Louis R. Avallone

Category: 2015

  • Happiness to Blame

    Happiness to Blame

    So, what is it for you? What will make you happy? When you get that raise? When you finally finish the project you are working on? Maybe it’s when you get that promotion or retire? Or when you finally get moved into the new house? Maybe it will be when you lose the weight, or stop smoking, or stop drinking, or get married. Or maybe you’re waiting for the economy to improve, or for your candidate to be elected into office?

    The trap here is that the goal post of happiness is always moving. Once you get what you wanted in the first place, most of us tend to reset the “If I had this thing, I’d be happy” thinking – and then your happiness will be once again be a distant point, off in the future.

    This is important to figure out because there’s a lot of anger in our country today. What is it for you? Maybe you’re angry at white people because of slavery. Or at rich people because they just get richer and need to share more of their wealth. Or maybe it’s the bad teachers, who aren’t providing our children with a quality education? Maybe you’re angry with those who don’t get it, and continue to fly the Confederate battle flag, or you’re angry with those who disagree with the Supreme Court ruling that same-sex couples can marry nationwide. Perhaps you hate America so much that you burn our flag, in hopes that it may one day be replaced by the banner of Islam.

    Whatever it is that has us angry, more than likely, even when the source of that anger diminishes, most folks will still be unhappy and looking for someone, or something new, to blame. Maybe next you will blame your wife, or your pastor, your kids, or your co-worker. Maybe it will be the next President, or a past President. After all, when things go wrong in life, it’s natural for us to blame, because then we don’t have to accept responsibility for what we did, or didn’t do.

    We come by this quite naturally, though. Remember in the Garden of Eden?

    God: “Adam, did you eat the fruit?”

    Adam: “Eve gave it to me.”

    God: “OK. Eve, did you eat the fruit?”

    The problem is that none of us can improve any situation unless we accept responsibility for ourselves, and otherwise reject the philosophy that someone else, or something else, is to blame for our circumstances in life – whether it happened last week, or from when you were a child, or even 150 years ago.

    You see, there is greatness within all of us, but when we resort to blame, and refuse to take life on, and accept responsibility for our circumstances, we hand over the power – the control of our very destiny – to others, as if other “people” or the government will fix everything for us, like a genie in a bottle.

    Here’s the bottom line, though: Happiness is an inside job. Only you can make you happy, and furthermore, it’s no one’s job to make you happy. Not other people. Not the federal government, or the Supreme Court. Not your kids. Not the rich. Not your spouse. Your life is intended to be lived fully…because there is greatness already within you.

    The sooner we let go of our excuses, and more of us take responsibility for our own pursuit of happiness, the sooner we will have the power to change our lives, and our nation, for the better. It’s much easier to come up with excuses, of why we are where we are in our lives. It’s easy to complain about our situation or our circumstances, or to give up on our dreams, and become angry or depressed, or live in the past. Anyone can do that.

    But, if it is true, as Abraham Lincoln said, “Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be,” then the question today is, “What will it be for you?” How happy will you make your mind up to be?

  • The Fixer

    The Fixer

    We all know the “fixer”. That’s the person in almost everyone’s life who tries to make sure that everyone is happy – or that no one is disappointed. It’s the person in your life that intervenes whenever something is wrong, and tries to make peace wherever there is conflict. In fact, maybe you’re a “fixer”, yourself.

    We tend to vote for “fixers”, too. Our government is filled with them. These are the candidates that promise everything to everyone. The ones that promise to reduce our national debt, even as it has doubled since 2008. The ones that promise to decrease income inequality and poverty, even though there are more Americans receiving food stamps now, and more Americans unemployed, than at any time in our nation’s history.

    Most times, “fixers” are not bad people – just misinformed. They’re people pleasers. And people pleasers have been around a long time. In fact, Rome’s greatest orator, Marcus Cicero, received this campaign advice from his brother in 64 B.C: “Candidates should say whatever the crowd of the day wants to hear.” That advice is equivalent to our modern-day, quintessential political correctness.

    But the political correctness has gotten out of hand. You see, we can’t even ask someone from another country, “Where are you from?” these days for fear of them feeling you are calling them a “foreigner”. Or saying that “America is a melting pot” because that could be considered racist in that you are denying a person their own racial/ethnic experiences. Or expressing that you believe “the most qualified person should get the job”, because that might be taken that minorities are given extra, unfair advantages because of their race. Or saying that “Everyone can succeed in this society, if they work hard enough,” could be offensive to some because they might think you are saying the poor are lazy and/or incompetent, and just need to work harder.

