Comments by UCCU
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Posted on August 24 at 8:54 p.m.
I think it's ironic that so many liberal potheads go on about their peaceful, alternative lifestyles, changing the world for the better, and "sticking it to the man." But they seem to have no qualms about buying a crop that is degrading public lands and rendering them unsafe. And they seem to have no qualms about the fact that the money from their purchases is funding gangs and cartels, which make the streets less safe on both sides of the border, and which are a major driver for the increasing violence in Mexico. Within the current state of affairs, pot is one of the "dirtiest" crops in existence.
The marijuana consumers who post to sites like these usually blame the war on drugs and argue that if pot were only legalized, all these problems would magically disappear. And personally, I'm for legalization and I agree that the war on drugs is a terrible waste of my tax money. But the current reality is that pot is NOT legal, which means that buying it means contributing to the problems above (unless you grow your own or know where all your pot is being grown).
If marijuana consumers really care as much as many of them say about creating a more peaceful, sustainable future, they need to take a good hard look in the mirror (before they light up). The real reason why we have problems like the La Brea fire and violent drug cartels is because people are buying drugs.
Posted on June 4 at 5:40 p.m.
The best gift is a child who is interested in learning, generally prepared to learn at school, and generally respectful to both other students and the teacher. Ensuring that children come to school ready to learn, and that they remain enthusiastic about learning while they're at school, is a team effort between teachers and parents. Parents who recognize this are some of the best gifts of all.
These are the same parents who usually consider giving teachers gifts at the end of the year, and I don't know that it's really necessary for them to buy gifts after they've already given so much support.
But if they MUST buy something, gift cards that teachers can use on their classrooms would probably be appreciated and useful. These could include gift cards to book stores, art supply stores, stores such as Target, or even DVD rental stores. When I taught high school I spent several hundred a year on classroom supplies ranging from kleenex, to a fan (the building's "climate control" often wasn't functional in my wing), to a clock for my classroom when all of the buildings' clocks broke (what other job requires you to supply your own wall clock?), books, posters, food for sensory writing lessons, and film rentals because I used film clips to help students review and make connections to the texts we were reading in World Literature. It's amazing how all those little $1, $5, and $10 purchases can add up.
Posted on May 31 at 10:24 p.m.
I'm as infuriated as everyone. But this wasn't about saving money, it was about getting the public's attention.
Californians have been demanding more services and fewer taxes for a few decades now, and the math (which was fuzzy to begin with) is no longer working out. I guess the governator and legislature had to do something to make sure that Californians started to grasp that.
But I'm angry at the legislature. They DO have the money for state parks. My understanding is that those oil rigs we all have to look at pay into a fund for wilderness preservation and state parks. As with schools and mental health services, the state gets money that is earmarked, and then they play a shell game with it, moving it into the general fund so they can spend it on their pet projects. Then they turn to the voters and say that they don't have the money. They should be able to balance the budget without cutting services for those under 5, the mentally ill, and schools (as propositions 1C, 1D, and 1E proposed to do), and without cutting the services that real people actually use. It's funny that their proposed budget cuts don't involve corporate subsidies or tax breaks to big businesses. They want to balance the budget on the backs of our children and the most needy. That said, I'm also not against paying higher taxes, as long as I know what it's for.
The L.A. Times had a great article today on experts from several fields' suggestions for beginning to balance our budget. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-... .
Posted on May 19 at 11:40 a.m.
Jay B -- Thanks for the link to the great article! I agree with your point.
I think it might be a good idea for all of us who are educators in this state to keep copies of that article on hand. Then when parents or our university students ask why students don't get the personal hand-holding, special equipment, special programs, new books, immaculately-maintained buildings, or the other services they feel they deserve because "they are the taxpayers," we can just hand them a copy of the article and tell them to call their state representatives.
Posted on May 18 at 11:37 a.m.
Re: Bill Clausen's Question About the Lottery:
In terms of lottery funds, I think the lack of accountability isn't from schools, but has more to do with the shell game state representatives play with the state budget. My mom was on a school board in a California district from 1982-1992, when all the lottery stuff got started in this state. She said that lottery money didn't really help because the state would use the lottery money for schools, but then decrease funding from other parts of the state budget, with the justification of "oh, well they have the lottery money now." But she said that the lottery money had more strings attached -- to my memory schools couldn't use it for "material" improvements, such as new classrooms or books, and I think they also couldn't use it for teacher salaries. So this created more work for school boards (who remember are essentially volunteers) who had to spend more time on creative budgeting.
The state does the same thing with environmental funding. Those oil rigs we have to look at pay the state of California, and the money was supposed to go into a fund for land preservation, parks, and environmental clean up. But our state legislature put the money into its general fund and then levied a "parks pass" (read "additional tax") law in the 90's because they said that the state Forest Service and regional parks were underfunded. These agencies had funding, but the state had appropriated it and misused it.
What's funny is that people like Bill Clausen then turn around and blame the schools and agencies like the Forest Service for "mismanaging" their money. I understand why he would think so, but I hope he and others understand that these agencies didn't mismanage it -- the state took their funding away.
