Who Reads Blogs (Apparently Almost No One)

First a warning from AP (h/t Michelle Malkin)

Blogs are Web sites that tend to be narrow in focus and directed at a niche audience. Most operate without editors and give instant reaction to the news. Their freewheeling, open nature makes them popular but also ripe for unverified statements.

As I struggle with English as my only language, the lack of an editor to correct usage, style on other lessons that I never mastered from my English classes should be obvious. Without spell checking you would think that this was written in some dialect of Old English written before 1604 when Robert Cawdrey wrote A Table Alphabeticall or that Webster guy came along.

As far as an editor to provide fact checking – to verify those pesky “unverified statements”? Remember Dan Rather and his “Fake but Accurate” documents? What about Reuters Photoshopped images. Michelle Malkin has a number of links with other examples just having an editor may not provide as much value as AP seems to believe.

So, who cares? Not to step on The Hedgehog Report’s turf by talking about polls, but Fox News / Opinion Dynamics Poll conducted March 27-28 asked the following:

31. How often do you read Internet journals sometimes referred to as web logs
or blogs?

	At least daily	At least once a week	A few Times a month	Less than once a month	Never
27-28 Mar 07	6	8	9	13	63
Democrats	4	8	10	11	67
Republicans	9	7	9	15	59
Independents	2	9	8	11	69

If you asked me to choose between internet access and TV for 30 days, my first question would be how many TiVos can I have? But if forced to choose I’d keep internet access. I use the internet for instant accesses to news, commentary, communication (email), information (thank you Google) and entertainment.

So, for those that read this, besides being Time’s Person of the Year you can also add “Elite Internet User” to your resume.

The Signs Are A-Changing? – Proposal To Modify Zoning Signs

The Examiner highlights a proposal by Greg Fox (R-District 5) in Official aims to make meeting details more accessible to county residents.

Fox’s proposed measure would make the signs smaller, color-coded and include a large code in the top left corner, identifying the project. Residents can enter that code into the county’s Web site to find out information on the meeting and track the development plans, he said.

This seems like a simple and welcome change to make information easier to get. I wonder if it would be feasible to add a requirement to have information sheets available at the sign – similar to the “take one” mailboxes that Realtors currently use.

Making the case number prominently displayed on the signs and an obvious way to enter that information into the County’s web site is one thing, but being able to take a sheet with the same information and listing the URL for additional information could also be useful.

Grade Inflation – a new twist

OK, I know this is not HoCo politics – though if you squint just a little bit, and I stretch it a little, I could probably make a connection….. like HoCo has some of the same problems with grade inflation rampant around the country and how miserable it makes it to be a student who takes appropriately challenging classes with teachers who make them work hard and actually earn good grades….

But check this out -(from msnbc) BATON ROUGE, La. – A Louisiana school system must pay more than $1.4 million to an English teacher who was suspended and demoted after refusing to change the D’s and F’s she gave to 70 percent of her students, a federal jury has found.

Now I imagine there are some knee jerk reactions out there of “hey, good for her – if the little brats flunked, then give’em an f” —- I suppose that could be true. Though what kind of a grade should the teacher earn if 70% of her students failed her class…. maybe she was the problem?

Of course there’s more to this story – like this is the only class these kids were failing (I suppose ALL the other teachers were too easy on them) and the administration apparently behaved badly in threatening the teacher with crummy duty if she refused to change the grades —- or maybe it was an out of control jury?

Since I give more credit to the jury system than the popular culture – I’m not going to blame them — I’ll assume either the administration behaved sooo badly that its’ actions overshadowed the teacher’s incompetence — or the school system’s attorney was not as good as the teacher’s attorney (maybe HCPSS lent out ours).

In any event — when 70% of the students, who are not failing all their other classes, fail …. I have to think the problem is with the teacher.

CIndy Vaillancourt

MD General Assembly Passes Anti-Gang Legislation

On Tuesday (3/20/2007) the MD General Assembly passed HB 713 – Maryland Gang Prosecution Act of 2007 with a vote of 134 to 1.

