Warwick Mayor Scott Avedesian has told the city’s crossing guards that their contract may not be renewed. Instead, the city may (finally!) put the contract out to bid. But…
The nonrenewal notice does not mean the municipal crossing guards will be replaced with private ones. Rather, it opens the door for one of two outcomes: either the city will negotiate a new contract with the guards — as opposed to letting the old contract roll over for another year—or it will solicit bids from companies interested in the job.
Well, at least the option is now available. Not like last year when the contract was allowed to simply roll-over. And this is a good point:
Even if Warwick ultimately decides to keep the municipal crossing guards, [Warwick City Council member Robert A.] Cushman said, notifying the union of a possible nonrenewal puts the city in a better bargaining position.
“To be honest, I think it will give the administration the leverage to negotiate a better deal,” Cushman said.
This indicates a change of tack for Avedesian.
Prior to sending that nonrenewal letter, the mayor had argued in favor of keeping the municipal guards, saying city employees are easier to monitor and make a better security presence at schools. He has also questioned the extent of the much-discussed savings, noting that what the city might save in salaries for private guards, it could lose in unemployment payments for the municipal guards.
Now that he’s gone this far, I hope the mayor follows through.
[Open full post]The NY Times reports:
“I don’t want to pick on Al Gore,” Don J. Easterbrook, an emeritus professor of geology at Western Washington University, told hundreds of experts at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America. “But there are a lot of inaccuracies in the statements we are seeing, and we have to temper that with real data.”
Mr. Gore, in an e-mail exchange about the critics, said his work made “the most important and salient points” about climate change, if not “some nuances and distinctions” scientists might want. “The degree of scientific consensus on global warming has never been stronger,” he said, adding, “I am trying to communicate the essence of it in the lay language that I understand.”
Although Mr. Gore is not a scientist, he does rely heavily on the authority of science in “An Inconvenient Truth,” which is why scientists are sensitive to its details and claims.
Criticisms of Mr. Gore have come not only from conservative groups and prominent skeptics of catastrophic warming, but also from rank-and-file scientists like Dr. Easterbook, who told his peers that he had no political ax to grind. A few see natural variation as more central to global warming than heat-trapping gases. Many appear to occupy a middle ground in the climate debate, seeing human activity as a serious threat but challenging what they call the extremism of both skeptics and zealots.
Kevin Vranes, a climatologist at the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado, said he sensed a growing backlash against exaggeration. While praising Mr. Gore for “getting the message out,” Dr. Vranes questioned whether his presentations were “overselling our certainty about knowing the future.”
Typically, the concern is not over the existence of climate change, or the idea that the human production of heat-trapping gases is partly or largely to blame for the globe’s recent warming. The question is whether Mr. Gore has gone beyond the scientific evidence.
Seems like I saw something along these lines last week…Remember, none of this is about denying climate change. Rather, it is about putting brakes on the hype and not falling for Gore’s rather reductionist “it’s all humans’ fault” thesis.
[Open full post]2006 Republican First-District Congressional Candidate Jon Scott has issued a statement on the recent revelations about Dave Rogers’ Special Operations Fund Political Action Committee. Here is Mr. Scott’s literal bottom line…
I call upon the Special Operations Fund to return donations and to cease further use of Mr. Rogers’ name in their efforts. It appears that what they have done is not illegal but, given the large number of elderly donors and the small percentage of disbursements to candidates, it is certainly immoral. I have always had the utmost respect for Dave Rogers and support him in any efforts to make this right, but it must be made right.
The complete statement is available in the extended entry.
[Open full post]Sensing undeniable interest in the subject, despite any ironclad vows I may have taken, I will offer an open thread for observations and analysis concerning the 2008 Presidential election.
[Open full post]Building on several earlier postings of reflections here and here, the final throes of unpacking tonight led to the discovery of a quote by the famous portrait photographer Yousuf Karsh cut out of an old Sunday newspaper edition of Parade Magazine – of all things! – from my high school years over 30 years ago, a quote which has had a place on a bulletin board where I have lived for many of the years since then:
[Open full post]Can he recognize a person’s extraordinary qualities right away? Is greatness visible?
“Intuitively you sense that you are in its presence,” Karsh answers, “but I cannot tell you how. At times, you can tell by someone’s conversation and compassion. But not all great people are articulate or verbal enough to express it. Nevertheless, you feel that it’s there.
“But I have found that great people do have some things in common. One is an immense belief in themselves and in their mission. They also have great determination as well as an ability to work hard. At the crucial moment of decision, they draw on their accumulated wisdom. But above all, they have integrity.
“I’ve also seen that great men are often lonely. This is understandable, because they have built such high standards for themselves that they often feel alone. But that same loneliness is part of their ability to create. Character, like a photograph, develops in darkness.”
The ProJo reports:
With written pleas for cash to help put “hard-charging, fearless, battle-tested Republican veterans in the U.S. Congress,” they raised more than $415,000 in the 2005-06 election cycle.
