The following is a response to the Sunday, 2-28-16 Press and Sun-Bulletin Guest Viewpoint entitled, “Find root problems at East Middle School”

 The author seems confused.  She begins by praising East Middle for being an “open and diverse community,” going on to state that ..”This is a model community for parents and systems…”  She concluded by saying, “ East Middle is the school that will prepare them for this stage of life and high school.”  In the very next paragraph, the author equates kid’s entry into East Middle with “a lions den.”  From the highest praise to a lions den, really?

 In the next paragraph, the author posits that simply sending their kids to school should be lauded as “parents trying to do the right thing.”  And what a mighty effort it must be, are we to applaud?  If the act of simply sending kids to school is laudable, what hope is there in that family for instilling the familial, core values necessary for actually doing the real job of parenting by preparing their child for school?  If the act of simply getting them out the door is seen as tough, there is no hope that the real work of familial, traditional parenting will be attended to.

 The author saves her thinly veiled wrath of accusing class envy and racism by questioning the motives of the teachers, administrators and staff.  Oh yes, the lovely, quiet days enjoyed at East Middle definitely paint the picture of a nice resting spot for those so inclined to bide their time waiting for retirement.  And the race card, are you serious?  That dog just won’t hunt anymore.  The author misses the point because to grasp it creates an inconvenient truth which is this.

 There is a clash of cultures at work in East Middle School.  One culture embraces family, education, discipline, order, respect, personal responsibility and the needs of others while the other culture fails in one or more areas to do so.  When there is no well defined family, little or no structure, discipline, no order, no respect, no personal responsibility, no encouragement, no role-models and no heeding or caring about the needs of others, then no Blue-Ribbon band of super-educators is going to be able to magically fix that.

 There is a solution, but no one has the guts to suggest it.

 When students act out, warn them, sanction them and finally, remove them.  If there is criminal behavior going on, involve the police and press charges.  Create strong and positive environments for those who want to be in school and cater to them, help them maximize their potential.  For those not willing to get with the program, they will not interfere with those who do. 

Those causing all of the turmoil will seek alternatives to the main stream of public education so the majority of kids wishing to go forward aren’t punished for the short-comings of a few.

 It seems that those who complain the loudest are more likely contributors to the problem than champions of solutions.

 It’s truly ironic because in this case, I’m 100% behind the teachers; the issue is the culture outside the school and what it is producing at the school house door, not the teacher’s lack of ability, skills or willingness.  However, in the teaching profession, as a whole, a long history of so called “political correctness” (PC) has defined the profession and its practices in many ways.  It is in large measure PC that has contributed to a system that now disallows the slightest reprimand, discipline or other sanctions within classrooms.  As a result, teachers are now stuck on the horns of their own dilemma, a situation perhaps lacking a cure because of their own actions in the effort to apply PC too far.  This may be an example of what happens when certain PC sponsored and inspired ideas go to the full fruition of the unintended consequences.

Domestic terrorist Syed Rizwan Farook’s iPhone represents the latest symbol for determining the limits of governmental overreach in America.  Made dizzyingly complex with today’s electronics, this issue is necessarily complicated, nuanced and fraught with exceptions, depending very strongly on who owns what and even the definition of where “here” is.

As usual, the “fine-print” defines the horns of this dilemma.  For example, who actually owns the phone?  Can the customer “own” the phone but only “lease” the software that operates the phone?  This question needs a definitive answer and leads to the next logical inquiry; who owns the data created from the phone?  If that data remains physically in the phone on a data card, is this a different form of ownership than say the same data being stored in “the cloud”, which is a space owned by someone else.  When data is shared via text, do both parties own all of the data or do they retain only their portion of it?  Alternatively, perhaps neither owns any of it because of the wording of the contract that defines the relationship of the subscriber to the phone company.  What expectation of privacy exists when we use public networks, hot-spots, and all other forms of tracking and analyzing data built into devices or in many cases inadvertently downloaded within some application we did not intent to utilize?

Provocation and righteousness must not cloud our eyes to the precious rights protected by our Constitution.  The fact that this issue involves a universally hated “bad-guy”, should in no way distract us from the fundamental questions about the legality of the government forcing a company to perform a service against its will upon the threat of sanction, fine or even imprisonment.  Because the phone belonged to a mass murderer and apparent radical Islam adherent and sympathizer may tempt some to quickly conclude that all of the data is up for grabs but that is wrong.  What if the phone was yours?