    And it’s getting more ridiculous by the day. In New York City, Mayor de Blasio just signed a law that will prohibit employers from inquiring about an applicant’s criminal record prior to any job offer. Of course, it is already illegal to not hire someone based solely on their criminal convictions (unless they pose a clear threat to persons or property), but under the new law in New York City, businesses can’t even ask any questions to assess that threat until AFTER they offer the applicant the job. Really?

    Apparently, our court system wants in on the “fixing” of things too because last month the U.S. Supreme Court “fixed” Obamacare (for a second time) by allowing federal subsidies in all 50 states, even in states that did not set-up health insurance exchanges – and even as Obamacare is failing. The Congressional Budget Office now expects that 10 million workers will lose their employer-based coverage by 2021 and that there will be 31 million uninsured under Obamacare, up from its 23 million forecast made in 2011. Unbelievable.

    Another recent example of our government “fixing” something are the new proposed rules from the Department of Labor (introduced last month), affecting “exempt” workers and overtime pay. According to the Department of Labor’s website, the new rules are intended to “transfer income from employers to employees in the form of higher earnings”. This “fix” could not come at a worse time for businesses in our country, since businesses are shutting down at a higher rate today than they are being opened up, which is the first time this has happened in over 35 years, shuttering future job growth now, as well.

    We could go on and on, but the bottom line is that our government cannot “fix” all things for us. Government cannot make us content, make us feel respected or accepted, confer achievement, build our self-esteem, or eliminate life’s inevitable ups and down.

    Despite how much politicians may care about others, they cannot keep anyone from experiencing tough times, mainly because our happiness (or unhappiness) depends on our own actions, and not the hopes or wishes of any government, regardless of how many laws they pass to step in and “fix” this or that – or to make sure everyone is happy.

    “Fixing” our problems by being politically correct, or being all things to all people, has not worked, and perhaps if we stopped trying to “fix” everyone’s problems, we could solve our most important ones for good.

  • Before It’s Too Late

    It is impossible to forget, that just four days before last Christmas, two (2) New York City police officers were ambushed, and murdered, in their parked patrol car in Brooklyn. The murderer attributed his motive to revenge, and his cowardly act came only days after Al Sharpton led protesters through the streets of New York City chanting, “What do we want? Dead cops! When do we want them? Now!”

    This ridiculous rhetoric is nonetheless resonating with a growing number of people in our country, despite the fact that these men and women voluntarily place their own lives in harm’s way to serve our communities, and protect our children, even though they may never get to see their own children again, in doing so. They wake up every morning knowing they will be subjected to cursing and screaming tantrums, including threats to their own safety, and outright challenges to their authority.

    They go to work knowing that a police officer is killed every 58 hours in our country, leaving behind countless sons and daughters, and wives and husbands, who must now live their own lives without their loved ones, so that we might live better and safer lives, instead.[br][br]
    From Ferguson to Baltimore, police officers are increasingly being accused of racism and the use of excessive force. But are there bad police officers? Surely there are, just as there are bad plumbers, doctors, lawyers, dry cleaners, and teachers who all could do their jobs better. There’s no doubt.

    Out of 800,000 police officers across the country, certainly there is some percentage of them who are racist, as well. There’s no doubt. Some who are too aggressive. Some who make very poor judgments. Again, there’s no doubt.

    But an encounter with a police officer is not an opportunity to prove these points, or to become part of a YouTube video that documents your disrespect of authority.

    As Franklin Graham put it, “If a police officer tells you to stop, you stop. If a police officer tells you to put your hands in the air, you put your hands in the air. If a police officer tells you to lay down face first with your hands behind your back, you lay down face first with your hands behind your back.”

    The trouble is there’s a growing number of people who don’t get it, and are cooping up the cops, and driving them out of our communities, except in times of emergencies, when we ask them to place themselves between us and harm’s way. And unfortunately, it’s in our poorest neighborhoods –– that need police presence the most. Or to provide a father figure for those who have none, and to give hope to those who might have given up that there’s still good in our world.

    Because it’s becoming easier and easier to sue police officers for even the most menial of interactions or infractions, community policing, or proactive policing, is declining. This was the practice of arresting offenders for less serious crimes, sending them to jail for a few days or weeks, which then interrupts the arrestees’ more serious criminal activities.

    Proactive policing is credited in New York City with the largest crime drop on record, overwhelmingly in minority neighborhoods – and that is over the past 20 years.

    As a result of this proactive policing, the prison population in New York has declined, while prison populations rise across the country. In fact, a recent study indicates that you can decrease incarceration, without increasing crime, by having more law enforcement, not less.

    And yet liberals, like the mayor of Baltimore, believe the opposite. Remember, during the recent riots, she instructed the police to back off, and give space to “those who wished to destroy”. Incredible.

