City Policies and Their Results

As someone who has lived near the city of Cleveland most of her life, I found myself in agreement with a recent article by Kevin D. Williamson at National Review Online entitled, Who Lost the Cities? As Jesse Jackson talks about "a national crisis of urban abandonment and repression," Williamson asks the question, who is responsible for this crisis in cities such as Newark, Chicago, Detroit and Cleveland? Williamson's conclusion? "The more progressive the city, the worse a place it is to be poor and/or black." While this might be provable by a simple look at political offices and economic statistics, I'm sure that diehard progressives will deny to their last breath that there is any causality between a city's politics and the living conditions of its poor. But isn't that just a ringing endorsement for Williamson's counter-argument, that individuals, families and private businesses should be free to act outside of regulated government influences? If, for example, the public school district in your system is failing not only to teach children, but to provide even a safe environment for them to learn, and this has been going on for decades, why think electing a new superintendent will magically solve the problem? Especially when that superintendent will be paid a couple of hundred thousand dollars or so a year in salary, and can easily move on elsewhere in a few years, while residents are stuck with the same schools? If you are a parent, who do you think you can best trust to make sure your child receives at least an adequate education, you, or some bureaucrats who are consistently not held accountable? Politicians have offered many fixes for urban woes, and I'm going to write about some of Cleveland's proposed solutions. I will simply state here that while downtown Cleveland and its neighbor, University Circle, may have some very lovely areas, the overall environment of the city of Cleveland has not changed... yet. You may want to give the government a chance. You may want to search for direct solutions for your family and yourself to improve your personal situation as much as possible on your own. It's not like politicians' promises have never failed before.

Update: this post was edited to better clarify my points, and to change when I will next post about this.

On Loving Cleveland

So the 2016 GOP convention will be held in Cleveland, and I'm trying to make myself care. Maybe if I could sit down with a few Republican Congressmen and ask them why they're being so stoooopit. That would be fun. But I don't get the disdain for Cleveland. I could point out everything I like about living here, but in the long run, it wouldn't matter to anyone, I don't think. But there is one important thing about Cleveland where many other cities are lacking: we have only one of nine Capezio stores in the country!

Homeschooling in Ohio

So Ohio SB 248 has come and gone. It was going to be a bill that would have brought in Children's Services to decide whether or not homeschooling would be "in the best interests of the child." Right from the start, Children's Services would have been involved with you, and your children, deciding whether you had the right to homeschool. A complete invasion of privacy, and a strong blow to homeschooling rights.

Unfortunately, the withdrawal of the bill still leaves me dissatisfied. In the statement to withdraw the bill by Ohio Senator Cafaro, she states, "the true intent of the bill to curtail child abuse has been eclipsed by the issue of homeschooling." What did she think was going to happen? Of course homeschooling parents were going to be up in arms by the idea of letting the State decide what was in the best interests of their own children. This bill was all about... regulating homeschooling! I'm not an idiot, and I'm not going to be put off by political double-speak. This is simply another case where the laws were not administered, so politicians want to write more laws. In this case, I believe this senator saw a nice opportunity to gain State control over homeschooling families. Too bad for her that many people are aware and appreciative of all of the educational opportunities available, even if they aren't availing themselves of a given choice at a certain time. Too bad also that people are getting fed up with overreach by the State, and are pushing back, at least from the State's point of view. I think that the next bill that Cafaro comes up with, "for the children," also deserves some close scrutiny.

Well, That's Awkward

From one of my doll blogs, I thought I had made a new friend in the blogging community. Yesterday, she was following my blog, and linked to my blog from hers. This morning, not only is all of that gone, but she deleted a comment she left on my blog. My only guess is that she saw something she didn't like about me. Maybe she wandered over here? I have no idea, since she chose not to tell me. She's from Europe, so I would hope she would not judge me based on my political views of what is happening in my country, but a lot of Europeans do think we should run things how they do.

