You can see from a recent meeting of the Randy Newman fan club just how intimidating those tall fences can be. It's enough to scare a giggle o' gals into a tight huddle.
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| Don't Want No Tall Fences 'Round ME! |
This must be what a dwarf meant by "personally affected."
Notice anything wrong with this picture?
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| Where the Hell IS Dunwoody Drive? |
This is directly from the bozos at city hall. Looking at the sign pictured in the masthead above one has to wonder who the hell these folks are, where the hell they're from and how the hell we get rid of them. Or maybe they just decided to rename roads willy-nilly because, well, they just don't give a rodent's hairy rectum about anybody or anything in this city unless it comes with developer or business connections. They should tell Google about their changes as Google seems to be living in the alternate reality inhabited by actual residents of Dunwoody.
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| Still Looks Like Dunwoody ROAD |
Maybe instead of raising our taxes they could fire the incompetent bozo's at city hall. If they get rid of all of them we should be able to house the dozen or so remaining employees over at the annex on N. Shallowford. Assuming they can find the address.
They will not go down easily. Not without a fight. Many parents have started their own "liberty libraries" to ensure their children have access to literature that has stood the test of time...to science...to mathematics. All those things no longer taught in schools. Things that have been replaced by divisive racist dogma promulgated by profiteering charlatans.
Then it got serious. Organized. Focused on the real, underlying problem: the United States sucks at education. Free to Learn is not satisfied with merely expunging racist fascists from our classrooms, but all manner of political indoctrination. They also are working towards injecting learning and academic accomplishment in hopes that we might do better than come in 22nd internationally. They seem concerned that if we continue the status quo, let alone spiral down into a learning-free zone of indoctrination our children will not be able to compete against global rivals.
So maybe The Woke have given rise to a great awakening. One can hope.
Or maybe they cannot handle you actually knowing the truth. While this has been going on for some time with Three Pee Uh-Oh, where governments outsource transparency, it has now happened with schools who have been pursuing woke CRT indoctrination. That's right. They've outsourced the very thing they are supposed to be experts in, curriculum development and education, to commercial third parties and now they hide behind an NDA because they refuse to take responsibility for their failures.
But this may be the Education Industrial Complex's Operation Market Garden. With CRT bouncing around in the LibLabs of Ivory Tower Academia for over forty years it was only a matter of time before there was a Lab Leak. And it couldn't have happened at a better time with society reeling from the one-two punch of a fascist cancel culture and radical woke-ism. The Ivories had been creating a compliant, receptive host throughout education but now was the time to inject their lab-created virus.
Or was it?
The other epidemic, CoVid-19, exposed parents to exactly what and how their children were being taught as the classroom was zoomed into their dens. And they were not happy. Many fled. Many will never return. But everyone is on high alert. Parents are hungry for answers; starving for transparency. This is particularly true when confronted with the reality that their schools long ago pivoted from education to indoctrination.
But this is different. This is not the now-universal fiduciary incompetence or easily dismissed, or avoided, silliness infusing the school day. This is cultural genocide targeting their children awakening a horde of Tiger Parents. Angry parents who will not be deterred by an NDA, who see no defense for this indefensible assault on their children. Angry parents who will not be satisfied with transparency but who will demand accountability and fidelity to the original mission of education.
Parents may not be woke enough for the radical left but they have awakened. They will work through the opacity of the NDA by first demanding a copy of the NDA itself and then every communication between school bureaucrats and outside organizations force feeding their children this racist indoctrination. Teachers and administrators will be ousted. Board members will be recalled and replaced. Demands for transparency will be incessant and scrutiny will remain intense. But trust will never be rebuilt without fundamental, permanent changes and if it isn't, the extreme left may see their most powerful platform, public schools, fall victim to a vigorous defund movement.
There's been a whole lot of misappropriation going on over the last few years but this has been almost exclusively under the control of the left. In media. In politics. In academia.
Now the worm has turned and the term for the worm is Critical Race Theory. Until recently CRT was the lab research spinning out escapees trying to go viral but also unnoticed and certainly unlabeled. Then it DID go viral and it wasn't just the dogma that escaped but the label itself. That is when they lost control of both the label and its meaning. The combination of "critical," "race" and "theory" was perfect for appropriation by those pushing back against leftist extremism, particularly in schools. You don't have to be a Tiger Mom to get fired up when someone messes with your kid.
The academic branch of the left protests that opponents don't really understand CRT and that CRT is not what is being pushed into classrooms across the country. They're not accustomed to having their expertise and authority questioned and have yet to realize, let alone accept, that they have lost control of what CRT means outside their ivory tower. It now means whatever those pushing back against indoctrination want it to mean.
Beyond protests of angry parents there is legislative action that explicitly avoids the use of any specific label, particularly CRT? Why? Because if the extreme left regains control of what CRT is and is not they can use this power to neuter any law that explicitly names CRT. Instead, the legislation is crafted to explicitly define prohibited indoctrination without any specific, fungible label. Just because they're not on the left doesn't mean they're stupid.
Handing the Lexus Lanes over to a for-profit privateer. Yes, indeed, that is the plan cooked up by the Ga DOT and it is meeting with some criticism.
Those on the left fear the loss of revenue which they have earmarked for anything but what it has been, by law, earmarked for. Remember the embezzlement of the Ga 400 Tolls? Though a few on the right, the privateers and their friends and family, see this as a lucrative business opportunity. Expect the same fiduciary responsibility we see with government IT contracts.
