You Gotta Love History

So, while one President's legacy is already being recorded in History Books, our current Commander in Chief continues to work on his.

The argument from all my Republocrat friends will be the court was "unprecedented" in how it insisted on altering Dubya's wiretap requests. They'll say it's the Liberals on the court, rather than admitting the requests were "unprecedented" in what was being asked for.

Conservative Republocrats always preach personal responsibility, until it applies to them...

You have got to be kidding...

This is an actual quote from this article;

"Congress recently has been controlling its spending"

That's right...The Honorable Pete Hoekstra, you know...the guy who said he would never serve more than two terms once he was elected during the Clinton administration...he was sure he wouldn't get one of those prime committee appointments. Then, once he saw that the Republocrats seized power of both houses, he decided to "re-up" to feed off the fat of the land.

Anway, this article is very telling. Not only is he in total denial about the spending policies of his co-horts in Congress, he has the cajones to float a trial balloon regarding a "Patriot" tax to help pay down the deficit. This would be a "temporary" tax. Huh? Since when has ANY tax EVER been temporary?

For those of you who believe History has a way of repeating itself, I think we may be getting closer to another Boston Tea Party. For a high ranking member of congress to be delusional enough to think his boys are actually "controlling" their spending habits gives ample evidence they have no clue what they are doing.

Holy Moly!

So, I experienced the beauty of High Def television this past weekend. OH...MY...GAWD!!!

My father in law has a 60 inch High Def television, complete with digital cable. He's created a little home theater mecca in his basement, which is where I spent my entire Saturday.

Words cannot begin to describe the difference between standard cable and High Def. There is absolutely no comparison. I was able to switch between the normal ESPN cable feed and the High Def feed...Wow. The difference is amazing.

I'm certain of two things...I will NEVER own such a television and that I will be spending every NFL Sunday, from this day forward, bonding with my father in law.

High School Athletics

So a friend of mine asked if I wanted to join him in his attempt to pressure the local school district to add athletics to the new high school ahead of schedule. In the master plan, additional enrollment (headcount = money) will be needed to support the additional costs. I was pretty pleased with my response, so I thought I would post it here.

Needless to say, he wasn't interested in my help...

I appreciate your willingness to be involved and become part of the process of developing our school district. I will gladly volunteer to be a part of this task force. However, I not sure my thoughts on the subject will align with goal and/or timeline. Allow me to explain.

While I wholeheartedly agree strong athletic programs add to the appeal of school districts, I do not feel they should be the top priority of any educational system. The addition of a second high school provides some exciting opportunities to our district in the form of smaller class sizes, more academic and vocational opportunities and a high level of technology to name a few. In my opinion, the district’s resources should be concentrated more on further development of these opportunities.

As you are aware, the housing market is somewhat flat and there are many homes for sale within our school district. This leaves much to chance regarding the financing of existing programs in the coming years.

The cost of adding comparable athletic offerings at the new high school will put a huge financial burden on our district. As you know, it’s an “all or nothing” proposal. Here are just a few big ticket items that would add to our district’s operational costs;

1) Additional coaching staff. As many as 70, based on Ron Allen’s presentation to Task Force last year.

2) Additional Transportation Costs. My elementary pays almost $4,000 per year to transport 2nd and 4th graders back and forth to the high school for swim lessons.

3)Additional athletic equipment required. Game and practice equipment, uniforms, etc.
Cost of officials.

The sum total of these could put a strain on any reserves our district requires to meet payroll and other obligations.

In your email, you mention you would rather have 20 kids try out for 15 spots rather than 40. In the end, you’ll still have ten kids that don’t make the team. What happens when your child is number 16? Will there be a push for three sets of athletic programs? Where does it end?

Should we follow the Zeeland model? What school would you want to be aligned with? The high school with the stronger football program, or basketball program? The better swim team, or competitive cheer team? How do you control school of choice requests and avoiding the stacking of teams?

I truly hope our district continues to grow and we will one day be able to support two comparable athletic programs. Until such time, I’m of the opinion we should develop an intramural program that will give many more children the opportunity to compete short of the varsity level. Development of a solid intramural program would also support that 16th athlete mentioned above on both campuses.

You still want me on your team?