Rebane's Ruminations

CTA on ‘cultural competency’ – a peek into the pus

George Rebane

Our society is covered with plenty of boils and pimples from our attempts to do the ‘right thing’ with all the political correctness we can muster.  A correspondent sent me a piece on the California Teachers Association website in which the union highlights the politically correct sensitivities and behaviors of teachers confronting students who come to their classrooms from different cultures – ‘Are You Culturally Competent?’  It is definitely worth a read for a better understanding of what goes on behind the curtain that ails us.

The American school is one place where a student new to our country should unambiguously learn what are our customs, language norms, behavioral protocols, dress codes, etc in the course of being taught the subject matter for which he is attending class.  There is already precious little time to get the lesson into the little darlings’ heads without detours to account for what may or not be familiar or acceptable to one or another student.  The lesson behind the lesson that the foreign student should learn is that when he’s in American society, then do as Americans do.  His home and relatives, not the classroom, are the place and people to teach, practice, and perpetuate his culture of origin. 

The fundamental lesson to be learned is that we Americans respect your culture to the extent that you learn and practice America’s culture when in our public arena.  We want you to become at one with us, and not the other way around.  Diluting that effort to acculturate foreign students in our schools in order to demonstrate ‘cultural competency’ works to impede, or at least slow down, assimilation.  And this goes doubly for students who come from global cultures which have already self-declared and demonstrated themselves to be inimical to traditional American values and mores.  (As a non-English speaker from Europe, I was among the tens of thousands of foreign kids fortunate enough to have been introduced to America in public schools at a time when such progressive impediments were not in vogue.)

In sum, this is yet another illustration from the catalog of crap that burdens unionized teachers in public education to the ultimate detriment of us all.

Ruminations - 9apr13 (updated 10apr13)

George Rebane

California 2013 Job Killer Legislation.  The state’s chamber of commerce released a list of bills that would continue California’s economic misery as the Democrats pander to the dimwit cohort of their constituency.  All of these pile on to the mother of idiotic job killer laws already on the books and wreaking havoc –  the perniciously named the California Global Warming Solutions Act aka AB32.  H/T to reader for the heads up.

Detroit neighborhoods are hiring their own gunslingers for protection that the city can no longer provide.  The good news is that so far these extra-curricular security people are off-duty policemen, the bad news is that the precedence has been set and the word is out – if you want safe neighborhoods, provide for it out of your own pockets.  I wonder if residents will be able to deduct a commensurate amount from their local taxes that went for police services.  Signs of a new future upon us.

Scumbag litigation has arrived.  The 8apr13 WSJ reports that “A new generation of investors is plunging into "litigation finance," putting up millions of dollars to fund lawsuits in hopes of collecting when verdicts come down. Established financiers are expanding into new areas, including loans to law firms, and finding clients among the biggest American companies.”  Now there’s a way to redistribute wealth for those crafty capitalists who can think of no way to create new wealth – ‘if you can’t make it, take it’.  The Left ought to have a field day with this until their first union pension fund gets in on the take.

The Navy is installing ray guns on combat vessels.  The first ship with such a ‘directed energy’ weapon (aka steel cutting laser) will be deployed to mid-east waters next year.  It is reported (here) that their initial use may be against Iranian drones and fast boats that harass our naval vessels in the Persian Gulf.  More powerful stuff that can take down fast-flying combat aircraft and cut through inches of steel are on their way.  For carrier task groups worrying about incoming missiles, the Son of Star Wars will be a welcome upgrade for own ship defense systems.

[10apr13 update]  Bill Whittle of PJ Media give a memorable staged speech to Congress on the Constitution and gun control (see video).  One can only wish a real President would say these words to Congress.

