The problem with gov'mint by populism

     Okay, I see that the county commissioners are considering making English the official language of Carroll County.
     Wonderful. Why is it that the very candidates who run for office on a platform for getting rules and regulations out of our lives are the same ones who come up with this kind of silliness?
     Oh! I know: They have their fingers on the pols of We The People. A poll in the paper says 65 percent of Carroll County residents favor such a law, as if it protects us from alien life forms or something. This, from a populace that can't speak six words without saying, "...like, I think we, like, need to have everybody be, like, alike, y'know?"
     This is what you get when elected leaders -- wrong word: Followers is the right word -- follow populist emotion instead of thinking things through to consider the relevance or consequences of their actions.
     I would be prouder of my fellow citizens -- and my elected leaders -- if 65 percent of however many bother to really respond to polls said they want to spend county government time on a reasonable master plan for controlling sprawl and congestion, public services such as fire and ambulance training and recruitment, continued improvement in educational staff and facilities, and more recreational facilities for our kids.
     That's enough without worrying about whether language is made "official" by decree.

  

Why have a plan at all?

     Commissioner David Roush wants to remove any and all references in a master plan to saving streams, wetlands, woods, animal habitats. He says there's nothing in the code that defines benefits enough to tie the hands of local government -- make that read development and mining interests -- with a lot of silly rules about clean water and air.
     This kind of thinking is what made him so popular with Union Bridger area residents when he was running the Lehigh Cement plant over there, and with environmentalists in general.
     Silly me, I thought he'd be a better choice for Westminster District than Michelle Jefferson, or even Doug Mathias, the only Democrat to run for the post. Big problem with Mathias was that he was so desperate to get some Republicans to vote for him that he did a Mitt Romney and started saying stupid things to appeal to the Right.
     Roush didn't say much at all, in public, which is in keeping with his style while he was on the county economic development commission.
     He seemed a good fit on the EDC: his voice was a counterbalance to the sometime over-reaching and strident rhetoric of the more zealous voices at the other end of the spectrum. But he had plenty to say off the record, in the audience that he thought would agree with him (same tactic that backfired on Romney). While a member of the EDC, Roush let it be known among insiders that he disapproved of any attempt in a master plan to preserve the homes of people in the Mount Airy area where there was a proposal to zone for industrial development.
     You have to be tougher than that if you want to zone for business, was his position -- then. Now, it's property rights, so long as you are the landlord owner of the site under consideration. You can bet that in his eyes, Lehigh's property rights trump the property rights of any homeowners or farmers between a mine and the Union Bridge plant.
     Now the commissioners are reviewing the master plan and it would appear -- no surprise -- that what they're after is essentially no plan at all. Just a laissez-faire, open season for a  big money approach to making more money.
      Clean water comes in plastic bottles, and clean air from air conditioning and household filters, right?

More reasons to leave the Republican Party

      Reasons 34, 42, 51 to change your party affiliation to Independent if you are now a registered Republican:
     34. Hypocrisy about voter fraud. On the pretext that Democrats were stuffing ballot boxes with the votes of dead people, the GOP has engaged in an on-going strategy to disenfranchise voters who are not registered Republicans. It started years ago, and during the early 2000s, Republican "volunteers" pushed to have Democrats purged from the voting lists, particularly in Baltimore and the Washington suburbs. Meanwhile, other "volunteers" offered to help senior citizens register to vote by going to nursing homes and attempting to not only register voters, but to get the proxy to file their ballot for them. How generous.
      It was going on all over the country, part of a national GOP strategy. Now, in Texas, 80,000 voters have received letters from the state saying they are officially dead, and if they do not call in to re-register, their votes will not count in the next election. People who call in are put on hold, sometimes for as long as an hour. An examination shows that most of the people receiving the notification are, indeed, alive, most are black or Hispanic, and almost all are Democrat. When the mayor of Houston called out the state official (Republican, of course) who ordered the notifications, the state official threatened to cut off state funding to Houston.
     42.  When candidates Romney and then Ryan were caught deliberately misrepresenting welfare facts in an attempt to discredit the Obama administration, a GOP campaign official said, "We're not going to have our campaign strategy dictated by a bunch of fact-checkers."
     51.  In the midst of an international crisis during which an American ambassador and three other U.S diplomats are murdered in Libya, a desperate Mitt Romney blames it all on President Obama for "apologizing for America," an egregious display of pandering to the more jingoistic elements of the Right Wing. When even Republicans question the tactic, pointing out that 1) there was no apology, just a condemnation of an irresponsible film insulting Islam, made BEFORE the attack on the consulate, and  2) the comment was made by the very people who were then killed, and not the President, the GOP candidate doubles down and says the President was still responsible because it happened on his watch. Really!
     If the GOP is so desperate to return to the White House that it won't even stand with the rest of us in times of crisis, why should we trust them to serve anyone but the money changers later.
     Those who cannot stomach changing their party affiliation to Democrat can still salvage their integrity by changing to Unaffiliated, regardless off how they vote on election day.
     There are three reasons. If you can't fill in some of the blanks, you haven't been paying enough attention.

Nine Eleven, 11 years later; are we united?

     Eleven years ago today, as I paused in my walk up Westminster's East Main Street to chat with the owner of Guillanova's, Cal Bloom stepped out of his barber shop a few doors up the street and announced that a plane had just crashed into one of the big towers at the World Trade Center in New York.
     Wow! Big event. I walked up to stand in front of the TV with Cal and watch the story unfold. As we stood there, a second jet suddenly appeared on the screen and plowed into the second building.
     I don't recall either of us making a sound. I think we were incredulous. I said, "The world just changed."
     One plane was an accident; two planes constitutes a deliberate attack. Who would be stupid enough to attack the United States?
     The nation mourned the deaths of 3,000 people in the attacks in New York and the Pentagon, and in the crash of a third plane which was taken down by American citizens rather than let the terrorists fly into another building full of innocents.
     In the days following, America was one nation, indivisible, united in her resolve, her vision, her purpose.
     We finally killed the mastermind of the attack, but in the meantime, we lost much. We lost too many soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, killed too many civilians ourselves while seeking out bad guys. We soured credibility with much of the world, too, but that doesn't bother most Americans.
     Eventually, we lost that sense of nation that we had called on immediately following those attacks. We have, since then, become a nation divided as never before, except for the years during and immediately following the Civil War.
     All in just 11 short years. Makes me wonder what it would take to make this country's self-governance work again.

Let's hear it for servers

     Just for giggles, keep track of how often you've just shoved a forkful of food into your mouth when the server comes up on your blind side and asks, "How is your meal?"
     My wife says it happens to me more than others because I hardly give it a rest between shovels. Maybe, but I think it's a conspiracy among a group of people who absolutely must have a great sense of humor to do what they do, day in and day out.
     So I'm not here to make fun of servers, but to give them due credit for a generally great job.
     Get giddy over celebrities, if you will, and pore over the tabloids to see who's who on TV or in the movies. Get choked up over the fiery rhetoric of your favorite politician, but to me, those who serve us our meals in our restaurants are among the finest examples of solid, hard-working Americans you can find.
     Kitchen help is spotty these days; hard to get people back there who can manage to show up on time and stay for a whole shift -- admittedly a long shift and hard work. Don't want to take anything away from the best of them, but the fact is, they prep and plate and kiss it goodbye.
     It's the waitress or waiter -- I defend the honor in those job descriptions -- who takes the plate to the customer and will bear the consequences of the timeliness and quality of the food on arrival.
     The store manager will make the obligatory rounds to ask customers how is their experience. I've been known to say the service is great and will remain so if management doesn't screw it up.
     Indeed, in every restaurant I can think of, if there is a problem, it originates with or goes back to management: Lack of discipline in the kitchen reflects on the server, but shouldn't. It's a manager who won't deal with it.
     I once got up and walked out of a restaurant after a loud argument broke out between two kitchen helpers in back who were yelling insults at two waitresses out front. The manager weighed in but didn't stop it -- she should have set those cooks straight right there.
     Good cooks get my respect. Good servers even more, because they're on the front lines. Managers get credit when they manage, as opposed to enabling unreliable and unprofessional behavior.
     How much support the store manager gets depends often on the real culprits in chain operations, the district managers, who are like those politicians who think that serving the public is all about making numbers add up.
    Take care of the wants and expectations of customers and the needs of the people who serve them, and management gets easier.

