We're Doomed

No, this is not about George Washington's warning about political parties, though he was spot on, nor about Twain's observation about anti-semites, as he was only half-right. This is about a hesitant walk thru the valley of the shadow of death known as fecebook. It is, as you might assume, best to visit infrequently as this keeps your sensibilities intact, but when you do it is a terrifying place. Truly frightening were recent comments to a post regarding Decatur City Schools capping the lunch bar tab at three.

So much to unpack.

Far too many commenters had no clue that Decatur City Schools are not part of the DeKalb County School system and proceeded to rail against DeKalb Schools. Not that DeKalb isn't a festering cesspool of problems, but the issue at hand was a completely different school system. 

Others seemed offended that there was a limit on the bar tab, and to be clear, the tapped out students still got a lunch, it was just a cheese sandwich and not a cafeteria lunch. Very likely this is cheese from the government stockpile supporting dairy farmers, and really, who doesn't like a cheese sandwich? The lactose intolerant?

And it wouldn't be complete without someone trotting out the old trope about "no learning when hungry," parroting one of the agenda factory's favorite talking points. Worthy of note is that neither the commenter nor the factory take this to the next step of observing that sleepy, or sleeping, kids cannot learn, then using this to justify public boarding schools. One must wonder why these agendas pull up short.

And the most frightening part? These folks vote.

Inflation Couldn't Save Bidenomics

For a career politician Biden seemed a bit clueless regarding Bidenomics and inflation. On second thought a whole lot of politicians are out of touch when it comes to inflation as if inflation going down after a period of large price increases is a Good Thing. Even if it is, and if only because it isn't quite as bad. Problem with that thinking is it ignores the reality that these dramatically increased prices are not returned to previous levels when inflation slows. They are not going up as fast, but they are still going up, and folks in the real world are suffering from the baked-in, large price increases. 

And this is what sank the USS Bidenomics. In 2022 inflation in the US was 8.2% while GDP grew at only 1.9%. Real people in the real world may not know the numbers but they feel the pain in their wallets and a continuous chorus of "How Grate I Art" could not save the ship. 

We're headed right into the eye of the silly storms so let's see if Biden can cross the ocean on the USS Abortion.

There Will Be...

...apartments!

If you rat-hole on social media you may have noticed folks complaining on local fora either about their current apartment or the difficulty of finding one that doesn't suck. Rents are going up, far beyond any other component of the cost of living, and quality of life is going down. Things remain unrepaired for months, even years. Management is unresponsive if not downright rude, and that assumes they can even be found. 

And the answer to this dilemma is? Well if you ask any developer, and the city bureaucrats only too happy to lend them an ear, that would be build more apartments. Not build better apartments, build more. Building better apartments might cut the cycle of planned dilapidation turning off the revenue stream of building more, new apartments while the older ones fester and decay. Where's the profit in that? 

There is one thing worthy of note in the online descriptions of the downward spiral and that is the use of the word ghetto, as in ghetto people. This was in very negative reference to a complex to avoid. It wasn't surprising that the word was used, it probably is very accurate, but that there where no ad hominem  attacks. In this world were so many are just waiting to express outrage and condemnation this passed without notice. Maybe everyone knows these were ghettos-in-the-making from the day they broke ground.

Federal Money Runs Out

An AJC staffer recently published a political op-ed as a pre-emptive strike against upcoming legislation regarding money-follows-the-child vouchers dragging out all the usual objections cloaked in subjective comparisons. The problem with these pieces is they require a setup before the big pivot. The setup was far more revealing than the predictable "we hate vouchers" coming from a voice noted for chanting "public school, public school, uber alles."

In this case the setup was all the federal money, soon to run out, that was thrown at public schools...because CoVid. 

The federal bandaid on their self-inflicted crisis (assisted by AFT) is about to be ripped off, though Cardona prefers to present this as passing the baton to the states. This is predictable and has worked before. It is a common practice for the feds to dump in money to get local governments to start programs which then must be continued, at local expense. The feds have tried this with medicaid expansion that has been successfully resisted by only a few states. And this sell-off of local control happens at all levels. Dunwoody has been doing this through grant-grubbing since its inception.

It gets better. The tee-up includes the rationalization that this money was needed, and used, to address learning loss and mental health issues (how is that education?) caused not as much by CoVid but by the federal government's and teacher union's insistence on closing schools. This has been proven, throughout the world, to be an unnecessary and harmful over-reaction. Unless you were a teacher holding online classes from a beach in the Caribbean. The schools ceded local control to the feds and now they want the money to continue. They have a point: it is all but impossible to shrink, let alone eliminate, a government program. Think: REA. 

But public schools are facing more than a loss of federal funds or parents who have pulled back the curtain in their Emerald City. They are facing the disruption of AI, good for parents and their children, but for public schools-not so much. What parent would not want an IEP for their child, especially the parents of high achievers whose potential is never fully addressed in "bring up the back end" public schools? Who wouldn't want an individual tutor, knowledgeable in all topics? A tutor who is constantly training, who is intimately familiar with your child's current standing and trajectory-long term and short term? And when taxpayers find out the bill for this is much, much lower than the system we have, a system we would not build if we had no system at all, these taxpayers will demand a revolution. Will there be a King Ludd to save public schools? Probably not.

