How to think for yourself and avoid the herd mentality

      Spend some quiet time every day. Walk every day if you can, and don't try to walk as fast as others. It's not a competitive sport. Define yourself daily, and be ready to make that a redefinition as you learn new things.

     Choose your sources of information wisely. Don't read trash when you can read quality, but read. Get news from PBS or Public Radio for perspective; watch Fox, NBC, CBS and others for amusement. Read a local paper every day, but don't believe everything you hear or read.
     Put more stock in what the experts say, and less on the political spin or "talking points" of partisan politicians and their supporters.
     Too much push-back means never pulling together. That's how you get a rowboat to turn in circles.
     There is no "one sentence takeaway" to summarize an issue of substance.
     Politics is about contradictions and half-truths.  That's why public opinion is about 50 percent wrong -- or incomplete.
       
     "Everybody does it", "I'm not the only one who thinks so", and "It's popular" are the worst reasons in the world for not thinking for yourself.
     Ignore fools. Ignore polls, which seem to attract fools.
     Listen and watch. Think twice, speak once. When you express an opinion, put your name behind it.
    
     Being a friend is a better measure of you than how many friends you have. Friends may come and go, but you have to live with yourself for the duration.
    

        

Bits and pieces, just to stay in touch with unreality

     Note to AOL:  I don't want to read about "When Bristol Palin lost her virginity."
     Nor do I think it's any of my business how whatsername -- Jimmy Carter's daughter -- saved her marriage with tantric sex. I don't even want to know what tantric sex is, which may prove me to be a closet Republican.

     As for YouTube, please, somebody, make it go away; it is the most colossal waste of time in America today. And forgive me, those of you sent me the clips of Weiner, or is it Wiener (i before e, except in neighbor and weigh, and some other exceptions that I left in fifth grade English) and his twerps (or is HE the twerp, sending tweets to twits, or the twit who tweets twerps) AAARRRRGH!

     Is it me, or are there more people stopping in the middle of the OUT lane on the shopping center parking lot talk on their cell phones?

     Why is it that no one complains about vocal music in restaurants, but when I do, people at nearby tables lean toward me conspiratorially and say, "Thank you"? Or applaud when I get up and turn down the raucous noise when I know where the volume controls are hidden?
     Besides, why do stores, restaurants, pharmacies, doctor's offices, play loud vocal music over tinny pot speakers in the ceiling when every single lovin' soul in the vicinity except me has Ipods plugging semi-permanently into their heads? Is it true that the latest surgical trend is ear-plug Ipods, with automatic update guarantees?

     If you are of a certain age, you are in no hurry to pick up the phone when it rings, particularly if you have the antique called a land line, because it's probably a robo call of some sort. Yet whoever does not answer is full of questions, especially if you've been married a long time: "Who was it?"
     "Nobody."
     "What did they want?"
     "Don't care. Hung up."

         

