The three headlines atop RacinePost as I write this are all the proof we need.
Below that, a story about Racine's Fred Young giving $11 million to help build a huge telescope in Chile.
Finally, a story about the Racine Unified School Board mulling over three plans for new schools, costing anywhere from $79 million to $100 million, one of which will be placed before the voters this Spring.
EXCUUUSE ME! Are we not still in a recession? Isn't the jobless rate in Racine still among the highest in Wisconsin? Is this a time to be giving federal money back? A time to try to pass a $100 million referendum? (The PR firm needs to get its fee up-front, not on speculation.)
Granted, Fred Young has every right to spend his money -- earned here from Young Radiator Co. -- any way he pleases. But surely his ties to the community are at least as strong as his tie to his alma mater? Or should be: RUSD could modernize a lot of 1800s-era classrooms for $11 million. Look at all that Mitchell Middle School accomplished with just $50,000 from Pepsi. Cornell, we must point out, already has received millions from another local family's alums: it's home to the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management. That didn't come cheap, either.
The fact that only one of today's three headlines will lead to anything -- Young's donation is a done deal; Ryan's proposal and the school board's plan are iffy as hell -- shouldn't matter. It's the thought that counts.
But that's just my opinion. What's yours?
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1. We ought to be investing in big-ticket items like railroads to both improve the efficiency of our infrastructure - and thus, the economy - for the future. Not only that, but there's the immediate benefit of brining manufacturing jobs here, long the wail of folks on both the left and right.
ReplyDelete2. A multimillionaire can give his or her money to anybody they want. Suggesting it should be used closer to home instead isn't my place. Besides, it's another example of investing R&D money in the future, no matter where the actual installations takes place. Thus, it's a good thing, and what all of us should be doing, as individuals and private businesses, or collectively, through our government.
3. There are some severely shopworn school facilities in Racine, starting with the central office, but certainly including several schools. But the school board needs to bolster its rationale that they need more classrooms to reduce class sizes. They need to show how that's supported by real findings. I've not seen any correlation at all in any of the studies thus far conducted on student performance. Smaller class sizes may be a good thing for staff, but people also remember that during the supposed "golden age" of public education in this country, class sizes were considerably larger than they are now. It's probably not "the problem."
... the immediate benefit of bringing ...
ReplyDeleteThe Racine Post will miss Dustan
ReplyDeleteYeah it is a damn shame that Obama is wasting money on trains instead of spending it on education.
ReplyDeleteBy the way Pete & Randolph, what turnip are you going to squeeze that hundred million from? As if you had not noticed, Racine is broke.
As it is the city is taxing me for 40 grand more than I could sell my house for, where does it end?
How dare you question how Mr. Young spends his private money.
You are correct Anon, without Dustin the Racine Left Post is doomed.
Now The Post is just Pete's feel good vanity. Cant wait until Pete pints stories from Peace and Justice on why Israel should be destroyed
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, 8:56, said...
ReplyDelete" ... By the way Pete & Randolph, what turnip are you going to squeeze that hundred million from? ..."
And:
" ... How dare you question how Mr. Young spends his private money. (?) ...
If you'll notice, I suggested that the school board hasn't yet justified its $100 million bond issue and, yes, Mr. Young can spend his private money any way he sees fit.
The question about spending on railroads is NOT about how much it costs - it costs much less than highways. The question should be: how can we spend what money we have to get off the Oil Standard?
ReplyDeleteWe are shipping $1 Billion per day out of this country for oil imports, when all the energy we can use is right here in River City. Manure digesters already make electricity with cow "waste;" we just need more of them. Wind mills work fine in Montana and Wisconsin, thank you very much; especially those placed 5 mi. out in the Lake. Since electricity is so much cheaper than gasoline, electric charging stations could use alternative energy sources (at premium rates) and still cost less than gasoline for autos.
Highways encourage gasoline powered automobiles - costing money for foreign oil and polluting our air. Trains do not. Also, trains love short run electric cars, helping reduce oil consumption AND air pollution simultaneously.
Highways cost lots and lots more than trains. Just rebuilding I-94 is costing $1.8 Billion (unless the price creeps up), which works out to over $11 for each car that uses it, for its entire life. You get to pay for it, even if you never drive on it.
Ask Mr. Walker, our Gov. elect, if he will also cut expenses by turning back Federal Highway money. Rep. Robin Vos has long supported the I-94 rebuild, regardless of cost.