Betrayal

Bureaucrats at city hall are still angry they didn't get the $60M slush fund which put their commitments to Shining PATH in jeopardy. But if they are anything they are clever and their disdain for Dunwoody residents knows no limit. They are going to get their damn "paths" no matter what it takes and frankly if it harms or angers the community they seem almost proud of that. So what they've now done is strong-armed a developer who wants to build three homes on Tilly Mill into planting a twelve foot wide section of concrete in front of these new homes, forcing the cost of this trail, to and from nowhere, on these homeowners, despite the objections of residents in the area who oppose useless concrete especially on the east side of Tilly Mill. For full disclosure, the MJCC doesn't want it on their side of the street if they even want it at all. 

This hodge-podge approach didn't work in daVille with sidewalk widening mandated with property renovation/development. That was until the townhome development came along and they folded like a cheap suit. Or did they? Was it quid pro quo? Seriously, if it is all about master plans and commitment why aren't there wide sidewalks in front of that development? After all there is built-in foot traffic. It is worth noting there seems to be no wide-sidewalk activity with the renovations at the corner of the Parkway and Mount Vernon. All this makes the Tilly Mill situation look like vindictive retribution. 

And what of our Mother Earth Mayor and her Council of Clowns? When it comes to rescuing inflatable yard art due to public outcry, there will be changes, indicating they can at least ask the bureaucrats even if they cannot demand. Despite public outcry against their Tilly Mill vandalism and the rebuke at the ballot box they seem content to sit there and wait for a city bureaucrat to call "switch." It is clear they are willing and capable of action, but they have not (and probably will not) take action in defense of real people with blood in their veins and more than air in their heads. They have made baffling choices as they refuse to include residents in their chosen constituency. 

Where does this originate? Is it that the kumbaya lobbying at GMA has infected Mother Earth Mayor with FOMO? Is it simply the condescending paternalism (and increasingly, maternalism) that runs rampant in the political class: you don't know what is good for you so we're going to do this anyway. Does Shining PATH have polaroids of folks doing something unseemly with a chicken? Is there quid pro quo? Will we ever know? This city is not known for transparency. 

And what is happening in the fifteenth anniversary year of the referendum's passage? Our Mother Earth Mayor and her Council of Clowns have taken turns stabbing "local control" in the back. And twisting the knife.

You Win

The local whining society has been harping for sometime about their dissatisfaction with the business makeup of daVille. Standard fare are the cheap shots about the number of banks disregarding the fact that it has been called "Bankwoody" since before Versatile Video was selling Commodore PET microcomputers. They seem to think we need more pizzerias because after Sal's closed to make room for a larger Publix we just haven't had anyplace to buy a pizza. Or maybe they just don't like Urgent Care facilities. Well, if that's the case, they just got a win as a long time urgent care center in daVille is packing it up and calling it quits. 

Maybe the whiners will get together, pool their money and open one of the trendy restaurants they go on and on about. Or, maybe just another bank.

Got A Bone To Pic

Pulling Your Leg?

Why Do They Do It?

Why? Suicide? Corporate suicide that is. 

The latest "victim" of self-inflicted destruction is none other than the Associated Press. Now we all know that this affliction ran thru the mainstream media during the pandemic like the virus ran thru the populace with the level of disinformation reaching cosmic and comic proportions second only to Hunter Biden's laptop. 

It's one thing when the gray lady soils her clothes but this is the AP, the same AP that publishes the style guide used by journalists in the know. These are the folks who declared that Black should be The Big Guy and white is the little folk. Fine. Honestly that is innocuous enough but they really blew it on an article damning the folks they allege took down Claudine Gay, though plagiarism makes it a clear academic suicide. 

The article started out as a typical bias-hit-piece currently of no surprise from this outlet but quickly went to "roll up the pants it's too late to save the shoes" when they casually laid out the "fact" that scalping was a practice used by white (note the little-w) colonists against natives. Fair enough, there were times that was true, but the lie is one of omission and a monstrous lie it is. Scalping did not first arrive on this continent with the white colonists (it is now politically incorrect to call them settlers as "colonist" has become a weaponized pejorative even used here in Dunwoody) and the colonists actually learned of the practice after they arrived. Wonder how?

Indicative of shifting winds the AP was blasted for this horrible example of yellow journalism (can you still say that?).  The AP's response? A re-edit, unacknowledged by the AP and not noted in the article that can best be described as weaselly. It is the journalistic equivalent of sorry-not-sorry which has become the only expected response from what, decades ago, was responsible media. 

With mainstream media remaking themselves into the journalistic equivalent of professional wrestling this election year is going to be very entertaining.

Who Hates The Deer?

Turns out to be folks who own, and probably claim to love, dogs. You may have noticed, among other cultural invasions, the sudden rise in folks who bag their dog's poop and then just leave the bag. Sometimes in someone else's yard. Sometimes on the sidewalk as if that is somehow, in some narcissistic alternative world, better. 

But then it becomes more than just unsightly. Ruminants, including deer, have been found to ingest these plastic encased poop bombs. The results can be lethal. Maybe this is their intent. Maybe they think, that by culling the deer [over]population they provide a public service. Or, maybe they just don't think. Maybe they can't.