Manifold Witness
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Comments
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On the article Affordable Housing on Trustees' Agenda
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On the article Beach Reopens for Swimming
Manifold Witness
7:26 am on Monday, June 17, 2013
Reply"Beach" is kind of a misnomer.
It's known that the beach is more of of a dog poop park destination than a place where parents would want their kiddies to splash and play.
Visitors park there in the evenings and use the beach for their dogs. Regularly.
Some of the owners pck up some of what their dogs leave behind. Some don't.
None of the owners pick up ALL of what the dogs deposit. Think about it.
Surf's up!
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On the Blog Post Race To The Top? This Is Sink Or Swim
Manifold Witness
5:58 pm on Friday, June 14, 2013
ReplyThe "Common Core Curriculum" is scary & it's being implemented on a national basis lickety-split.
But who will give us (real) music? Who will farm the food? Who will think beyond this new notion of a national educational lock-step?
"Academics" need to wake up & start thinking.
A university professor was doing one of those professor-soliloquies about how great it will be when robots do all the manual labor, including things like farming. Uh…what will the farmers and others do to earn a living? Blank stare. Yet he considered it a non-sequitur the notion that, likewise, then, oh-so-many professors could be replaced by computers.
"Racing to the top"? No. RI is ambling sideways, under a mountain of education-speak theory-words, toward a short-sighted, pretend, oxymoronic, non-uniform, "common core curriculum".
Many things that society will come to learn we should have valued will be gone.
Academia continues to miss the link between meaningful education & the jobs that need to be done. There are lots of jobs with no one to fill them but the ol’ baby boomers. E.g., Accounting is more than knowing how to “click” on existing records,
"People" write "remarks", etc.The economy remains troubled. Savings rates are low. Return on investments for the average saver? A fraction of a percent APR, but municipal bonds continue to lose value because “interest rates are on the way up”. Foreclosures? Is a slow pipeline propping prices really a hot market? No.
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On the Blog Post Truck Nuts = Indecent Vehicle Exposure!
Manifold Witness
2:20 pm on Wednesday, June 12, 2013
ReplyNow, Suzanne, put all this to music and we're off the the Grand Ole Opry.
(Keeping in mind that the phrase, "Papa was a rollin' stone" is already taken.)
Thanks for the laughs. -
On the article Survey to Help Gauge 'Effectiveness' of Plastic Bag Ban in Barrington
Manifold Witness
11:34 am on Wednesday, June 12, 2013
ReplyLet’s see if we understand.
The person who came up with the idea for the ban is on the committee that will assess how well it’s going by using non-scientific, non-random, “dedicated academic survey system that allows the use of more questions”, and “being an academic”, he “plans to tinker with the survey form over the summer and then involve Roger Williams students in September when they return to campus” and be “ready to go live soon after the fall semester starts – maybe by the second week of September and he “anticipates that the responses could be compiled by the end of September and results available by November or December”.
Can anyone guess:
1. what’s really going on here?
2. the outcome of the survey?In addition to asking, “How have habits changed?”, maybe the survey could reveal the extent of actual/planned income method property tax appeals.
How have habits changed? We shop in Seekonk.
Thank you for asking. -
On the Blog Post Truck Nuts = Indecent Vehicle Exposure!
Manifold Witness
11:18 am on Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Reply“Tell us again, Mommy, tell the story of Daddy’s metal balls and how you first met”.
“That old story, again?”
“Yes, Mommy!”
“OK. Before your daddy & I met, I had a car with a magnetized bumper vagina. I was looking for the right man & when I saw your daddy’s car with those shiny metal balls, I knew he was the one.
I brought him home to meet Gran & Gramps. They loved him right away 'cuz they were from the ‘let it all hang out generation’ & Daddy was just what they were looking for in a cohabitation partner for me.
It wasn’t always good times with those metal balls. Daddy got passed over for jobs because of his metal balls. He said, no, it wasn’t that, everyone loves low hanging metal bumper balls. But Daddy may've been wrong 'bout that ‘cuz there was all them jobs Daddy didn’t get at those fancy companies. Maybe thought Daddy’s metal balls weren’t good enough to sit in their fancy parking lots all day.