    Again and again, the results of less law enforcement is deadly to the very communities who need it most. Gun violence is now up more than 60% in Baltimore, with 32 shootings just over Memorial Day weekend. And it’s spreading. In Milwaukee, homicides are up 180% this year, over the same period last year. Same in St. Louis, where shootings are up 39%, robberies 43%, and homicides 25%.

    In Atlanta, murders are up 32%, and in Chicago, shootings are up 24% and homicides are up 17%. The list can go on and on. It’s epidemic, and the media reports of police misconduct claims are sending our police departments into virtual hibernation.

    A lieutenant with the Los Angeles Police Department put it this way: “I get a lot of calls where the officers are basically telling me they’re going to roll up their windows, they’re going to answer the box — the radio calls — and they’re just going to go from call to call…and do their job. But other than that, they’re just going to shut down. They’re not going to do any proactive police work.”

    And that’s not good for anyone. So, here is the bottom line: Without police, law and order, we have nothing. Police officers don’t deserve to be argued with, threatened, or called names. They deserve our respect, and if our nation is to flourish again, these good men and women must be invited back in our communities before it’s too late. As it is often said, “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”

  • Call Me Mannerly, First

    Call Me Mannerly, First

    Do you know that there are 50 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute? Or that there are 6,000 messages sent on Twitter every second? And that there are more than a billion people who are regularly sharing stories, links, photos and videos on Facebook? It reminds me of the Toby Keith song from 2001, “I Want To Talk About Me”:

    I want to talk about me
    Want to talk about I
    Want to talk about number one
    Oh my me my
    What I think, what I like, what I know, what I want, what I see
    I want to talk about me

    Our nation, and indeed the world, has increasingly placed a greater emphasis on the fact that each of us should do what makes us feel good, or comfortable, regardless of how good, or comfortable, doing such makes others feel – and to make sure everyone knows we’re doing it. Some say that the self-esteem movement from the 1980s is to blame, as many parents and teachers emphasized the confidence of children as priority, rather than making the children face the consequences of their choices, or otherwise “feel” bad.

    At Jesuit High School in New Orleans, for example, there recently were ten valedictorians recognized at graduation. At some high schools there are more than 100 valedictorians. Now, many schools are abandoning the recognition of valedictorian altogether, because of how it makes the other students “feel”.

    Many schools also won’t even post the honor roll any longer because how it makes those students “feel” who do not qualify. In fact, schools now have created the “Effort Honor Roll.” This is for the kids who want to “feel” good about not qualifying to be on the honor roll, in the first place. And at Field Day, yes, everyone gets a ribbon, just for participating.

    To borrow a line from the movie, The Incredibles, “Everyone’s special,” says one character, only to have another reply, “Which is another way of saying no one is.”

    You see, we’ve watered-down our standards so much that it’s quite easy for no one to feel special, or to be recognized for any extraordinary achievement or applauded for their good choices, since we don’t want to make any one “feel” bad for making bad ones.

    Maybe this lack of feeling special is why narcissism is on the rise, where more and more people find the need to inflate their view of themselves, leading to relative indifference of the needs of others. In fact, compared to 30 years ago, 70 percent of students today score higher on narcissism, and lower on empathy. This means more people than ever are willing to share more and more lurid details of their lives with you and me.

    But is that a good thing, for any of us?

    Look at Bruce Jenner, for example. He says he has always been a woman, and that by making this transition, “We’re going to change the world.” Regardless of your opinion of his particular situation, do we need to know the most intimate details of complete strangers? What greater good does it serve, other than the way it makes the person sharing the details “feel”?

    Is it a good thing that my 8 year-old son knows that a father can become a woman, because of a new television series being advertised on the Disney Channel? No, it’s not.

    Forget about the subject matter, though. Today it’s gender selection. Next week it could be polygamy. Next year it will be who knows what. That’s not the point. Morality aside, at the end of the day, we should only share intimate details about ourselves to complete strangers if it would be mannerly to do so.

    “Manners,” says Emily Post, “are sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners.” Without that awareness, you don’t.

    Manners are more than choosing the right fork at dinner, or placing your napkin in your lap. It’s more than if you notice someone has a zipper down or an earring that is missing, and you take them aside in private and tell them. Or if someone tells a story wrong, you just let it go without correcting them. Or if you want to tell a child about how a man can become a woman, and decide that’s really a discussion for the child’s parents to have.

    Being mannerly means being aware that what you do, or share with others, affects the greater good for us all. It means recognizing that no one should “feel” good at the expense of everyone else’s liberty, whether it’s removing references to God in our schools or to raising expectations from one another – even at the risk of hurt feelings.

