OnTheBus's Community Blog

Yes sir, that electoral buzz is out there. Do ya feel it yet? Barack and Hillary, Will she? Wont She? As in Hillary willingly doing the “right thing” and falling on her sword, thereby ending a distasteful little hissy fit between her and Mr. Obama. A nice little media circus that’s dovetailing perfectly with the Bush administrations best laid plans. “Plans, you ask? What plans? Oh, don’t go and start that conspiracy crap again, I mean, it just wasn’t the Bushites fault, that Iraq thing! They proved that! Right?”

 Now, hold on there friends, steady on! This isn’t going to be some whacked out “Zapruder/grassy knoll” diatribe. Think for a moment, about Iraq. Think about The lead up, the mis and dis information, the outright proven bold faced lies. High placed officials like Colin Powell who had the sense that god gave him to bail on Georgie. (Just as an aside, I always thought that this countries first viable African American candidate would be Gen. Powell. I think his military background would allow him to overcome the redneck sect in this country, but that’s just, as they say, my opinion.) Anyhow, where was I? Oh yea, that pesky war thing.

If anyone would have suggested that Bush would show up in the Israeli Knesset and open his mouth and make an ass out of not only him but more importantly the United States in particular I would have said, and I quote, “Yea, he’d love to say something like that, wouldn’t he? But even he’s not that stupid”. Hell, I guess he really is. The thing that gets you, when you stop and think, He’s the president of the U.S. and yea, that’s a really big powerful job and all but it’s not like he fly’s without a net. Where were his press secretaries, his handlers, anyone, someone, someone with an IQ better than a handball? Any one remotely familiar with history will know of the “appeasement” and Neville Chamberlain comparison (if you don’t, go find out, history is a wonderful thing!). It’s infamous. Mr. Chamberlain was rightly vilified as basically laying down and letting Adolph rub his tummy with a promise of “oh, don’t worry about that silly Channel invasion thing, I wouldn’t do that!” But. That’s not at all what’s going on in our time. What we are dealing with now is simply blatant and unashamed war mongering. For profit. Plain and simple. George is going out and man he’s going out big! Jimmy Carters recent trip was a good tip off. The way the U.S. (both Dems and Republicicans, I’ll add) either took a hands off “we don’t know him. He aint one of ours” attitude at best, or an outright condemnatory stance at worst, should have been a tip-off. It’s pretty clear what were going to have to sit down at table with a lot of folks we might not necessarily like, but it’s also pretty damn clear it’s the only way we just might get our rep as a peace making country back. America is a great country full of some pretty smart people. So why doesn’t our “world face” show that side of us? We have to stop letting these simpletons speak for us as a country.

The race may be on, but we don’t have to finish in the money on this one, if anything we don’t even want to leave the paddock. Right now the only jockey we have up is deaf, dumb and blind. Its time.Yep, you got it. Change! We need it, we have to have it and we will have it. Lets hope we get it the right way. And,  just remember, in a perverse sort of reverse big-stick diplomacy, don’t loose dad’s plans for that air-raid shelter. It may come in handy someday if we keep this shit up. Duck and cover!

I have to admit, the 05-08-08 meeting wasn’t quite as bad as my expectations. At best I expected long winded pseudo-political tripe being served up with a healthy helping of “but it’s for the kids” pressure guilt. I was happily surprised. The board communicated their thoughts well and the predictable straight-man type setups by posing questions to already known responses were kept to a tolerable minimum. Over all, I thank the board for its candor.

In most cases.

 As to my title, to those of you not familiar with the term “Hey, Rube!” I offer in explanation:  1) “Hey, Rube” is circus slang, a rallying cry for help when a circus person got into some sort of altercation with one of the “rubes”. Rubes are farmers, yokels, customers or, to contextualize, one of those unfortunates setup to be fleeced by said circus persons. 2) The late Dr. Hunter S. Thompson wrote a weekly column for ESPN, bearing this as its title. In the spirit of the former, I offer you:  

Hey Rube!

I’m not saying I feel the Oxford taxpaying public is setup to be fleeced, in the classic sense of the word, but I will say I’m as uncomfortable with the budget issues now as I was when I went into the meeting. (For reference, you can find the budget and other info at: http://www.oxac.org/). I will say this; based on Thursday night’s sad lack of public participation I fear my cry for help will go unaided and unheeded. I know there is a lot of this voting stuff going on right now, but this one is worth your time folks. First off, do familiarize yourself with the budget data. I’ll not go into gory detail on that but instead allow you to draw your own conclusions.  

