At last Tuesday’s session of the Bridgewater-Raritan School Board in Martinsville, there were two events associated with the recent national elections. The first was a special slide presentation by Joe Walsh, Principal of the John F. Kennedy School in Raritan Borough.
During that presentation before a full house, Mr. Walsh proudly scrolled through slides that depicted the result of all the hard work that he, his staff and students had accomplished in setting up and executing a mock convention in which JFK students were the participants. One student represented Barack Obama and another, John McCain. Obama carried the day by a margin of 121 to 82.
Great job! The kids were motivated and the project was a success.
The second event was somewhat different. Most parents had showed up Tuesday evening in support of school athletic programs. Parent after parent stood before the mike urging the Board and Administration not to cut any of those programs from the 2009/2010 budget. Just about every person who got up to speak that night received comments, clarification, and support or became engaged in Q&A with individual members of the Board or Administration.
One parent, Judith Lee, an African-American, and a 14-year resident of Bridgewater with a daughter in middle school and another at the high school also came to the mike. She addressed the Board and Administration, stating that she supported a full and complete education, including sports. However, she went on to explain that her daughters had missed an opportunity to hear and see the full swearing-in ceremony for President Barack Obama, an historic first.
Her expectation was that the ceremonies would have been made fully available on school facilities to Bridgewater-Raritan students on inauguration day.
Lee calmly and deliberately went on to explain, “I was very upset that my daughters had not seen the inauguration.” Had she known that this might have been the case, the mother continued, “I would have kept my daughters home that day.” Finished with her comments, Lee returned to her chair, followed by silence from every one of the officials sitting at the conference room table. No follow-up questions. No clarifications. No comments. Nothing.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Full House at the Wade Building
Hours before an ugly overnight storm slammed into Bridgewater, it was probably the least likely of times to expect a large turnout at a Bridgewater-Raritan School Board meeting. But that’s exactly what happened last night.
A standing-room only crowd of over 100 people packed the conference room of the Wade Administration Building in Martinsville to hear a presentation of the 2009/2010 Bridgewater-Raritan School Budget by Superintendent Dr. Michael Schilder.
In recent years, this type of occurrence is rare, very rare indeed. When it happens, you gotta know that some people have stirred up a controversy, and that rumors have been swirling around within the school community that something dire, very dire is about to happen. So you’d better show up at the Board meeting to make sure that it doesn’t.
The controversy: Athletics. At least one board member, Christine Schneider, said that she had received “panicked” phone calls from parents about cuts in that program. Schneider is also Superintendent of the Bridgewater Township Recreation Department.
I don’t know what the fuss was all about. I just checked the detailed budget for the 2009/2010 school year and noticed, for example, that the amount listed under “Athletic Activities” is $1.323 million, a mere $2,151 less than last year’s $1.325 million. The difference is almost lost in the rounding.
One of the items that the Board and Administration removed from their preliminary budget numbers is $31,900 for co-curricular and athletic awards. Not a single person from that overflow crowd came to the podium to say that the $32k should be reinserted in the budget.
When I walked into the room last night, I did not see any copies of the detailed budget proposal on the table with all of the other papers available to the public. It could have saved a lot of angst.
A standing-room only crowd of over 100 people packed the conference room of the Wade Administration Building in Martinsville to hear a presentation of the 2009/2010 Bridgewater-Raritan School Budget by Superintendent Dr. Michael Schilder.
In recent years, this type of occurrence is rare, very rare indeed. When it happens, you gotta know that some people have stirred up a controversy, and that rumors have been swirling around within the school community that something dire, very dire is about to happen. So you’d better show up at the Board meeting to make sure that it doesn’t.
The controversy: Athletics. At least one board member, Christine Schneider, said that she had received “panicked” phone calls from parents about cuts in that program. Schneider is also Superintendent of the Bridgewater Township Recreation Department.
I don’t know what the fuss was all about. I just checked the detailed budget for the 2009/2010 school year and noticed, for example, that the amount listed under “Athletic Activities” is $1.323 million, a mere $2,151 less than last year’s $1.325 million. The difference is almost lost in the rounding.
One of the items that the Board and Administration removed from their preliminary budget numbers is $31,900 for co-curricular and athletic awards. Not a single person from that overflow crowd came to the podium to say that the $32k should be reinserted in the budget.
When I walked into the room last night, I did not see any copies of the detailed budget proposal on the table with all of the other papers available to the public. It could have saved a lot of angst.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Obama’s Executive Order on Abortion
Friday afternoon, President Barack Obama signed an executive order which, in combination with other family planning measures, will provide U.S. greenbacks for abortions performed on citizens of other nations as a means of birth control.