Law enforcement officials initially responsible for gathering information from Farook’s phone mistakenly caused that data to be lost or at least made more difficult to retrieve.  Now that same government has found a federal judge that has issued an order to force Apple to perform a service they assert will harm their customers and compromise every user’s privacy.

Governmental agencies all across the US are today gathering massive amounts of cell phone information, indiscriminately and without a warrant, in the total absence of any judicial oversight.  Using IMSI catcher devices or “Sting-Rays”, agencies are drunk with this new power, increasingly utilizing high-tech invasions of our privacy in the name of safety.

Farook was a terrorist but our own government is increasingly ramping up the use of terrorist like tools and threats, behind the veil of making us safer, effectively weaponizing people’s fears.

Benjamin Franklin would be shocked more by cell phone technology than he was from his famous kite, however his words from the 18th century ring true today, “Those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither,” and that is where we are headed.

Battle rages over NY’s minimum wage is the title of the article that appeared in the Sunday, February 21, 2016 edition of the Press & Sun-Bulletin.  This article highlights a young woman named Laura Barber as its best example of the need for an increased minimum wage.  We are told that Ms. Barber is 20, lives on her own with an infant and is pregnant.  Ms. Barber uses food stamps to make ends meet on top of her minimum wage job.  The story quotes Ms. Barber saying, ” “It’s still not helping me pay my bills — we need it now,” she said of a proposed $15-an-hour minimum wage in New York.

It seems to me that arbitrarily raising the minimum wage in support of the poor choices Ms. Barber has made in her life incentivises those bad decisions.  Ms. Barber is not even a full-fledged adult and now she is a child raising children.  Where is her family?  That is where this financial obligation should be placed, where it rightly belongs, in the lap of those who helped to create the situation in the first place.  Why isn’t the father or fathers paying child support?  Why is Ms. Barber getting pregnant when she knows full well she can’t afford her own children?

Wages are not defined by the needs of the workers, but by their value to the enterprise paying them.  The more value you add to the employer, the more valuable you are to them and accordingly, the more leverage you have in obtaining increased income as a result.  The notion that people can make really poor choices and then expect others to subsidize their stupidity is yet another example of that entitlement mentality that seems to be breeding as fast Ms. Brown.

Nowhere in any of these pleas for more money for nothing is any mention of more value from the employee.

Now the Ms. Brown’s of the world have painted themselves into a small, story-ending corner of their own design.  She is too busy with work and kids to ever further her education, so she will likely languish in poverty.  Likewise, her kids will too and without a two parent family unit, their social, educational, behavioral and legal issues will be paid for and dealt with by more and more taxpayer dollars in programs and services.  And because mom has set the table by way of example for her kids, it is more likely than not that the cycle of poverty; low expectations and failure are likely to follow them into their adult lives.

Paying Ms. Brown $15/hour won’t address any of the social issues so critical in this equation.  Incentivising delayed parenting, marriage and personal betterment through skill building, a work ethic and taking responsibility for ones own actions and decisions is a much better outlay of taxpayer dollars than our current system of paying for the results of bad decisions.  Let’s plan programs that stop those decisions from being made in the first place.

Donald Trump has done something, (ok many something’s) that no one has done before.  He has turned the GOP presidential nomination process into an unscripted, unrehearsed reality TV series, the real consequences sequel to The Apprentice.  The two main differences between this election season’s candidate winnowing process and the television show are that Trump himself could be fired and that public opinion replaces him as the boss.

Like all Trump creations and ideas, this one is beautiful in its deviously clever simplicity.  This new show, (we’ll call it The Next President, or TNP) has no producer, the cast members all work for free, there is no single controlling network, no costs of production, and the publicity is unlimited, unpaid for and seemingly non-stop.  TNP exists at the expense of others, seeking breaking news for ratings and fame and accordingly, attracting those who are willing to foot the bill in finding it first.

The greatest reward for the man with the most money is in engineered a plan that lets him ride for free.  The wealthy’s favorite maneuver is not as commonly assumed conspicuous spending, but to find creative ways in which to achieve what they want while spending nothing.  The preservation of wealth allows the Trump’s of the world to sleep better at night.