Now the state wants to do the same with Mental Health Funding, First 5, and the little bit of the lottery fund that still goes to schools. Our people have already voted to have these funds go to these services, and this funding should not go into the slush fund that legislators use to fund their pet pork barrel projects. We need to "just say no" to their money addiction.
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Posted on May 14 at 10:26 p.m.
"It's just scary that we live in a world that is so hostile to Christians in particular."
Well, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, and Muslims generally aren't trying to draw other people's children into "after school clubs" and then telling those children that every other religion is wrong. I get very tired of people who claim the Christian faith trying to hegonomize everyone else while they claim that they are somehow victims of repression or hostility. I think it's because some lump in their right to practice their faith with their "right" to prosteletize.
On a more personal note, I have my own story of interactions with religious groups that use school property. When I was a first year 8th grade teacher, still reeling from the death of my mother about a month before, I came in to work one a Monday morning to find my entire classroom in disarray. Our partitioned walls had been opened so carelessly that some of my bulletin board material had been ripped loose. The partitions had been left open, so that the four other team teachers and I faced a large, cavernous space, instead of the individual classrooms we would need for instruction. Moreover, the desks we'd left arranged for our classes the Friday before had been shoved to the sides of our classrooms and left in piles, and the desks had been moved between rooms so that we had to count them out again for each classroom. It was a good thing our team had a planning period for first period, because it took all of us most of our planning hour to put the rooms and desks back in order so that we could have usable classrooms for our students. We learned that the church that had a contract to rent the school's auditorium (NOT our classrooms) had decided to use our classroom spaces without the school's permission. This was also illegal because confidentiality laws require teachers to secure all private information about students or grades before other groups can use their classroom. It left me wondering what kind of group would listen to sermons (presumably) on "love thy neighbor" and yet would turn around and act with so little disregard for others.
When I was in elementary school I heard that the same thing was happening with a local church there. They'd rented out the auditorium, but then had started to "borrow" classroom space. But my mom was on the school board and they put the kabosh on that -- they told the church they would lose their contract if they didn't follow it.
This is why I now doubt that churches belong in schools, even just for renting worship space on Sundays. In my admittedly limited experience, they seldom seem to be able to maintain the boundaries they had agreed to. It sounds like the "club" in this article is having similar issues.
Posted on May 14 at 3:02 p.m.
I disagree with the Indy's stance on Prop 1B. California has fallen to 47th in the nation in per-pupil funding (http://www.acsa.org/FunctionalMenuCatego...). As our local news in the Indy has shown, schools are falling apart, programs like the arts are being cut and class sizes (one of the few factors that is consistently proven to raise student performance) is continuing to rise. All those mandated state tests cost money too. Santa Barbara is better off than many school districts, so if it's bad here, think about what it must be like for students in less wealthy districts. We have to fund our schools enough to ensure students a quality education. It still stymies me that when teachers say that, they are branded a "special interest group" or "lobbyists."
But I agree with the Indy's stance on all the others and the explanations were helpful.
Posted on May 14 at 3:02 p.m.
I disagree with the Indy's stance on Prop 1B. California has fallen to 47th in the nation in per-pupil funding (http://www.acsa.org/FunctionalMenuCatego...). As our local news in the Indy has shown, schools are falling apart, programs like the arts are being cut and class sizes (one of the few factors that is consistently proven to raise student performance) is continuing to rise. All those mandated state tests cost money too. Santa Barbara is better off than many school districts, so if it's bad here, think about what it must be like for students in less wealthy districts. We have to fund our schools enough to ensure students a quality education. It still stymies me that when teachers say that, they are branded a "special interest group" or "lobbyists."
But I agree with the Indy's stance on all the others and the explanations were helpful.
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Posted on May 14 at 12:16 a.m.
I was amazed when I looked over the propositions on the special election ballot. The state essentially wants to borrow/steal funds from schools (via borrowing against lottery funds), First Five (which provides pre-Kindergarten education and services), and Mental Health Funding, to balance the budget. While the state budget is in a crisis, our representatives need to find a way of balancing it that isn't at the expense of children and the mentally unwell.
For my mail-in vote I ended up voting Yes on 1A and 1B, which extend sales taxes (I think) and no on all the others.
When I tried to find the Indy story that ran about a month ago to help me decipher the ballot, I couldn't find it. Can the Indy make this available online again?
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Posted on August 30 at 1:22 a.m.
While gasoline admittedly causes even more global problems than pot, the difference between the two is that some of us have few viable alternatives to buying gas (for example I now live in the mountains in Colorado where cars are the only form of transportation and priuses don't yet come with 4WD). Also, the oil industry is at least regulated (albeit too liberally): they aren't indiscriminately spraying pesticides, leaving trash, starting fires, damming streams, and holding semis in hikers' and hunters' faces when they're on state lands.
But buying pot is a recreational choice and there are many alternative ways to recreate, relax, or create an altered state of mind that don't fund gangs, violence, and the misappropriation of public lands.
Meanwhile, I've lobbied for better fuel efficiency standards, and I'm looking forward to the day when I can plug in my car, get the oil and gas wells that proliferated during the Bush administration off of Colorado's public lands, and tell OPEC to screw off.
On Pot Farmers Sparked Blaze