One of the controversies surrounding this action was that, as reported in the Washington Post on Saturday, “The . . . order was signed late in the day yesterday without any reporters, news photographers or television cameras present, in marked contrast to elaborate ceremonies highlighting orders Obama signed earlier in the week.”
While campaigning for the Oval Office, Obama made it clear that “We will make government open and transparent.” Apparently, this guideline does not apply when it comes to a potentially incendiary topic such as abortion. Obama’s signing of the executive order is controversial, because it reverses a prior order signed by former President W. George Bush in 2001 which eliminated that practice.
The original prohibition against U.S abortion funding in foreign lands had been initiated by Ronald Reagan in 1984. It became known as the Mexico City Policy, the location where he signed it into law. When Bill Clinton came to the White House, he saw the matter differently and, in 1993, reversed Reagan’s action by issuing his own executive order.
And so it went. Each of these presidents has, according to his own political and presumably moral compass, countermanded the other on this divisive practice which provides U.S. funds to other nations for abortion counseling and for recommending the practice to their own citizens as a means of birth control. Obama is merely the last president to append his personal signature to the controversy.
Our new president should have had the courtesy and fortitude to have signed his order and to comment on its justification in the “open and transparent” light of the public square. That is what he promised and that is what he did for the other executive orders which he executed in his first week of office. But not for this one. Journalists should have been inside the room, and the cameras should have been rolling to record the event.
One of the controversies surrounding this action was that, as reported in the Washington Post on Saturday, “The . . . order was signed late in the day yesterday without any reporters, news photographers or television cameras present, in marked contrast to elaborate ceremonies highlighting orders Obama signed earlier in the week.”
While campaigning for the Oval Office, Obama made it clear that “We will make government open and transparent.” Apparently, this guideline does not apply when it comes to a potentially incendiary topic such as abortion. Obama’s signing of the executive order is controversial, because it reverses a prior order signed by former President W. George Bush in 2001 which eliminated that practice.
The original prohibition against U.S abortion funding in foreign lands had been initiated by Ronald Reagan in 1984. It became known as the Mexico City Policy, the location where he signed it into law. When Bill Clinton came to the White House, he saw the matter differently and, in 1993, reversed Reagan’s action by issuing his own executive order.
And so it went. Each of these presidents has, according to his own political and presumably moral compass, countermanded the other on this divisive practice which provides U.S. funds to other nations for abortion counseling and for recommending the practice to their own citizens as a means of birth control. Obama is merely the last president to append his personal signature to the controversy.
Our new president should have had the courtesy and fortitude to have signed his order and to comment on its justification in the “open and transparent” light of the public square. That is what he promised and that is what he did for the other executive orders which he executed in his first week of office. But not for this one. Journalists should have been inside the room, and the cameras should have been rolling to record the event.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Presidential Perks: Retired, That is!
Journalist Jim Abrams reported for the Associated Press that former President George W. Bush will get a first-year pension payment of nearly $200,000, half of his presidential salary. Abrams goes on to conclude that, should Bush survive to his actuarial life expectancy of 83.5 years, he will have collected a total of $5,564, 800. Former VP, Richard Cheney, will initially get $132,000 on top of another Congressional pension of $132,451.
But wait a minute: Aren’t Bush and Cheney the same two bozos who tried to scuttle the Social Security program a few years ago and place the entire financial responsibility for retirement on the backs of retirees? And all that, while companies are failing and while even good ones are terminating pension plans!
I’m well aware that the Social Security program has spun out of control and is in need of reform. But I’m just as well aware that Bush and Cheney – together with all other elected officials inside the Beltway – are accepting secure, defined pensions for the rest of their lives at the expense of the rest of us.
Take a look at your 401K plan, if you are fortunate enough to have one: Then ask yourself where you’d be today if you were retiring in 2009 after your plan had lost about 40% of its value. If you are already retired, don’t bother to open that quarterly statement!
What bugs me is the sense of entitlement which Senators, Members of Congress, the President and Vice-President have about their perks. What right do people like multi-millionaires Nancy Pelosi, Bill Clinton, George Bush, Dick Cheney and plenty of other wealthy officials on Capitol Hill have to a federal pension?
President Barack Obama said that we will all have to make sacrifices. Don’t expect any of that from your elected officials inside the Beltway. They will publicly bemoan your financial plight and pontificate in your name at committee hearings, as they continue to feast at your expense in their private dining facilities.
If this were China, it would be the Year of the Pig.
