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| Wednesday, July 26, 2006 |
| “Never Trust a big but in a smile” |
 Truer words have never been uttered. The philosophical gurus Bel Biv Devoe spoke these words many years back. Ah, how I miss my youth.
I’m writing this from my new job. It’s still pretty slow as of yet. They haven’t given me many projects and what I have been given I’ve pretty much finished. Now I’m just waiting for others to get me some info so I can finish up. After that, who knows.
I think I mentioned earlier that I am sending my kids to private school. This isn’t out of any desire for a catholic education or some religious reason, it’s because the public schools in this area suck. The test scores are horrible, the buildings are run down and miserable. The majority of the teachers are rejects that couldn’t get jobs at better school districts. And what good teachers there are overwhelmed by classes being too large, students being unruly and the administration being horrible. One teacher told me she no longer taught the classes because kids don’t want to read them and won’t bother. What kind of bullshit is that? I didn’t want to read them either, but I had to. And turned out, I liked some of them. Sure, there are always going to be kids that don’t want to do anything, but you can’t cave because it’s too hard. It’s complete bullshit the way we fund our schools. In Ohio, schools get the bulk of their funding by local tax levies. So, rich areas are well funded and poor areas aren’t. Big cities like Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnati have funds, but administration and politics leads them to waste money and run the schools into the ground. Here in Columbus, the school board is a huge joke. It’s just a bunch of blow-hards prompted by special interest groups that argue everything and accomplish nothing. The superintendent is a woman who was picked because they couldn’t find anyone else. And, although the schools don’t get any better, she keeps getting raises. It’s ridiculous. Another great thing about Ohio is that in its desire to get more industry in the state, they put together sweet heart deals for companies that give them tax breaks. And who was supposed to receive these taxes that the companies don’t have to pay? The schools. Rural schools in Ohio have an incredible hard time just paying for heat; forget about providing a good education. It’s ridiculous. I don’t know what should be done, but I know exempting rich companies from paying taxes isn’t it.
If anything, they should pay more. The state needs a profit sharing plan like the NFL. Everyone in the state pays one tax rate, rich or poor. Companies pay school taxes, no exceptions. Then pool all the money and give it to the schools, per student. Schools should be the best thing in a community. Most malls are nicer than most schools. Hell, the bus station is air conditioned, most public schools aren’t. We sacrifice our kid’s future for crap public projects.
It kills me the way government operates. If you don’t think there is a preference towards the rich, try this experiment. Drive through a wealthy part of town. Notice the well paved streets, the clean sidewalks, the mowed lawns and grassy areas. Now drive through a poor section. Note the potholed streets, the broken sidewalks, the litter, the overgrown lots, buildings in disrepair. Government cares so little for these people they don’t even enforce zoning laws. There are hundreds of people in the county jail right now; they couldn’t get some of them to clean up the streets? Oh, every once in a while they’ll come up with an urban revitalization project. They’ll redo the streets, bring in big businesses, etc. All they really end up doing is raising the rent and driving out people who can’t afford the new rates. Why not do all that stuff and ensure that people can still afford to live in their neighborhoods? Crack down on slum lords. Enforce zoning laws. I don’t have a problem paying higher taxes if it goes to making my community better. Don’t tell me there isn’t a lot of ‘pork’ in the budget, though. I’m sure if most people looked at their city’s budget plan, they’d get a headache from all the little piddly crap that get’s paid for.
I don’t have a high opinion of government these days. We’re wasting billions of dollars in Iraq and our infrastructure here is crumbling. What has that money bought us? Safety, security, world admiration? Nope. More countries than ever resent us, 2500 plus soldiers are dead, thousands more injured or scarred for life mentally. If anything we have reinforced the Muslim world’s view that we aim to dominate the world. My mantra has always been live and let live. Our fearless leader claims to have invaded Iraq for the sake of Iraqis, along with his other dubious reasons. Well, if that’s a reason, why aren’t we in Darfur? The massacre there has been going on for years. Oh, that’s right, there’s no oil. There isn’t any reason to go in there and give Halliburton a huge un-bid contract. I’m sorry, I forgot.Ugh, now I’m depressed again. I started this whole rant with the private schools. The thing is they are so damned expensive it’s putting a hurting on my ass. The better job will help, and the fact that I’m working two jobs now. The S.O. makes good money, but she is thinking of going somewhere better. Hopefully in a few weeks we will be back on track. The beginning of this year was going great up until I got laid off. Karma’s kicking my ass again for something I did. I need to do some volunteer work or something to get myself evened out.
Anyways. So the pic is Vida Guerra. Major hot. She falls into my obsession with Latina women. She makes me feel special in naughty places. |
posted by dusio @ 7/26/2006 07:05:00 PM   |
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Name: dusio
Home: columbus, ohio, United States
About Me: Jaded, regretful, bitter and sarcastic. But a great guy!
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