If you haven’t read it yet, check out Mahkno’s blog entry on immigration. He’s done a lot of research and it’s a very interesting read. I fall into the category of those who are not anti-immigration per se, just anti-illegal-immigration. I have to admit, though, Mahkno is right — I didn’t have a clue how difficult it is to get into this country legally. It’s no wonder we have an illegal immigration problem, given all the red tape we’ve created. I’m still not in favor of amnesty, but I do think our legal immigration process needs serious reform, and quickly.
Daily Archives: May 3, 2006
Just imagine if it were “Mohammedtown”
I’m not Catholic, but this story from the Sydney Morning Herald bothers me. MTV plans to air a blatantly sacrilegious cartoon called Popetown, “which depicts the Pope […] bouncing through St. Peter’s in Rome on a cross-like pogo stick and satirizes religious ceremonies.” Non-Catholic Christians might actually chuckle a bit at that, but they’ll stop laughing when they see the advertisement for this series that shows “Jesus apparently getting down from the cross to sit in an armchair and watch the program. The advert’s tagline read: Have a laugh instead of hanging around.”
Not surprisingly, Catholic bishops — especially those from the Pope’s home state of Bavaria — are outraged. As well they should be. If this were a send-up of another religion (for example, Islam), you can bet no one would even consider airing it. Why do broadcasters have no respect or common decency? Didn’t their mothers teach them not to mock other people’s religions? In our supposedly sensitive, tolerant, and politically-correct society, it seems that the only religion no one is required to be sensitive or tolerant toward is Christianity.
District 150’s missteps not uncommon
One of the most surprising things I learned from reading the resources available at the National Trust for Historic Preservation website is how common District 150’s missteps are from a national perspective. Reading the NTHP publication “Why Johnny Can’t Walk to School” (PDF file), published in 2002, is like reading our morning paper lately.
The whole report is fascinating and a highly-recommended read, but I just want to point out a few highlights from the section titled “How Shortsighted Policies Undermine Historic Neighborhood Schools”:
- “Many state education departments either mandate or recommend a minimum number of acres for schools. […] Sites as large as those recommended today are hard to find in older cities and towns, where older schools typically occupy only two to eight acres, are surrounded by densely developed neighborhoods, and have no room to expand. […]Â In Massachusetts, older communities have had to give up precious parkland and farmland so schools could meet acreage standards.”
- “In some cases, state acreage standards are actually more flexible than they are represented to be. However, some school districts treat recommendations as if they were regulations, particularly when they want an excuse to tear down and build new. When citizens working to save older neighborhood schools try to distinguish between what’s required and what’s merely recommended, they sometimes run into a brick wall, buck-passing between state and local officials, or both.” Peoria is suffering from this: Ken Hinton went on WMBD radio and left the impression the state mandated 15 acres for a new school, when in fact Illinois has no minimum acreage requirement. And even at the meeting Monday night, school officials were applying the erroneous 15-acre standard to the current Glen Oak School site, protesting they’d have to demolish 60 houses to get that much space at the corner of Wisconsin and Frye and conlcuding, “the district simply doesn’t have the money to build there.” Yet the 15-acre standard is completely arbitrary and impractical for an inner-city school.
- When comparing the costs of renovation vs. new construction, “certain new construction costs — items such as land acquisition, water and sewer line extensions, transportation and road work, for example — may not be factored into the comparison. […] The rules also trivialize other values, such as a community’s desire to maintain a school as a neighborhood anchor or to have a school to which children can walk.”
- The costs of busing children longer distances as a result of building schools in remote locations are sometimes ignored, even though these costs can be substantial.
- “Because of insufficient operating funds, many school districts […] have to defer needed building maintenance. In other cases, school boards have been criticized for allowing older schools to deteriorate, knowing it will then be easier to garner voter approval for new buildings.”
- And finally, this is my favorite: “Although many school boards are models of inclusiveness and openness, other boards act in secrecy and make citizens feel shut of the planning process.”
Regarding that last point, the Journal Star correctly pointed out in a recent editorial that the board’s actions weren’t technically secret. They did disclose that Glen Oak Park and Morton Square Park were potential sites back in October 2005, even saying explicitly that the Glen Oak Park site was “preferred.” However, the final decision-making process was not what one would call “inclusive.”
According to the master facilities planning document, the committee held forums September 5-16, 2005, before the document disclosing specific sites was released. After the document was released, no further input from neighbors, parents, the city, or other concern citizens was solicited until this past Monday night’s meeting. But I think everyone’s pleased they provided Monday’s forum, belated as it was — let’s just hope it results in some positive changes from the school board.