Prohibiting a person from participating in a specified criminal gang knowing that the members of the gang engage in or have engaged in a specified pattern of criminal gang activity; prohibiting a person from willfully promoting, furthering, or assisting in a criminal offense committed for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with a criminal gang; establishing penalties for a violation of the Act; etc.

The bill has been cross filed with Senate Bill 632, but it is not clear what action the Senate is planning.

This bill seems like it will give our law enforcement officials a useful tool in prosecuting gang members and gang behavior. Certainly it will have a broader impact than the withdrawn Machete bill.

Don’t know much about … (insert musical notes)…affordable housing

This is not going to be a “pile on” Stacy Spann piece. For those of you who don’t know, Mr. Spann is HoCo’s new Housing Director. He was on stage at the Association of Community Services luncheon last week. It was an unusually full house.

I’m refreshed by his candor. He said (from Sun article) : “I’m just stunned that all of these eyes are watching me,” Spann, said, adding that he had expected a small group. “I’m absolutely overwhelmed. It did not occur to me there would be this much interest.”

OK, maybe it was more an admission that he doesn’t have the requisite clue to take on this important task — but I think he can be forgiven for being surprised that people are actually interested in solving the affordable housing issues plaguing HoCo. This is the kind of issue that gets lip service all the time – with no real political, economic or social will behind it.

The person in charge of trying to figure out how to find ways to provide affordable housing in an area with an overheated, or at least extremely valuable, housing market could reasonably expect to spend his tenure pushing papers around, doodling calculations and ideas in the margins that are never going to materialize.

Maybe Mr. Spann has a plan, and will be energized to put it into action now that he has seen the level of active interest the community “players” have in this issue —

—though I’ve been to enough children’s birthday parties to recognize the particular brand of excitement exhibited at the luncheon …. it reminds me of the excitement of the pinata…. and Mr. Spann, it looks like you are the pinata — get ready to be beaten with sticks from all directions.

Cindy V.

Let’s Play Guess the Party.

We have two stories from the home page of the Examiner under Maryland News that deal with corruption / ethics violations with elected representatives. Let ’s see if we can tell what party the individuals belong.

Exhibit 1:

Ethics committee recommends censure for GOP lawmaker

The House Ethics Committee voted Wednesday to recommend censure for a Republican lawmaker who pleaded guilty in a domestic violence incident that followed a traffic stop involving suspected drunken driving.

Exhibit 2:

Public corruption case against ex-senator concerns lawmakers

Lawmakers have known for more than a year that their former colleague – the once-powerful Thomas Bromwell who headed the Senate Finance Committee – was in trouble after being indicted in a federal public corruption probe alleging influence-peddling.

Well, the first case is pretty easy. Obviously, the first one deals with a Republican. It’s in the headline and the again in the first paragraph. The second? Hmmm. Not in the headline, not in the first paragraph. Well, let’s start counting paragraphs 1, 2, 3… Damn, now I have to take off my shoes … 11, 12,.. 25. Yep at the 25th paragraph (out of 29 paragraphs in the story) we see:

Bromwell, a Democrat who represented Baltimore County in the Senate from 1983 until 2002, and his wife Mary Pat are charged in an alleged racketeering scheme involving minority contracting fraud while he was in office. They have pleaded not guilty.

Rather than make some snarky comment about media bias, I’m just going to assume that there really is an underlying rationale for this. How about:

When a Republican has an ethical problem it is such a rare occurrence that it needs to be stated right up front that the offending individual is not a Democrat. When it happens to be a Democrat? Well, that’s just to be expected, the natural way they do business and should be assumed unless told otherwise.

Works for me.

Ban Sign Waving? – Why Not Just Ban Driving?

Anne Arundel panhandling bill would ban sign wavers.

Okay, this is an issue that is not going to threaten the existence of our Republic, but the underlying Nanny-ism behind it irks me. Are certain elected representatives idiots and project that on the rest of us or do they just feel that the public is too stupid to live without their guidance?

