Obama damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t.

I have been a gun enthusiast all of my life, mostly because guns were a way of life as I grew up here in Tucson. My friends all had guns and we used them for recreation and competition, but mostly we hunted with them. Over the decades I, as most of you, have witnessed or heard of every obscene incident involving the outcome of bad people using firearms to further their goals or to further their fervors. And, as the decades passed, we have seen literally hundreds of laws enacted in an effort to prevent the carnage that continues to persist. Most recently our President, Barack Obama, in an Opinion published in the Arizona Daily Star on Sunday, March 13, 2011 spoke out on the need to find a common ground on gun reform.

I began to read this article with apprehension; actually I was on the verge of rage just reading the headline, but as I got through the first paragraph I began to lighten up. However, as I started the fourth paragraph I could sense the onset of my original fears. Onward through the the first column, then the second and into the third I knew just where we were headed. MORE GUN CONTROL laws.

However, as I started through the fourth column I sensed that this might be different and as I continued I found myself empathizing with what was being said. Yes, I could support enforcement of the existing laws if that would help. Most responsible gun owners have said all along that it was poor enforcement, or worse, the lack of enforcement that was the primary culprit.

I read the article completely, twice I might say. Then, on the third time through, I began to read the article with my normally jaundiced view of “big government” gun control. Actually, my jaundiced view goes to big government anything, but you already know that.

I think I can understand the use of the words faster and nimbler, as well as the intent of the terminology “instant, accurate, comprehensive and consistent” when applied together in a sentence. And, I do have some concerns about the wording on rewarding states that provide the best data? Does that mean that states that can come up with laws that somehow outlaw guns, will be financially rewarded by the federal government? Certainly better minds than mine can put a better twist on this than I can so we will just have to wait and see where this goes, if anywhere. From my perspective, it is a reasonable request by the President and should be responded to accordingly.

Now, here we are today, Tuesday, March 15, 2011. I note that on the front page of the Red Star(oops, a Freudian slip) there is an Associated Press item chastising President Obama for sidestepping sensitive gun issues. I read, reread, then read the article a third time. Each time with greater credulity than the time before. What was coming to fruition was exactly what the President had said was not happening, which was that “Americans by and large rightly refrained from finger-pointing, assigning blame or playing politics with other people's pain.” But one could assume that the “free liberal press” is not an “American” in this context, could one not?

I noted that Wayne LaPierre, the NRA spokesman, suggests that the dialogue should focus more on putting bad guys in jail than on enforcing existing laws. Well Wayne, if that is the best you can do you will probably lose my support. Hopefully you can provide more substance than abuse to this issue. That is what we pay you to do. Well that’s not correct, dues actually pay you .

So what is the point of this article? I don’t really know. I guess that I just got caught up in the moment and said to myself: “Self, it seems to me that this is a case of, You are damned if you do and you will be damned if you don’t”.

I for one am in favor of finding some common ground on this issue, how about the rest of you?

Just a small reminder.

In Libya today there are freedom loving people that without the availability to possess firearms would still be under the oppressive control of Muammar Gaddafi, a tyrant far more worse than was King George III.

Maybe Wisconsin unions need UA Civility classes

The Arizona Daily Star has an article this morning tagged “Organized labor vows “revenge” against the Wisconsin state legislators. There is a picture showing screaming union employees who appear to be great candidates for the UA’s new “National Civility Institute”. There seems to be at a minimum, 1,800 but potentially 80,000 potential enrollees, far more than enough to help our beleaguered education budget woes.

More “failing schools”

Today’s Arizona Daily Star’s article on potential failing school rates approaching 82% should be a wake up call. What is really disturbing about the article is the disagreement by the various participants on how to solve the problem. On the one hand, President Obama is alleged to support enactment of new legislation that would loosen the accountability rules. Just what does “loosen the accountability rules” conjure up in ones mind? Maybe lower the standards so we look better. That’s what I get, what about you.

There’s obviously something wrong and I don’t have a fix-it but I do know that any attempt to throw more taxpayer money at the problem is “not” the solution. Unless of course we want to take some credence from the Public Agenda survey referenced below.

One thing that could be beneficial is for us to revisit the “merit-based pay” for teachers. Barack Obama supports merit pay for teachers. He believes teachers' pay should be increased based on performance, not "arbitrary tests". He wishes to work with the NEA to find a new system to evaluate performance. In his first major education policy speech as President, Obama said that he supports "rewarding excellence in teaching with extra pay." President Obama negotiating with the NEA would be more like a “How much of a donation can we depend on to drop this”

Take a look and make up your own mind.

But there certainly are some common denominators that can be looked at when trying to determine No. 1.