Romney needs no bump in Carroll County

     Pundits say Mitt Romney gained only a little ground in popularity as a result of the GOP convention last week, and now he and President Obama are tied in national polls. They call it a bump.
     The same pundits are saying that Obama will likely enjoy a bump after the Democrats' convention, and should pull ahead again, but it will be a close race down to the wire.
     But that's nationally, not in Carroll County. Carroll County will be tight with Mitt and you'll be seeing Mitt bumper stickers on pickup trucks for another five years, no matter who wins this November.
     What will be interesting to see, should Romney win the election, is whether he learns to relax in his skin as a politician.
     He looks uncomfortable, and I have a theory: I think he knows that political campaigns are populated by advisers who keep telling you how to act, who to be, what to say and -- more important -- what not to say, and how to clean up the mess after you've said the wrong thing.
     He's just not a natural at this image thing. Charisma is like hair; you either have it or you don't, and worrying about it just makes it harder to deal with realities.
     Romney has the hair, and the teeth, and lean fit tallness that makes muster with those who value popularity first by appearances and other superficialities. But he has to say things that don't mesh with things he has done in the past and, indeed, most likely still believes today. He has to tell the hard-core conservatives what they want to hear, and Romney chokes on the words.
     Ryan has shown that he has what it takes to campaign. He can say two things at virtually the same time and make it look like you must have missed something. He's obviously comfortable with expedient and glib rhetoric, and keeps winning a seat in Congress from a district that is considerably less conservative than the positions he pushes when he gets to Washington.
     His skills will be tested now that he is in the national spotlight, and his words and actions back home are going to be contrasted with the obstructionist, uncompromising positions that he has used in concert with other absolutists in what has been shown to be the most ineffectual congress in modern history.
     Like his colleague and another "Young Gun," Virgina Republican Eric Cantor, Ryan has great ability to revise the facts. Cantor smiled brightly and with a straight face told a public television reporter that it was Obama who refused to adopt the recommendation of the Simpson-Bowles Super committee on how to get the budget back on track. "He patted them on the head and sent them home," is the Ryan/Cantor talking point, when the fact is, it was they who voted it down in Congress. Had they been willing to build, rather than destroy, the plan would now be in effect, the so-called doomsday budget crisis would be over, and Wall Street and world markets would relax and be able to go back to working on a viable economy.
     They sank the ship, then blamed the President and democrats. It is a lie, but it's their lie and they are going to keep telling it.
    Same with the disinformation Romney's campaign people put out on the effects of the Obama plan for Medicare.The GOP claim has been branded "pants on fire, liar, liar" rhetoric by every non-partisan fact-checker covering politics, but as the Romney campaign chairman said, they're not going to let the facts get in the way of something that seems to be working for them.
     It's working for the zealots on the Right, but what about the rest of us?
     And is it giving Romney a bad taste in his mouth? I hope so.
     Ryan still has his supporters, but after his convention speech, a number of observers expressed the same thoughts expressed by syndicated columnist Mark Shields, who said Ryan has enjoyed respect until now for his reputation as a truth-teller, but his loose interpretation of truth in his convention comments have undermined that.
     Ryan was chosen because the extreme Right loves him. His ability to turn half truths and incomplete anecdotes into political fodder shows him to be capable of creating chaos if not a solution to complex issues. That's what the hard core wants.
     Romney wants desperately, I believe, to be President to all the people, and it grates on him to play the games that this new breed of obstructionist Republicans demand of him.
    I have to wonder if he'd get another bounce if he told us all what he really thinks and believes, and lets the chips fall where they may.
    It won't make a difference in Carroll County, because there are enough Republicans here who don't want to be confused with the facts. Ryan's their boy, along with Cantor and the rest of the worst congress ever.

George Therit passes on a little too early

     When George Therit Jr. passed away this week just short of his 91st birthday, it occurred to me that he died about seven years too soon.
     That's how many years I figure he lost when he thought he killed a six year old kid in Manchester many years ago.
     Mr. Therit, known as Junior to most adults in town, was just about 27 at the time. He was home from serving in the army during the second world war, and he and Mrs. Therit -- Miriam -- had two little boys of their own. They were known and respected as solid, decent, clean-living folks who would never hurt another person for all the world.
     But events conspire against us, and as George drove at a reasonable speed west on York Street, near the intersection with Main, a mop-headed kid came out of nowhere, dashing into the path of his gray '38 Plymouth. There was a thump!, and the kid went flopping and rolling into the gutter.
     I figure that's when George lost those seven years, even though the kid jumped up and started yelling, "Am I dead? Am I dead?"
     The kid was lucky, and a little slow afoot, as well as on the uptake of what constitutes dead. Beheaded chickens might run around after the big moment, but the kid was just bruised and scared.
     Almost as scared as George, they say.
     I was that kid. I recall that the steel in the right front fender of a pre-war Plymouth was as substantial as a cast iron frying pan, and could give you a fat lip, but that was better than going under the big front tire, which was a split second alternative.
     Not being dead, I was deemed fit to return to duty, which at the time was attendance in first grade class at Manchester Elementary School. I took an ice cube with me and a story to tell.
     The Therit family went to the same Immanuel Lutheran Church as my family, and his son, Dean (I always thought that had something to do with my luck) and I were in the same Sunday School class. Over the years, we would recall that moment and share a chuckle at the thick-headed kid who jumped up demanding to know if he was dead.
     I always figured I owed Mr. Therit something for scaring the life out of him.
     That close call was a lesson for me; everything can change in the flicker of an eye.
     A few years later, I grabbed a handful of my sister's hair as she was about to drown in the creek up at Dick's Dam, and held her there until adults could come and help.
     Many years after that, I saved a young man from choking to death on a burger in a Hanover restaurant, and later repeated that performance by smacking the back of a friend in a Taneytown restaurant when he was choking on steak.
     What are the odds?
     One day on a quiet street in Hanover, an elderly lady stepped out of her car to put mail in a corner box, but the vehicle was left in reverse. It backed up, the open door knocked her down, and she was about to be run over by her own car. I was able to get her out of the way in time, just because I happened to be walking by.
     So, George, you lost seven years because of me, but I like to think they got put back into the bank to give four others some extra time. Maybe it was part of some master plan.
    In any case, God bless you in your new adventure.

What if we used facts instead of talking points?

     We can't be too hard on that fella Todd Aiken for his comments about rape and abortion: He simply found his mind unable to conceive a thought and reverted to the talking points in his pocket. He may have aborted his campaign.
     That means he was trying to make a thoughtful comment about a complex issue, which is a bit over the head of the hard core right, which is his base.
     Talking points are sheets of answers to questions. Whether the question is related or not, give the response on the sheet handed out by the partisan spin managers.
     If you are not sure why talking points exist, think about how many times you've said to the person who shares your TV, "He didn't answer the question. Why don't they ever answer the question?"
     It's called deflection. It turns candidate forums into a verbal food fight.
     Watch the Sunday talk shows. Flip channels and pick up a few comments from either side -- Republican, Democrat, it doesn't matter. You will hear the same litany from the party line all morning line. See, they had a meeting, and passed out talking points.
     Sen. John McCain, still pretty candid, said the other day, "We have to keep the focus on our story, and stick with it."
     That's our story and we're sticking with it.
     If the question is, "What will your party do better than the incumbents?", the response will be, "The incumbents have had four (six, eight) years to keep their promises and they have failed. It's time for a change."
     There is never any acknowledgment that one of the reasons for failure was partisan gridlock. The side that loses the election spends four years pushing back to ensure the new leaders get only one term, never mind separating good ideas from bad, or perhaps -- gag -- compromise.
     It happens at the state level, too. When the Democrat Glendenning was Governor, the Republicans did everything they could to undermine his agenda. To hell with the fact that the people elected him governor.
     Then, when Ehrlich was elected, the Republicans whined for four years that the Democrats would not work with the Republicans.
     These wars are fought with talking points. Reporters -- good ones -- hate them. TV reporters and print slackers rely on them for quotes.
     Business uses talking points, too. Oil spill choking the gulf? We are leading the world in environmental research. Medications killing people? America's health care is the best in the world.
     Like that. Talking points.
     Facts are too inconvenient.
     Talking points are easy, and everybody has some. but if the dialog was based on facts, we'd see right away that no one has all the answers.