A bill being considered by the General Assembly and sponsored by the AA-County Senate Delegation would include a ban on political sign waving in a bill to prohibit roadside solicitation. The bill is supported by the three AA-County Democratic Senators and was opposed by the two Republicans.

Democrat Sen. Ed DeGrange: “What are those people on the side of the road trying to do? They’re trying to get a motorist to look at [them] instead of concentrating on what [the drivers are] doing,”

County spokeswoman Rhonda Wardlaw called the ban on campaign wavers “a small price to pay in order to get a public safety bill passed.”

All in the name of safety? Safety at any price? Are they next going to propose removing all traffic signs like speed limit and road direction signs? I mean those are specifically designed for drivers to look at them too. How about banning traffic stops by police officers during rush hour? Having a police car with flashing lights on the road side causes some people to slam on the breaks while others are busy looking at the unfolding “excitement” – surely this is an unsafe situation too.

Yes, driving is dangerous and a very complex activity. However, it is the responsibility of the driver to operate their own vehicle in a safe manner. It is impossible to try to legislate each and every possible “distraction” that could impact a driver, but that does not seem to stop some people from trying.

I’m not advocating that our candidates can hide in the bushes and then jump out to startle passing motorists, but picking a safe location to stand and sign wave should not be a hindrance to any safe, competent driver. If a someone is creating an unsafe situation, I’m sure that a passing law enforcement officer could direct them to someplace more appropriate or take other action to correct the problem.

Maybe this is just another “protect the incumbent” maneuver by some that don’t like to sign wave and see this as a chance to ban it under the guise of public safety.

Senior Tax Credit/Freeze/Deferral/Relief Hearing

It started off with a steady hum of the expected …. local senior citizens telling the County Council that they should honor the commitment made “just five months ago” to reduce their real estate tax burden.

And then something pretty cool happened. Other senior citizens came forward to state the obvious — one person tried to be delicate and put into words what the previous council was doing when it passed the act, then sort of shrugged and said “we all know what that was” .

In the end, the take away message – even from those who would probably benefit financially – was that the current bill (even with the proposed modifications) provides unfair windfalls for some, unexplored potential unintended consequences, and probably does not provide broad enough assistance to the truly needy to justify the expense.

Here are a couple of thought provoking notions:

1) “Aging in place” is not always the best idea. Some seniors who “might ought” to be making the move to assisted living type accommodations would delay beyond reason a necessary move because of the financial incentives of the tax credit.

2) This program benefits a fairly narrow slice of seniors in need — and the community investment in a program which does not adequately address the broad needs of our entire senior base is not a reasonable allocation of resources. Seniors who have already made appropriate life decisions to relocate to rentals, or communal living etc – are unfairly denied the benefit of this community financed subsidy.

3) The “community financed subsidy” aspect of the “tax credit” structure is inherently unfair. While it is true that folks on fixed incomes (seniors or not) may struggle to keep up with rising tax obligations —- and it may be reasonable and humane to develop a program to help with the cash-flow issues which may force these folks to make heart-wrenching choices — it does not follow that the “heirs” to the real estate should receive a tax payer funded windfall.

The suggestion of offsetting the reductions in the current obligations with a lien payable upon sale makes sense — but not just because of “fairness”. Consider the example of how medicaid puts a lien on property when a senior is terminally hospitalized. If we finance the accumulation of equity in the home at the local level —- in the end, the federal government may well be the recipient of the benefit of our community largess.

We have some pretty impressive senior citizens in HoCo. The folks who got up to say that even if they might benefit from a flawed law, they would prefer to see the Council start over and develop a plan that would help the truly needy—- give a “hand up not a hand out” because they come from a generation of folks who believe in self-reliance— and are willing to “put their money where their mouths are”—- have my most sincere admiration.

Cindy Vaillancourt

Preserving the Past or Freezing the Future?

There are a lot of beautiful and intrinsically valuable things in and about Howard County which I would personally love to see preserved – as in, not changed, saved as is. I suspect my list would differ from that of others. In fact, I suspect each of us has some variation in our list and in how we prioritize it.