Ruminations – 4apr13 (updated 5apr13)

Have just a touch of the commercial in you.  Do not merely shop, but trade a little.  Gracian #232

George Rebane

Been on travel with some friends for the last couple of weeks.  We attended the Mercatus Institute’s annual retreat in Scottsdale.  The big issue discussed was socialism’s onslaught on capitalism – ‘Can American Capitalism be Saved?’ – and who is doing what to bring it down.  I’ll cover more of that in a future post.  But here I just want to include an observation gleaned on our way to Scottsdale.

We stopped overnight in a Needles, CA RV park, and were pretty much shocked at the state of that once prosperous gateway town to California that lies on I-40.  The town is an economic disaster area, a relic of former times, and a step away from being a derelict or even a ghost town.  What made the sight of Needles so stark was its comparison with Arizona that lies a stone’s throw across the Colorado River.  We wanted to eat out and also buy some RV items.  Nothing available in Needles.  But a drive across a little bridge brought us into a dynamic and bustling commercial area that was an extension of Bullhead City, AZ which lay twenty miles to the north.  It was like driving back to West Berlin through the Wall at Checkpoint Charlie in the days when communism ruled East Germany.

The most telling part was instantly apparent from the bridge looking northward.  The Arizona side was filled with well-kept and landscaped riverside houses, each with their own boat dock; the California riverside was weeds as far as the eye could see that continued a good piece inland.  Huell Howser, RIP, could have done one hell of program on Needles and what happened to ‘California’s Gold’.

Governor Moonbeam and entourage are heading to China.  Their purpose is to talk the Chinese into making investments in California that people more knowledgeable about the state won’t.  They also want Chinese to buy more stuff made in California that we can’t sell elsewhere at prices that bring a profit.  I can’t imagine China buying anything that we are selling save some technology that they still don’t have and want to copy.  The same goes for making investments.  They would like to take major positions in high-tech companies dealing in IT and genomics.  One thing is for sure, they will not be buying any ‘green technology’ from us.  There they have us beat on both price and performance, and will continue selling the stuff to us.

But come to think of it, they may talk Team Moonbeam into mandating and/or subsidizing the purchase of Chinese green stuff.  Nothing like getting a twofer from being America’s creditor.

Connecticut has now taken the lead in nutty gun control laws, while again demonstrating that all states were not created equal in their ability to sensibly legislate.  Today their Governor Malloy signed the “most sweeping” gun control bill in the nation that is supposed achieve new levels of “gun safety”.  It will, of course, do none of that.  (more here)

Meanwhile, despite President Obama’s national campaign to disarm America, more states are easing gun regulations than are bolstering them (more here).  The message there is clear – don’t disarm sane, stable, law-abiding citizens, but do more to identify and intercede with people who are clearly not qualified to possess firearms, and maybe not even to walk on the sidewalk.  To be fair, Connecticut’s new law also attempts to address that part which was the only germane factor in their Newtown massacre.

[5apr13 update]  Here's a Quote of the Day from the Los Angeles Times about something I strongly believe and wish I would have said.

"Frankly, I don't know what it is about California, but we seem to have a strange urge to elect really obnoxious women to high office. I'm not bragging, you understand, but no other state, including Maine, even comes close. When it comes to sending left-wing dingbats to Washington, we're Number One. There's no getting around the fact that the last time anyone saw the likes of Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein, Maxine Waters, and Nancy Pelosi, they were stirring a cauldron when the curtain went up on 'Macbeth'. The four of them are like jackasses who happen to possess the gift of blab. You don't know if you should condemn them for their stupidity or simply marvel at their ability to form words."

-- Columnist Burt Prelutsky, Los Angeles Times

Blue State Blues (updated 30mar13)

“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.”  Sir Winston Churchill

George Rebane

There’s good news and bad news about liberal states going to hell in a handcart.  The good news is that the faster they implode, the more chance there is for even the most minimally informed electorate to come to their senses and turn away from socialism.  The bad news is that minimally informed electorates seldom turn back from their race over the cliff.

And from a selfish point of view, being a resident of one of the worst states in this quandary, California will lead the way along almost every pernicious metric you can imagine.  The most obvious one is net migration which Bill Watkins of Cal Lutheran University in his ‘California is in for World of Hurt’ calls the “canary in the mine” that gives advance warning to jurisdictions headed for failure.

