Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!  Let's hope 2017 is healthy and prosperous for us all.  Let's also hope Don Trump doesn't become the disaster many of us suspect.  (Remember, I think Clinton would have been, too, and that Obama and W. Bush were for 16 years before.)  There is a lot of work to do, a lot of bad things that need to be undone.

They can start with Obamacare.  Then undo a lot of the executive orders and other bureaucratic mandates that have stymied personal freedom.  Will we see changes for the better?  Call me a skeptic, but I still see government as run by "The Establishment."

I've always thought Rick Snyder was sneaky.  I suppose my view was arguable, even after passage of such things as the "right-to-work-for-less" law.  Some saw him as an outsider, one who could bring his mastery of business to bear fruit in government.  I guess that didn't work out so hot with the appointments of the emergency managers, esp in Flint and Detroit Public Schools.  There is an arrogance, of a different sort held by most politicians, an elitist view that his view is the only right one; opposing views are not allowed or at least tolerated.  But he's apparently become a politician.  A news article this AM showed that Snyder, if not encouraged, waited until a few hours before an expiration date to make a politically-motivated decision.  According to state law passed several years ago, a law advocated and promoted by none other than Rick Snyder, to downsize state government when some judicial positions expired, they were not to be renewed.  But a judge resigned four hours, four hours, before the expiration of the position.  That allowed the governor to appoint a new judge and the position doesn't die.  Hmmm......  This doesn't pass the smell test, not at all.  I thought Republicans favored smaller government, that is, fewer gov't positions.  I guess not, not if a Republican donor can get the appointment.  And what about the appointee?  According to the news article, he has no judicial experience and now is being appointed to the second highest court in Michigan.  I know a lot of people like the governor and what he's done.  Don't count me among them.

Talk of this came the other night, so I check it out.  Of course, kids don't play outside any more, well, not much.  A recent study showed that 6% of kids from 9 to 13 only played outside for an hour a week.  6%!!!!!!  Another study claimed kids today play outside only about half as long as kids did just 20 or so years ago.  Kids don't know how to play outside, not without adult supervision.  Some school districts, in NY I think, hired adults to come to recess to show kids how to play age-old games.  No, I can't make up this stuff.  I'd guess the consequences of this are not at all good and that the price for it will be paid in the near future.

I have no answer for this problem.  The end of 2016 brought a couple of murders in Detroit, with several others also shot, but not killed.  Early the AM of Jan 1, yep, two more people were killed there.  (Also unnerving is that these shootings came within a few miles of where I grew up, played and practiced ball, etc.  I know the streets well.)  Although official numbers won't be released until later this week, it appears there was an average of one murder a day in Detroit.  I didn't finish the article so I don't know why, but it suggested the numbers will be understated.  Chicago, esp the South and West sides, was apparently a war zone in '16.  More than 5,000 people were shot there, 1100 more than the year before.  On average, there were 2 or 3 killings a day!  Guns may or may not be the answer, although I suspect not.  Guns in Chicago, for instance, are illegal already.  Most of them are brought in illegally.  It seems more and more obvious that, somehow, someway, the culture has to be changed.  The belief that it's all right to just shoot somebody, for whatever reason, petty or not, has to be changed.

I had to laugh at a recent Detroit Free Press article that lamented the dearth of substitute teachers.  Are people that dense?  It's not just substitutes, but other school workers who are in short supply, too.  Where it seems just a short while ago there was a glut of teachers in almost all areas, now there are shortages.  Toss in bus drivers, aides, clerical help, etc.  Of course, there is no shortage of administrators; they keep multiplying.  Just last week a man older than I am asked, perhaps rhetorically, "Why would anyone want to be a teacher today?"  Extend that to other jobs in education, administrator excepted.  The pay, in most districts/areas, was never great to start with.  It's much worse now.  In some states, beginning teachers' salaries qualifies for food stamps!  Now the ignorant politicians and corporate-types are hammering at schools' performances.  Both tenure and teacher unions, about the only protections for teachers, have been emasculated.  (And, remember, I fully realize the bad aspects of teacher unions and tenure laws, but......)  Everywhere one turns, teachers are under attack.  Many teachers, no doubt, deserve the criticism.  But many do not.  And, for a young person seeking a career, such blanket criticism can't serve as an inducement to teach.  As for the substitute teachers, one wrote that she gets about $12 an hour, when she works.

I just can't understand so many who still support President Obama, who think he's done a good job while in office.  I can't for the life of me figure it out.  I ran into a couple of those the other night and it's no good trying to offer an opposing view; they don't listen.  Foreign policy?  The world is far greater disarray.  It's a far more dangerous place today.  Domestic policy?  Just for starters, the American people are more divided than they've been in a long time.  Obama's policies, from the White House to the bureaucrats, have done little to unite.  But, gee, consider the obstructionism (There we go with another of those "ism" words, becoming as ubiquitous and trite as "-gate" words.) of the Republicans.  They became "the party of No," didn't they?  Hey, didn't Obama have a Congress that was controlled by Democrats in 2009?  Harry Reid was the Senate Majority Leader.  Nancy Pelosi was the Speaker of the House.  And didn't they ramrod legislation to make minority opposition less effective?  (Boy, aren't they, the Democrats in Congress, scrambling now with their legislation now that the Republicans control not only Congress, but, at least nominally, the White House?)  Aren't those on the left advocating Democrats obstruct Trump and his policies?  What's that which is said about "whose ox is being gored?"