I was afraid about linking my doll blogs to this blog, but I would hope I can discuss my hobbies with people and keep politics out of the way. Honestly, I don't want to know a lot about people outside the hobbies I read about on their blogs. I might not like their personalities or beliefs, but I do like seeing pictures and reading reviews and news about things that I am interested in. So I would hope that anyone visiting here from a doll blog would still want to engage me in doll talk. I keep my "identities" separate enough.

As far as this country goes, it seems that we are beyond reasoning and compromise and middle ground. No one outside the far right seems to particularly care that Obamacare, for example, was rammed through without a single piece of conservative input. We've been labeled for all time as evil, stupid, greedy, bad, and there's an end to it. If you don't like me, there's not much I can do about it. I'm not going to change who I am. If you want to engage me on a topic, make sure you bring facts and reasoning. I'm going to keep going and looking out for my top priority, my family.

Marcy Kaptur, You Disgusting Witch

I am especially ashamed today to say that Marcy Kaptur is my Representative after her name has been linked to this article stating that WWII vets who want to visit the national memorial may be arrested. Yes, this open air monument, open twenty-four hours a day, is currently "shut down" because Democrats are throwing a hissy fit that they didn't completely get their way, and a government shutdown ensued. Ace of Spades really brings it regarding how stupid this all is. It's always been wide open, where anyone can walk into it. It was not even funded by the Federal Government. The whole thing is political theater to punish the people who dared step out of line with a certain political party. I'm just adding the local story of how two-faced and unbelievably self-promoting this person who does not represent me in Congress is. Because check out what she has on her webpage:

 

She's willing to use vets for her own self-serving photo ops, but is happy to block their entrance into an OPEN AIR PARK, again, for her own benefit. I hope your district sees right through you and votes you out as soon as possible. The only member of your district you're interested in serving is yourself.

Where I Have Free Speech

I belong to Ravelry, a knitting and crocheting community of forums, patterns, etc. On a forum about copyright laws, a regular poster, we'll say Ann, completely off-topic and completely off-forum, praised a comment that someone else, we'll say Jane, left at a New York Times article site, and how wonderful it was. I then had the joy of witnessing at least a three-way lovefest going about how wonderful Ann, Jane and someone else who jumped in, Susie, all are, because they are all so outspoken. I don't know much about what happened after that, because after I got no response to flagging Ann's post, I left the forum. I flagged Ann's original post, since I thought it extremely inappropriate to take something essentially about politics (because Jane's comment was political) and throw it in someplace completely off-topic, instead of sending a private message. But since I got no response from a forum moderator, and since I would get flagged myself if I tried to respond over there, I'm going to respond to Jane's "brilliant" reasoning here. Basically, Jane is an idiot.

Our hapless poster Jane loves her some Paul Krugman, first of all. She was responding to a Paul Krugman NY Times article in agreement. Paul Krugman, former Enron economic adviser. The one who says, "Debt? Why worry?" Who thinks austerity is stupid. Because the answer to having spent so much money that we're drowning it debt, is: Spend more! A man who seriously thinks creating a trillion dollar coin will help our financial woes. Why not make a two trillion dollar coin, and get us out of debt twice as fast, Paul? And who is also the genius who said: "when the economy’s depressed it’s good to run a deficit. You don’t want the government to try and balance its budget right now." and that we "can’t run out of cash because we print the money." "What do you mean, I don't have money in my bank account! I still have checks!" Krugman's economic ideas are naive and idealistic at best, deceitful lies at worst. In short, as Monty puts it at AoS just today, Krugman is "a little ratty dog who exists only to yap and pee on the rug." Would *you* trust him to run your household accounts?

This woman than proceeds to throw out some sentences and makes conclusions with no logic to link her conclusions, or even facts. 1. The Eisenhower freeway system and the Hoover dam are really cool. 2. We don't build stuff like that today. 3. It's all Reagan's fault from when he told us not to trust the government. Well, bless her heart. First of all, leftists are trying to get rid of the gasoline-powered engine and they're blowing up dams to save fish. Well, you reply, we just need to build things that are more applicable to our needs today. Like, say monorails! Monorails are such great ideas, and if they don't actually make any profit, we can just print more money, right? Oh, and let's spend $200 million on electric car companies! We've got $535 million to spend on solar panels, don't we? And somebody called Elon Musk has done such a good job running companies such as Tesla, he deserves even more taxpayer money to build something else. And no, we're not talking about Musk's $17 million dollar mansion. So cheer up, "Jane." The government is already spending plenty of your money. The problem is it's spending plenty of my money too, not to mention my daughters' money. And oddly enough, I'm on Reagan's side when he says not to trust the government. I wonder why?