Marching out of step, too much to the right

     Earlier this month, I wrote that it might be time to take the school impact fees off the table for awhile, but I forgot who was in the County Office Building.
     If there is a way to get things backward, it seems, this board will find it. Too much right angle marching gets them out of sync with reality.
     It turns out they cut the fees retroactively, instead of at some future date. It never occurred to me that they would bend over that far backward to accommodate development interests, but they did. And then they allow the ones who have already paid fees for plans on the board to come in and get refunds. They can still fill up schools with new development when the market warms up again, but they get to keep the money that would have helped build classrooms to house new residents' children.
     Then, they compound the error by entertaining school redistricting AFTER the fact. You should get a handle on how many classrooms you need now and for the next seven years before you eliminate some. Especially if you are eliminating fees that help the government keep up with development.
     It takes more time to build a single school than it does to erect the houses that will fill it.
     A riverboat gambler has a better plan for paying future bills than this board, particularly Robin Frazier and Richard Rothschild.
     State and federal funding will continue to be down. Carroll will probably continue to get short shrift for capital funding, not only for schools, but for roads and water and sewers.
     The self-described conservatives on the board think they're saving money, but all they're doing is putting off the day when all the needs will arrive at once, and there will be nothing in the kitty, and no plan for fixing the problem short of a massive, immediate tax hike.

Impact fees can be shelved -- for awhile

     Putting a hold on residential impact fees is probably the right thing to do, at least until planners send the message that it's time to reinstate them.
     And  that's the rub:  Commissioners Frazier and Rothschild are on record as being generally against any restraints on what they euphemistically refer to as "property rights," and would be only to happy to see impact fees go away altogether. They don't have mush use for planning and zoning, and would be happy if we had only enough government to keep conservatives in power.
     I believe the overwhelming majority of residents, giving it some thought, want more than that.
     I recall budget director Ted Zaleski raising the idea that impact fees can and should be reduced when housing and population growth slows. It makes sense to me that if you are going to raise the fees when sheer numbers of people strain resources -- schools, roads, police and fire safety -- you can turn back the fees when the numbers subside.
     That's predicated on the concept of catching up and then keeping up, a mantra I kept repeating even before I was in office. People asked me, when I was a candidate, if I would cut taxes, as if that was the only criteria for election. I candidly said I had been hearing too much from firefighters and educators about how far behind we were, and could not in good conscience promise to cut taxes until I was assured we were caught up.
     But ideologues don't care about subtleties: Cut taxes, cut spending, and then it's everyone for themselves. Okay if you're talking about a sports event, but not avoiding chaos in a community.
     If the commissioners choose to turn off the impact fees for the time being, that may be appropriate.
     Those of us whose definition of property rights includes having a plan for growth will be watching, and ready to mobilize others who are willing to invest in protection against having a junk yard next door to us, or a solid investment in public education, fire and ambulance response.
     Planning and zoning and adequate fees for residential growth also ensures that we do catch up and keep up to provide quality of life programs like  recreational facilities for our kids and others, senior accommodations, and safety nets for people with needs.
     We want more than a collection of tribes; we want a cohesive community that respects individuals with differing requirements, within reason.

Games in Annapolis over gaming in Carroll

     Carroll County's request for changes in the gaming law to allow local fire companies and other community charitable groups to raise funds failed again.
     Why?  One thing among many that I learned while in local government is that games are played withing games in Annapolis and Washington, and if you don't have a pass to the back rooms, you may never know for sure what's going on.
     Transparency is the last thing that power brokers want. They want public relations, they want spin, they want money from their base contributors, and they want the votes of the people, and maybe they want what's best for their constituency. Maybe, sometimes.
     What could have happened to keep the local bill from being passed one more time?
     I speculate here, but perhaps there is a carryover from when Sen. Larry Haines used his influence to keep his word to conservative Christians. Even though he is no longer in office, that  constituency is still here, and local reps know it. They're caught between the rock of the church and the hard place of volunteer fire companies who are the drivers for new funds.
     Perhaps the local delegation is being spanked -- again -- for (1) being too conservative for a state government now led by Democrats; (2) for being divided, in public or not, over the gaming bill for the larger statewide bill. Carroll's electeds in Annapolis get spanked a lot by Democrats, and they tend to squabble among themselves, too, so they don't have a lot of friends in the state house.
     They say the local bill will get a better shot at passage in the next regular session, but firefighters and others have been hearing that for a long time.
     Time will tell, and time is more credible that most of the PR you're hear until actions speak for themselves.

Ryan would have been my choice -- in another life

      The selection of Paul Ryan for his vice presidential running mate shows that Mitt Romney is giving up on middle ground votes.
      There was a time when I might have applauded. That was before I walked in the shoes of someone who had to acknowledge that government in the modern era can not be premised on a simple ideological theory.
      It's complicated, because people are involved, not just theories.
      In a way, Paul Ryan would work better as a VP running mate for Ron Paul, the wizened Libertarian who has an ardent following among the extreme Right, but whose candidacy was rejected in primary elections across the country. Ron Paul and Paul Ryan are political and philosophical soul mates.
      Their ultra conservative ideas are not evil, but they just won't work today, and even conservative Republicans were wise enough to see that when Romney and the rest were in races in the primaries earlier this year.
      Much is being written now that Paul Ryan is a brilliant budget wonk who knows the Federal budget as well, if not better, than anyone in Congress.
      But that's not the same as understanding the consequences of the proposals he has espoused.
      Maybe that's because he is a disciple, of sorts, of the controversial novelist Ayn Rand, whose views made popular fiction in the post-WWII years, when Americans feared the statist extremes of Stalinist USSR, and totalitarian government that was vying with America for world dominance.
     You've heard of Rand by now. Maybe you've read her novels, Atlas Shrugged, and The Fountainhead; one was made into a movie -- one of the few bad movies Gary Cooper ever made.
     She used those books to push her ideas of a society where selfishness was a good thing, the ultimate virtue, because it would require every citizen to scratch out their place in the world without regard for anyone else. Only reason, not altruism, not emotion, should lead to success. Enough reason would ensure prosperity. She had no use for religion or personal sacrifice on behalf of others. Every man for himself.
     I can't do Rand justice here, so take some time to read up on the one influence that would-be vice president -- potentially, president -- Paul Ryan says forms his political philosophy.
     Look up Objectivism on the web. Google Ayn Rand, or Nathaniel Branden, who was her colleague for 18 years before he split with her.
     Learn more about the ideas behind this up and  coming Republican named Paul Ryan, and maybe you, too, will be left  with some serious misgivings about how much humanity will be left in American governance if he and his ilk gain too much political power.

Waste not a chance to do the good by waiting for perfect

     I have always had respect and admiration for those who strive to protect the environment and reduce wasted resources, going back to when I was a kid.
     So it is with regret that I see that the county government has given Waste NOT Carroll what they want, instead of what the county needs, now and for the future.
     After months and months, meetings after meetings, including many public sessions and forums, Carroll County government joined Frederick County several years ago to participate in the planning, construction and operational policies of a waste to energy plant. It would be built in Frederick County to serve the two counties, and additional clients as approved by the principals.
     The plant design was based on the latest technologies widely in use in Europe, and would advance the ideals of reducing and reusing waste -- recycling it -- by turning it into electrical power.
     Educated, well-trained people visited the European plants to see first hand how efficient and environmentally feasible the latest waste to energy technology is. Staff, professional advisers and elected officials from both Frederick and Carroll Counties visited plants in this country to see, hear and attempt to smell waste to energy plants at peak hours.
     There was no smoke, odors or noise, and scrubbers effectively removed any particulates or chemical pollution to levels far below what is considered dangerous to health. The costs are high, but compared to the costs of current methods of collecting, sorting, treating or land filling trash, reasonable.
     Waste to energy makes sense environmentally, especially as a bridge for the 40 years or so that it will take newer technologies to become viable. It makes sense financially.
     But all the information and all the facts in the world are no match for emotional zeal and the heady rush of a populist movement. For so many years, American lovers of the environment have been ignored by big business and big government, and so the disciples of the earth have become entrenched in their beliefs -- even when the facts have changed, and the old paradigms they champion so fervently have shifted to irrelevance.
     I fear the fight to defeat the waste to energy plant is a case of well-intentioned people forgetting that it is, indeed, about the best course for the environment, and the lives in it, and not about winning a political or populist argument. Especially an argument that does not hold water.
     When the county announced it will withdraw from the contract with Frederick County, a leader in the Waste NOT ranks was quoted as saying something like, "Maybe we can come up with a better way of dealing with waste."
     We are well past the time for idealistic slogans and hoping. It's time to get something done.
     We were on the way. Well-intentioned people spent a lot of time and effort seeking a better way, and examined in great detail -- more diligently and open minded than environmental absolutists -- the current and emerging technology and costs for handling the waste that a growing population creates.
     We had made great strides in recovering, reusing, reducing and recycling waste, and there is more to be done.
     It takes half the time to shut down the contracts that the county counts on now to have other areas accept what's left when we have reduced the flow we have today.
     If you're going to presume a role of leadership, you should have a ready answer for the questions: What are you going to do when you can't truck it to another state? How long can you use current landfill space? When that's filled, how long will it take to find, permit, and develop another landfill in the county?
     That last answer is easy; there will be no more landfills in Carroll County, ever. What we see is what we get, and when that runs out, we will have to hope that Frederick County will let us in, if there is room, to use the facility we could have retained some control over.
     Bottom line is this: The opponents to the waste to energy plant have not won; they lost. The plant will still be built, but Carroll leaders will have no say in design, safety, overview.
     Carroll County was on the way to solving, not in a perfect way, but in the best way practicable, waste management issues for many years to come.
     The opponents have ideals, but no solutions to those continuing problems.
    