Although Fred Young is a decent man, he is by birth and hyper-privilege a member of the oppressor class. Wake up, people! Corporate capitalism is an exploitative system designed by the elite for its exclusive benefit. (The only reason that folks outside the charmed circle support it is the notion that maybe they could get rich too. Hence, they indulge in fantasies about their non-existent wealth, decide that they wouldn't like the government to tell them how to spend it and defend the right of the oligarchy to squander moolah galore.) Anyone who knows the ugly truth about family fortunes and their augmentation at the expense of the common man should speak up early and often. If oligarchs can't be wooed into compassionate use of their clout and cash, they should be shamed into sharing their wealth with their victims. I propose that we publish a dishonor roll listing eliteniks who send millions to Ivy League snob snuggeries while neglecting our local schools and charities. Inasmuch as Cornell possesses a net worth exceeding that of several small nations, it should be dropped from would-be benefactors' gift lists. Had a certain ultra-advantaged man given eleven million to the Food Bank, he could have eliminated hunger from Racine. May he learn to care about his class' victims as much as he cherishes his haughty alma mater. God grant that he may see the downtrodden toilers' scars and let the stars take care of themselves.
ReplyDeleteR and D: Richman's Dilettantism.
ReplyDeleteA thoroughly evil plutocrat (Cecil Rhodes) planned to annex other planets. Why is our Cornell alumnus so intrigued with other worlds?
ReplyDeleteWhen I see how our oligarchs neglect the poor while blowing fortunes on scientific follies, it makes me wonder if the church had the right idea about Galileo. Also, perhaps the French revolutionaries weren't wrong to destroy the erstwhile elite's hot air balloons and chemistry labs.
ReplyDeleteScience subordinated to human wellbeing is great. However, the pursuit of scientific research for its own sake is morally-dubious at best.
ReplyDeleteToo often, our local oligarchs are technocrats obsessed with their scientific toys. (By the way, the elite of Ancien Regime France suffered from the same quirk. Later on, the revolutionary tribunals sent several inventors, chemists and zoologists to the guillotine.)
ReplyDeleteThe rich are why the rest of us cry. Men whose fiscally-finagling forebears gouged fortunes out of Racine's disadvantaged residents have no business handing mega-loot to an Ivy League university while their victims remain mired in poverty. Until hunger and homelessness have been banished from Racine, there should be a moratorium on lavish gifts to academic institutions.
ReplyDeleteNo more cash for Cornell trash!
ReplyDeleteDitto Yale kale! Frankly, during a depression, ALL gifts to elitist, super-solvent private universities should cease. (Don't fret, richie-poos. Your precious stuffed shirt factories possess huge endowments.)
ReplyDeleteThe tragic truth about Fred Young's alma mater is that it began its career free from snobbery and class bias. Back in 1865, its founder (Ezra Cornell) stated that his institution would be open to academically-qualified applicants regardless of race, social status, gender or creed. Somewhere along the line, money came to trump merit and the place started turning out suits with pencils. (None of the above is a dig at Fred, who doesn't fall into that category.) Once the next crash brings our land a leftist regime, let's nationalize Cornell. Putting it under federal management would help restore Ezra Cornell's original values and vision.
ReplyDeleteHe could have given 9 million to the cornell project and 2 million to the local food banks and came out of this as someone we're all talking about in a much different light....something I'm sure he well knows. So, it begs the question, does he just not care what local people think of him or does he just not care for local poor people?
ReplyDeleteDear Kay, Since I'm not Fred Young, I can't speak for him. However, I suspect that his wealth has so thoroughly shielded him from the vicious vicissitudes of existence that he lacks any notion anent the misery endured by his class' victims. Also, assuming that he's a well-indoctrinated entrepreneur, our privileged pal probably thinks that running a company (an activity which his peers call "job creation") is a philanthropic endeavor. (Right before the French Revolution, some factory owners felt the same way. Hence their astonishment when the Parisian poor burned their workshops and looted their mansions.)
ReplyDeleteWhat we have here in Racine is a failure to communicate. The wealthy and their pet Ivy League yuppies see the world from a supply-side perspective while the poor and the lower-middle class possess a different perspective beaten into them by generations of poverty and exploitation. For the rich and their chums, The System is just dandy and anyone who fails to prosper under it is a loser. To the victims of capitalism, The System is a thoroughly evil device with which the oligarchy and its minions oppress them at every opportunity.