ETA: I dug back and found "Jane's" comment, so you can read her shining brilliance for herself. Go here, then go to the reader picks under comments. She is number one. I also lol'd at the second top pick. We poor idiots don't actually want GOP representatives, we've been "convinced" that we do. Of course, my representatives, GOP or otherwise, aren't really representing me, and the GOP ones are being accused of selling out their base, but that's a whole 'nother blog post or ten.

Now I'm Just Sick

One of my favorite sites, Ravelry, started for the knitting and crochet community, is honestly very good about frowning on politics in unrelated forums, but of course some people just can't keep their mouths shut, and so it has popped up yet again. A saw something B had posted in response to a Krugman NY Times article, and instead of PM'ing B, just had to post a comment in an unrelated forum and thread on Ravelry telling B how wonderful she is. I'm so sick of politics EVERYWHERE! And in my experience, it's always liberals who bring it up. They just can't keep their freakin' mouth shut about politics anywhere. American Girl doll boards, knitting forums, it doesn't matter. B has already had at least one comment moderated elsewhere for dragging in politics, but I guess A and B figure everyone at that forum believes the same as they do, so it's fine to talk about it. Again, this isn't Ravelry's fault, but then again they have over three million users, so if I'm not using the forums, it won't really matter in the big scheme of things.

Bad Signs for a Future

For a city, one of whose best attributes at times is that at least we are not Detroit, the news of Detroit's bankruptcy should leave the city of Cleveland wondering if we are next. I say should, because there may still be a chance to pull this city back. I'm not sure that's likely to happen, given how many people refused to acknowledge that Detroit was in such grave trouble, but at the very least we may gain some sort of timetable as to how soon Cleveland will also slide off of the cliff. It's discouraging to see Detroit's abysmal literacy rate ranked with areas of Cleveland, for sure. It's sad to see that children with Down's Syndrome have a higher literacy percentage, at least according to this site. Surely almost half of Detroit's population is not severely learning disabled, is it?

I'm not really an expert on Cleveland city schools, but I do know that the superintendent of said schools pulls in around six figures, which seems rather criminal, given the job results. I also know from personal experience that teaching a child to read does not need a teaching degree or fancy materials. In my case, I was willing to take a lot of time, had the ability to take as much time as was needed without the stigma of my daughter falling behind peers, had the advantage of one-on-one time, and had a child who was generally obedient about doing her work, and knew she was expected to learn. I'm sure all of these things are lacking to a certain extent in the Cleveland public school system, especially the one-on-one time. What would be useful would be being able to address a problem individually in the case of a child from a negative environment, or in a classroom in the case of a poor teacher. The parents blame the teachers, and the teachers blame the parents, but ultimately I think the responsibility should lie with the parents. The mayor is in direct control of the schools, and the mayor, in my mind, ought to be under the direct control of his constituents. But maybe I'm biased, because in our own case, faced with a parochial school which wasn't challenging our daughter, and a public school district in academic emergency, we decided to do it ourselves. It often seems to be the way to go if you want something done right.

h/t to Bookworm Room.

Times Are Changing

Now that the Dancer is studying Spanish in school, she and the Musician are sharing their experiences, especially since their first year teacher is the same. The Dancer's class is learning how to express clock time in Spanish, and the Dancer informed us that the teacher had to give them times to translate presented only in digital time, as apparently many of the kids did not know how to read an analog clock. The Musician concurred that things were the same when she was in Spanish I. At the risk of once again sounding like an old curmudgeon, why is what was once a basic, very basic, skill being ignored? I don't see much value in learning Power Point but not being able to tell time using a clock face with numbers and hands. I also wonder what else is being taught, that kids don't have time to study the analog clock. I won't even bother asking where parents are in all of this.

