We Can't All Be Valedictorians

Posting links isn't blogging, but in this case it's just too easy.

Steve King does it again!

Michele Bachmann has always done it!

RAGBRAI - 2013 Edition

Spent another two days this week on this year's 7-day Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI), entailing slightly more than 100 miles.  This year's observations:

* RAGBRAI needs more portable toilets on the front part of each day's ride.  There are plenty in the overnight towns, and in the daily halfway 'meeting' town.  But in the first 25 or so miles of the day, they can be very sparse, not including cornfields.  I propose they set up an area of 100 or so portable toilets around the 10-15 mile mark. This is where most riders, souped up on breakfast and/or coffee, need the break. Food and retail vendors would even help to pay for the cost, knowing there will be a logjam of riders there (pun very much intended).

* One of the most dangerous things about riding with so many others is actually going uphill.  My second day was very hilly, and so many people are barely pedaling or walking up these hills that you have a relatively unsafe blob of riders together, wobbling on bikes in a small area.  On most occasions, the better riders have to move way over to the left just to keep their cadence going and avoid a crash.

* Three years ago I blogged that there was hardly any pie on the ride anymore.  I'm happy to say there were several places selling a variety of fruit pie (yea for pineapple pie!) on the two days I rode.  One place even had fried pie on a stick - an awesome combination for riders.

* Speaking of food on a stick, one of the best RAGBRAI stops ever had to be the Iowa State Fairgrounds.  Yes, it was too close to the start of the day to get a huge crowd, but if ever there was a perfect venue for these cyclists, it was there.  Lots of food, shade, even indoor restrooms.  As I tweeted that day, the only thing out of place was that the riders were better dressed in their spandex than most usual fair goers!

* Speaking of stops, determining what will be successful is really part art, part science. I think the best strategy is being separate in the country, and together in the town. Vendors on the road who are too close to each other won't get big crowds, nor will places on the the edges of a town that has a centralized vendor area.  Having beer and music isn't enough to draw a good crowd anymore.  Being unique helps, but still, it has to be in the right location.

* My favorite team name was Team Brick.  Slogan: If it was well built, we laid it! And there was a tie for my favorite t-shirt.  One said, "Forecast for tonight: Beer. Low standards. Poor decisions. Beer." The other said, "Does this shirt make me look drunk?"

It was two days of carefree fun.  Is there any other kind?

License To Drive Wrecklessly

This month in Iowa, the media has reported on two events that confirm we have a two-class system. No, I'm not referring to the upper and lower economic classes.  I'm referring to government and non-government workers.

You see, it's come out that our governor-for-life Terry Branstad and his entourage don't have to worry about speeding when driving around Iowa.  His state trooper driver was clocked many weeks ago doing almost 90 miles per hour, and when another trooper tried to report it, he eventually lost his job.

Talk about hypocritical.  This the governor that's supposedly so concerned for Iowans' safety?  The governor who's putting all kinds of my tax money into a program to make Iowa the healthiest state in the nation? (Aside: That ain't going to happen in farm country.)  Hey Terry, stop putting the people who employ and pay you at risk by being late and allowing your driver to go an unsafe speed!

To top this off, now it's been reported that many government vehicles are being exempted from photo-enforced traffic violations.  3,200 license plates have this special exemption (they are not in the usual state license plate database), presumably because they may have a need to be anonymous - for example a law enforcement purpose.

The thing is, law enforcement equates to only a handful of these exempted plates.  How is it that folks who drive vehicles for agencies such as the Iowa Lottery need this exemption?  And regardless, are they not as dangerous to other Iowans if they are speeding or running red-lights?  At the least, it's dumb law.  At the most, it's probably unconstitutional.

And so the government-versus-private sector two-class system in Iowa continues.  You'd think the governor would do something about this scandal - if he wasn't so busy setting a bad example.

The Wedding Planner

My daughter got married last week.  There was a beautiful ceremony, followed by a feast and dancing.  A good time was had by all.

Now that I'm a veteran of helping put together a successful wedding and reception, I would recommend the following to all those who may one day do the same:

1)  Make sure you have a spouse who takes care of most of the details in the months leading up to the wedding.  I cannot stress enough how critical this is.

2)  Buy local.  That out-of-town caterer or photographer may be your favorite, but when the time comes, you'll want to communicate with them face-to-face, and not worry about the travel/time.

3)  Have a personal helper(s) at both the wedding and reception venues - someone whose sole responsibility is to help you with whatever needs to be done.  There is so much going on, you aren't going to remember the details of what needs to be done, much less have time to do them.  Also, there is going to be a lot of stuff that needs to be transported from the wedding to the reception, and from the reception to home.

4)  Try to spend time with family the day before the wedding.  They're going to want to talk to you on the wedding day, of course, but so will everyone else.  Get some of the conversations shared beforehand, and you won't feel as bad about not being able to talk to them afterward.

5)  Make sure you have a long pre-reception day meeting with person(s) responsible for the dance music, and make sure they play what you want and don't play what you don't want.  We did this, and it was a rock solid idea. You don't want a lame night of dancing to end an otherwise great day.

6)  Starting the week of the wedding, if any out-of-towners ask you for suggestions on where to go or what to do, ask them why they didn't ask sooner, and then suggest they use their smartphones and figure it out themselves. Shame on them, you have too much to do at that point to be bothered with their unrelated entertainment.