ReplyDeleteOne reason our local oligarchs neither know nor care about the misery which they inflict on their victims is their arrogant winner-take-all mentality. Until a mega-depression knocks the cockiness out of them, our moolah mavens will continue to oppress the rest of us. Another explanation for their ignorance and cruelty is their tendency to form elitist cliques (e.g. the Some-Are-Set-For-Life Club, whose members sneer out the windows at the peasantry below). As long as our sick society and our legal system allow the privileged private sector privateers to play their little exclusionary games, they'll feel no need to change their evil ways.
ReplyDeleteHistory has shown that one of the few ways to make elitists care about the public institutions their victims use is closing the advantaged class' snob snuggeries. When ritzy private schools are history and trust fund brats have to attend public schools, the parents of the pampered princes and princesses will give a damn about public education.
ReplyDeleteAll secular private schools and universities should be nationalized a.s.a.p. Since their primary purpose is the perpetuation of socio-economic privilege, we don't need them.
ReplyDeletePrivate institutions and their claims on their alumni's cash divert fortunes away from charity work. Advantaged people who feel that their allegiance to alma mater trumps their obligation to help the poor blow big bucks on telescopes in Chile while neglecting the paupers on their doorsteps.
ReplyDeleteOnce America swings left: Farewell, Cornell! Hello, National University at Ithaca!
ReplyDeleteAs a victim of the Ivy League loot loonies who infest Racine, I second that emotion. The sooner a common man's regime seizes control of the elite's ivory towers, the better!
ReplyDeleteMay a leftist government knock the oligarchy off its high horse. Perhaps then the privileged classes will learn to share their ill-gotten gains with the downtrodden majority.
ReplyDeleteTelescopes, no! Toilers, yes!
ReplyDeletePerhaps Cardinal Baronius had the right idea when he said that our task was learning how to go to heaven instead of learning how the heavens go. With all the misery running rampant in Racine, there's zero ethical justification for a local oligarch's pricey fixation on astronomy.
ReplyDeleteGetting back to the subject of mega-moolah, RUSD wants to hit us for $87,000,000.00. In view of Racine's notorious poverty, RUSD should learn to live within its budget. Right now, RUSD indulges in nonsense galore at the property taxpayers' expense. It's time to stop blowing dough on art, music, sports, modern dance and drama. The mission of public schools is BASIC EDUCATION, not frills. If parents want their progeny to play with rich kiddies' toys, they should send them to posh private schools instead of RUSD.
ReplyDeleteComing soon because no one has the guts to prevent it: the annual Horlich High Renaissance Feast. Here's another example of RUSD's extravagance. Somebody please rein in RUSD NOW!
ReplyDeleteAmen! A friend has called "Glad You Asked" to request information on the history, raison d'etre and cost to taxpayers of the Horlick High Renaissance Feast. A poor bluecollar entity such as RUSD has no business playing with pricey nonsense during a depression.
ReplyDeleteFor a toadish town with double-digit unemployment and poverty rates, Racine is over-supplied with genteel amenities. If the rich and their Cornellian flunkeys crave this crap, they--NOT the working class taxpayer--should finance it.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, pending the end of the current depression, RUSD should refrain from requesting additional dough. To trim its budget and show the public that it understands responsible monetary management, RUSD must ditch non-essentials such as dragon boating as a team-building exercise for staff, pricey junkets, lectures on mountain climbing and the Horlick High Renaissance Feast.
ReplyDeleteMy elderly, low-income neighbors are weary of being taxed out of their homes by RUSD and its insatiable craving for frills, flubdubs and follies.
ReplyDeleteA school district whose students can barely read, write or solve simple math problems has no business playing with drama, music and other non-essentials.
ReplyDeletePublic education should concentrate on the basics. Believe me, the rich will keep art, music, dance and athletics alive in their private schools. If parents truly crave this stuff for their progeny, they can apply for scholarships and send their yougsters to elitist institutions. However, the long-suffering property tax paying community shouldn't be required to foot the bill.
ReplyDeleteAlthough the bank and two appraisers value my house at less than two hundred grand, the city says it's worth nearly $250,000.00 and taxes me accordingly. From what I've heard, excessively high appraisals are par for the course in Racine. Perhaps if RUSD could learn to cut the nonsense out of its budget, the city wouldn't be so desperate for dough.
