School District Split

There is a move afoot to split up the Las Vegas School District.

(Yes, I know they are technically the “Clark County School District,” but trust me, the LVSD title is more accurate.)

There are certain bureaucrats who believe the bureaucrats at the school district have become unresponsive to the needs of the students and communities.

This is known as “pots calling the kettle black,” or whatever cute euphemism you were raised with.

The LVSD is the fifth-largest school district in the country, although Las Vegas is only the 29th largest city.

They get their extra muscle because they also own Mesquite, Boulder City, Henderson, and a few other outlying areas.

The word “own” is used advisedly, because that is how the district treats these municipalities.

It’s not surprising that someone has pointed to this governmental wooly mammoth and said that maybe it should be changed.

“Broken up” is the term they’ve used.

What IS surprising is the silence coming from Mesquite.

Once upon a time, there was a group of people who decided they were tired of being picked on, ignored, lied to, bullied, and insulted by their ruling authority.

They weren’t treated as badly as Mesquite is treated by the school district, but they decided not to just sit back and take it.

It was called the Civil War.

After the way this burgeoning desert community has been disregarded and disrespected by the school board, you would think the residents would be ready to light the torches and sharpen their pitchforks for the coming debate.

But then, there were probably fence sitters in 1863 who really “didn’t want to get involved.”

Overall, residents of Mesquite have been conspicuously silent on the issue, although they would benefit the most from such a divestiture.

As one of the fastest-growing cities in the U.S., awaiting the addition of 10,000 new taxpayers in the Pulte development, not to mention the enormous construction project pending just across the Lincoln County line that will bring hundreds of new students, this is a community that needs its own school district.

And if the state gives the Mesquite School District a proportional share of the tax and gaming revenues currently wasted on the gluttonous Las Vegas version, school money would not be an issue.

Best of all, the people of Mesquite would finally have a say over how their schools are run and their children taught instead of lumping them in with an urban protocol that is becoming less and less attractive with each passing year.

And yet, the silence continues.

It’s hard to believe that an oppressed populace that has to beg for every scrap and morsel of school district largesse would be so neutral.

Maybe I’m overreacting.

It’s not like they’re talking about changing the slot machine comp points at the Oasis or something equally earth-shaking.

So the status quo will continue in Mesquite.

We’ll have to take what they give us, and go to the city council for anything we really need for our kids, like sports field lights or tennis courts.

And I’m sure we’ll get used to dealing with children who become more and more worldly and politically correct with the curriculum and standards mandated by a city where prostitution is trumpeted on lighted roaming billboards.

So let’s move on to something more important.

Have you heard they’re raising the price at the buffet?

Real Parents Are Waiting

To the parents of the youngsters wandering around the Virgin Valley High School gymnasium during every basketball game, I’d like you to write down this website address:

www.adoption.org.

If you’re not going to be a parent, then dammit, do the decent and honorable thing and give your kids to someone who will!

Once again, as has been the case all season, youngsters as young as two are permitted to race up and down the bleachers, crawl under the bleachers, throw things, climb over seats and other spectators, and occasionally toddle onto the playing court during the game.

And the murmur that ripples through the crowd at various times is always the same: Where the heck are their parents?

Here’s the answer:

These kids don’t have parents.

Oh, there’s someone in the stands who gave birth or donated a seed, somebody who pays for their food and clothes, and someone who was proud enough to paste their name on the kid’s birth certificate, but that’s about the end of their involvement in actually raising a child.

Aside from the fact that these obnoxious little tykes are interfering with other spectators, are making the most noise possible to distract from the game, and are in general practicing for an adulthood of rude behavior, their parentally challenged guardians are living in a time vacuum, dating back to the 50s when it was actually safe to let your kids roam in a confined building.
This is a new century, filled with pedophiles, child-snatchers, and other kids who get joy out of tormenting smaller, more helpless human beings.

Why would you put your child in harm’s way and allow them to play in places you can’t monitor?

Even worse than those who allow their offspring free rein to annoy and tempt fate are the useless adults who dump their eight-year-olds at the door then go on with whatever it is that they deem to be more important than taking care of their sons and daughters.

Like feral dogs in the wilderness, these mongrels prowl the gym in packs, not showing the least bit of interest in the game while they search desperately for some way to slake their boredom.

I recognize that our little town is woefully deficient in offering day care facilities, but here’s a news flash:A high school basketball game isn’t a day care facility either.

Don’t foist your poorly-trained problems off on the rest of us to raise while you go pull that slot machine handle or hang out with other poor excuses for parenthood.

If your youngster isn’t a student at the high school, he or she should not be “dropped off” at a basketball game, or any other sporting event at the school.