Tough choices

     We tell our kids that life is full of tough choices: You can have ice cream or cake, but not both. You can go to soccer camp or the beach, but not both.
     But we don't like it when we have to face tough choices ourselves, especially when the payoff is not always so immediate and personal.
     Raise taxes a penny to keep teachers and reduce class sizes at an average household cost of $40, or go to the sporting goods store and shell out $70 for a Ravens shirt?
     That's really a tough call for a lot of people.
     Shell out another five cents for the booze you drink watching the game on your 50 inch HD flatscreen, or keep it to buy an extra two cases of beer a year?
     Wink, shrug and nudge at the moral erosion of gambling casinos and the shady figures backstage, or have the fat cats who anonymously fund political campaigns and influence elections pony up more in taxes?
     Life is tough and there are contradictions everywhere. You go to church on Sunday and get weepy and full of self congratulations when you hear the sermon about the Good Samaritan, because you know that helping the poor man by the side of the road is the right thing to do -- What Would Jesus Do.
     But leave your health insurance plan alone and don't bring on a health care plan that includes people not as fortunate -- meaning wealthy, or just plain lucky -- as others.
     It's complicated. Less so for conservatives, for whom everything is pretty simple. More so for liberals, whose solutions sometimes lead to new problems. For moderates and the generally disengaged, it's just plain confusing.
     Isn't it great that we have all the negative ads during election season to help us sort it all out?

Romney should have stayed home

     Four years ago, then candidate Barack Obama went to Europe to let people see a potential American President.
     Thousands filled the streets to hear him speak and get a look at him. There was talk of an American leader, at last, with a world view and understanding that America, while great, was not the center of the universe.
     Obama came home, inspired Americans as much as he inspired Europeans, got elected, and ran into the brick wall of resistance from the Right. He was criticized for trying to make America like Europe. He was dismissed as a leader because he could not bring the radical Left and the Radical Right together to deal with an economy that had begun to fail before he became President.
     Last week, candidate Mitt Romney went to London, also presumably to let people see that he was competent in world politics. He ticked off the British in the middle of their golden moment, hosts of the world Olympics. Then he visited Israel and threatened Iran, and met with rich campaign donors, shutting out the press and the rest of the world.
     If he didn't come home with money, he should have stayed home.
     Actually, they could have mailed him a check and America would have been better served.

Absolutism about gun ownership is irresponsible

     As a responsible gun owner and sportsman who has enjoyed target shooting for many years, I am offended by those who assume that I must be some kind of throwback to prehistory.
     If you don't like guns and don't want to be around them, fine. That's your right. If you are afraid of guns, good for you; a healthy respect begins with a little fear of that which can be abused.
    But I encourage people who fear guns to learn more about the art and history of firearms, so they can deal with their apprehensions in constructive ways.
     I do not believe that everyone should own a gun. I do not believe that anyone who does is dangerous.  We live in a free choice society, and everyone is entitled to their legal pursuits.
     But there is something amiss with a culture that will not even discuss restrictions on general availability of certain weapons and ordnance -- ammunition. Especially when those who do broach the subject are immediately attacked by the most ardent supporters of gun ownership.
     You know you have a problem when an organization like the National Rifle Association figuratively puts a target on any elected official who suggests that assault weapons should be less accessible than more conventional guns used in target shooting, hunting, and competition shooting.
     You know you have a problem when any attempt to limit certain kinds of ammunition sets of disinformation campaigns about how the government is attacking the private gun owner by making ammo hard to get.
     That argument was proven false with the revelation that the Aurora, Colorado assassin had 6,000 rounds of ammo shipped to him from on-line orders.
     In all my years of shooting shotguns, pistols and rifles, I have not set off 6,000 rounds.
     With that much ammo, I could enjoy a day a week at the range for more than three years. This whacko got that much in a matter of weeks.
     Automatic weapons and high-velocity bullets should be harder to get and controlled by government. Period. Arguments that we the people arm ourselves to protect us from a government gone rogue are as out of date as the revolutionary war tri-corner hat.
     Most shooters I have known deserve the right to own exotic arms. They should be allowed to enjoy shooting new ammo, so long as it does not wind up in the hands of people who would use them against the police officers in protective vests.
     To enjoy the right to shoot, shooters should be willing to participate in a system that ensures that only qualified and responsible sportsmen have access to certain technology.
     If not, why not let anyone stockpile nuclear bombs or chemical weapons, so long as they have not yet opened up in a mall or movie theater full of innocent people?
     If I want respect as a shooter, I need to be willing to at least discuss a better way than what we have not.

No splash, just treading water

     When know-nothing candidates seek political office with nothing but a misguided agenda to undo previous works, you wind up with a do-nothing board of commissioners.
     I have to give this board credit for learning on the job.
     So far, they've learned that not having a master plan is not an option. They've learned that idealistic slogans and good intentions don't make trash go away, and there is a limit to the virtues of recycling.
     They're learning that when you spend government money and time and effort to take an airport plan to a certain level, you can't just quit and pretend you still have a viable runway and a plan for the future. Nor can you make the debt disappear just because you don't like it.
     They are learning, or will learn, that land bought for future use because others had a vision of future needs might appear to the unitiated to be a waste of money and resources, but you won't be able to buy it or build it at today's value later, when you will, inevitably, need it.
     Ah, there's that word. Vision. I forget that this bunch is focused on the rear view mirror, or the funhouse perspectives of their more ardent supporters, few bud noisy and well-funded.
     Some poor souls, down the road, are going to have to raise a lot of revenue to catch up after the short-sighted actions of this so-called group of conservatives.
     They were going to make a splash, but they're just treading water. Hope the citizens don't drown in their wake.

Uncle Sam, listen to your doctors

     An American health care plan is going to happen, even if it continues to change form, so let's set the table for a few immediate improvements.
     Close to the top of the list of criticisms of a public health plan is that it will put government between the doctor and the patient. Well, I am an experienced and veteran consumer of health care, so I can testify that we have had insurance companies getting between the doctor and the patient for a long time, so maybe we can make some improvements.
     And government is already meddling, even to the point of telling doctors they can't complain about unreasonable regulations and requirements in creating a paperless records system, for fear of being charged will collusion.
     Bringing primary and specialist care providers to the table on records keeping, or any other interaction with patients, is not collusion. It's good medicine.
     I've had several doctors complain to me that the use of computers to eliminate paper records turns them into clerks, and the thing they hate most about it is, they have to turn their backs to the patient to face the keyboard of their laptops.
     I know one doctor who carries his laptop around the office, in and out of exam rooms, in the crook of one arm, while his fingers tap the keys with the other. He might have experience playing the fiddle. But that's a bit much to expect of those who are just barely computer literate.
     Did anyone ask doctors about the rules for the paperless plan? No. Some geek in the IT department of a federal office came up with it and say that's the way it's going to be. Anyone who works for a large firm with an IT department guru making dictates like some Wizard of Oz knows what I'm talking about.
     If it's health and medicine we're trying to fix, let's listen to doctors, their office clerks, and patients, then require the geeks to program a system that serves that objective.
     While you're at it, Uncle Sam, toss out that ridiculously constrictive HIPPA thing that allows drug companies, insurance companies, and the government to know all about my medical records, but won't let a lab send results to any doctor other than the one who requests the results.
     Common sense, please, Uncle, or let the Republicans have their way and turn it back to big business marketing policies favoring the insurance and drug companies over doctors and patients.