Established residents of our state and others have been emigrating to greener pastures for years.  But now, as the nearby chart shows, immigration is no longer able to stem the net outflow.  Even poor people are leaving in droves, being hurt by the same innumerate idiots that they sent to Sacramento.  Citing data from California’s Department of Finance, Watkins writes –

“California’s political class, led by Governor Brown, has been patting itself on the back for solving California’s problems. This celebration is ludicrous.  What they’ve done amounts to a mere slowing down in a long-term political, fiscal, and demographic decline. … Demographic trends themselves are creating a crisis brought about by a population that is simultaneously losing its children and getting older, and to a frightening extent poorer. From 2000 to 2010, the percentage of Los Angeles’ population under 15 years old fell by 15.6 percent. This was the greatest decline of any U.S. major metropolitan area, and about double the U.S. average of 7.4 percent.”

In the 27mar13 WSJ Art Laffer and Stephen Moore take a broader national look (here) at how the blue states are headed into the toilet, and what the red states are doing to avoid the same fate.  From independent Census Bureau sources they observe –

“You can tell a lot about prosperity in America by observing the places people are moving to and where they are packing up and moving from. New Census Bureau data on metropolitan areas indicate that the South and the Sunbelt regions continue to grow, while the Northeast and Midwest continue to shrink. ... Among the 10 fastest-growing metro areas last year were Raleigh, Austin, Las Vegas, Orlando, Charlotte, Phoenix, Houston, San Antonio and Dallas. All of these are in low-tax, business-friendly red states. Blue-state areas such as Cleveland, Detroit, Buffalo, Providence and Rochester were among the biggest population losers.”

Laffer and Moore go into some detail to compare and contrast the tax and regulatory policies between the red and blue states.   Part of the good news here is the clear contention between diametrically opposing economic policies of tax and control socialism, and low tax and regulation capitalism.  They observe that “the contrast sets up a wonderful natural laboratory to test rival economic ideas.”

I don’t know how effective this display of successes and failures will be to the rank and file American workers and transfer payment recipients.  But with great purpose our Founders did put in place a republic that can concurrently try out different approaches to make the country grow and prosper.  The Left has been doing its level best to squash this diversity of liberty into one of centrally controlled homogeneous squalor.   So far their success has been short of complete as we observe that “red states of the South and other areas of the country are moving forward with pro-growth tax reform, while California and the blue states of the Northeast are doubling down on Obamanomics and European progressivism.”

[30mar13 update]  SESF published its first report on unfunded liabilities in 2007 and presented it to the Board of Supervisors.  RR started warning its readers of the magnitude of debt facing Nevada County, California, and jurisdictions across the country.  These reports were politely sniffed away by politicians and bureaucrats ignorant of what was owed.  Now as Europe’s fiscal fractures are making daily news, and the magnitude of the Obama financial mismanagement of the country becomes clear, reports like this one - 'The Debt Bomb that Taxpayers won't see coming' - in the 30mar13 WSJ are starting to clamor about the amounts that was committed by scumbag politicians end running their electorates.

None of this should be news to RR readers.  The news is that it is only now being recognized in the media, but not yet by the public.  And the progressives will be forever blind to what the public service unions have bamboozled from the public that their members were supposed to serve.
 

Marriage by any other name (updated 5apr13)

George Rebane

California’s Prop8 rescinded gay marriage in the state.  The will of the people may now be overturned by the Supreme Court which is hearing the appeal to uphold Prop8 that in the interval was overturned as unconstitutional by lower courts.  In this debate we recall that under California law, gay couples can already register domestic partnerships that provide the same rights and responsibilities as marriage.