The Democratic Party has taken a tack that is so completely antithetical to the GOP it is hard to keep from laughing at the contrast.  Never producing a serious choice of more than two, as opposed to the GOP sporting some 18 candidates at the outset, the Hillary/Bernie show is more like the old TV series Hee-Haw, seen on a black and white television, circa 1960.

While the Democrats have constantly accused Republican’s of a lack of inclusiveness and a “small tent” mentality, by contrast, Republican candidates were young, old, men, women, black, white and Hispanic, a broad base of diversity as compared with two 70 something retreads preaching a bigger, heavier and more draconian version of what we have suffered under for the past seven years, really the unfolding of nothing more than Obama 2.0.

While fascinating theatre and ripe with all the materials needed to fuel the news/politic junkie’s need for subject matter to critique, ponder and criticize, it’s important to remember that this is not theatre, this is not some reality TV season finale, something to be watched, laughed over and then forgotten, there are real consequences up for grabs here and if you’re laughing and shaking your head as the events unfold, then you’re allowing others to make decisions that will become your reality.

Trump has single handedly forced all of the candidates, from both parties, to speak more candidly, more earnestly, because he has set the tone, the tempo, and the pace of the race.  By now, even his harshest critics must realize that underneath the caricature, the bombasticness and the bravado, a genius exists that has transformed the politics of the day.  Make of it what you will.

The following is a response to the announcement that a local columnist in our newspaper was retiring.

I was at odds with Mr. Rossie on many occasions and once, I so successfully got under his skin that he came after me by name, in print, in this newspaper.

Mr. Rossie had, (and likely still has,) a deep distain for the National Rifle Association, (NRA) and its members.  I am a life member of the NRA, a financial contributor, and a certified instructor, so I took the distinction of his distain personally, especially when he targeted me directly.

Normally in the newspaper business, a columnist writes a story and supporters and detractors have their comments and the matter is completed.  Not so in this case.  Mr. Rossie’s tirade on the evils of the NRA and the idiocy of their followers prompted my rebuttal in a Guest Viewpoint.  Mr. Rossie then devoted another complete column attacking me personally.  Considering the most unusual nature of allowing such a rebuke to be printed, I sought through the editorial and management staff access to the paper once again in order to defend myself.  This request was denied.  I found it ironic that a newspaper, and its star, senior staff member would take refuge behind their ability to censor a critic.  It bolstered in me a sense of accomplishment in apparently finding and then irritating a nerve so successfully as to be awarded this distinction.

I am an outdoorsman, a hunter and a fly-fisherman and so too does Mr. Rossie share  these pleasures.  We’re both writers, albeit of very differing styles and philosophies, we see the world as differently as two human beings can possibly see it and so, I wonder how a fellow fly-fisherman can be so fatally flawed in philosophy and politic, yet see and understand the moments of perfection and its observation, only possible on a trout stream.

In my observation, Mr. Rossie wrote most of his opinion and political work, not to persuade, but to berate, to punish, to belittle the opposing viewpoint and its adherents.  I always thought this stemmed from the fact that Mr. Rossie was obviously cognizant of the need to sell newspapers, even at the expense of good measure.  As the occasional guest writer, I am not so encumbered, persuading otherwise not by rant and rave, but by lesson and logic.  Mr. Rossie appealed more to the emotion; even I dare say the hysterical, dependent of the gusting winds of outrage, indignation and sometimes fears to make his points.

Mr. Rossi’s famous school bus story is recognized as his best work because he took the rare occasion to use the emotional power to paint in yellow, a familiar story, apolitical and free of vitriol.

Mr. Rossie made his livelihood by writing, an enviable achievement from the viewpoint of this writer who can only beg to be published on occasion, Mr. Rossie was paid for doing what he loved, a grand and enviable achievement.

I wish Mr. Rossie all the best, and I will miss, not his written missives, but my pleasure, now removed, in refuting them.

The scheme of increasing the minimum wage is a deviously clever four-pronged pitchfork of economic failure.  First, it compels force of law to transfer arbitrarily wealth from businesses to workers.  Second, this enriches without justification the constituents of the liberal politicians who hatch such schemes.  Third, this swells payroll tax revenues from the despised “wealthy business owners.”  And forth, it buys liberal votes with other peoples money, the perfect storm of unethical economics.