Conflicted about reality shows, including the news

     I learned to cook by watching the cooking channel.
     When I discovered the channel, it was all about how-to, techniques and recipes, with tips and step by step instructions.
     A guy named David Rosengarten was the primary featured cook and critic. He worked from a bare-bones set, white background, stainless steel shelving, uncluttered table or cooktop. Cooked with gas, too. I liked that.
     Anyway, I got hooked. Then I started recording cooking shows off MPT -- the Frugal Gourmet, Julia Child, Jacques Pepin, and America's Test Kitchen -- a lot of cooking shows.
     Then some marketing nitwit decided that to keep things fresh, you had to combine cooking with arm wrestling or something. We had smackdowns, showdowns, challenges -- it started with a Japanese import called the Iron Chef.
     They even had competition for the Next Food Network Star, and ruined the channel.
     Everything was about the conflict, and it became so artificial and phony that I probably watch less than half what I used to.
     Fake conflict is everywhere. Of course, the first thing you learn in creative writing is that your protagonist must encounter a conflict: Man against man, man against nature, etc.
      Love stories always go Boy Meets Girl, gets rejection, then boy gets girl, then boy loses -- or almost loses girl. Happy endings are they lived happily ever after. Love Story broke the mold and earned a gazillion dollars because girl dies.
     In news, it's not a story if dog bites man, but if man bites dog. If congressman bites congressman, it's good for four days of coverage and follos, and Face the Nation on Sunday TV.
     I cannot bear to watch all 14 Survivor episodes; too predictably staged. Nor do I like the talent competitions, which have become screaming contests or all about the potshots that the judges make to the competitors and each other.
     But I liked the end the evening with a nice House Hunters show; it was easy to stay awake for one more half hour, and there was a glimpse of various geographic locations as well as the fun of relating to a couple buying a nice new home.
     Increasingly, though, it was about conflict; the clash between spouses, or with the real estate agent, whatever.
     And then comes the revelation that House Hunters, too, is fake. They even have the couples wandering around houses that are not really for sale, so they can push the conflict angle.
     I can always read a book. Or go to bed early.

A step forward, but can we still walk?

     The passage of the health care plan, and the validation of its constitutionality, mark a step forward. Now, the United States is no longer the only modern nation in the world without some kind of health care plan to address needs of a large population.
     It's a flawed plan, because the resisters did everything they could to poison it, kill it, keep it from being born. It will need work, just like Social Security and Medicare needed -- and continue to need -- adjustments and improvements.
     The ability to take an idea and make it better, make it work, is what progress is all about. It's what nationhood is about. It's what the evolution of humanity is all about.
     But as we assess the meaning of the Supreme Court's decision, and listen to the rhetoric of those who are dedicated to stepping all over political adversaries, even if it means stepping on the American people, we have to wonder if the hyperpartisanship of the ones who are truly elected to be The People in the the true definition of the document that uses the term, "We the People," will bring the temple down on us all.
     It's clear from listening to the talking heads in Washington that the focus is on winning the next election, not health care, not national defense, not jobs or the economy. They just want to win, even if it's over the ashes of the great American idea.
    Many years ago, I interviewed a politician beloved in Carroll County. He was a conservative Republican, and proud of it, and he was proud of his record in Annapolis.
    What was his record?  Voting against Democrats and anything they wanted to do.
    Let us support progress, even if it means we have to learn something new.
    If we don't keep walking forward, we may forget how to walk altogether.

      

Big banks don't give us due credit

    Every day -- you get them, too -- I am invited to apply for a credit card that earns points for every dollar I charge.
    And I am always pre-qualified, with potential interest rates as low as a Kardashian neckline if I apply now. They'll let me know later if my new credit card is at the lowest rate possible, or a rate adjusted for my buying misadventures of the past, if any.
    In other words, you don't have a clue as to what kind of interest rate you're going to get.
    Sometimes, you are offered a $25 gift card, which may have a little number beside the note directing you to the fine print.
    I got one the other day saying I have to buy something first, then the gift card will be in the mail. Please allow four weeks for delivery card, and I must comply with all the enclosed terms and conditions.
    Terms and conditions takes up two legal sized pages, one in normal size print, and a second in what we used to call 6 point, but what a reader might just call squint.  These two pages, boiled down to basics, explain that they have you by the short hairs, and even if you win an argument, it will be your responsibility to pay their lawyers for defending themselves against their mistake.
    What a deal.
     I liked it better when banks were represented in short silent films as the leering dude in a stovepipe hat and black cape who burns the house if you can't make the mortgage payment, and ties the virgin to the railroad tracks if she won't submit to his advances.
    If you spend $40 to $80 for a membership card to a big box store, you can save that much over a year in the cost of Cheerios, which is five if you have a place to park a railroad car out back for the volume buying thing.
     The last time I had dealings with any bank, it was local, or so I thought. I went in to the building where I had banked for years, even though the name changed several times in a decade, and dealt with people I have known for years.
     In a day or two, I get a call from "MY" representative at the bank, only I don't recognize the name. No wonder. Turns out she's a marketing type person in the bank's offices in Pittsburgh, or Philly, or was it Milwaukee?
     I had to threaten to cancel the transaction altogether to regain and retain the right to deal with the person I know at my local bank branch.
     But then, when I started there, bank had a local name; remember when banks had names that began with Westminster, or Taneytown, or at least Carroll County?
     Now, it seems, all the banks are named after football stadiums. Oh, I know, it's supposedly the other way around, but haven't you been gang tackled by a financial institution lately?

Father's Day a lifetime later

     When I was four,  I marveled that Dad had the power to make the loose stones make noise under his feet, where I made no sound at all as we walked with my hand in his across a gravel pan behind the movie theater where he had parked the car.
      I believed then that he would always be bigger, smarter, more man than I could ever hope to be. After all, he was Dad, and I was the kid.
     He took me everywhere with him, even when others might think it was inappropriate. Before television took such status in the American home, we went to the movies twice a week, usually on a Monday night, and again on a Wednesday afternoon, because he was off work those hours. If he stopped for a beer, I sat at the bar with him and had a Coke.
     In Ohio, I could get a Dad's root beer, in a brown bottle. Shrinks and child behaviorists would have convulsions.
     I was a privileged child, because I knew I was loved. He told stories, jokes, was full of hugs and wet kisses, and sometimes embarrassed me with his displays of affection.
     After I returned from three years in Asia, we took my parents to a Japanese steak house in Towson for some special occasion, and while Mom and Pat visited the ladies' room after the drive from home, Dad and I were seated with a few strangers at the rim of the cooking area.
    Two guys, talking and laughing and obviously close.
    At one point, Dad was overcome with emotion and gave me a big hug, then, looking sheepishly at the strangers at the setting, said, "We're not queer. He's my SON!"
    Years later, Mom told me the reason Dad never got out of bed to say goodbye the morning I shipped out was because he was afraid he'd break down and cry.  I had thought it was just no big deal, but that was before I had become a father.
    He fought cancer, and announced that he was cured, and we vacationed together; Mom and Dad, my wife and sons, sharing a rental off the beach in South Bethany. The village was about a mile up the coast, and the first year, Dad and my sons and I would walk up there for breakfast.
    A year later, we got so far on such a walk to breakfast, and Dad stopped and announced that he didn't think he could make it all the way up and back. Brian and I should go ahead without him, he was going back to the house.
    It was a moment. Him, walking back, turning to wave once, Brian, out in front, impatient to get going.
    Several years later, I arrived at his house on a Sunday morning as was our custom, but this time I wanted to take him for a drive. He was by now in the final stages of bone cancer, and could no longer tool around in his car on country roads, listening to a big band station on the radio, smoking a cigar.
    He was using a walker now, coming down the wooden ramp I had fashioned to help him clear the two steps off the porch to the sidewalk. He looked up at a beautiful morning and broke into a few lines of one of his favorite songs: "Blue skies, smiling at me, nothing but blue skies, do I see."
    I was thinking, later, that was Dad. He showed me how to live, and he showed me how to die.
     He was the same age that I am now, last time I saw him..

How much should commissioners be paid?

     I hesitate to comment on how much a commissioner should be paid, because everything is different now that they've gone from three at large for the whole county to five serving only their district, or in a couple of cases, citizens of their district and others who share certain interests, county residents or not.
     Also, in full disclosure, I now have to admit that among the things I didn't know when I first ran for commissioner was how much the job paid.
     I thought it paid about $30,000 a year, but after I filed for office, I was told the salary had been increased by the delegation in Annapolis to $45,000. It was done under the radar, one of those "local courtesy" actions affecting only the requesting county, during the term of Frazier, Dell and Gouge. There was apparently no opposition from the incumbents.
    The story was that certain conservative lawmakers, or those with influence, wanted to reward incumbent Robin Frazier, in particular, for the fine job she was doing as commissioner saving the taxpayers the cost of big government. Keep payouts to the public small by paying the deciders well, was the idea, I guess.
     When Frazier failed to win a second term, those same Annapolis representative tried to get the salary changed back, even reduced further, but that didn't get enough support in the state capitol.
     I was surprised to learn that the commissioners got $12 a day -- per diem, so much per day in addition to the annual salary. My first impression was that it was excessive, but then it became apparent that the job for at-large commissioners was not a three-days per week thing at all. It was usually five, sometimes seven.
     Then there was the gas mileage or a county car. I did not want a county car; nor did I think it was appropriate to get gas mileage for showing up for work. It seemed reasonable to provide a car or reimburse mileage for trips that were made on county business. In any case, the policy is worth no more than the ethics of the driver, or the person coming in on non-meeting days.
     It would seem to me, now that each commissioner serves a specific district, that there is less justification for cross-county or out of county travel. Per diem, which this board made a show of giving up before they knew what the job entails, might be another story, but it would be hard for them to reinstate it now, unless they can do it on the side, which is not inconceivable, considering their track record on openness so far.
    