    There are parents, for example, who insist their children be respected by the teacher, and yet they are disrespectful to the teachers themselves. Or those who demand respect from law enforcement officers, but are often anything but respectful, in return.

    Will the number of people who believe the world revolves them continue to grow? It may. But in the meantime, folks can call you Caitlyn or Bruce, or whatever you like. As for me, I’d like to call you mannerly first.

  • Are You Fiddling Me?

    Are You Fiddling Me?

    In 1964, Lyndon Johnson was the first U.S. President to provide the commencement address to the cadets of the United States Coast Guard Academy. He rallied the cadets and explained, in the words of Winston Churchill, that “civilization will not last, freedom will not survive, peace will not be kept, unless mankind unites together to defend them.” And President Johnson’s administration understood those words all too well, being as nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof – confronting one foreign crisis after another.

    From assisting the South Vietnamese to defeat Communist aggression, to signing a treaty with the Soviet Union to ban nuclear weapons in outer space, to signing a treaty to prohibit the transfer of nuclear weapons to other nations, and to backing down the Cubans in Guantanamo Bay, these were serious times for our nation. And the world knew it.

    Today, we too face serious times.

    Right now, we have terrorists taking control of cities in Iraq and controlling 50% of Syria. Iran is moving ever closer to nuclear capability, and North Korea is building a nuclear arsenal, while testing long-range missiles that could strike the U.S. mainland. Russia has flexed its military muscle, and invaded the Republic of Georgia and Ukraine. China is modernizing its weapons with fighter jets, developing prototypes for hypersonic missiles, and building ballistic missile submarines. Our own nation’s borders are so porous that even the U.S. Border Patrol admits that they don’t know who is coming across the border, or whether they wish us well or ill.

    Even so, and faced with these threats to peace and freedom around the world, do you know what President Obama identified as the “core” of their military service, when he addressed the cadets earlier this month? Climate change.

    Yep. Climate change.

    The world is on fire and President Obama is calling upon these cadets to “to start reducing” its carbon emissions now, although he never explained exactly how they could make a difference. On the other hand, China (which is the largest holder of U.S. debt) is now building one or two new coal-fired power stations per week, until at least 2030. It was in 2007 that China overtook the U.S. as the world’s largest carbon emitter and now produces twice as much as the U.S., and 50% of all coal combusted globally.

    He also told cadets that climate change is a key pillar of American global leadership. Really? Soon, China alone will be responsible for 40% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, and that’s even based on the agreement we just made with them to reduce carbon emissions.

    He also explained to the cadets that when he meets with leaders around the world, “it (climate change) is often at the top of our agenda – a core element of our diplomacy.” Really? How about the murdering of Christians in Muslim war zones, or the trafficking of children by the millions in China, the manipulation of gas prices by Russia, or the ever increasing national debt of the United States, which should we default, would threaten currencies worldwide? Does any of this ever come up, in passing or over coffee?

    Speeches like President Obama’s to the cadets makes some Americans wonder where if we have our priorities in order, and despite the imperfection of the past, it makes us wish for a time when America better knew what was most important, and, more critically, understood the order in which it must all be done.

    Obama could have reminded the cadets, and their families, of the legacy of the Coast Guard, and how they have served our nation honorably. In World War II, they were among the first casualties of war on the day after Pearl Harbor. He could have inspired them by explaining how Coast Guardsmen were piloting the landing craft on D-day, when our soldiers hit the beaches at Normandy. Or how the Coast Guard rescued over 1,500 soldiers that day when their boats had been sunk by enemy fire.

    He could have inspired them with any number of stories of selflessness and love of country. But he didn’t.

    And so I am reminded of the expression, “Nero fiddled while Rome burned”. It comes to mind because of the obliviousness of the President’s remarks to the most pressing threats facing our country, and because not only did Nero “fiddle” while his people suffered, he was a poor leader in a time of crisis, as well.

    Although it’s only an expression (especially since the fiddle did not exist in ancient Rome), the danger of ignoring what’s most important is still as destructive as it was in 11 A.D. when Rome burned. The question for us all, especially to those whom we elect to public office, is simply this: What are you fiddling with, while our “Rome” is burning?

    Image credit: Jon McNaughton

  • Running From Office

    Running From Office

    The dictionary is of no real help when looking to define “public servant”. Jesus Christ was a public servant and it was through humility, personal sacrifice, taking risks, and maintaining a vision, that he served others best. It’s a style of leadership based on giving without the need for recognition. And it may be disappearing altogether.

    Consider the service of Judge Charles Scott to our community since 1973, when he first served as an assistant city attorney and special assistant district attorney for 7 years, and then 26 years on the bench as a city judge and Caddo Parish district judge, and 7 years of service as district attorney. His loss is a devastating one for our community, and there are hardly any words that can express this sadness for the generations of this community he has served.