Au revoir, and reprieve

     Say good-bye to Cindy Parr, whose title changed once or twice since December, and now Larry Twele, director of economic development. Both are leaving for better jobs, which increasingly is being defined as any job not with the current leadership in Carroll County.
     Parr will take over at Human Services Programs of Carroll County, which gets about 20 percent of its funding from the county -- for now -- and is actually an independent state-dictated agency to serve some of the needs of the area's less affluent citizens.
    She, like half a dozen other key people under the previous commissioners, took a cut in pay when the current board swashbuckled into office. She changed offices at least once, but her job was to give Steve Powell, chief of staff, some help on the growing number of pots that needed watching while the new board "consolidated" -- they would say eliminated -- jobs. The jobs still needed to be done, and there has been an exodus of good leaders in county government, beginning when they saw the makeup of the new board.
     Twele also took a pay cut, but will land on his feet with a job as executive director of economic development in Howard County, where he lives with his family. Highly respected around the state, Twele came to the county from a post with the state department of economic development, and was instrumental in getting professional assessments of how and what the county needed and could achieve in attracting new business.
     That preparation was a key part of the master plan that was opposed most vehemently by Richard Rothschild in his campaign for commissioner.
     Twele and others wanted to create new zoning for white collar jobs, but critics misrepresented the efforts as putting factories in farmland.
     In other news, published reports have it that Junction, Inc., recently at the brink of oblivion, has been given another chance at surviving. For more than 30 years, Junction, operating out of modest offices in the historic old stone jailhouse on Court Street, has served the public with drug counseling and intervention programs.
     Never the recipient of much public money, Junction started as an alternative program depending on peer counseling, self-direction and positive reinforcement, then evolved through the years to more conventional methods of dealing with the causes of addiction, focused on the causes of behaviors rather than mere corrections.
     Once-reluctant law enforcement agencies became partners, and mainstream society provided financial and leadership support to a program that showed that it worked.
     Like most other social programs, Junction faced abandonment in these tighter financial times, but even uber-conservative commissioner Robin Frazier has joined the chorus to keep Junction going, most likely because someone pointed out that the county puts little money up in the first place, and there is little downside, therefore, to giving support.
     As these conservative commissioners see how much of a bang for the buck they get to deal with real human issues, look for them to continue to re-examine some of their election campaign rhetoric.
     They're already seeing the value of Access Carroll, but won't change their mind on the Wheeler building because they don't want to lose face; they still have to show a willingness to reverse some of the actions of the previous "liberal" board. But value is value, so we can hope they will find a way to spin their actions -- even if it's merely taking credit for things they once derided.
     Case in point: The business complex on Liberty Road that several of them opposed when they were running for office. It's an old truism in politics that the first people to show up for a ground-breaking photo opportunity are those who opposed it until it was a done deal.
     The airport project will be another case in point, and this board has already had a taste of the irrational rhetoric in opposition. Go in grace.
            

Somebody, don't just sit something, do there

     While the rest of us try to hold down a job, or protect meager means in an uncertain economic environment that is apparently run by computers that buy and sell on the stock market in microseconds to make -- or lose -- pennies a million times a day, The President of The United States will play a round of golf with the Republican Speaker of the House to discuss their respective positions on debt ceilings, tax cuts, spending cuts, economic stimulus, jobs creation.
     I can hardly wait for the next news headlines, which will be up in about 35 seconds.
     This is the 10th anniversary of what has come to be known as the "Bush tax cuts," an across the board 10-percent slash in taxes that was heralded as the way to save the American economy from the reckless policies of the Bill Clinton era, which had left us with a disgraceful surplus. Conservatives said that money should not be in a govmint account; it belonged to the pipple, so give it back -- cut taxes.
     Less that two years later, the country was in debt again, borrowing to pay bills, but by golly, we had a tax cut. And the pipple's money was not, repeat NOT being budgeted to pay for waging war in Iraq and elsewhere. It was just being borrowed, and spent, and gone, but at least the govmint did not raise taxes.
     So here we are, a decade later, and the tax-cutting, jobs-creating conservatives in public office at all levels are cutting jobs to save money. The jobs they're cutting are those of the people who can least afford to be laid off -- the roads workers, public works employees, people who mow the weeds, paint, pick up trash, maintain the investment in public roads and buildings, run schools and libraries and parks -- you know, things real people don't care about.
     There is still money for good conservatives in staff positions, management jobs, advisory levels.
     Maybe one of those advisor/thinker types of staffers will inspire a high-ranking partisan on one side or the other to propose that former President Bill Clinton, the last chief executive with a balanced budget, head a Medicare and Health Care Reform commission, with an eye to improving efficiency in services and cutting costs where possible.
     The idea would be to use the health care reform plan passed by Congress and signed by President Obama, combine some of the ideas in the plan put forth by Rep. Paul Ryan (except for that part where we make it all disappear) with the goal of preserving and improving, building upon, the best of what we have.
     Only the most recalcitrant throwbacks to Davey Crockett models of government fail to notice that the United States is gradually, slowly, belatedly, catching up to dealing with health care issues for growing and increasingly complex societies under the umbrella of one nation. So we are going to have something more "govmit-run" than Ma and Pa Trailblazer did.
     Oh, I know; I've seen the bumper-stickers, We Can Take America Back, but the question remains, "Take it back from whom?"
     The simple answers reflected by bumper-sticker mentality will not fix anything, but time and cirumstance has a way of filling in where a plan is lacking.
     I can promise you this: Whatever finally works, what the wingers now call "Obamacare" will be claimed by many fathers.