This “take from the rich and give to the poor” theory fails to consider the unintended consequences.  Most obvious is the fact that in business, all expenses are measured against their cost of conducting that business.  All associated costs are factored into the determination of the final price of the product or service.  As any of those costs increase, so too does the final price, the expenses are simply passed along.

For example, imagine we are all on our own boats in a harbor.  Some boats are small, some medium, large, some really large, all shapes, sizes and conditions.  Your boat represents the current minimum wage.  Your boat is small, and your view of the sunset, the ocean, the landscape, all of it is blocked by the presence of these other, bigger boats.  The water level represents the minimum wage at low tide.  You determine that by raising the minimum wage, your boat will rise above all of the other boats, and your unfettered view will be re-established.  What this model of economic voodoo fails to consider is that the rising tide lifts all of the boats and in the end, the views remains unchanged.

Economics represents a complicated formula whereby every condition, every change, every action is set in a string of variables representing a complicated equation that can actually be calculated.  Like all equations, changing one variable changes everything else and then the solutions and outcomes need to be adjusted and recalculated.  You cannot make a change as dramatic as increasing the minimum wage, without addressing the affect doing so will have on the entire equation, especially the outcome.

What no one in support of this scheme has offered is any indication that these affected workers will all of a sudden be dramatically more productive.  In the real world, free of artificial governmental manipulation, when you ask for a 66% increase in your wage, you had better have provided proof of a 166% increase in your productivity in order to justify that request.

When the largest retail employer in the world, Wal-Mart, had 11000 applicants for 400 jobs that paid $10 per hour, that my friend is the actual marketplace telling you that $10 per hour was too high.  Now Wal-Mart is closing 150 stores and with them will vanish 10,000 jobs.  You do the math.

Liberals dream of rising tides.  Conservatives believe that people competing in a fair marketplace will find incentives to build newer, bigger and better boats.  When free market capitalism and competition merge with the American spirit, we are anything but minimum.

I came of age in the 60’s, a young boy in Johnson City, NY, a village that sprung up 50 years earlier to house the Endicott-Johnson factory workers emigrating from Europe to become American shoemakers.  The life experiences of my father, uncles and grandfather working in those factories forged my heritage.

Allen Street’s elegant canopy of giant Elm trees arched over the street, shading the some 50 houses along her length.  Ranging from the stately home of the village fire chief to the modest simplicity of middle-class America, to those just on the edge of poverty, the street’s architecture displayed the gamut of divergent social standing.  My family lived on both sides of that vividly stark divide, first at 80 Allen in a third floor, four-room walk-up tenement, then later at 40 Allen, a mansion by comparison, our American dream.

On the odd side of the street was 59-61 Allen, commonly known as The Greystone.  This slummy, stormy colored, 3-story, blocky monolith had 13 apartments and looked like it was lifted out of the Bronx and dropped onto a dusty lot, tenants to match.

The Baby Boom had produced three Bobby’s from the dozens of kids that lived in the neighborhood; Bobby Wilson, Bobby Wright and me.  Wilson was a few years older, street-wise and mean.  Wright was a one-armed scrapper, capable and willing to pummel anyone foolish enough to rile him.  I was the cop’s kid who was assumed to be a snitch and not trusted.  Wilson and Wright both lived in The Greystone and at times, would impose “travel tariffs” on my passing.  I had to avoid them, hide from them, run from them or face the music.  Much of the time, I lived in fear of those two bullies’.

To survive, I formed alliances and made friends with the older, more powerful kids.  I learned how to negotiate, bargain, threaten, extort, anything practical to deal with tough situations.  I learned that life isn’t fair and even sometimes painful and that others have similar problems but together we are stronger than we are alone.

The strong-arm of the bully’s eventually exposed their own weaknesses.  I know first hand what their oppression feels like and I came to understand that delivering that oppression was in some ways ironically also a burden to the oppressor.  It helped me develop compassion, while simultaneously making me tougher.