My major exceptions were, and still are, that the budget seems unnecessarily top-heavy. The Administration component is receiving the lion’s share (6.95%) of the total increase while Program (students/teachers) and Capital (read "facilities”) both get a more modest 3.9 and 4.1%, respectively. Questions of “ok, there must be some fat to cut here” were met with the Boards solid assertion that they were at bare bones. I’m sure they feel that they are. Not to make this a hug fest, but I can see by my conversations with the board that they indeed have been trying. Well, in the spirit of academia, let me take my handy little red pen and scrawl across the page…”Needs improvement. Tighten. Re-State. Not working to full potential!”  

But How? And Where? Glad you asked!

One of the other voices of the public (I thankfully wasn’t the only dissenter) brought up some excellent points. One of which was in the area of teachers aids. State mandate says we must have 11 minimum to properly service our student body. There are currently 19. Yes, the point was made that some are part-time and four part-timers equal one full timer. Still, and I’m not advocating the loss of employment for anyone here, it seems to be disproportionate. Real numbers on student per teacher per aide would, I think, bear reaching the same conclusions. As an enriching alternative, perhaps a consideration of partnering with the several area Universities in a work study or field placement partnership could be a solution? This would do a real service to Chenango and surrounding counties while still meeting the needs of our students.  I cringe at that part-time/full-time equation, almost Wal-Martian in nature and which is used to avoid the costs associated with full time employee benefits. It is one of those things that help to keep communities at or near poverty levels.  

Another short-list budget reduction item might be to consider this proposed bus purchase and, while were at it, the bus routing in general. This was asked about in meeting, and again was met with the assertion of it being necessary. The need to have enough bus seats for each and every student on the rolls cited as the reasoning for this one. Not to put to fine a point on it but that’s just not a can-do attitude. I see a lot of busses going to and from the schools not anywhere near full capacity. It seems that many parents take their children to school. Thought needs to be given to the idea that this is a situation to be leveraged. Having half empty busses pulling into school parking lots interspersed with car loads of kids being shuttled to school just seems…well…wrong.  

I’d also take a look, friends, at that fuel cost equation. 63% just sounds too high. It would mean we are paying more than half again for diesel than we were last year. When I pencil whip the numbers, I come to a more in-line with real world conditions of 48.6%. For my source on this (or maybe just for giggles) see: http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/oog/info/gdu/gasdiesel.asp (I used U.S. average for my calculations). By the way, keep in mind that the school system gets some tax breaks on their fuel costs, so one would think that the percentage would be lower than the going rate. It was hard, but I did pay attention in Economics.  

Now, into my field of expertise! Oh yes, the great wild and wooly rocket ride that is I.T. I was starting to elucidate freely on this subject last night, but we all managed to side track and the point was left unresolved. I’ve got more years than I really care to think about logged on this subject, with a large portion of them spent in the upper I.T. levels of a fortune 100 corporation. A policy of yearly replacement of equipment is a poor answer to the support/repair/replace conundrum. In my experience anything under a 3 to 5 year replacement scheme is foolish, at best. If systems are stable and functioning, there is a good and real expectation of attaining a high level of performance and service. Most major universities share this philosophy. For instance, Ithaca College and Cornell both subscribe to the 3 year plan. M.I.T. also feels this sufficient to still keep a high level of systems functionality. A “computer” can some times take a little breaking-in time. Out of the box, a system can be prone to issues that once rectified cease to be problematic. Continuous hardware replacement actually causes a productive downward trend. One of my peers summed it up nicely, and I paraphrase here. “I bought one of your used Dells, its still working fine for me!”  A good hard re-think on computer policy I think is warranted. There’s got to be a few bucks that can be squeezed out of this one.  

There you have it. No, there are no magic bullets or power hitters here, just a little squeezed out here or there is all we need. And yes, I still feel the budget to be Admistrativly top-heavy. Glance at the numbers. I’ll not single out any one item; just say simply that it’s heavy. We’re being charged a good solid buck for those services and I hope we are getting our moneys worth. Also, again as a vote of comprehension with the board’s difficulties in the budget process, the effect of Albany politics and good ole New York City are far reaching in a very distasteful trickle down manner. That said, there needs to be a clear understanding that the patience of the tax payers is not limitless. If you read the budget data carefully, you’ll notice a reference to a “contingency” budget. In these times of, and I use the boards references and quote directly, “As a result of earnings declining on Wall Street and the continued fall out from the housing market contributing to the tightening of credit, the District is planning on a much leaner State budget next year”, I think a lean consideration for this school district would be, to say the least, prudent.  