Thank goodness for the ACLU - they fought tooth and nail for Daddy’s metal balls & even though the judge kind of agreed that It was maybe free speech, the whole thing was kind of a problem for the legal system because after hundreds of thousands of dollars got spent on tryin’ to figure out if Daddy was within his rights to parade his metal bumper balls proudly around town, well, nobody could figure out what Daddy was trying to say, exactly.
And now Daddy’s metal balls are on the ’net for the whole world to see.”
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On the article What Does Your Dad Mean to You?
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On the article What Does Your Dad Mean to You?
Manifold Witness
7:35 pm on Tuesday, June 11, 2013
ReplyDad was strong, wise
and bigger than life
at only five foot nine.No silver spoons.
There were hard times
in the early days of
up by the bootstraps.A hero who never
let anyone down
ever.Rudyard Kipling’s “If” man,
Holiday/Herzog’s “blessed child”,
and Elvis’s “My Way”,
all rolled into one.He was brilliant.
Funny.
A soldier.
A musician.
Worked many jobs.
All at once to make ends meet.
Earned degrees.
Spoke truths quietly.
Made time to teach Sunday School.And then
we knew
It would
too soon
be over
too soon.I told him that I would say a eulogy,
He said, “Really?” and smiled.
And made me promise to tell
them when he first saw Mom
they were only fourteen
but it was love at first sight,
love that would last a lifetime.
I could hardly breathe as I told them.Testament to his humble way
of attracting people to him
we learned at his wake.
Hundreds of people waiting
in a long, long line.
So many from all walks of life.
From the State House to the food banks,
so many with a story of how he had helped,
that started with, “You probably don’t know this”...
And they were right.He told his children
(boys and girls)
“you can be anything
you want to be”.He said the old fashioned things
that no one wants to hear anymore:
“Your character is all you really have”,
or a quote from the Bible
that sounded
just the right way-
the truth
and the light
of my life. -
On the article No 'All-Day K' For Barrington in Fall, But Maybe by January
Manifold Witness
7:04 am on Friday, June 7, 2013
ReplyA vote on all-day-k? Where was that on the agenda, please?
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On the Blog Post We Need Some Common Sense From School Leaders on Common Core
Manifold Witness
8:29 pm on Thursday, June 6, 2013
ReplyGood points, Eleanor. Here's a guess-
If the COA says that it looks to them like there is money enough in that budget, it's probably a good bet that there is money in there. The COA does a good job. They are credible.
But then would that mean that the School Dept "hides" money in various accounts throughout the budget or what? That's the question. And if they are able to come up with $777,000 for all-day-k, well, on the one hand that's great. On the other hand, it will beg the question, especially if they "find" the money really fast without too much apparent sacrifice, right?
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Manifold Witness
12:08 pm on Tuesday, June 18, 2013
RI’s little secret about the so-called “affordable housing mandate” is not a secret anymore.
Palmer Pointe is a nonstarter if, as EBCDC says, the project isn’t financially viable without property tax subsidies.
Because the Barrington government has no authority to tax existing property owners more in order to subsidize the building/renting of units for people who don’t live in Barrington.
That would be like the government saying, “Hey, municipal taxpayers, your property value will be artificially inflated and/or the mill rate will be increased because you are going to pay for housing to be built and maintained for people who now live in other municipalities”.
Can the municipal government do that? No.
Can the municipal government use property taxes to “redistribute wealth” in this way? No.
What would happen if they could? Providence, Central Falls, Woonsocket, West Warwick, etc., would send their tired, poor, huddled masses on over to Barrington, East Greenwich, etc., right?
It's a lovely thought, yes.
But a municipal government can’t do it. It’s unconstitutional (US & RI), and it violates RI statutes, and state & federal rules, laws, regs and standards. Big no-no.
The cat’s out of the bag now. RI’s “affordable mandate” has no teeth if there isn’t sufficient funding other than local municipal property taxes.
That's why this kind of a scheme hasn't worked in the past.