Preservation Howard County has put the former Rouse Headquarters and the former Exhibit Center near the top of theirs.

I have no problem with this. The people at PresHoCo work long, hard, relatively thankless hours looking after Howard County’s past and future.

I can’t say I’m a big fan of the buildings they have put on their list. In spite of the eloquent case being made about the famous architect and the “slice of life” aspects of these structures, I doubt many folks are as interested in preserving these particular buildings as they are in preserving the scale and atmosphere of downtown Columbia.

By preserving these buildings – the aura of the area will be preserved. The scale, the pace, the tone, the feel of Columbia will be safe from change. It will be literally frozen in time.

I just returned from Massachusetts. We spent the night in the same historic hotel where we spent our wedding night a million years ago, next door to the church where we were married – down the street from the Salem Witch Museum (no jokes please)– on the Salem Common. Nothing there has changed in about 200 years. It was perfect. It was beautiful — to my eye at least. This weekend it was quite literally frozen in time.

As beautiful and peaceful as it is for me to visit, however, it is not necessarily the same for the folks who have to live in a time capsule. Property that could be developed for enormous sums of money are limited- the prospects of the owners also frozen. Renovations to equip the quaint dwellings, shops and traffic patterns with modern day convenience and appointments are nearly impossible to accomplish. While in Massachusetts I also drove the kids past my old apartment in Boston’s Historic North End and the Old North Church. No parking, a fourth floor walkup, narrow crowded streets with tourists blocking the path, just like it has been since Paul Revere’s day (ok, british troops instead of tourists). Life as a tourist attraction has it’s drawbacks. But it is still worthwhile preservation.

I just wish the buildings involved in Columbia were more “my taste”. Then I could get more into the spirit of the effort. I may not be crazy about the buildings – but I applaud the effort to preserve the feel of downtown Columbia. It doesn’t have to be frozen to be preserved. We have the technology to maintain viability and a dynamic enironment – do we have the will?

Cindy Vaillancourt.

Was Gov. O’Malley Elected to a Three Year Term?

When Martin O’Malley was running for election I seemed to recall him citing his experience as Mayor of Baltimore (1999 – 2006). When he unveiled his 10 point plan with point 3 stating:

3. We choose to recruit and appoint the most capable people we can find to make government work more effectively. Call us old fashioned, but since all of us have to pay for government anyway, we believe that it can and should actually work.

Funny, but I don’t ever recall him saying …but I’ll need a year to figure it out.

According to the headlines, Baltimore Sun “House GOP effort to cut budget falls short“, and the Examiner “Democrats beat back proposed GOP budget cuts” in a “shockingly close” vote of 29-110 every House Democrat in Annapolis went on the record and along with Gov. O’Malley to compound Maryland’s fiscal problems.

What are being billed as “cuts” would have actually been a freeze of current spending except for cost-of-living pay raises for state employees and $5 million for new prison guards. We keep hearing about the “structural deficit” and a $1 Billion short fall between spending and revenue that is expected in the next few years. Del Gale Bates (R-Howard 9A):

“If we begin to deal with the deficit issue this year, it’s manageable,” said Del. Gail H. Bates, a Howard County Republican who serves on the House Appropriations Committee. “If we wait and do nothing this year and that additional spending is in place, next year we’re talking serious cuts.”

The Democrats plan? Kick the can down the road until next year. All 102 House Democrats voted against the freeze, and the best I can figure offered no alternatives. Why, well Gov. O’Malley needs a year to figure out what is going on.

Democrats acknowledged the fiscal problems facing the state but said O’Malley deserves time to find savings in government and craft a comprehensive solution to the problem, known as the state’s structural deficit.

Gov. O’Malley was able to figure out how to spend $1 Billion from the “rainy day fund” to increase spending this year. When it comes down to making tough or unpopular decisions like reducing spending or raising taxes, well that will have to wait next year. Sure the problem will just be bigger, but why act now?

If Gov. O’Malley runs for reelection will he ask for 4 more years because he sat the first one out?