Folks, I’m done. Thanks for listening. I could go on and on but ultimately I’m just one of, so far, a few people willing to spend a little public spirited time on this.

Join us. Please.  

The vote happens on Tuesday, May 20th, 1 to 9PM at the Oxford Academy High School Media Center.  

Be heard. Get involved. Vote your conscience. And remember, start saving for that escrow shortfall!

It would appear, were one to give credibility to CNN’s “polls”, that a shocking twenty-eight percent of responding democrats feel that Superdelegates should vote “their conscience”. Their conscience. Not mine, not yours, but theirs. I will give a gracious nod and brotherly slap on the back, a thank you, and an I.O.U. a drink someday to the 24% that spoke out for “the popular vote” being the needed guidance that S.D.’s should follow as a compass, but still and all – 28% of those responding to the poll think its just ok to let someone else speak for them? Ok, I’m over reacting, right? Maybe it’s not quite that bad, yea? What the heck is a super delegate anyhow? I could cut and paste in some Google results, but for the sake of brevity the gist of it is that a Super delegate is someone that was “seated automatically based solely on their status as a current or former party leader or elected official. Others are chosen during the primary season.” (Thanks, Wiki). So, is it just me? Or am I reading “inmates running the asylum” or “gypsies in the palace” here? By definition a Super delegate is a at best a friend of the party powerfuls and at worst part of the elitist establishment bent on keeping true voice and expression out of the hands of the common voter. The “common voter”, it’s more than tempting to use the word “proletariat” here, but I won’t. Let’s just define them as those folks that leave the comfort and sanctuary of their homes, braving untold hardships of rain, sleet and snow, to actually cast their primary vote, to have their voice counted amongst the “popular opinion” as it were. Of course, argument could well be made that Superdelegates, using the above definition, were already popular properly vetted members of the political landscape and should therefore be trusted to act on the public’s behalf. That argument could be made, but I don’t buy it for a second. It actually makes me cringe with the nagging fear that slowly, ever so slowly, we the people are loosing. Nope. I don’t buy it and neither should you, kind and conscientious member of the proletariat. (Ok, I used it, I just couldn’t help it). The electoral process is flawed, at best. I won’t even go into the Electoral College! But this Super delegate thing at least must be changed, ideally done away with entirely. We have our vote. Our forefathers and mothers fought and died for it, still are as a matter of fact. We simply must hold onto this as sacrosanct in our beliefs. It’s your vote. It is my vote. It must be heard in our own voice, not someone elses!

Hoo-RAH! It’s an election year, and we all know what that means.

We’ve got some real meat going on the grill in this one too, I mean hell, we’ve got black, white, women, septuagenarians, and a veritable cornucopia of “sensitive touchy feely” issues sure to entertain and entangle. Let’s be optimistic, I suppose. Its early going yet election wise even though it seems like there has been no other news of note for the past 18 months. We’ve still got two conventions yet to come folks (DNC: 8/25-28 Denver & RNC: 9/1-4 Minneapolis-St. Paul) and I’m almost sure someone is going to make a big enough stink about something to result in some good ole fashioned excessive force, even if its only in the name of the great god that is “Homeland Security”. All we need is a good meet-up of some pissed-off, over charged cops and some misguided Nuevo-hippie skulls! Let if fly man, let it fly! Just to see our society finally inspired enough to express the necessary energy to foment change would make a 68-08 correlation almost acceptable. Almost. I mean, Herr Daly’s boys were just a little on the heavy handed side and modern U.S. culture couldn’t even begin to bear the brunt of that kind of legally sanctioned over-indulgence. But we could try, right? In an over indulged, over medicated and over exposed society such as ours, we damn well better try! We should all be pretty pissed off right about now, with the oil and all the related and sundry effects, the mortgage issues, the food issues. Were spoiled for choice, really, as to what we can get irate about. So what do we pick? Or more accurately, what is picked for us? Take a quick headline scan…Wright? Right! With all the issues to focus on, the media bait and switch is in effect again! Don’t buy it friends, don’t plunk down the proverbial plugged nickel for this tripe!. Not for a second! Let it go back down into the political trick bag from whence it came and turn back to the hearts of the matter. If one were of a, for want of a better term, conspitorial mind, one might even suppose Ole Wrighty was thrust out onto the stage as yet another tool in an already rather nasty little school yard fight. You might very well think that perhaps Dear Hillary or the Astute Sen. McCain put this one out to just, as they say, put a little stick about. You might very well think that. I couldn’t possibly comment. As I said, let’s be hopeful and optimistic. It can only go one way from here. Ay, that’s the rub!