   

What rolls downhill

     Some call the game politics. Others know it's just King of the Hill.
     Most of us spend our lives as spectators.  We're at the bottom of the hill.
     We watch the players, representing political factions, scratch and claw and abuse the sensibilities of all to climb to the top of the hill. It's always a temporary victory, because the people at the bottom of the hill are almost always looking for a replay of the game, with a better outcome.
     This is why every election season, both sides promise change. The change is that some other people should take a turn being at the bottom of the hill, and we all get first hand knowledge of what rolls downhill.
     Plumbers already know it, and the rest of us find out, every two to four years.
     Folks have become impatient with this. As shown in the effort to recall Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, public employees objected strenuously to being thrown downhill by having their union agreements tossed out, so they wanted a mulligan.
     I hear that's a term used in golf, another game that involves going into the hole as quickly as you can. It means a do-over after you've had a bad result.
     It means the losers don't like the results of the election and want to do it over, now, not wait for the usual four years for another election.
     It's the same thing that Republicans all over America have been wanting since the election of President Obama.
     Allowing a mulligan in golf is not all that disruptive, but in politics, it can get chaotic, and expensive, and downright nasty.
     The teachers and other public employees lost, but those who pay taxes and, therefore, the wages and benefits of public employees, consider it a win. They can relate to the folks who -- for the moment -- hold the top of the hill.
     It's complicated. Taxpayers are also parents, and business owners, and users of public parks, emergency services and other things that we Americans consider our due.
     We have come to assume that public employees have an unfair edge, so we don't seem to mind too much when the retired school secretary,  who was counting on that retirement benefit, has it yanked away overnight.
     I heard one retired secretary say her insurance costs went up from under $100 a month to more than $800 with the new budget forced on the school board by the county commissioners.
     Same with a teacher, who took the job here not for the money as much as for job satisfaction, sweetened by a nice insurance package. He's still working, a long way from retirement, but his costs went up by almost $900 a month.
     But, hey, it's just a game of King of the Hill. They're at the bottom, probably always will be, while the Democrats and the Republicans change players every couple of years but never really lose, because they invented the game, and the rules.

Disconnecting in a connected world

     I heard a radio interview with an NPR reporter and a Wall Street Journal writer trying to figure out how we can have such a high jobless rate while many firms are reporting having trouble finding people for the growing list of job openings.
     One reason speculated was that the workers don't live where the jobs are, another was that employers are being too picky because they figure with so many desperate people out there, they can find Mr. or Ms. Perfect, or that the jobs simply are not paying enough to cover the costs of working.
     But I think they hit on something big when one of the talkers said that some companies tested their on-line application system and discovered that the machines were tossing out potential workers before any human being talked to another human being.
     Kind of like trying to place an order by phone -- or on-line -- and getting cut off.
     Or make reservations. Or get hold of your doctor's office.
     Which password did you use the last time?
     Computer programs are rejecting applicants to the point that one firm was shocked to discover that every applicant that attempted to file an application for a job was turned down on line.
     Another company found out that, according to the software program they were using to take applications, no one who currently worked for the company was qualified. Including the founders and executives.
     "Hello? Is anybody out there?"
     "We're sorry, your application has not been processed. Thank your for your interest in working for Cybernone. BLIP!"
     Guess the next big thing will be an Ap for filing Aps.
    

When will (did) summer begin

     Now that we have solemnly observed Memorial Day -- or did we celebrate Veteran's Day? Or was it sort of a combination of both, because we don't know the difference, any more than we know the difference between patriotism and jingoism?  -- Anyway, now that the first official holiday of the warmer season has passed, it's time to get serious about spending a frivolous summer.
     If that's confusing, how about the weather?  We had hot weather in February and April, cold weather in early May, now it's hot again. The almanac says summer officially begins with the summer solstice on June 20, but I'll bet that not four in ten people can tell you what the summer solstice is. Which is why we have official dates set on the calendar to tell us summer has arrived.
     When I was a kid, summer arrived the first day I didn't wear a jacket to school, and walking through the grass soaked my new tennis shoes with dew. May was not a month; it was a holding pattern, part of a conspiracy by adults to keep us bottled up for a few more days before we had the run of the town until the day after Labor Day.
     Summer was the epitome of life itself. It defined all human endeavor. Sleep until you felt like getting up, stay up at night until you collapsed into bed, full of ice cream or watermelon.
    On the hottest days, before the water ban police, we'd run through the sprinkler set up with the garden hose tied to the clothesline. For those not fully educated in history, a clothesline was one or more ropes or wires between posts in the back yard, where housewives, a prehistoric life form usually consisting of domesticated females, clipped wet laundry with clothespins (clever use of language) to dry in the sun.
     You could tell well-to-do families, because their children donned swimsuits for the frolic in the icy spray. Poorer kids, and younger siblings, ran tippy-toed in their underwear, shrieking and laughing as if life was fair.
     Most of us grew up thinking that only movie stars, insurance salesmen and other tycoons had swimming pools in the back yard.
     A few community pools served vast geographic areas; there was Frock's Sunnybrook Farm in Westminster, Meadowbrook in Silver Run, and another pool fed by melting glaciers at Pleasant Hill, north of the Pennsylvania line on the road between Manchester and Hanover.  There might have been pools in Hanover, or perhaps other communities in Carroll County, but for a kid growing up in Manchester, Westminster was the edge of the known world, and Hanover was where you went to buy your school shoes or go to air-conditioned movies, and wasn't considered good for much else.
     Summer cookouts were invented sometime in the early 1950s. Before the first backyard charcoal grill was used to incinerate innocent chickens or sacrifice hot dogs and burgers to the gods of A Day Off, families might visit any one of many picnic groves on local farms, where you played games in the grassy meadows and running streams -- games like squish the cow pies between your toes.
     The men would drink beer and smoke cigars and get louder as the sun got hotter, and the women would lay out their homemade fried chicken and potato salad. In the evening, the kids would capture lightning bugs and keep them in glass jars with grass for a mini habitat -- before the word was even invented -- with air holes punched in the lids. This ritual was full of wonder, one of which was, Why do lightning bugs die?
     It was usually summer when it would dawn on a kid that girls were not just boys with different haircuts.  It wasn't long after that revelation that the definition of summer was changed forever.
    
    

It's a public government, not a church or cement plant

        As the Carroll County Commissioners trudge through the budget process, it occurs to me that they have no shared vision.
     Commissioner Robin Frazier apparently wants to use government for missionary work.
     Commissioner David Roush wants to run it like an overgrown chamber of commerce, or a cement plant. What's good for business is all that counts.
     Richard Rothschild seems to want to return to the United States Constitution -- before any of the amendments -- and let those with the means be like Daniel Boone or Davey Crockett, settling little multiple-acre homesteads where you don't have to see the smoke from your neighbor's chimney, and keep the savages at bay.
     Doug Howard came into this thinking it's simple: Run government like a business, with a business plan, profit and loss statement, quarterly reports and balanced budgets and everything will be just fine.
     What he didn't realize -- but seems to be awakening to -- is that unlike any other business, local government's customers are also the owners, and no board of directors on the Big Board has so many different expectations of where the "company" should go from here. Indeed, some want it to go out of business.
     Haven Shoemaker's first goal was to get elected, and then it would be just like being mayor of a town, right?  Wrong. A town needs property taxes for funding general services, and charges water and sewer fees for utilities, but is not expected to provide schools, health services, courts, and a long list of other things that cost a lot of money.
    They had a goal of cutting spending, but that is not a vision. Calling cutting spending in the government context is like saying you're saving the cost of running a cruise ship by shutting down the engines.
     It's right there in the way they are approaching the budget: They can't -- or won't -- look beyond the current year.
     You can run a cement plant that way, if you're the plant manager. You don't need a vision -- a long term plan. Other, higher paid executives up the corporate ladder are in charge of the vision, and they tell you what they want out of the plant this year, and you get it. If that means being ruthless with employees, so be it. It's a business, not a public service.
     But government is a public service.
     People who like to stick to the basics, the fundamentals, the simple plans, don't understand the need for a vision.
     These commissioners don't get why the department of management and budget works nine or 10 months on a six-year plan. They don't seem to see the need to have money planned for four years hence for replacement of aging air conditioning systems, failing plumbing, crumbling parking lots, the normal growth in government spending caused by simple population growth and aging infrastructure.
     In a stunning display of hubris, Rothschild took the budget department's 10 months of work home and "fixed" it over lunch. He may have an agenda, but not a vision for county governance.
     The commissioners need a vision, and only when they have one can they make a plan, and then, only then, will they be prepared to work out a budget not just for this year, but for the next several years.
     And you can't move into the future by putting the engine of government in reverse, or park.
    