Sometimes, motive is the issue

     One of the "rules" of journalism, and -- in a different context, politics -- is to never let it get personal. Stay away from questioning motives and stick to the facts.
     Issues, not personal feelings.
     But the world has changed in so many ways that it may be time to reconsider those cardinal rules, because sometimes motive is the issue.
     I do not like most of the rules of politics. It seems that most of the rules require people to break more important rules if they want to participate in the processes.
     For me, rule number one is, Do not be a hypocrite. Stop and think how tough that rule is for politicians.
     Rule number two is, Don't take anything from anyone if they expect some kind of favor in return.
     Rule number three is, Be prepared to catch hell from both sides once people figure out that you are not an absolutist supporter of their deepest, most fundamental, and emotionally charged values, be they liberal or conservative. An addendum to that rule is, forget about the support of the middle if you're catching hell from extremists; those in the middle tend to sit quietly by and let things play out.
     Rule number four, Be willing to change your mind and your position if the facts indicate you have been wrong.
     Which leads me to a quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson: "In matters of style, swim with the current. In matters of principle, stand like a rock."
     It's a thin line to walk. It requires some public relations skills. Those who are good at it, like FDR and Ronald Reagan, are both loathed and loved, but they do what they have to do to stick with those principles.
      Others, less skillful, like Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush, occasionally look silly or shallow, or arrogant, when they might really have character traits that most of us would admire, if we sat down with them one on one.
     I am too willing to see the best in people for a little too long, but I have a reputation for being something of a cynic. That's because I have never been able to completely put aside consideration of motives -- what people say is often not what they really mean, nor what they truly value. If someone is talking to mislead, or acting to manipulate or take advantage of a trust, that hypocrisy must be exposed.
     Partisans don't like people who point out the hypocrisies of their kind. They like team players. Zealots demand discipline and a closing of the ranks. Their success relies on the fact that too many people find it all too much to think about; apathy is their ally.
     They argue that they are merely holding true to their basic values.
     Too often, in my work in journalism and then in public office, I have learned that the debates and dialogs among or between people with different ideals devolves into nothing more than the most cynical of games -- the desire to win and be rewarded with power, status, or money. Rule number one for most in business, professional sports and politics.
     But it is a violation of my rules numbers one, two, three and four.
     Issues are important to examine and debate. But motives are important if you value real integrity, and sincere efforts to make things better.
     The news media has abdicated, for the most part, reporting actions that clearly expose motives. The cable pundits and bloggers and people who call or write anonymously are left to define for us the motives of others, but what are their motives? Good newspapers and broadcast journalists have allowed others to preempt their purpose;  we have let the zealots dismiss us as "mainstream press," and that's too bad.
     Motives are worth reporting on, when the facts become clear. And motives should show up in the news columns, not just on the editorial page, or the web sites of professional news organizations.
     I retain faith that most people, if they understand true motives, have the facts, will make good judgments about the people and ideals that we as a culture, a nation, will follow.