So, as a couple of justices observed, it really comes down only to the use of the label ‘marriage’ when describing the association between homosexuals.  Historically all cultures have reserved that label to identify the prime familial relationship between a man and a woman.  Now the issue seems to be for the homosexual community to co-opt that label to also and with ambiguity identify their special relationship.  It is no longer a matter of the rights and privileges that the relationship confers, they already have that.

As another side matter in this decision, the impact of same-sex marriages on children raised in such families is not known as is claimed by the usual activists promoting this new type of marriage.  More here.

My preference is to retain the historical word ‘marriage’ in all languages to refer to the established union between a man and a woman.  We make up new words for new ideas every day.  Why can we not concoct a brand new label for the brand new relationship that the modern age recognizes between people of the same gender?  The benefits to such unambiguous identification in all matters of social administration and intercourse would be enormous.  One simple word would distinguish between the traditional societal norm and the newly imposed norm, and inform all of the exact nature of the so referenced couple.

After all, there is no intention to hide anything here, is there?

[5apr13 update]  In the comment stream below I introduced ‘garriage’ as the working label for gay or same sex marriage in order to facilitate debate and discussion.  Messing with an institution as fundamental as marriage in its expansion to embrace same sex unions has unintended consequences.  Some of these are now coming out in the media, even the lamestream, after chair of the Georgia GOP Sue Everhart raised the benefits that straight people may gain when they game garriage.  (She was instantly denigrated by the usual liberal intellects like Stephen Colbert.)  With each passing day, more and more interesting possibilities open up for non-homosexuals to become garried.  The most recent one I heard today was fathers garrying their sons and grandsons to gain relief from asset transfer taxes that today don’t apply in marriages.

We can all now anticipate the elaborate patchwork of exceptions, codicils, and special provisions that will have to be appended to any law that will insist on calling such gay unions 'marriage' instead of giving them a unique and informative label.  What a curiously deviant world progressive thought provides us in so many areas of human intercourse.

Ruminations - 8mar13 (updated 11mar13)

George Rebane

This is TechTest season, and we're in the middle of the preparatory seminars for this year's test to be given on 23 March.  In an ongoing discussion about Nevada County schools' performance in preparing students for STEM careers, I received a succinct summary (below) from a respected Nevada Union teacher about the problem we at SESF have observed now for some years - it appears that the malady is both entrenched and systemic.

The main problem is the complete lack of technical focus in education.  How is it possible that any child can make it to Nevada Union and have never used Word and Excel?  Yet this is the case.  We have no computer science classes taught here and what is taught has to be done in too short a time.  Even the best and brightest students at NU are intimidated by technology. Not only that, they don't see why it is needed.  I think this stems from an education that does not stress its importance, most teachers have no background in any technical major and therefor avoid tech like the plague. The foundation needs to be set in the middle schools or perhaps even younger.  We have 2 clubs here that are harboring some talent, but this constitutes about 0.5% of our student population. (emphasis mine, gjr)

The US Postal Service reports a ‘loss’ of $15.9B last year.  We're told that $11B of it was a mandated payment into their employees’ pension fund.  With that union negotiated albatross around their neck there’s no way in hell that they can ever hope for solvency.  Another government agency bites the dust from pension corruption costs.  And the country’s Left continues to deny that public service pensions are taking jurisdiction after jurisdiction down the toilet.  Where is that elusive common ground?

In response to the USPS woes a Berkeley city councilman (where else?) is proposing a national tax on emails to do what?  To fund the pension liabilities of the USPS, what else?  The Repubs may have shot themselves in the foot for sticking to principles and issues few people care about, but the Dems continue to demonstrate that most of them are simply certifiable.

Well, it turns out that I’ve underestimated the deep doo-doo that LA is in and sinking ever deeper.  In addition to Vallejo, Stockton, San Bernardino, ..., Moody’s says that 30 more California cities are on their debt downgrade list headed for bankruptcy, and odds are overwhelming that LA is one of them.  The city is in an awful state of disrepair, owes tens of billions, has most of its elected officials in some condition of corruption, an education system that is in the gutter, no major industry left besides the socialist socialites of Hollywood, … - the list goes on.  Meanwhile, Moonbeam and his merry morons in Sacramento have not a clue about what is happening other than trying to patch the state’s hundreds of billions in unfunded liabilities with yet more taxes.