But wait a minute: Aren’t Bush and Cheney the same two bozos who tried to scuttle the Social Security program a few years ago and place the entire financial responsibility for retirement on the backs of retirees? And all that, while companies are failing and while even good ones are terminating pension plans!
I’m well aware that the Social Security program has spun out of control and is in need of reform. But I’m just as well aware that Bush and Cheney – together with all other elected officials inside the Beltway – are accepting secure, defined pensions for the rest of their lives at the expense of the rest of us.
Take a look at your 401K plan, if you are fortunate enough to have one: Then ask yourself where you’d be today if you were retiring in 2009 after your plan had lost about 40% of its value. If you are already retired, don’t bother to open that quarterly statement!
What bugs me is the sense of entitlement which Senators, Members of Congress, the President and Vice-President have about their perks. What right do people like multi-millionaires Nancy Pelosi, Bill Clinton, George Bush, Dick Cheney and plenty of other wealthy officials on Capitol Hill have to a federal pension?
President Barack Obama said that we will all have to make sacrifices. Don’t expect any of that from your elected officials inside the Beltway. They will publicly bemoan your financial plight and pontificate in your name at committee hearings, as they continue to feast at your expense in their private dining facilities.
If this were China, it would be the Year of the Pig.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Soji Comes to Bridgewater
Late yesterday afternoon, in honor of Martin Luther King Day, Dr. Soji Adelaja came to Bridgewater at the invitation of the Ecumenical Council of the North Branch Reformed Church and of St. Bernard’s Roman Catholic Church. The event was held at the Route 22 location of St. Bernard’s in Bridgewater.
Dr. Adelaja is currently a distinguished professor at Michigan State University where he is director of its Land Policy Program. He previously held prestigious positions at Rutgers for 18 years. One of those was as Dean of Cook College.
Although Adelaja’s talk was under the auspices of the Ecumenical Council’s Christian Unity program, the discussion revolved largely around a very engaging presentation of the economic and social structures of the African continent and of its relationship not only with the West, but with China. Dr. Adelaja is a soft-spoken, informal and compelling speaker.
I came away from that 90-minute exposition with a very different view of Africa and of its people than I had when I entered the door of conference room B at St. Bernard’s. This man covered a wide range of topics – too extensive to cover adequately in a blog post.
But I’d like to leave you with a few of Dr. Adelaja’s insights. One is that China is eating our lunch in Africa, because it is much more flexible in dealing with African governments than is the West. Consequently, China is gaining traction in exploiting Africa’s oil resources and is establishing a long-term footprint on that continent.
One of the monetary realities in Africa is that the continent remains starved for capital. Another is that cash invested in the U.S. is gradually being repatriated due to the current instability of our financial system. He underscored that doing business in Africa is still risky, but that the return on capital is also higher than in the West.
Adelaja is an African native and descendant of a royal family. His dad turned down an opportunity to become king, despite being encouraged to do so. Adelaja described a growing middle class, particularly in those countries where entrepreneurship is beginning to take hold and where, according to him, there are many opportunities in the fields of banking, telecommunications, insurance, and engineering.
Thanks for reading. Stay safe and warm in this time of cold.
Dr. Adelaja is currently a distinguished professor at Michigan State University where he is director of its Land Policy Program. He previously held prestigious positions at Rutgers for 18 years. One of those was as Dean of Cook College.
Although Adelaja’s talk was under the auspices of the Ecumenical Council’s Christian Unity program, the discussion revolved largely around a very engaging presentation of the economic and social structures of the African continent and of its relationship not only with the West, but with China. Dr. Adelaja is a soft-spoken, informal and compelling speaker.
I came away from that 90-minute exposition with a very different view of Africa and of its people than I had when I entered the door of conference room B at St. Bernard’s. This man covered a wide range of topics – too extensive to cover adequately in a blog post.
But I’d like to leave you with a few of Dr. Adelaja’s insights. One is that China is eating our lunch in Africa, because it is much more flexible in dealing with African governments than is the West. Consequently, China is gaining traction in exploiting Africa’s oil resources and is establishing a long-term footprint on that continent.
One of the monetary realities in Africa is that the continent remains starved for capital. Another is that cash invested in the U.S. is gradually being repatriated due to the current instability of our financial system. He underscored that doing business in Africa is still risky, but that the return on capital is also higher than in the West.
Adelaja is an African native and descendant of a royal family. His dad turned down an opportunity to become king, despite being encouraged to do so. Adelaja described a growing middle class, particularly in those countries where entrepreneurship is beginning to take hold and where, according to him, there are many opportunities in the fields of banking, telecommunications, insurance, and engineering.
Thanks for reading. Stay safe and warm in this time of cold.
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