No, I won't sign your petition

     No, I won't sign your petition to overturn the bill signed by Gov. Martin O"Malley to give every Maryland student, even those whose parents are "illegal" aliens, the right to get the same considerations as they persue an education as any other Maryland student. And since you asked me to, I will tell you why I will not.
     First of all, I am tired of people getting up petitions to take everything they don't agree with to referendum. Our country's system depends on electing representatives to make policy decisions, and if we don't like what they do, we can un-elect them in four years. If we let the public vote on every item of business, we don't need elected officials, but we'd need more referees.
     Also, if we took every tough and complicated issue to a vote, this country would never have formed a constitution, let alone a nation, abolished slavery, fought to save the world from tyranny in 1918, returned to clean up what public opinion allowed to happen in World War Two, or ended the war in the Pacific without massive casualties that would have made two nuclear bombs look like firecrackers.
     We probably never would have had public schools (some are doing their best to trade them in now for private schools, usually sectarian in nature), the interstate highway system, the national energy grid or a space program.
     If we voted on every public expenditure, people would starve to death, die of curable diseases, and duke it out among neighbors in generational feuds (exactly like the tribalism that gave birth to the terrorists we deal with now from the middle east).
     Our economy would be based not on the auto industry, but on oxcarts, or working for the rich who own the mines, factories, big oil and big money. All those rugged, card-carrying, self-sufficient individualists who claim they hate government intervention in their lives would be wondering what that "all men are created equal" thing was about.
      The American dream would be a nightmare.
     But at least we would not be inconvenienced by the arrival of people from other nations who want a chance to work in the system we do have; we would have not had to deal with the Jews from Eastern Europe, or the Italians, or the Germans, or the Welsh or the Irish, or even the Mexicans and Central Americans.
     Yep, we'd have a lot fewer illegals, and the children they brought here with them to seek a better life.
     I guess my problem is that I can't muster up a reason to think that I, a grandson of Irish, German and Welsh immigrants, am that much superior to the "illegals" of today, who got here the same way my forbears did, but after the rules were changed.
     But most of all, the reason I will not sign your petition is that I can't imagine sitting down across the table from a young man or woman who may have come here as an infant, has committed no sin, no crime, no offense against me or my country.
     I cannot sit across from someone who may have been an honor student, class leader, better scholar than I ever was, and tell them they are not entitled to continue their education under the same rules as any other resident of my state.
     I know that the argument is that the "illegals" compete unfairly with the children of legal, taxpaying citizens. Sorry, it does not compute. What about the competition from the children of big contributors to schools and colleges? You think your middle-class kid gets the same shot as the fat cats?
     Maybe you're too much of a romantic, and I am too cynical.
     Or maybe it's the other way around.
     Either way, good kids with potential who have and can continue to make our nation better deserve something better from me than mindless, remote, and shamefully easy dismissal of their value.
     That's against every American ideal I ever learned.

Cutting the budget was the easy part

     The easy work is done: The Carroll County Commissioners set out to cut spending enough to cut taxes by two cents and they accomplished that. They passed the budget Tuesday despite the protests of Commissioner Robin Frazier, who said they should have cut the rate five cents.
     Easy. No problem making cuts. All you have to do is tell everyone right up front that it makes no difference what the consequences of those cuts will be, that's the way it is. There will be a two cent cut in the tax rate and everyone will have to live that. No wonder you didn't hear much grumbling; program leaders were probably terrified that they would be slashed more.
     Yes, revenues are down; we dealt with that reality for the past two years. Assessments are leveling off or even falling on real property, income tax revenues are off because people are working less hours -- some aren't working at all -- and there have been no raises in two or more years. Costs have to be contained, and good sense dictates that some cuts are necessary.
     It just seems to me that with all of that being said, why would responsible leaders cut their operating funding even more by starting out with a two cent cut in the tax rate?
     Because they said they would. Campaign promises, and all that. Living up to the uninformed and over-the-top rhetoric and unrealistic expectations of their base constituency. That's pandering, not leadership.
     Leadership would have set the goal at holding the tax rate and cutting spending, but not gutting programs.
     Leadership would have been acknowledging that an increase in tipping fees to trash haulers will, indeed, be passed on to consumers (and there goes the two cent cut in taxes for many people). And why has the local press insisted on repeating the hollow assertions of the commissioners that the hike in trash hauling costs need not be passed along to consumers?  Sounds like spin, to me.
     Commissioner Doug Howard, nearly crowing with pride, is allowed the gratuitous quote that "because of the great communication . . .there wasn't an outcry" when the governing body approved funding cuts.
     "The whole process was better than I anticipated," he chirped.
     Richard Rothschild, another whose pride was obvious with the slash and burn approach to civic programs, including education and human services, drug interventions and other public safety initiatives built on for the past eight years, intoned, "The best thing that a board of commissioners can do is make sure we're not shy about asking the really tough questions."
     Wrong. The best thing that a board of commissioners can do is seriously consider the consequences of its actions. You can debate the issues, carry a strong argument for a point of view, and seek to find compromise before you take actions that adversely affect the lives of people and the programs that have been found worthy for years.
     But when you begin with the outcome determined, it means you don't care about the consequences, and tells people you are not willing to listen.
     Oh, they listened to the people in the streets who elected them. That makes them populists, perhaps. Populists are followers, following public opinion, right or wrong.
     Leaders know they have to listen to those who elected them, and they need to listen, look, and learn more than the public knows -- or wants to know -- about the realities of maintaining, sustaining, and supporting an entire community of disparate and often competing needs and wants.
     The commissioners think they succeeded. In the larger and longer term, they failed their first big test.