California’s Middle and Poor Driven to Greener Pastures

George Rebane

As we have noted for some years, California’s progressives now ensconced in Democrat super-majorities are continuing policies that are harmful to the economic health of those they claim to help, and whom they regularly bamboozle with their election year rhetoric.  Those folks are not all that bright since they keep voting for the same political shills year after year.  In recent times the pain has gotten so bad that there has developed an exodus of these middle class and poorer people headed for places where they can find work and afford to live.  The state’s lamestream, of course, keeps a lid on such news, but more journalistic national and international newspapers like the WSJ and The Economist are keeping a close eye on California.

The Great Depression saw an influx of 1.3M from parts east like the Dust Bowl states.  But decades of Democrat control have now reversed the direction for the less well heeled – a net 3.4M have moved out over the last twenty years during which things have gone from bad to worse for all but the upper quintile of Californians.  Yes, the wealthier get taxed more, but to the real wealthy it really makes no never mind.  They have ways to avoid the pain, and therefore still continue to come and land on/near a California beach somewhere.  It has to do with esoteria like monetary utility (which I’ll talk about in the future).

Detroit – Collectivism’s Latest Poster Child

George Rebane

Detroit is cueing up as the nation’s latest testimony to collective mismanagement.  It is truly the poster child for what happens when you mix capitalist hubris, progressive pap, unions (public and private), and politically correct ignorance with generous dollops of corruption.  The result is a city that is now on the last stages of life support, a city where the remnants of those who can are leaving, and leaving it to those who can’t or won’t.  Or as the WSJ puts it, Detroit is “a sprawling city with $14 billion in debt, a depleted tax base, a legacy of government corruption—and very little time left to avert financial collapse.”  Chapter 9 bankruptcy is in the offing.

Few cities have had the geographical advantage and abundant gifts of commerce that blessed post-WW2 Detroit.  In 1950 its population was 1.5M, and today it has shrunk to 700K, as the productive and civilized are still taking their leave in droves.  The latest we hear is that the state of Michigan will take over, and run the city with an appointed ‘financial manager’.  Readers already know that Detroit has debt and unfunded liabilities hole too deep to climb out of (see ‘Hiroshima+66, Detroit+welfare’ and here).

Detroit is just the latest and most visible on the list of cities across the country going under.  (See nearby interactive map for the most recent jurisdictions filing Chapter 9.)  California, of course the leader in all things social and socialist, already sports a Chapter 9 club with Vallejo, Stockton, Mammoth Lakes, and San Bernardino as members.  And its crown jewel, the City of the Angels, is quietly fighting insolvency.  A look at the nature of LA’s fiscal countermeasures again gives lie to the leftwing denial that public service unions and their pension programs are not to blame for the nationwide scourge (here).  But there will be anything but crickets if LA has to declare insolvency.   I believe Sacramento will sacrifice everything except its socialist goals to keep that from happening.

Across the country teetering giant Atlanta is also fighting to avoid following in the footsteps of another big southern jurisdiction, Jackson County.  It is considering the sale of major city infrastructure assets to keep the wolves from its door (here).  And so this is a small sampling and an update of what it looks like on the other side of the tipping point as the feds continue to use their fiscal proctoscope to stimulate the country's jump off the real fiscal cliff.  As usual, the government always starts on the wrong end of the problem.

Taxes, taxes, and more taxes

George Rebane

[This is the linked transcript of my regular KVMR commentary which was broadcast on 18 January 2013.]

OK, the so-called New Year’s fiscal cliff has been avoided, and now it seems that the national hysteria over the Newtown shootings is on the ebb.  We may be able to return our attention to the awesome and real problem that faces our country and every American, whether they are paying attention or not.  That problem is the amount of our debt and unfunded obligations that is beyond the ken of the overwhelming fraction of our citizens.