Two percent of that money went to federal candidates: a total of $9,000 in two years.
In that same time period, Rogers and Winthrop paid themselves $144,000 from their fund, mostly in “political consulting” fees…
The Special Operations Fund spent more than $300,000 in the last cycle on the mechanics of raising money, including: $111,000 on postage; $76,000 on printing and production; $19,000 on payroll taxes and fees; $6,700 on acquiring donor lists.
So, $9,000 for candidates. And none of them were in Rhode Island!
All the money went to Republicans running for Congress, including Representatives J.D. Hayworth of Arizona and Rob Simmons of Connecticut. The fund gave $250 in September 2005 to U.S. Senate candidate John Spencer, the Republican challenger to Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y. Winthrop worked for Spencer on that campaign.
In 2006, the fund made six political contributions totaling $6,250. By far the largest was $5,000 on March 17 to Don Stenberg, a Republican running for U.S. Senate in Nebraska. He did not win his party’s nomination.
In all, the PAC contributed a total of $3,000 to nine U.S. House candidates and $6,000 to five U.S. Senate candidates in the last cycle.
As a guy who supported Rogers in the past, I find this all very disappointing. While I realize that there are complicated campaign finance issues that apply, is it still too much to ask for someone of Rogers stature to have focused his energy on local candidates?
[Open full post]In response to my post on RI’s education problems, Klaus makes the following request and commentary:
… could you please explain to me again how eliminating the teachers’ unions would improve education? I mean, I’m just a stupid socialist (according to a lot of commenters here), so could you big, bright conservatives please enlighten me?
Because, if I understand Free Market Theory, if you drive down the wage paid, you drive down the number and quality of applicants.
And do not attempt an explanation unless you address that question. It is the very heart of the proposed solution.
On the one hand, eliminating the union eases the tax burden, which is a positive.
But if you end up with teachers who really aren’t competent enough to do anything else, the end result is to cut our own throats by reducing the quality of teachers even more.
The simple answer to the opening question is that free market dynamics do not apply in situations that do not count as free markets. To take the point to an extreme, it would be ludicrous of a dictator to declare that he is raising the salaries of his staff (consisting of family and partners in crime) in order to attract the best candidates. The roles are filled at his pleasure. He does not compete with other employers. And his staff cannot negotiate under the presumption that they are free to leave. Moreover, to the degree that candidates compete for positions within the dictator’s government, the competition is centrally over their ability to please the dictator, not to perform the functions of a particular job, and if they are able to do the former, they need not fear repercussions for failing at the latter.
In a heavily unionized system, in which it is difficult to dismiss low-quality teachers, or even to allow them to fall behind in pay scale, the free market relationship between salary and quality is nearly reversed. The more comfortable the job and the better the compensation, the less likely that teachers who are not particularly adept at their jobs and/or not particularly interested in teaching, of itself, will make way for better qualified and more passionate candidates. Indeed, the more attractive their seats, the more vehemently they will guard them.
One need only look at the pitiful pay of private schools to see that competent teachers are driven to their vocation for its own sake. Disproportionate compensation packages that are freed from market forces and that are studiously disconnected from proven ability are certain to draw those whose competency is mainly in manipulating the system.
James Lileks (via Glenn Reynolds) thinks he needs to have a talk with his daughter:
Something’s wrong with my daughter. There’s not a single cartoon character on TV that doesn’t exactly mirror her own experience, and she doesn’t seem bothered by it. But she should. We’ll have to have a talk.
After he surveys the relative merits of several animated thespians with relation to their ability to serve as proper role models, Lileks wraps up with a discussion of Winnie the Pooh and the fact that Disney may be addressing his faux problem by replacing Christopher Robin with a girl.
I don’t mind that they’ve introduced a girl into the 100 Acre Woods, and as the father of a daughter I fully support the addition of female characters with whom my daughter could identify. But I know how I’d feel if I had a young boy. There are 100 acres. There’s not room enough for both?
This relates to something my wife and I were discussing the other day. Kids TV, for the most part, ain’t so great. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that we have a pretty tight rein on what we allow our kids (they’re both under 8) to watch. In fact, we really don’t let them watch that much TV at all (though I’m a little more lax…what Dad isn’t?)
Violence is a no-no, end of story, but then there are the “situations.”
Quick, name a major animated Disney (or Pixar) movie where one or more parent isn’t absent, dead, dying or doomed? Or where there isn’t one extremely bad, nightmarish character who will scare the beejesus out of your younglings? Not many (if any–btw, I’ll take suggestions!). Live action movies aren’t much better (though Mary Poppins is certainly a favorite in our house) and many shows and movies also feature a missing parent or some sort of back-story tragedy.
And these are rated “G”?
As we’ve brought up our children, we’ve always wondered why there is such a rush to expose kids to complicated, adult situations. Why rush them into the world of adults, with its sexual innuendos and snarkiness and love of “irony”? Why turn innocence into cynicism so quickly? So they can be “cooler” and “hipper” and “wiser” than all of the other 7 year olds on the block?