    It is fitting, to call to mind the saying, “They don’t make men like him anymore”. And they don’t. In fact, a recent study of 18-29 year olds by Harvard University showed not only are young people disgusted with politics, and are skeptical of its usefulness to make meaningful change, there is also now a reluctance of good candidates to run for public office.

    This is especially prevalent among young people, where only 1 out of 3 believe running for public office is honorable, and even fewer feel that the idea of working in some form of public service is appealing to them – and the numbers show it. In 2012, for example, nearly half of state legislative districts in our country did not have any competition from both major political parties, marking the lowest level of competition in over 10 years.

    So, from where will the next generation of public servants be inspired to serve our communities, when only 1 in 3 believe running for public office is honorable?

    That’s hard to say because our electorate increasingly is more interested in whether Kim Kardashian and Kanye West flew coach on a recent trip to Armenia, than they are to learn more about politics, since that requires a substantial investment time and energy, and yet offers few immediate benefits – particularly to the voter who is both disgusted by politics and believes their vote is unlikely to affect the outcome anyway.

    For example, did you know that only 2 in 10 Americans know that there are 100 Senators in the U.S. Senate? Or that only 4 in 10 of us know that there are 3 branches of government (and also can name each of them)? Or that 21% of Americans believe the sun revolves around the earth? How about that more than two-thirds of Americans don’t know the issue involved in Roe v. Wade? Or that 25% of Americans can’t name the country that American fought and won its independence from?

    It was Thomas Jefferson who explained that, “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be”.

    That’s because knowledge is freedom in a democracy, and for our communities to attract the brightest talent to public service, we must have a more informed electorate. Fewer engaged voters will eventually reduce the pool of talented candidates to a handful of those barely worth keeping in office at all.

    Consider the election coming up on May 2, regarding a bond initiative that would increase the debt of the Caddo Parish School System by $108 million to over $250 million, and which also renews a tax on property owners that generates $3 million in annual revenue for the Biomedical Research Foundation.

    Now there’s no doubt that folks are busy these days, and working longer hours to make ends meet. In those cases, especially, it’s hard to become well-informed on property taxes or government spending. It’s just not a priority when the children have their homework to finish, baths to take, and checkbook needs to be balanced.

    But we can’t just show up and check the box, without the same level of careful preparation and practice that a musician requires to play a musical instrument well, or a pilot needs to fly an airplane, or doctor acquires before performing a surgery. But unlike the unprepared pilot or doctor, being in the voting booth, and unprepared (or not informed enough) to vote, can have far more tragic consequences.

    While it may be true that how any one of us votes may not matter much, it is how WE vote together, though, that has consequences. Our votes can encourage businesses to relocate to our community, or cause them to leave, through the taxes we vote for or the quality of candidates we elect. We can improve the education of our children, and increase the quality of our workforce, or we can spend millions of dollars on policies and programs that will do anything but that.

    We can overregulate in some areas, and underrepresent those who need representation the most. We can allow special interests to exploit the least among us, or we can protect liberty and justice for all. It’s still “we the people”.

    No, they may not be making men or women exactly like Judge Scott any longer, but we can grow folks more like him to serve the public as he did, through developing a more informed electorate – or, through our apathy, we can simply watch more good men and women run from office, instead.

  • Join the Crowd

    Join the Crowd

    If there was ever a good example of how an uninformed electorate got it completely wrong, it would be when Jesus and Barabbas stood before the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, and a large crowd of people. Despite Pontius Pilate looking for the facts to support the charges against Jesus, and asking the crowd for any evidence whatsoever of his crime, the crowd had made up its mind – without the facts. Their loud shouting to crucify him was based on “some things they had heard” from others, and as a result, they got it wrong.

    So, when there’s talk in Washington, D.C. by the President about a Constitutional amendment to make it mandatory for everyone in the “crowd” to vote, under the penalty of law, it warrants a closer look.

    The President said last month that mandatory voting would place young, lower-income, immigrant, and minority groups into the polls, and then he went on to imply somehow that young, lower-income, immigrant, and minority groups cannot get into the polls now.

    Of course, that’s not entirely true – and that’s putting it politely. Consider that black voters in 2012 voted at a higher rate than whites for the first time in American history, according to a Census Bureau report. In 2008, 5.8 million more minorities “somehow” got into the polls, compared to 2004 minority voting, and then in 2008, fewer whites went to the polls by almost 1.2 million.

    If you’re scratching your head right about now, like Pontius Pilate standing before the “crowd” of folks shouting “crucify him”, and you’re wanting to make sense of this talk of mandatory voting, you’re not alone.