Washington’s dominant elites are in terminal denial about the problem and its impact.  Their solution to the mounting annual deficits, that have now grown to trillion dollar monstrosities, is the Big Lie – raise taxes on the rich and cut military spending, and all is well.  The tax rises were supposed to have been handled by Obama’s fiscal cliff victory legislation.  Don’t believe a word of it.  It took less than two weeks for the opening drums to begin beating for raising more taxes on everyone – including the formerly sacrosanct middle class.  Why?  Because that’s where the money is.

But today things are so bad that taxes cannot be raised high enough to dent the debt.  Entitlements and transfer payment spending must also be drastically cut.  Problem is that there’s not a single Democrat who will acknowledge that, even while their own Congressional Budget Office is pointing out the obvious arithmetic involved.  Instead, we will attempt ‘solutions’ that involve even higher taxes and more regulations to stifle freedoms and economic growth.  In short, we are hell bent headed for the now defunct European model.  The WSJ reports that -

Takers vs Makers

George Rebane

Debt is an injustice imposed on borrowers by greedy lenders who do not deserve to be repaid - from the liberal mind.

Forbes has identified eleven states that are in an economic “death spiral”.  These are the pictured states whose taker/maker ratios equal or exceed 1.00, states where takers are the government employees and welfare recipients, and makers are those who are taxed to pay for the takers.

This list of shame reads New Mexico 1.53, Mississippi 1.49, California 1.39, Alabama 1.10, Maine 1.07, New York 1.07, South Carolina 1.06, Kentucky 1.05, Illinois 1.03, Hawaii 1.02, and Ohio 1.00.  From this we see that California has 1.39 takers for every diminishing maker in the state.  [H/T to regular reader for the heads up on this.]

Victor Davis Hanson is keeping a stiff upper lip as he reports the goings on in the once golden state.

Not just in its finances but almost wherever you look, the state’s vital signs are dipping. The average unemployment rate hovers above 10 percent. In the reading and math tests administered by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, California students rank near the bottom of the country, though their teachers earn far more than the average American teacher does. California’s penal system is the largest in the United States, with more than 165,000 inmates. Some studies estimate that the state prisons and county jails house more than 30,000 illegal aliens at a cost of $1 billion or more each year. Speaking of which: California has the nation’s largest population of illegal aliens, on whom it spends an estimated $10 billion annually in entitlements. The illegals also deprive the Golden State’s economy of billions of dollars every year by sending remittances to Latin America.

For those wanting more than a little depth on this entire issue, Nicholas Eberstadt has written an analysis that pulls together the magnitude of the disease our country is afflicted with in his A Nation of Takers – America’s Entitlements Epidemic (2012).

The government statistics he quotes that document our behavior over the last 50 years or so are devastating.  Many of them have also been presented on RR, and, of course, duly rejected by our leftwing neighbors.  Eberstadt cites that 98% of Americans over 65 receive SS and Medicare payments. But what is more shocking is that in 1960 only 0.65% of 18-64 year olds were receiving SS disability payments, and that number today has swollen to almost 6%.  And well over a third of these are getting checks for “musculoskeletal and connective tissue” maladies and “mood disorders” – clearly the nation has discovered and is exploiting a new commons and getting while the getting is good.

The problem, it appears, is that once the government spigot is put in place and turned on, there is little chance of stopping people from demanding more spigots flowing at ever greater rates.  Contributor to the book, Yuval Levin notes that “Liberal democracy has always depended upon a kind of person it does not produce.”  These stark factors that now describe the landscape of American propensities have formed the basis of my own established assessment that we are beyond the tipping point that forebodes failure in the great experiment of our ability to govern ourselves.  And by no means is this a solitary vision of our future.

Meanwhile the looney Left denies all of this, and with supermajorities in both houses in Sacramento, you ain’t seen nothing yet when it comes to taxing and regulating the state's Makers.