Related, having electrical power is not something we can always take for granted, and I'm not simply talking about short term power outages due to weather or accidents. Our current president *wants* to make "electricity rates skyrocket." Electricity-generating coal plants are being shut down all over the country, including right here in my local area. Rolling black outs and power outages may become the norm in all of our futures. It was ironic to many that the Super Bowl lost power for half an hour last night after planners bragged about how "green" it would be. Germans turned to stealing wood this winter to keep their homes warm because power costs are so high. Germany, a first-world country often associated with technology innovation and precision! Yet its citizens are become reduced to relying on wood fires, and not by choice. Don't say it couldn't happen here.

Wait, what?

This is already all over the internets, but as a resident of O-H-I-O, I have to pass this picture on. Just click over to Ace's place to see that our president thinks Ohio is spelled O-I-H-A. And deodorant is optional.

If you need a palate cleanser, watch this video of students from the Burke School perform an Irish dance to Hang On Sloopy, Ohio State's song. This is a better video than the one that I have, but I took one of this dance the same year. I think you can see Mr. BTEG and I off to the left of the screen every so often.

Dear Andrea Mitchell

I've done a lot of thinking about this, and you know what? I don't even know why you would presume that you could speak for me as a suburban mom, or even as a woman. I'm everything that you hate. I'm very white, and I'm not ashamed of the color of my skin. I'm not strictly evangelical, but you wouldn't know the differences in Christian doctrine if someone made a coloring book about it for you. I'm a stay-at-home mom. I've homeschooled my children. I've never had an abortion. I want a return to our Constitution and the founding principles of this country. It doesn't matter if you are who you are, a woman who married a wealthy old man and wouldn't be caught dead living the life of any of the suburban moms that I know, or if you were a dirt poor woman living in a ghetto. YOU DON'T SPEAK FOR ME.

I'm So Happy!

Both because of the thought of Paul Ryan becoming Vice President of the United States, and because of the Hey Girl, It's Paul Ryan pics being back!

Eat Mor Chikin

As you can probably guess, I went to my local Chick-Fil-A today and picked up some yummy food. I passed by about half an hour earlier, and the line of cars was spilling out into the street. By the time I got back, there were no cars in the street, but there was still a line of cars completely around the building before even getting into the drive-thru line. And there was a long line of people around the building, who were smiling, happy and enjoying hanging out.

It was nice knowing that we who value First Amendment speech are not alone. As I pointed out to my daughter on the car ride home, it is not just Christians who need to worry about losing their freedom of speech. In this case, it was.

I'm sorry I can't write anymore right now. I'm finding it really hard to concentrate lately. More about that later.

School Rules

I was glad to see Mitt Romney come out with a strong position on school choice. He's not my dream candidate, but he's not a socialist, and I think he could definitely improve the economy, which honestly is my biggest concern right now. If we have to worry about food and clothes and medicine, I don't have much energy for much else. As far as school choice, I am in favor of parents being able to spend whatever school monies they are entitled to, on the school of their choice. Or be able to keep it themselves if they homeschool. Of course, I think this shouldn't come with any sort of government strings. You takes your money and you chooses your school. I can also understand a desire for school accountability, when we have kids graduating from schools, who can't read or do basic math. I think our current system of trying to make sure all the kids in school actually learn, is probably fatally flawed. But then I think it should be more locally accountable, and not federally. But the subject is too complex and I don't have enough experience to go into it more deeply than that.

It's All Relative

I'm getting so tired of the idea that I must somehow be able to "relate" to people who are running for office. Especially since, who could I probably be able to relate to best? Bipolar people! Let's run somebody who's mentally ill for president -- that's a GREAT idea!

I also like pets. We've always had cats as they fit our lifestyle better. Hmmmm. The last president to have a cat as a pet was Clinton. And the cat got dumped on someone else as soon as they left the White House. So, scratch that.

I'm a mom, but I don't want to see a president wearing mom jeans ever again!