    For millions of Americans, the privilege to vote is not a compulsory requirement to vote. Although millions of Americans have sacrificed their lives to protect this privilege, voting for the sake of voting, is not enough. Along with the privilege to vote comes the responsibility to become informed, as much as possible, regarding the issues being voted upon and the candidates being elected.

    For example, if you were being wheeled into the emergency room, would you choose a doctor whose practice of medicine was based on what he or she had “heard from others” or whatever feels right? Or would you choose a doctor who treats patients based on scientific methods, drawing from the best available evidence? The first doctor means well, of course, but isn’t helping a bit, and neither is the uninformed voter pulling the lever in the voting machine based on what they “heard from others”.

    Now there are some folks in the “crowd” who would mention that we compel citizens to perform some civic duties, and they will bring up jury duty, to support the notion of mandatory voting. That’s true, and our mandatory jury duty system is effective, and is supported by the Thirteenth Amendment. But consider if you had a friend, or a loved one, whose guilt or innocence was being determined by jurors who were not well informed of the evidence supporting the charges? Juries are well informed about the trial issues because it would be immoral to ask any juror to vote on a matter unless they were knowledgeable of what they were voting on. Still, even after all that, any juror can choose not to vote, at all.

    And so it should be the same with the American people in our elections. We should retain the right not to vote, despite our civic duty to do so.

    Military service is considered a civic duty also. However, the U.S. ended the draft in 1973 and then we converted to an all-volunteer military force. During the 50’s and 60’s, the draft forced some people into the military that simply were not yet prepared to serve in the military, and this increased the rate of turnover, since these same coerced folks reenlisted at much lower rates than the volunteers did. Moreover, these involuntary soldiers often diminished the morale of their unit, and caused discipline problems, as well.

    Without the draft, however, the statistics reflect that we now have the highest quality military personnel in our nation’s history. Our military force is better educated today than the draft-era recruits, and our military is more capable than ever before.

    By comparison, would a mandatory voting law force some folks into the polls that are simply not yet prepared to vote, because they are not knowledgeable of what they are voting on, like the folks who were forced to enlist in the military, but were not yet prepared to serve? Would forced voting ensure that the voters know enough, or care enough, to vote? Would that increase the morale of our country or produce a better election outcome?

    Or would it diminish the voice of the volunteer voter at the polls – drowned out by the crowd of coerced voters instead?

    Of course, we teach our children not to follow the “crowd”, and maybe that’s because of stories like that of Pontius Pilate and Jesus, where the “crowd” got it so very wrong. But there’s something to that lesson – the “crowd” was uninformed and unprepared, and no law could have changed that 2,000 years ago, nor can it today, for it takes nothing to join the crowd, but it takes everything to stand alone and honor your civic duty – even if that means not voting at all.

  • Faithfully and Impartially

    Faithfully and Impartially

    By Louis R. Avallone

    –

    Elected Officials Should Do Their Own Work.

    Imagine you were in the hospital to have an important, life-altering medical procedure. As you are being wheeled into the operating room, your doctor informs you that he isn’t actually familiar with the relevant procedure needed to treat your condition. In fact, he doesn’t really understand the surgery he is about to perform on you. However, he tells you that he had a really smart, young nurse study up on it, and that the nurse has given him a good enough idea of what needs to be done and that he’s sure that everything will be fine. How comfortable would you be knowing that your life depended on how well the nurse was able to explain to the doctor a complex surgical procedure, step-by-step, as well as the risk factors involved?

    You probably would not be very comfortable at all. Yet, very similarly, the officials we elect to serve us on our school boards, in our statehouses, and in Congress, are increasingly voting on legislation which they have not read, nor fully understand the risks involved. The responsibility for doing so, instead, is delegated to staff – all whom we haven’t elected whatsoever.

    Remember the 2,700 pages of the Affordable Care Act? Nancy Pelosi famously urged lawmakers to “pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.” Then Congressman Conyers jumped in and said it was pointless to read that bill unless you had “two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you’ve read it.” And even our own Congressman Fleming, who actually did read the bill, said that the 10,535 pages of final regulations are “incomprehensible.”

    Then there was the $790 billion stimulus package in 2009. It was voted on without a single member of either chamber reading it before voting on it. After all, the 1,073-page document wasn’t posted on the government’s website until after 10 p.m. the day before the vote was taken in Congress to pass it.

    The cap-and-trade bill in 2009 had a 300-page amendment added to it at 3:09 a.m. – and amazingly it still passed when it came up for a vote – on the very same day.

    Even here in Louisiana, the only required “reading” for a bill to become a law is that the title must be read, on three separate days in each house. And that’s it.