7)  Re-read Item 1.

The Benevolent Idiot

As soon as I heard about celebrity chef Paula Deen being exposed for using the n-word, I figured it was just another case of the electronic media catching a celebrity showing their true self.  Maybe another case of someone stupidly blurting out their inner monologue.  Maybe another case of someone deservedly losing their reputation and money.

Then the facts got in the way.  It wasn't a gotcha moment.  It wasn't even a dishonest moment.  It was someone under oath who admitted saying something truly ignorant years ago - ignorant meaning they really didn't know any better.

When it comes to Paula Deen, or anyone who's ever used the n-word, people need to factor in the era it which it was uttered and at least try to separate what's intolerant racism from what's ignorant racism.  Both are unacceptable, but to different degrees.  The intolerant racist is a malevolent hater, while the ignorant racist is a benevolent idiot.  Don't tell me they're the same.

We all want to be politically correct and say there's no defending what Paula Deen admittedly said many years ago.  But of course, everybody knows it's somewhat defend-able if you factor in what America was like up through the 1960s.  It's a cold hard truth that most 60+ year-olds today, across the socioeconomic and political spectrum, used the n-word back then.  They are not the problem; the problem is those who never got over using it.

So here we go again with another silly societal litmus test.  Am I and the rest of society to shun everyone who ever said the n-word?  We'd be excluding a helluva lot of people, including family.  Maybe instead we should be just be shunning those who haven't changed.  Or perhaps we should just shun any litmus tests that compare one era with another.

I don't know if Paula Deen is a racist, nor does anyone else.  I do know that like most people of her age and background, she was once a benevolent idiot about race.  Ignorance is no excuse, but let's keep the moral outrage at its appropriate level.

Getting School-ed - Update

As expected, the JCSD bond referendum passed yesterday by a relatively narrow margin on its second try - needed 60%, got 66%.

Also as expected, today I haven't heard a single satisfied supporter profess that they will no longer complain about unnecessary government spending and taxing.

Hypocrites.

Getting School-ed

On June 25th, for the second time in nine months, voters in my school district, the Johnston Community School District (JCSD), will be voting on a $41 million bond referendum to primarily build a new $81 million high school.  Unlike the last time, it'll probably pass, and if not this time, then there will be another time.

That's still no reason to vote yes.

As with virtually all such tax increase proposals that require voter approval, I heartily oppose this one.  I'm not denying that there may be a current / future overcrowding issue in some school buildings, but I am denying that it should take $112 million of taxpayer money to solve that.

(There's one of the many head-fakes that voters get on deals like this - the bonding covers $41 million, but other taxpayer funds / levies will cover the other $71 million.  That equals $112 million of our money, and I tabulated that without needing a new school facility to help me do it.)

If you want to know all about the referendum, and how the money will purportedly be spent, and the estimated cost to property owners, there's plenty of electronic or print information available, of course paid for by us JCSD taxpayers.  But if you simply want to know about how ironic-to-borderline-dumb it would be for Johnston school district taxpayers to support it, just read this:

1) After failing to pass the referendum nine months ago, JCSD changed the bonding amount from $51 million to $41 million - but not by cutting anything, only by deferring the $10 million to other taxpayer funded pools.  In other words, they cut absolutely nothing.  They apparently take us taxpayers for fools.

2) The $112 million doesn't include some very large ancillary future expenditures that are admittedly part of the long-term plan, such as a new football stadium.  You know, for educational purposes.  Are we just supposed to forget about that little item?

3) Voting to increase your own taxes is never a good idea.  Let's face it, it's a little bit crazy.  It's a lot crazy when you consider.....

4) School districts are often poor stewards of our money.

5) Given the current and future age of technology, what sense does it make to build expensive, huge, new brick-and-mortar schools?  Shouldn't we be planning on ways to bring classrooms to students via on-line and digital means?

6) More than a decade ago, with the support of JCSD, our own Polk County passed a local option sales tax (LOST) to increase sales taxes from 5% to 6% for a 10-year period to fund new school infrastructure.  That was the deal, ten years only.  Liars!  Less than ten years later, they and every other school district were already lobbying to extend the time, and ultimately in 2008, the state of Iowa simply went to a permanent 6% sales tax.  Why should we believe anything the JCSD tells us now about taxes, when they had no problem lying to us taxpayers a few years ago?

7) Did I mention that school districts are often poor stewards of our money?

Here's a final thing that gets to me about this goofy referendum - it's being largely supported by a very Republican-leaning district.  These folks want to tax others to benefit them and or their school children, regardless of whether those taxpayers will receive any direct benefit from the school.  In other words, thousands of folks who claim to hate the so-called socialistic ideology of the Obama administration, seem perfectly willing to support this socialistic measure.  It's another example of how some people only oppose taxes and government spending unless it's good for them, and they ought to be required to forfeit their Obama-bashing cards.

Fellow citizens of the JCSD - don't be duped!  A 'no' vote doesn't mean you oppose education, it means you support not letting others unnecessarily spend your money.  The tax-and-spend monster that is JCSD doesn't need to be fed, it needs to be starved.  We can do far better with far less than over $100 million.