Then there are the oddballs; the libertarians. These folk are concerned that these private operations will have no incentive for efficiency and there is the inherent loss of their corporate profits from the public's till. There is also the negative optics of property acquired by imminent domain now becoming part of these privateer's profit portfolio. Does anyone really think that is the purpose of imminent domain? Is it even legal.
Perhaps we really do need a Citizens' Review Board inspecting every level of government and every agency in government. Maybe now is a good time for random, suspicionless lifestyle audits of government employees and contractors.
In Georgia it is an unspoken law that elected judges retire before the end of their term so that a replacement can be appointed. Because of the power of incumbency this ensures a political alignment between retiree and appointee by way of a like minded appointer. This works incredibly well because of the nature of judges and lawyers who appear before them. Since qualified candidates will be lawyers anyone challenging a sitting judge who loses may suffer consequences going forward. Losing is a career limiting move and explains why sitting judges are rarely challenged. In practice, judges in Georgia are appointed, not elected.
Perhaps that is the logic behind the machinations and PR frenzy at city hall. There is indeed a disturbance in dwarfdom with one dwarf joining the ongoing exodus, an exit requiring forfeiture of the much treasured, protected seat, allowing top dwarf the opportunity to name the replacement. The exiting dwarf has proclaimed a replacement: a dwarf-in-waiting that has openly proclaimed a strong preference for Sandy Springs over Dunwoody. The real problem is this attitude fits right in with a knot of dwarf who are increasingly detached from considerations benefiting residents preferring businesses for whatever favors that might bring. Perhaps this is why so many, including a long time dwarf have decided to leave: who would want to live in what Dunwoody has become?
The questions at hand include whether the appointment-for-life phenomena applies to dwarfs and just which dwarf will be selected. The power of incumbency has already been demonstrated as limited as sitting dwarfs have been unseated and the power of a dwarf over a contender is more limited than that of a judge. In any event, the use of appointment-for-life, or even the desire to do so, is a frontal assault on democracy. Nonetheless the appointment is a tantalizing tool to oligarchy. The appointment could go to the dwarf who loves Sandy Springs with a lame, transparently contrived explanation about parents loving all their children. Or statesmanship could emerge, cicada-like, from a prolonged hibernation with the appointment of a former dwarf who no longer holds the seat. How is this statesmanship? A former dwarf knows has been to the circus. If the explanation is that district 1 deserves representation how can that possibly derive from a dwarf-in-training who will not be up to speed by the time of the election? It is at that time that the electorate, the people suffer or thrive under their representation can choose. The can, if they prefer, choose a fresh set of eyes, untainted by a give-the-new-dwarf-a-chance sentimentality, no matter how weak the she's-just-learning excuse. Appointment of a dwarf who has been there, one who has been selected, even though later excused by the electorate is far superior to someone who has never faced examination by the constituents of District 1.
That's why attention should be paid to this appointment. Perhaps the exiting dwarf was just an opportunist (what price your devotion?) or maybe it is a signal, from a connected insider, that it is time to get the hell out of Dunwoody.
It's that time of year! Time for the annual City of Dunwoody tax increase. Yes, the unbroken record of tax increases will remain unbroken as city bureaucrats drive towards a "Dividend Aristocrat" version of taxation: always up, never down. And they really, really like the sound of "aristocrat."
And they're running with that, proposing that a now-part-time position be made full-time. See how the virus spreads? And just what is that position? That would be the position of "business retention manager." Mind blown, right?
As your eyes recede into their sockets and the blood slowly stops oozing from your ears your bruised brain is probably wondering "what the hell does the Chamber of Commerce do?" Bingo! There is no (longer) a Dunwoody Chamber of Commerce. Why? Because once businesses took over city hall, there was no need for Chamber as business get everything they want without argument or negotiation and hence without need of an advocate. And let's be clear, a phone call from a resident is met with disdain from city hall bureaucrats while a caller from a business is met with "Good morning, what can I do for you today?"
If this city really were about local control, if it really is constituted to serve the residents, the voter, the taxpayers, then this position would not be made permanent full-time, it would be permanently eliminated. As would every other position that even faintly resembles something that should be the responsibility of a chamber of commerce. And then, if a business wants the city's ear, let them show up at a council meeting and make their case in the three minutes allotted. Just like the folks this city is supposed to serve.
There are some serious anti-democracy forces at work in this city. It isn't just a growing overabundance of bureaucrats whose disdain for residents is exceeded only by their syncophancy for profiteers, these forces run deep in council. There is no greater example than an exiting dwarf.
This dwarf does not now and never has respected, nor represented the electorate, instead advocating for universal term limits as if to say "of course the voters cannot be trusted at the ballot box, after all they elected me!" Superficially there is some sense to this, but upon examination it is nonsense. And insulting. Or perhaps it is far worse.
While touting the benefits of a new pair of eyes, this dwarf acts as a self-anointed Protector of the Seat. Unpack that. Does the dwarf own the seat? If not, from whence does this protectorate derive? What sovereign issued that charter? Look hard. Look long. You'll find naught but hubris.
And a new perspective? Really? Then why seek out a Dwarf In Waiting? Is it to find a replacement that philosophically really isn't, who shares your worldview? To find someone who will continue policies smacking of business welfare at the expense of anyone actually living in this faux-protectorate? If so, the Protector of the Seat seems to have succeeded by corralling a Dwarf In Waiting who has stated a preference for Sandy Springs with almost disdain for Dunwoody:
"My home is actually two blocks in to Dunwoody but my life is centered in Sandy Springs."
Maybe the Dwarf In Waiting would be better off moving to Sandy Springs to fully live that centered life. Certainly the residents of Dunwoody, particularly in District 1, would be better off.
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