Evolving on gay marriage in a devolving culture

         I can only imagine the talk at the diner the morning after President Obama said he was in favor of marriage for gay couples.
     But most of what I have heard in public is a little like the backstage rehearsals of Fiddler on the Roof, with Tevye muttering, "On the one hand....yet, on the other hand."
     On the one hand, most Americans were raised to recognize marriage only between a man and a woman.  On the other hand, even the most devoutly conservative families have someone in the reunion portrait that they whisper about -- a funny uncle or a different aunt.
     On the one hand, we make fun of gay characters in our entertainment, find them amusing at best or disgusting at worst, but on the other hand, many of us know and work with homosexual people who are respected, successful, honorable, and, truth be told, envied for their self-defintion.
     On the one hand, we think that marriage is sacred, sealed with vows, traditions, commitment. On the other hand, half of the marriages you read about on the wedding pages will end in divorce, a bigger percentage will be marked with unfaithfulness, dysfunction, anger, violence.
     On the one hand, we insist on proper behavior in matters of sex. On the other hand, we take our kids for a walk down the boardwalk at the beach where they can see T-shirts using every vile word and graphic that we'd like to keep from tender young eyes.
     On the one hand, public displays of affection between gays, or choices in clothing or accessories, make some of us uncomfortable, but on the other hand, we may say nothing about a boy and a girl making out in the mall, or the crude, rude, lewd and vulgar bumper stickers or the fake bull testicles on the trailer hitch of the vehicle in front of us as we wait in bay bridge traffic, captives of bad taste.
    My thoughts are evolving. I'm ambivalent on many things, but I'm more open minded about people who others might shun, gay or otherwise, and my biggest shortcoming as a human is that I can't seem to accept hypocrites.

Slow down and smell the exhaust

    Put me down for being in favor of the speed cameras put up along 795 to snag drivers going more than 12 mph over the limit.
    I know it makes True Patriots walk in tight little circles when Gov'mint gets between them and their rights, but 60 is fast enough on just about any highway, especially if it's one I happen to find myself compelled to travel from time to time.
     So if you get busted and it costs you $40 for speeding along at 72, I have no sympathy for you. Do it again, please, and give up the privilege of driving for awhile. It's better without you on the road.
     In fact, I'm the guy who's grinning at you when I pass you on any road where a trooper has you pulled over for driving stupid. I consider speeders, phone texters or talkers, lane dodgers and aggressive tailgaters more dangerous to me and the people I care about than any street thug. Drug dealers are less likely to put me or my loved ones in the grave -- or a wheelchair -- let alone weeks in rehab, than the speeder running late to preschool with the little darlings strapped into the back seat of her ton and a half road torpedo.
     When I see one of the offenders get a ticket, I want to break into song; but I promise not to put it on YouTube, or whatever site it was that Commissioner Robin Frazier mistook for America Has Talent when she recently warbled that ditty about whatever it was.
     I agree that a sense of humor is essential if you're going to be in public office, but the idea is to get the public laughing with you, not at you . . .

We need to get an education

     The rising costs of going to college is getting a lot of attention these days. A story ran earlier this week about how it now costs $60,000 a year to attend Sarah Lawrence. But then, how many people do you know who went to Sarah Lawrence. I come from Manchester, where more people were familiar with Sara Lee.
     What's interesting to me in the current debate is how many ways we find to miss the point.
     Someone, please, point out that the cost of not being educated is higher than anything you spend in cash, whether you go to community college or Harvard.
     And education is not about getting a job. Trade school is about getting a job, but American snobbery being what it is, let's not go there; let's just talk college, please. That's what high school counselors do, and if you want to talk trade schools, like vocational tech, we have to call it something else so it does not sound so middle class, blue collar.
     Personally, I am a champion of (dare I say this?) the European structure of education, in which German students, for example, start out in elementary grades getting basics. But around Grade seven, there is a fork in the road, one leading to academia and what we think of University courses, and the other leading to more mechanically aligned schooling. Trades, we would call it, but engineering, to a certain level, might be one of these courses.
     The difference is, Europeans seem to have a healthier respect for this work. There is no high road versus low road. The idea, the point, is to match the student's educational path to interests, talents, skills, and lastly, perhaps, intelligence.
     Many years ago, my teacher wife came home from a continuing education class with great enthusiasm for a new way of looking at meeting needs of students. Instead of forcing students into some mold -- and the labels that the public tends to apply -- the idea was that intelligence is not just one thing. There are multiple intelligences, some having to do with mechanical ability, manual dexterity, spatial cognition -- like that.
     In short, the guy who figures out how to fix something under a car has an intelligence that is just as valuable in many ways as the doctor who opens up a patient.
     Somewhere after World War Two, we got the idea in America that people who went to college were better than those who don't, and therefore, the college grads should be paid more. In some cases, maybe so.
     But the idea of a college degree as an end to higher pay, or prestige, has left us behind the rest of the world. We are not teaching our kids things they need for the future.
     In a recent international science test, American students came in 17th, behind Finland (1st), Japan (2nd), Canada (5th), Poland (13th), Estonia, Slovenia and Hungary.
     Americans kids come in 25th in math.
     Must be something wrong with our approach.
     Maybe we emphasize just getting through college so we can get that higher average paycheck. But the student debt is now reaching close to $60,000 per student on graduation. Advanced fields will leave you in debt of as much as a quarter million dollars.
     We might be better off if we valued education for the sake of education, and we could start by paying teachers better. Good ones make it fun, so kids stay engaged, stay in school. Oh, yeah -- our dropout and illiteracy rates are among the highest in the industrialized, modern world.
     Finland might be on to something. Finland seeks out the top 10 percent of college graduates and pays them a premium to teach. There, teachers are paid on a level equal of doctors and successful lawyers and business executives.
     Finland also has the highest standard of living consistently in periodic comparisons. Higher that the U. S. every time.
    

Two weeks in a small room with two Mormons

     Until I found myself confined to a windowless 10 by 10 office with two Navy yeomen aboard the USS Sacramento in the Gulf of Tonkin, I had never known anyone who we call Mormons.
     My first lesson was that they call themselves Latter Day Saints, not Mormons. And they belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and no, they do not practice what we call bigamy.
     By the end of my two weeks with these two intelligent, articulate, engaging young men, my education had only begun. Lesson one would be repeated many times over the years, and continues to be revisited today on occasion: Everything you think you know about something is probably wrong.
     I thought I knew what Mormonism was all about. I did not; still don't. I do know that devout followers of that faith consider themselves at least as Christian as any fundamentalist Bible-preaching charismatic you will ever meet.
     At the end of my time aboard the Sacramento, one of my new friends gave me a copy of the Book of Mormon. I read it. They consider it to be the continuing Word of God, and every bit as valid and inspirational as the Old and New Testaments that I learned about as a kid growing up as a Lutheran.
     Who was I to say they have it wrong?
     Mormons, like Catholics, the crusaders, the reformists and most other Christian subsets, have blood and their own history of miscreants in their backstory. Even the story of American History, with the subplots of slavery, manifest destiny, and imperialism, has dark chapters. But I take my people one at a time when I can, and I leave the social and theological definitions to others.
     Since that two weeks at sea, I have worked with "Mormons" on several occasions. Good people, I found. Be happy to have them as neighbors, which is not something I can say about some others who think they are so Godly.
     This is not the place, and I am certainly not the person, to proselytise on behalf of the Church of Latter Day Saints. I still have issues with the old standards, and where they got their books. The Jews influenced us all, and it could be conceded that they're the ones who were here from the beginning, but as for who has it right -- I don't know.
     This I know: When I see some poor soul on a newscast saying he isn't sure he could vote for a mormon because they aren't real Christians, I find myself wishing he had had the pleasure of the company of two guys I found to be good folks sharing a uniform and a war a long time ago.
     Everyting such people think they know about Mormons, or Mitt Romney's religious beliefs, is probably wrong.
     In any case, it's his politics that should concern any of us.