A trial best endured in youth, postponing the lesson only makes it harder.  The weak will find strength through struggle and shielding them from it lasts only as long as your control over them does.  From these battles, I learned the power of critical thinking, reasoning, logic and the complexities of human emotion.  The days on the harder side of Allen Street taught me how to think on my feet; sometimes by running, dancing, walking tall and deliberate and on rare occasions, by kicking back.

For all of its shadowed darkness, Allen Street showed me the brightness of light and its warmth as well.

I came of age in the 60’s, a young boy in Johnson City, NY, a village that sprung up 50 years earlier to house the Endicott-Johnson factory workers emigrating from Europe to become American shoemakers.  The life experiences of my father, uncles and grandfather working in those factories forged my heritage.

Allen Street’s elegant canopy of giant Elm trees arched over the street, shading the some 50 houses along her length.  Ranging from the stately home of the village fire chief to the modest simplicity of middle-class America, to those just on the edge of poverty, the street’s architecture displayed the gamut of divergent social standing.  My family lived on both sides of that vividly stark divide, first at 80 Allen in a third floor, four-room walk-up tenement, then later at 40 Allen, a mansion by comparison, our American dream.

On the odd side of the street was 59-61 Allen, commonly known as The Greystone.  This slummy, stormy colored, 3-story, blocky monolith had 13 apartments and looked like it was lifted out of the Bronx and dropped onto a dusty lot, tenants to match.

The Baby Boom had produced three Bobby’s from the dozens of kids that lived in the neighborhood; Bobby Wilson, Bobby Wright and me.  Wilson was a few years older, street-wise and mean.  Wright was a one-armed scrapper, capable and willing to pummel anyone foolish enough to rile him.  I was the cop’s kid who was assumed to be a snitch and not trusted.  Wilson and Wright both lived in The Greystone and at times, would impose “travel tariffs” on my passing.  I had to avoid them, hide from them, run from them or face the music.  Much of the time, I lived in fear of those two bullies’.

To survive, I formed alliances and made friends with the older, more powerful kids.  I learned how to negotiate, bargain, threaten, extort, anything practical to deal with tough situations.  I learned that life isn’t fair and even sometimes painful and that others have similar problems but together we are stronger than we are alone.

The strong-arm of the bully’s eventually exposed their own weaknesses.  I know first hand what their oppression feels like and I came to understand that delivering that oppression was in some ways ironically also a burden to the oppressor.  It helped me develop compassion, while simultaneously making me tougher.

A trial best endured in youth, postponing the lesson only makes it harder.  The weak will find strength through struggle and shielding them from it lasts only as long as your control over them does.  From these battles, I learned the power of critical thinking, reasoning, logic and the complexities of human emotion.  The days on the harder side of Allen Street taught me how to think on my feet; sometimes by running, dancing, walking tall and deliberate and on rare occasions, by kicking back.

For all of its shadowed darkness, Allen Street showed me the brightness of light and its warmth as well.

He’s obviously no super-model and undoubtedly hasn’t seen the inside of a gym in a while, his late, middle-age image is one best suited for radio.  His hair has an identity and ideas of its own.  He makes a Ravazzollo suit look like it came off the bargain rack from Sear’s.  He scowls, carps, complains and seemingly shoots from the hip, so just what is it about this guy that evokes in otherwise normal people either revulsion or rejoicing?

Donald Trump is perhaps his own biggest admirerer, proud President of the fan club that bears his name.  People pay him astronomical sums of money to have “Trump” plastered on buildings, golf courses, casinos, skating rinks, wineries, hotels, high-rises and penthouses, private clubs, restaurants, bars, ice-cream parlors, fragrances, home furnishings, steaks, watches, men’s accessories, vodka and chocolate, just to name a few.

So, at 69 years of age, legacy firmly established, two accomplished and talented adult kids under his tutelage and becoming quite capable of running his businesses, Trump continues his “watch what I’m going to do next” tour by taking on the media business with a hit TV show, (The Apprentice), buys and sells the rights to the Miss Universe and Miss USA and then decides to run for President of the United States.  With an estimated net worth of $4.5 billion, Trump can and does run his own campaign with his own money, making him the only true “free-agent” in the race.

Assuming, (as quite naturally he would), a two-term presidency, Trump would be 78 when he stepped down.  Perhaps what we are witnessing is Mr. Trump writing and performing in the script for what will be the last episode of his so-far unbelievable life, as he is carefully engineering his illustrious retirement from the public arena, but not before he, (according to his campaign slogan,) “Makes America Great Again.”