I'm terrible at sports, but I would like to have a president who doesn't totally embarrass himself throwing out a first pitch. On the other hand, I really don't care what the president's ESPN basketball picks are.

Which reminds me, I also do not want to see any more presidents or first ladies on any reality shows, awards shows or sports shows. You know what's reality? Unemployment, high gas prices, massive inflation.

Step It Up

It's not just politics being inserted everywhere that is annoying me. Unfortunately, many of the places I've come across people inappropriately inserting politics are places run by, or mostly populated by, kids or young adults. I'm not going to be a total curmudgeon and say that these children should be seen and not heard. But if they want to be taken seriously, they need to up their game. One Tumblr blog owner has started another blog dedicated to what a "rich jerk" Romney is. I'm sure Romney is trembling with fear that the blogger is going to call him a "big fat poopie-head" next. Seriously, how is Romney any less rich, in the big picture, than the grandson of a bank executive, who had a nanny as a child and went to a private school in Hawaii. Who had pretty fancy digs in Chicago, from what I've been told. Whose wife thinks $200 will only get you "a pair of earrings." Who is currently sending his own daughters to an upscale private school. And who behaves very much like a jerk to people who disagree with him. Just look at this great fisking of the little gem that the president gave us yesterday. We can't have an honest discussion of the facts. No, Republicans want to pollute the water, crash planes, kill firefighters and push Grandma off the cliff.

When the incumbent president has once again disabled credit card verification on credit card donations, maybe it's a good thing the guy the Republicans are running is rich. He can use some of his own money to back himself when he doesn't get a contribution from "Adolf Hitler."

Dialing It Down

I am absolutely sick to death of politics. Or, I am sick of everything, everywhere, throwing in politics. I would like to be able to visit a doll board, or a vintage fashion blog, and not have to read about politics. Mostly, the political speech is frightened lefties, which makes me laugh, in the long run. We had the eeeeeevil President Bush for eight years, and did he do ANYTHING that the hardcore lefties projected onto him? Not really. In the long run, he disappointed the right about as much as anything else. Although listening to public figures blaring in the media about how they had lost their freedom of speech was pretty precious.

Certainly, there are social conservatives out there, or socons, who would like to pass very totalitarian rules about sex and alcohol and divorce and etc. There are also people like Alinsky who would like to put people like me in a camp. The socons who are that restrictive are a very small portion of the population, just as, honestly, the Alinskyites are. It's very unfortunate that an Alinsky disciple happens to be in power, but I don't think even all socialists would go so far as to put people in camps.

You see, even though I am a strong socon, I also happen to be a strong ficon, and I'm also big on being left alone. In the long run, politics IS really all about power, but it's as much whether the people have it or the government has it, as who in the government has it at the moment. The more power the government has, the less power I as an individual have, and I will always fight against that state of things. I will admit to being against abortion, because I view it as murder, and because it is, as socons predicted, leading towards euthanasia policies for the elderly, those who are not perfect physically or mentally, inconvenient children who will force you to shop at Costco, or even perfectly viable infants. Other issues, I don't really care about, AS LONG AS you pay for it or deal with the consequences of it yourself. It is not a hardship for you to pay for your birth control if your insurance carrier does not provide it. As a conservative, I would say, go find some other insurance carrier that does. My family has gone through some difficult times. We are going through some difficult times right now, actually, thanks to Obamacare. But we look to ourselves and not the government to help us through. Getting rid of some of the rules and regulations we are forced to live under would help us even more.

So there you are, an Evil Genius' view of the political world. I put it here, because this is my space, and politics is one of the things I choose to discuss here. I won't bring it up on my doll blog (such as it is) or in forums that are not political. Unless you bring it up first. Then, I am working to sharpen my political Breitbart. It seems to be a skill that is more and more required.

We Must Obey God Rather Than Men, And We Will

So said the president of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, Rev. Dr. Matthew C. Harrison, today at a House Committee hearing.
I am glad that my church body was represented this morning, but I am cynically afraid that it will not do much good. We already know that the beliefs and the alliances of the left do not understand, much less align with any religious conviction. Indeed, I firmly believe that most of the members of our government only align their thoughts and beliefs with the acquisition and use of power. Still, those of us who have a conscience, and have Christian faith, must not be ashamed to let those temporarily in power on this earth know where we stand.