Sheriff's accreditation was to be a one-time cost

     A previous board of county commissioners approved costs for having the Carroll County Sheriff's department participate in a process to be accredited. It was originally supposed to be a one-time expense, with options for renewal and/or reaccreditation at intervals to be determined later. It was not intended that money be put into the budget for annual accreditation.
     The purpose for the accreditation, which was requested by Sheriff Ken Tregoning, was to show the improving training and qualifications of the department. The value to the people of Carroll County was that such an independent survey of the department would be necessary before there could be any serious consideration to grant primary law enforcement status to the Sheriff's department, instead of the State Police, which had been traditionally the county government position.
     It was the first step in what was to be an on-going dialog that might include further studies into the possibility of using well-trained and accredited officers within the Sheriff's department to create a county police force. No decision on that had been made, but it was felt that accreditation was a part of the beginnings of those considerations. At that point, Sheriff Tregoning had no objections to that kind of inquiry. His objections came later, after he got what he wanted in terms of the funding for accreditation.
     With the accreditation, and increasingly over the next few years, the Sheriff began adding staff, especially support and administration staff, that the commissioners did not include in budget planning. A pattern took root, in which the Sheriff made requests for funding based on one list of needs, and then returned to demand more funding for more.
     The support for the improvement in professional policing was mutual in the beginning, but over time, commissioners and professional staff in the county office building increasing questioned the needs for so many additional people, and for the on-going promotions in grade and salary and benefits costs.
     These legitimate questions eventually were depicted as a "power grab" and all previous cooperations were denied or ignored.  That led to the issue becoming just one more political football, and once again, the interests of the public took a back seat to loyalties to one side or the other. It became just one more popularity contest, or a bully pulpit for people with either personal or political agendas of their own.
     If the county is to continue paying for accreditation, the question that needs to be answered first is, How much does accreditation serve the public, compared to how much it merely gives public relations value to continued empire building by the sheriff's department?

Ambitions rise, the county slides downhill

     Maryland's legislators have demonstrated that they can be just as dysfunctional as the national Congress. Gov. Martin O'Malley is justified in his dismay -- it is a disgusting sight to watch grown people throw citizens under the bus in order to play to special interests.
     Not to be overshadowed, Carroll County's commissioners seemed to make a special effort to show they have no clue as to how to meet public needs. For Robin Frazier, it seems to be as simple as cutting taxes, even when there are insufficient revenues to cover the costs of necessary programs, like public education.
     Richard Rothschild seems to be on some kind of power display. He has status and an ego that exceeds it. He wants to run everything, and insists that he alone has the chops to run a county like a business. He oversteps his bounds by telling the school board, a separately elected entity, to close schools. Perhaps he will support closing down classrooms in his Mount Airy district and busing students to Westminster, New Windsor or Eldersburg. Hold classes for 200 at a time in the gym.
     Both Frazier and Rothschild have constituencies that have little respect for public education. If were up to that element, there would be more support for private schools and less tax dollars spent educating the offspring of the less affluent masses.
     That's the idea: Private, preferably church-related (as long as they aren't Muslim), schools where the better people's darlings do not have to be subjected to consorting with the unwashed and unsaved.
     David Roush is of little help. He would continue maintenance of effort for educational spending, which means a step backward, larger classes, less attention to music, arts, sports and all the benefits he had and his children enjoyed when they were in school.
     Only Doug Howard and Haven Shoemaker are in favor of what has traditionally been a strong foundation of Carroll County's quality of life -- good teachers in good schools. But both undermined their ability to stand up to the growing specter of hard right wing minimalist government with past deeds and words. They sold out early, and now represent a minority opinion on what counts most to a majority of parents.
     And then we have Sheriff Kenneth Tregoning, whose track record for getting all that he can and then coming back to ask for more raises for his increasing roster of employees began with the last board of commissioners. He wants raises for his people even though teachers, courthouse employees, roads workers, administrators, clerks and maintenance people have gone without hikes for years. He is relentless.
     He has said he will not run for reelection, and it's known inside (much to the dismay of many departmental employees) that he sees former Marine, Major Phil Kasten, as his successor. Hand-picked, groomed, promoted over senior deputies, coddled, promoted, Kasten would seem to the the heir-apparent.  Well, like Tregoning, he looks good in a uniform. Snappy dresser.
     But the word is that Rothschild, not satisfied with running the state, the school board, and most of the rest of the known world as he sees it, has hand-picked his own choice to succeed Tregoning.
     Meanwhile, the public pays for less, gets less, and the slide is downhill.
    

Snarky is the new cool, so let me be cool for awhile

     My joy at the arrival of another baseball season will be restrained at the insistence of those who write about baseball -- and most other sports, apparently -- because a snarky attitude about professional sports is a prerequisite for the job.
      Back in the days of my innocence, there was a sports editor at the old Baltimore News Post named Roger Pippen, who lived to take pot shots at the Orioles. Maybe it was because the Orioles by another name were still the St. Louis Browns, a truly needy collection of used to be, wanna be and never will be players, whose legacy to Baltimore was the likes of pitchers like Bob Chackles, the only player I ever asked for an autograph. He was brusque, but accommodating, but as I looked at the signature, I asked myself, Who the heck is Bob Chackles? The next question was, Who cares?  And the question then became, So what? I never asked another celebrity for an autograph, not any of the big time politicians, actors, musicians or other Names in Lights types I met over the years because I figured they were just like everybody else, and a good mechanic is worth more to the betterment of humanity than most of those idols we gush over.
     Look, see there? I'm being snarky. Maybe I can still get a job writing sports.
     I worked with big league sports writers at the News American. John Steadman was the only one who was truly happy to have his job. The others had jobs that I once considered the next best thing to playing center field in Baltimore; they traveled with the team on nice expense accounts, got to see the country, got to talk to players in the locker room, and always had a by-line even when they filed stories half in the tank.
     They griped about having to travel, eat restaurant food and stay in hotel rooms in cities hither and yon, suffer indignities at the hands of spoiled players, having to file stories while others could get fully loaded, and being underpaid.
     Underpaid? I didn't make their kind of money in my best job. But then I wasn't snarky enough.
     Newspaper people are, as a herd, a snarky lot. Sportswriters are the snarkiest of the snarky, save the occasional editorialist. Still, baseball writers can be snarky every day, and editorial writers and columnists can only vent their spleens two or three days a week, max.
     Besides, sports fan want snarky sports writers. And if they happen to accidentally actually read an editorial page and find a snarky word, it only makes them grumpily happy if the snarkiness is aimed at intellectuals or liberals, which they think are one and the same.
     Maybe it's my age, but I find other things more worthy of complaint, like the colors they want men to wear. I refuse to wear a peach or pink or melon green golf shirt.
     Others can buy their clothes at Nautica from Nordstrums, or wherever you have to pay $120 to be in style. I will continue to find my pocketed polos at LL Bean, Tractor Supply or WalMart, knowing that with the latter, I am risking showing up on viral email page showing the denizens known as Wal-Martians, the snarkiest of all snarky recreational put-downs.

Should the county speculate in gold? How about real estate?

     A few weeks ago, Commissioner Richard Rothschild suggested the county should end its conservative approach to investing and bonding and buy gold. Since then, the price of gold has dropped $58 an ounce, lowest in three months.
     Hope we didn't invest in gold.
     Question is, why would he suggest such a thing, when gold is 15 percent lower than it was in September.
     Maybe the answer is in a piece that appeared on the Internet in which analysts point out that uber-conservative Glenn Beck was advising people to invest in gold. As Abraham Bailin, a commodity analyst points out, "Gold became a symbol of your political leanings . . . a way to speculate on the solvency of the economy."
     People panic and run to buy gold when they're fearful. So fear feeds the gold frenzy.
     Cooler heads apparently prevailed. The county's "investments" are supposed to be a means to maintain a good position with which to hold a good bond rating, so we can borrow money at a good rate for major expenses, like schools or other capital expenses. It's not to get rich with taxpayers' dollars.
     In recent years, the county was prudent and frugal enough to actually pay off debts early, effectively saving even more on necessary spending. But that was when leaders listened to respected financial advisers, not Glenn Beck.
     Here's hoping the next great idea is not something along the lines of buying up residential properties in declining neighborhoods, capitalizing on panic, then selling the property off at a profit -- hopefully -- when the market settles down.
     I've heard of certain real estate practices that capitalize on fear and greed, and as a county, we should not be doing that.