Trump has single-handedly beaten the media at a game they not only invented, but were previously undefeated in; shaping and defining the narrative to suit their own prerogatives.  In the past, media bullying ran interference for the sainted favorites and vanquished the apocryphal.  Not with Trump.  He uses the media as a platform to launch  his statements and positions that up until now would have been his swan song.  Instead, he shocks the media host, refuses to give ground to their objections, and smiles inwardly as they unwittingly carry forward his agenda in the mistaken notion that this will finally be his undoing.  Time and time again they are out maneuvered on their home court in a flurry of slam-dunks.

Trump has a heightened insight that saw the pendulum of political correctness swinging back towards sensibility and had the horsepower to not only ride that momentum, but to push it ahead even faster.  Whatever Trump is or isn’t, he has changed the topography, the tone and the tenor of the political landscape in a way that many find refreshing and long over due.

Just seven days into his four-year term as the newly elected mayor of Philadelphia, Jim Kenney became the poster-boy for the charade of political correctness, (PC,) at the expense of his own police department.

Before Philadelphia police officer Jesse Hartnett was even out of surgery, Mayor Kenney was busy holding a news conference attempting to convince everyone that what had happened really didn’t.

Captured on video, officer Hartnett is ambushed and shot at thirteen times at nearly point-blank range as he sits in his patrol car in the middle of the street.   The shooter, Edward Archer, is seen in the video, rushing towards the police car wearing a typical Muslim thawb, a long, white robe and firing rapidly at officer Harnett.

At a news conference, Philadelphia police commissioner Richard Ross reported that Archer told police that he pledges his allegiance to Islamic State, he follows Allah, and that is the reason he was called upon to do this. Archer also told investigators that, “police defend laws that are contrary to the teachings of the Koran.”

Incredibly, after hearing all of this from the police officials, Mayor Kenney took to the podium and said the following; “In no way shape or form does anyone in this room believe that Islam or the teaching of Islam has anything to do with what you’ve seen on the screen. That is abhorrent. It’s just terrible and it does not represent this religion in any way shape or form or any of its teachings. And this is a criminal with a stolen gun who tried to kill one of our officers. It has nothing to do with being a Muslim or following the Islamic faith.”  Kenny concluded his moronic remarks by stating that, “there are too many guns on the streets.”

Mayor Kenney attempts to cow everyone “in the room” with him, as well as everyone viewing his news conference or reading his statement into accepting the narrative of his lie over that of what our own eyes and ears tell us. It’s radicalized Islam, it’s ISIS inspired, it’s divinely driven instruction from a maniacal view of the Koran, all from the lips of the would-be cop-killer himself.  How much plainer, clearer or straightforward could it be?

To the PC crowd, the hoped for world of their alternative reality is shaped by a dreamt-up utopian narrative that they believe if repeated over and over again can change the actual world. Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, clicking her red-ruby shoes together three times while she closes her eyes, she and the PC folks reject reality for the hope of a dream.  Unlike Dorothy, we’re still awake and to quote Aniekee Tochukwu, “Illusion is so fragile; it rarely survives questions.”

Mayor Kenney should answer those questions with his resignation and Americans should begin accepting the fact that we are under attack from a real and formidable enemy, remembering what William Shakespeare wrote in Henry V, “Tis best to weigh the enemy more mighty than he seems.”

God’s very first act in creation vanquished darkness with light, proclaiming it good.  Nearly three-hundred references to light are scattered throughout the other sixty-five books of the bible.  In the final chapter, God again speaks of light saying, “I am the root and offspring of David, the bright and morning star.”  Clearly light is a metaphor for goodness as God begins and ends with these lessons.

Sir Francis Bacon stated, “In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.”  One hundred years later, famous 17th century mathematician Pascal said, “In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don’t.”  Plato perhaps summed it up best when he said.  “We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy in life is when men are afraid of the light.”

The heroes of yesterday’s American leadership have yielded to those today who are not only blinded by the light but also afraid of the dark.  Will our legacy be to allow for a second coming of the “Dark Ages” or will we seek and find enlightenment through belief, faith and righteousness?