    Many contend that our elected officials are simply too busy to read the legislation themselves. After all, many officials say that if they spent all their time reading legislation, they would never get anything done. But impossible for every elected official to merely read the actual legislation itself? C’mon now.

    If your elected official is not able to do that, they should resign or be removed from office, because they’re incompetent.

    We can easily see how important this is in our legislatures, but the same is true in our parish commissions, city councils, and school boards. Consider that the Caddo Parish School Board recently voted to ask voters for $108 million in tax revenue, which effectively doubles the outstanding debt of the school system, even though the Census Bureau shows the population of school-aged children in Caddo Parish continues to decline.

    Even though one-half of the school board members were reporting for duty for the first time since taking their oath of office, the staff of the Caddo Parish school system put this debt-doubling tax before them anyways.

    There was no public debate amongst the newly elected board members that night. No reference to how many hours the school board members themselves had already studied the matter, the finances, or the demographics.

    Instead, the school system staff, like legislative staffers who read and interpret bills for our elected officials in Congress, simply said to each school board member, “sign here”. And they did, unanimously.

    For the veteran school board members that night, they know the history, and this wasn’t their first rodeo. But for the 50% of the brand-spanking new board members who just showed up the night of the vote for the first time, maybe they would have appreciated a little more time to consider the matter before voting to spend $108 million of taxpayer money on their first day on the job. Shame on the school system, though, who put them in that position to begin with.

    Regardless of whether you support the tax proposition or not, that’s not the point here. The bottom line is that our elected officials should understand what they are voting on, before they get ready to go into the chamber to vote, and not just before they go on television to be interviewed. No, we can’t fix our government solely by forcing our elected officials to read the bills. But we can start by voting for folks who actually will do the job to we hired them to do to begin with.

     

  • Stupid is as Stupid Does

    Stupid is as Stupid Does

    By Louis R. Avallone

    –

    Sometimes we get so caught up in using labels that we miss the forest for the trees. Of course, labels help us organize our world, which is increasingly loud, confusing, and misleading. Folks often bite their tongue, or hold their comments back, afraid that they will be called a racist, or an elitist, a liberal, or a conservative, a sexist, or an anti-environmentalist – for simply what they believe.

    But no matter the label, I think it all boils down to the plain wisdom of Forest Gump’s momma when she said, “Stupid is as stupid does”.

    And the world is certainly full of lots of examples of stupid. It’s hard to comment on any of it, or engage someone in a meaningful discussion about it, without offending them – or some group – or risk being branded as a heartless so-and-so, or an insensitive you-know-what. Thus, lots of folks just keep their opinions to themselves.

    And a recent Pew Research poll indicated this as well: Most people who regularly use social media sites are less likely to share their opinions, even offline, unless they know their audience agrees. Our fear of isolation from others, it seems, keeps too many of us from sharing our opinions, and this encourages a sense of apathy, or a “to each his own” mentality.

    The problem with that, in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., is that “(o)ur lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

    For example, does it matter that welfare spending has increased 16-fold since the federal government began the “War on Poverty” in the 1960s, and that welfare spending has risen 32% since Obama took office? Yet the number of people on food stamps in the U.S. today exceeds the total population of Argentina (43,024,374)?

    Doesn’t it matter that Obama said earlier this month that he was “proud of saving the economy,” during the same week that 25,000 Americans filed for unemployment, and that the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 93 million Americans being unemployed now, or not even looking for work?

    Does it bother you that our federal government is borrowing 14¢ out of every dollar it spends now, just to keep the “lights on”, and yet Obama’s Executive Order on immigration enables those here illegally to get a check from the federal government through the Earned Income Tax Credit, even retroactively, going back 3 years? And did you know that last year the IRS sent $4.2 billion in checks to illegal immigrants in our country?

    This is exactly the kind of “stupid is that stupid does” thinking that will do us in. It’s contagious and it’s reaching epidemic levels – especially with the nonsense thinking in our society that places more value on how something looks or feels, rather than what it is actually.

    Does it bother you that our president is more concerned with “showing” the world that Americans are united together to fight ISIS terrorists, instead of him simply freeing up our military commanders to go break things and kill the bad guys (instead of just “showing” the bad guys how united we are in spirit)?

    And does it bother you that NBC anchor Brian Williams wanted to look more heroic when said his helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade as he was covering the Iraq war in 2003 (when it really didn’t), or when Hilary Clinton said that she landed in Bosnia in 1996 under sniper fire (when there wasn’t any)? Or when Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal wanted to appear as a war hero and said he served in Vietnam (when he hadn’t).