1.  Many students don’t dog school. More than one in four students in 20 of the 28 OECD member countries surveyed "consider school a place where they do not want to go." With 46 percent, Belgium had the highest proportion of reluctant students, followed by Canada (37 percent), France (37 percent), Hungary (38 percent), Italy (38 percent) and the United States (35 percent).

2.  " U.S. students finished 15th in reading, 19th in math and 14th in science - and in a study that only ranked 31 nations.

3.  The testing used focused on age 15, which purports to allow countries to measure outcomes of learning that reflect both societal and education system influences, and measure students' preparedness for adult life beyond compulsory schooling."

4.  Countries with lower spending per pupil far outranked the U.S.. An average of 10 percent of 15-year-olds in the world's most developed countries have top-level reading literacy skills - that is, they are "able to understand complex texts, evaluate information and build hypotheses, and draw on specialized knowledge." Australia, Canada, Finland, New Zealand and the UK scored highest in top-level readers, with between 15 percent and 19 percent of their students registering in that range.

5.  In terms of gender, 15-year-old females outperformed males in reading in every country. In mathematics or science, however, there were no significant differences between the sexes. "Significant differences between countries reflect the varying abilities of countries to provide a learning environment or broader context that benefits both genders equally," the study noted. "In all participating countries, males are more likely than females to be at Level 1 or below in reading - in the case of Finland, the best performing country, over three times as likely."

6.  The U.S. has the 3rd highest spending per secondary student in this study.

And coincidentally, perhaps another element of educational quality surfaced in another recent survey from Public Agenda (www.publicagenda.org). That survey asked U.S. school leaders, "Do you have enough freedom and autonomy to remove ineffective teachers from the classrooms?" Only 28 percent of the 853 surveyed public school superintendents said that they "have enough" autonomy to get rid of bad teachers. Of 909 participating principals, only 32 percent said that they had enough clout to dismiss bad teachers. Put another way, in the Public Agenda survey, the folks supposedly steering the ship weren't No. 1.

 

OECD/PISA Study:
Reading Literacy

1. Finland
2. Canada
3. New Zealand
4. Australia
5. Ireland
6. Korea
7 United Kingdom
8. Japan
9. Sweden
10. Austria
11. Belgium
12. Iceland
13. Norway
14. France
15. United States
16. Denmark
17. Switzerland
18. Spain
19. Czech Republic
20. Italy
21. Germany
22. Liechtenstein
23. Hungary
24. Poland
25. Greece
26. Portugal
27. Russian Federation
28. Latvia
29. Luxembourg
30. Mexico
31. Brazil

Source for all charts: OECD/PISA. Outcomes of Learning: Results from the 2000 Program for International Student Assessment of 15-Year-Olds in Reading, Mathematics, and Science Literacy.

Is the American voter wrong, again?

Everywhere we turn today we are faced with the dastardly acts of the newly formed “Tea Party”. Most recently they are being chastised for doing what they were elected to do; “reduce government and cut government spending”. From where did these perverts emerge and what poor informed citizen had the audacity to vote for them? Look around folks, your neighbor and their neighbor must have voted them in. Maybe you and I are part of that group? They were sent there in place of both Republican and Democratic nominees and incumbents. We listened and bought into their mandate that we must trim government size and spending. Well folks, it’s time to pay the Piper. But let’s be realistic, they are not the problem, we are. Or at least I think we are. Yes, you and me, the voters, especially those of us that are age challenged. We want our cake and we want to eat it to boot. We say to cut spending on the one hand, yet on the other we say don’t touch our Social Security, our Medicare or our Medicaid. Well hell folks, that’s about 50-60% of our spending and it grows day in and day out, hour by hour and minute by minute. The unfortunate thing is that we want them to cut any and everything unless it effects us. Take our freebies and we will hate you. Actually they aren’t freebies, since we, or most of us, have been paying into them for 40 or more years. And we damn well want our pound of flesh. However the time to reconsider is here and now. And better we do it and not pawn it off on the future generation. So here is what I consider proposing.

Social Security could consider:

     1. Pushing early retirement to age 65 and full retirement to age 70

     2. Have a declining scale of benefits based on a persons financial worth with a minimum floor for all, no matter how wealthy

     3. Increase the wage ceiling but only charge 1/2 the rate over $150,000 and reduce it to 1/4 the rate over $500,000

     4. Tax 100% of benefits, not the 85%, for all recipients with income over $175,000

     5. Change mandatory withdrawal from IRA’s and others to age 73 but increase the minimum.

     6. Obviously we will need a formula to consider inflation, deflation et. al.

     7. Have a start date that eases us in, and out.

Now that is just for starters. Put on your thinking caps and add or subtract from this if you have the mettle. Then let your Congressperson know what you want them to do

Medicare and Medicaid are next up.