Slow Death

I'm afraid to say that the west side of Cleveland is dying. I'm seeing more and more empty storefronts, and a major anchor is pulling out of a local mall. The outdoor mall that replaced Westgate Mall seems to be thriving, but drive only a little way down the street, and there is an entire plaza that is almost empty. The biggest anchor in the empty plaza, as a matter of fact, pulled out and moved to Westgate Mall. I mentioned in a previous post about my favorite clothing store closing the only store they had on the west side. I doubt any of this is helped by the fact that Cuyahoga County's sales tax rate is the highest in the entire state.

Of course, the east side of Cleveland, and south of Cleveland (i.e. Strongsville) seem to be doing better economically. But, and especially in a town that is bordered on one side by an "inland sea," such as Cleveland, I can't see one side of a county, a major metropolitan area, getting worse economically without the rest of the area eventually feeling it. The Strongsville area's only saving grace at the moment may be that Summit County has a sales tax rate on the lower end of the state.

I may be biased by having spent most of my life on the west side of Cleveland, but I do believe the area has a lot to offer. The lake, for one thing. Boating, fishing, personal watercraft. Lots of nice park areas in the Metropolitan Park System. While not at the level of an NYC or LA, there are also nice museums, concerts and plays. That this area may be turning into another Detroit is not only sad, but seems such a waste. There is no reason, that I can see, that this area should be dying, besides poor management by the politicians that run it, the same thing that has decimated Detroit.

And speaking of poor management, I have to put in a note of disgust for the city planners of Avon, OH. They allowed an enormous grove of trees to be chopped down, to make room for more stores. The problem is, the trees have been gone for months, and there is no sign of any new stores coming. So everyone who drives on I-90 through Avon gets to see an open area full of mud and tree stumps, which may stay only mud and tree stumps for a very long time. Yes, there is a new freeway exit going in a little further down the street, but that won't be ready for at least a year, and Avon already has most of the major big box stores and, I believe, all of the local grocery stores. Plus, one of the big reason the exit is being built is to relieve rush hour congestion for the two exits on either side. Will it really bring any new people? And yes, the far west side into Lorain County does seem to be doing well. But how many of those are people fleeing Cuyahoga County for Lorain County? Can that area keep it up? Or will the near west side eventually drag it down as well? I'm not optimistic, given the the sluggish economy and poor city leaders.

Shut Up and Sew!

I have a subscription to Sew News magazine. It's fun to read about my hobby, and the articles can be inspiring. However, I was surprised, and then appalled, to see the editor's column this month promoting the radical feminist "holiday" V-Day. Yes, I said radical. If the Tea Party is radical, and conservatives are radical, then I'll call out left-wing socialists as being radical. And yes, the V-Day page, to which the editorial directs you, is political. The first article I clicked on, for girls, is all about Occupy Wall Street, and how those mean ol' policemen are beating up and generally harassing all those peaceful OWS activists. Considering over 5,000 OWS protesters have been arrested worldwide, I doubt all of those arrests were of peaceful, law abiding folk, no matter how many well-meaning people are there. Considering the number of reported rapes, I actually find it darkly humorous that the V-Day page is promoting OWS.

If you want more of my thoughts, and the background on the V-Day movement, see below, but suffice it say that it is a very political movement, and I was disturbed to see that a sewing magazine is promoting it. I really don't care what the politics of people in a sewing magazine are. I don't think it's at all necessary for me to know. A sewing magazine should be about sewing! Now I'm wondering if the magazine just wanted to promote what is at bottom a good cause, reducing violence against women, or if they are so far in the left wing tank that they don't even realize they are left wing. See the latest cover of Newsweek for a media outlet who isn't even trying to hide it anymore.

I sent off a quick email to Sew News yesterday. I'll let you know if I hear back. I'm expecting the "sorry if you were offended" nothing sauce, but I may be pleasantly surprised.