    If any of these examples bother you, speak out, be heard. There’s more people who think like you do than you might realize. And like fleas, roaches, rats, rust, and termites, if you say nothing, or ignore the problem, it will only become worse.

    Our society too often confuses doing something with actually accomplishing something. We give more praise and attention to those who care more, than those who actually help more.

    And it’s got to stop.

    So don’t be silent about things that matter, and call it like it is, no matter what side of the aisle you are on. And if anyone happens to get offended by you defending what you believe, especially the intellectuals who “know better” than the rest of us, just tell them to go see Forest’s momma. It’s not any more complicated than that.

    Image credit to grabgewalt.deviantart.com

  • Beauty is Only Skin Deep

    By Louis R. Avallone

    –

    By now, you’ve heard about the Caddo Parish School Board’s plan to close six schools, and open three new ones, and make improvements in various others using $108 million in bonds. The plan is branded by the CPSB as, “Reinvest in Caddo”. The plan has drawn both supporters and critics, but both groups may be missing the forest for the trees. Here’s why:

    You see, supporters point out that the average school building in the parish is 60 years old, and that the maintenance costs alone of the three schools slated for closure is $150,000 per year, and that to make those aging schools ADA-compliant and technology-ready would require an additional $18 million.

    Now, the critics explain that the CPSB could lower our public school taxes, instead of reallocating them to build these unneeded new schools, since Caddo Parish has 20,000 fewer students to educate than we had in 1970, yet today we still have roughly the same number of schools to pay for, nonetheless.

    They point to Census data that indicates that the number of students to educate in Caddo Parish will continue to decline, considering the number of child-bearing aged women in Caddo Parish has been declining over the past 20 years (down 8.5% since 1990). And with virtually no population growth in the parish since 1990, the math seems to support the trend towards fewer students for the foreseeable future.

    Taking math out of the equation, for a moment, though, the Shreveport Historic Preservation Commission opposes the plan to “Reinvest in Caddo” for altogether different reasons. They feel they were flat-out ignored by the CPSB, and that shuttering any school is the beginning of the end for any neighborhood in which it is located. That would be particularly true for the Highland neighborhood, under this plan.

    Still others say that this plan is ill-conceived, and the evidence is that it was rushed so quickly to be put before the CPSB on the same night that 50% of the school board members were showing up brand-new – serving for their very first time after having been elected just last fall.

    And for CPSB member, Dottie Bell, the plan to “Reinvest in Caddo” is real simple: It’s about putting the children first. And for Superintendent Goree? It’s about providing something better for our children.

    But does getting “something better” for our children mean spending more taxpayer dollars, considering that Louisiana is already spending over $1 billion now on schools that are rated “D” and “F” each year? As it stands now, for the 200,000 students in Louisiana, their odds are “50/50” of graduating high school or even reading on their grade level.

    Perhaps, instead of investing money, this CPSB plan might be better received if the plan included strategies for getting parents more involved in their children’s education, and thereby improving the quality of their education – rather going back to the taxpayers and wagering tax dollars on the expectation that new buildings will improve the quality of education parish-wide.

    The issue of increasing parental involvement is the “800 lb. gorilla” in the room, and it ought to be front and center, especially whenever someone wants to increase spending and raise taxes “for the children”.

    In order for students to do well in school, however, they need more than new buildings. They need someone to make them do their homework. To fix them a well-balanced breakfast. To communicate with their teacher on their progress. To make sure they get a good night’s sleep and get to school on time. To be respectful and obey. You see, building new schools alone cannot accomplish any of that – without first increasing parental involvement.

    Did you know that one of the most successful school systems in the U.S. are the schools situated on U.S. military bases? A report by 60 Minutes found that these students’ test scores are among the best in the nation, and in some cases, represent the “narrowest achievement gap between minorities and whites of any school in the entire country”, and that’s with half of those students living below the poverty line.

    And why the positive difference here? Parental involvement.

    So, before the need to build an auxiliary gymnasium, or reduce the number of “T” buildings at our schools, perhaps we need to address, as an example, the unequal education in the black community first, and why the average black 12th-grader has the academic achievement level of the average white seventh- or eighth-grader (according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress). This is particularly important for our community – 64% of Caddo Parish students are black.

    Michael Jordan was not successful because he played in multi-million dollar, state-of-the-art arenas. Luciano Pavarotti does not sell out performances because he performs in the finest, most exquisite opera houses. Steve Jobs launched Apple Computer from his home garage, and not from the 32-acre campus that makes up their glimmering, class “A” corporate offices in Cupertino today.

    Yes, shiny new buildings are pretty. But beauty is only skin deep. It’s what you do with what you have that matters most, and perhaps we ought to start there first.