ReplyDeleteApropos of dough, some of the teachers at Julian Thomas Elementary School have been pressuring their pupils into donating cash as well as chow to a food drive. Inasmuch as most of those kids are poor, they and their families should be receiving rather than giving aid. (Too bad the stomping stargazer couldn't have donated his eleven million bucks to the Food Bank instead of Cornell...)
ReplyDeleteThrough a friend whose children attend Julian Thomas down in the 'hood, I've learned that the pundits have been forcing the kids to compete in a ridiculous contest. Each class receives points whenever a youngster hands over cash, boxed cereal or whatever else the teachers demand each day. Kids who don't contribute are made to feel like slackers who've failed to help their class advance in the totally-unjustified competition. The time has come for RUSD to rein in or replace its personnel. Any pedagogue who can't perceive the poverty of his pupils and adjust his expectations to reality should be terminated. Nearly all the kids at Julian Thomas exist below the poverty line. Neither the children nor their struggling parents should be hit for food and money.
ReplyDeleteThe same applies to the Pennies for Peace program. A while ago, kids at one of RUSD's less-than-posh facilities had to donate dough to Central Asia Institute's schools in Pakistan. Charity begins at home. Until our government has lifted every American citizen out of poverty, RUSD has no business extracting cash from kids for programs in foreign countries. (Don't worry. The rich--who like docile cheap Third World labor--will fund those wage slave training plantations in Asia.)
ReplyDeleteThe rich are big on coercing the poor to donate cash to sundry causes. A few days ago, the Leipold woman gave the Food Bank a nice check--sweated out of earnings of her wage slaves. Maybe that kleptoplutocratic custom is why our educators feel free to extract money and food from pauper pupils. Perhaps the teachers are training the kiddies to be dumb and docile lackeys of the Waxwitches, who'll deduct dough from their pathetic paychecks at whim.
ReplyDeleteAnon 11:42: Now you're just being stupid. You're kicking her because she donated money to the Food Bank? Where is it supposed to come from, if not from her business, the air?
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, Helen Johnson Leipold is the most philanthropic of the entire Johnson family. Give her a break.
Dear Al, Helen didn't get that money from her business. Rather, her employees disgorged the cash. With her wealth, she should be ashamed of hitting wage slaves and salary serfs for contributions to any cause. As for philanthropic deeds, her kid sister--not Helen--is the humanitarian member of the Carnauba Court. Helen's worship of the dullard swine dollar sign and her Bugspray Bank's foreclosure policies account for much of the misery in this vile little ville.
ReplyDeleteThe Waxies are extremely prone to shaking down their lackeys for philanthropic moolah. Back in the nineties, when the got-loot gang flew down to Brazil, one of the cash-cadgers gave a school a nice check courtesy of the EMPLOYEES.
ReplyDeleteFor what one Waxwitch blows in afternoon on modern art, hunger could be banished forever from our tottering town. Seriously, neither pauper children nor kleptoplutocrats' slaveys should have to cough up contributions.
ReplyDeleteHell-loon is why Racine's poor cry.
ReplyDeleteGouging the poor is the Waxtrash Way. Why do you think Hell-loon and her tribe hire temps instead of fulltime employees? Why did the Witch of Waxilla and her cash-cadging kin cancel profit sharing programs which pre-dated the Great Depression? The answer to both questions is simple: the Waxies are greedy bastards from perdition.
ReplyDeleteRecently Miz Lip-off informed the world that the public's good will constituted the true wealth of her companies and clan. If she wasn't lying, both Hell-loon's family and its firms are bankrupt.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, Miz Leap-and-Grab-Hold's clique has been spiritually insolvent since a good little man with big bucks took his final journey. Since 2004, affection and respect for The Scam-ily have hit bottom.
ReplyDeleteWe all know which private sector privateers hate unions and strive to impoverish the working class whenever possible. Someday a people's government will try the Waxclan for its crimes against humanity.
ReplyDeletePray that the coming class conflict may be fought using legal and peaceful methods ONLY. For anyone who is not a member of the oligarchy, the American system is broken and must be dismantled instanter.
ReplyDeleteAnyone who opines that we'll be forever saddled with the richman's con (the Constitution) is extremely naive. James Madison wrote the antediluvian document to prevent the common man from using government to seize and redistribute the oligarchy's wealth. Sooner than some care to think, that obsolete Late Enlightenment screed will be set aside.
ReplyDeleteAmen! With the exception of Thomas Paine, our Founding Fathers were evil men who sent the poor out to die so they might live high.
ReplyDelete