I’m not saying everything has to butterflies, rainbows and ponies. Heck, my kids love the stuff on Animal Planet (obviously not including attacking animals, etc.) or Zoboomafoo, Zoom, Fetch! or Hi-5 (and once, when they were younger, The Wiggles). And as they get older, it’s easier to find appropriate stuff on TV. But once in a while they’d like to see a nice movie or TV show (animated or not) about a family that involves some sort of non-violent, non-tragic plot (that means no lost or dying pets!). And a little slapstick is also much appreciated (especially by my youngest). Even kids who can’t “identify” with such a story about a (gasp) traditional, nice, well-adjusted family might enjoy it. Maybe they’d be inspired to try to, one day, have a family just like the one they saw on the screen. And wouldn’t that be nice?
As my wife and I concluded, there is such a desire to create entertainment featuring characters to whom today’s kids can relate, that we seem to have stopped providing positive–if somewhat idealistic–examples of good kids and parents and the families they comprise. Held hostage by a fear of hurting a child’s self-esteem, we’ve unintentionally (maybe?) limited their exposure to the traditional, well-mannered family because we’re either too worried they won’t be able to “relate” or concerned we may insult them somehow. Thus, we’ve projected onto them our own adult conceptions about what is “realistic” and helped steer them down the path towards relativism and cynicism. How sad.
I wish it weren’t so, but I doubt that the situation will change anytime soon. In the end, we can only control what our own kids watch (if anything).
Now, I’m sure there are some out there thinking, “Sheesh, this guy’s living in a freakin’ Fantasyland.” Well, I’m not. But I try to make sure that my kids are. They will have plenty of time to grow up and learn about the “real world.” Meanwhile, my wife and I are going to try like hell to keep your kids in the cocoon as long as we can. We think they’ll thank us for it in the end.
Those who read Providence Phoenix editor Ian Donnis’ Not for Nothing blog have learned that Ian is a certified baseball nut (heck, he made a category for it on N4N). Today, Ian points to a ProJo piece about how some Providence residents are outraged that the city is unilaterally doing away with a baseball field in favor of a dog park. One of those resident is former GOP candidate for Providence Mayor Dave Talan. Ian comments:
Adding insult to injury is how this location is quite close to the place where professional baseball began in Providence.
As a longtime participant in the Providence Coed Softball League, I’ve been struck by how the condition of Collier Field, near the Bonanza Bus Terminal, hardly corresponds with what might reasonably be expected from Cicilline’s improved City Hall. The grass is often overgrown in the summer, the field is poorly maintained, and infield flooding makes it generally unusable for a day or two after a heavy rain. Maybe it’s false nostalgia, but veteran umpires say Collier was better kept during the Buddy era. I do know this: the diamonds at Pawtucket’s vastly superior Hank Soar Complex are the softball equivalent of playing at Fenway Park, while Collier might be akin to a rock-strewn lot in Cartagena.
Aahhh baseball….it can even bring conservatives and progressives together.
[Open full post]The Democrats in the House and Senate are expected to debate fresh, new Iraq withdrawal plans next week.
The Senate bill requires a “phased redeployment” of forces from Iraq with the goal of a complete withdrawal of combat troops by March 2008.
“The troops should not be policing a civil war,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, said at a press conference to announce his chamber’s plan.
That’s a familiar refrain. OK, what about Speaker Pelosi?
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said her chamber’s measure, which accelerates the timetable for a pullout if the administration fails to certify that Iraq has met certain benchmarks for progress, will be attached to the nearly $100 billion in supplemental spending that President Bush is seeking this year for fighting in Iraq and in Afghanistan.
“Our bill calls for the redeployment of U.S. troops out of Iraq so that we can focus more fully on the real war on terror, which is in Afghanistan,” the California Democrat said.
The House bill calls for U.S. troops to start pulling out of Iraq by March 2008 and complete the withdrawal within 180 days, or by September — less than two months before the elections for president, the House and a third of the Senate.
Did you catch that? “Our bill calls for the redeployment of U.S. troops out of Iraq so that we can focus more fully on the real war on terror, which is in Afghanistan.”No mention of bringing the troops home. Does this mean the troops won’t be coming home? Are they going to go to Afghanistan? Maybe.
The bill also shifts more resources into the war in Afghanistan, where Democrats say the real war on terrorism should be fought to prevent the resurgence of the radical Islamic Taliban movement and the al-Qaeda terrorist network that attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.
“This bill takes giant steps toward putting resources into that war, a war that is unfinished and nearly forgotten by the administration,” Pelosi said in announcing the proposed legislation…
[Rep. David R.] Obey said the House bill “will essentially redirect more of our resources to the war against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, fighting the right war in the right place against the people who attacked us and who are giving al-Qaeda sanctuary.”
Don’t get me wrong, I support their committment to fighting the Taliban. But does the anti-war Democratic base know about this?
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