So, in that sense unions are in the business of screwing everybody else so that they can get what they want.

Hmm. Who else screws everybody else so they can get what they want? Anybody? Have we been down this road before?

Yes, hes back again, the American Misanthrope. He’s a wascally guy.

Yes, now that the ever entertaining national pastime, local elections, are over, we can get back to the real job of fixing whats wrong with this place. I’m one of this (idealistic? deluded?) people who believe that motivated citizens can do a lot more good than the best politician ever. Its been rare that I’ve seen a politician I trust to act selflessly, and, while we have good ones out there, I doubt we have many selfless ones.

So, because I’m a selfless bastard (can’t you tell? I don’t sell ads on my website.) I’m going to list here the next things we have to do.

Get the kids safe: We had some talks with Mom Goose regarding the bussing situation, and while it seemed that she was more concerned with job security (which is understandible, as security is a big part of the Hierarchy of Needs), but its not time to talk about that stuff. Last night I was told that when Woodland starts up, they’re going to have something like 300 cars taking kids home. Thats 300 parents sitting, every school day, for upwards of 30 minutes, getting pissed, and then driving with children. This is asking for trouble.
Its also not even mentioning the kids who are walking, which should be the primary concern. Look, its like this, if you come up talking about anything other than the safety of children primarily and foremost, then you’re a dick. You’re a self involved dick, and your opinion should be discounted because you aren’t caring about the real issue. Its like having your house on fire and being concerned that the smoke is going to mess with your cars paint job. Its dickery.
Problem is, I don’t think theres much that can be done about it, so a lot of people do this ‘board vs. council’ thing in order to make themselves feel better and convince themselves that they’re doing something about the issue (not to mention the fact that most of these people have been playing republican vs. democrat for so long that its ingrained in their character. Hopefully, this thinking will die out soon. Along with ankle warmers and pop music).
I don’t see how either the board or the council can fix this issue this year. They probably can’t fix it next year.
The council has backed themselves into a corner that they appear unwilling to work out of. If they give an inch to the school board, their stable tax retiree base will wig out and accuse them of communism. Most of these stable taxers are on medication, and probably demented, but they VOTE IN MASSIVE NUMBERS, so no politician worth their salt will dare stand up to them. For this reason, unless council hears a massive backlash against their head-in-the-sand method of funding, there won’t be much change there. Unfortunately, it looks like everybody who would be inclined to talk sense into council will be spending their afternoons in school traffic for the foreseeable future.
Might be a good idea to hit those parking lots with some petitions, maybe?
As for the board, well, they’re just as backed in, but don’t enjoy the popular support that the council has. For years, the board has been hit with allegations of mismanagement and overspending, mostly by people who fail to understand the simple fact that the expenses that the board faces are not typical business expenses. If the state and the feds didn’t have weird assed, unfunded mandates, then the school board probably could estimate the number of students, gas prices, lunar cycles, and fashion fads that make up a large bit of their spending.
The point is that the school board has far more variables than council has, and did a damn good job bouncing through those variables back before the budget was set. They found that the amount of money coming wouldn’t cover the preferred budget (which, in my mind, Oak Ridge would want anyway to keep its reputation as a premiere school system), and they cut the budget accordingly. Unfortunately, to cut any further than they did, it would have been ugly.
This is where a lot of problems pop in. Were the busses the most obvious and sensible choice for a cut?
I don’t see how. As proud as I am that my 4th grader is learning music, bussing is a basic staple of schools, and that should have come first. I understand that no one cut would have made the financial impact that the busses did, and that the city had to trim $400,000, a massive task.
Still, I would have rathered the council cut things that don’t jeopardize children’s lives.
Anyway, I digress, again.
I see no sense in finger pointing, because its not going to work. The die is cast, and the kids are walking. The budget is set, Superman isn’t going to swoop down from the sky to save the day, and yelling at board/council is crying over spilt milk. What can we do about it?
Well, we can make damn sure that people are aware that kids are around. Got nothing to do at 3? Step out on the front porch, and just keep an eye out for kids. If we keep an eye out, and use some common sense, maybe we can avert a disaster.