The administrators have enough on their plates just keeping their hormonally-virulent charges in line and out of the dark corners of the campus during a game.

They shouldn’t be expected to do your job, too.

I know you want to get the screeching little monsters out of your hair for a couple of hours (look at how it’s being raised, and it might offer the solution to WHY you are so eager to dump them), but it’s not fair for you to get them out of your hair by tossing them into ours.

And to those “parents” (and I’m using the term loosely here) who think it’s cute to let their little ones race up and down the bleachers and onto the courts, give the website a try.

I promise that there are couples anxiously awaiting a chance to do what you appear to be incapable or unwilling to do:

Be a parent.

Turnout Turnabout Is Fair Play

There is a California loon (which is a lunatic from the Golden State, not a warbling lakeside bird, although they both tend to squawk, flap their wings, and make a lot of noise without any meaningful result) who has started a campaign to get U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter kicked out.

Not kicked out of the Supreme Court:

Kicked out of his home.

He is angered by Souter’s vote which has enabled municipalities to force people out of their homes under the eminent domain rule to make room for “better-use” construction that will increase tax revenues for cities.

For example, an old man can be forced to leave his ramshackle home of 40 years if a new developer wants to build a shopping mall that will benefit the city with higher taxes.

No, I’m not making this up.

It is now the law of the land thanks to Kelo vs. City of New London, Conn.

But not satisfied to carp and whine like a certain online journalist who shall remain nameless (but his initials are Morris Workman), Logan Darrow Clements has managed to get enough signatures in Souter’s hometown of Weare, New Hampshire to have an item placed on the ballot where voters will decide whether to give Souter the boot under eminent domain to make room for a theoretical Inn.

(Like New England needs another bed and breakfast.)

I think the Red Sox have a better chance of winning the pen-

(I guess I’m going to have to come up with a new “Hell Freezes Over” metaphor now that the Sox, both White and Red, have actually tucked a World Series under their belts).

Anyway, there is obviously no chance that a Supreme Court Justice will lose his home in an eminent domain case.

First, he knows too many lawyers, who could effectively bottle up such a case until one of the Olsen twins is old enough to become a Federal judge.

Second, while it would be poetic justice for a Justice to receive such justice based on the injustice of one of his rulings, the truth is that there really hasn’t been much true justice in the world since Charles Bronson hung up his shootin’ iron.

The guy who shot President Reagan is walking the streets these days.

(He’s not technically free, still getting to spend most of his nights in the comfy psychiatric abode provided by taxpayers, but his doctors have ruled that Hinckley poses no threat to society now that Reagan is dead and Jodie Foster hasn’t had a hit movie in a while, so he’s allowed to leave the facility for a few days each month.)

The animal who brutally beat a Navy Seal to death then dumped his body on the tarmac during a hijacking back in 1985 is now a free man.

He wasn’t technically released by the U.S., but by our “good friends” the Germans.

Even the doof who shot the Pope back in 1981 has been released from a Turkish prison.

Shot the Pope! And he’s a free man!

(Although I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes when it comes time for him to make his case to St. Peter at the Pearly Gates. How do you explain shooting a Pope to a saint?)

Personally, I think the Supreme Court ruling which allows cities to evict people to make room for another J.C. Penney is one of the most shameful laws on the books.

And while I think I have a better chance of winning the World Series than Clements has of displacing Souter, I applaud his Don Quixote imitation.

Most will call him a fool. Or a loon.

I just wish our country had more fools like him.

Curse Works

It doesn’t happen often, but every decade or two I get it right.
This weekend was one of those rare occurrences.
Upon the conclusion of the NFL regular season, I espoused a curse on all of the lazy, dishonorable football teams who chose to lay down in their last game of the season because they had already clinched their playoff berths.
I specifically cited the Patriots, my favorite team up until then, for resting their starters in a season-ending game against the Dolphins, a game the Pats ended up giving away through their sloth.
But I reserved my greatest vitriol for the Indianapolis Chokes.
This is the team that collapsed under the pressure of the “perfect season,” going belly up against a San Diego team that didn’t even make it to the playoffs.
Then they took the next two weeks off, leaving their starters on the bench for a loss against Seattle and a four-point victory against the Arizona Cardinals, a woeful semi-pro team that couldn’t beat most high school squads.
The result is a Colts team that didn’t show up for four weeks, including their coveted “bye” week earned by coasting to the end of the season after winning 13 straight.
The death of head coach Tony Dungy’s son was tragic, but it’s an insult to his death and the NFL to point to that as the reason the team didn’t bother to show up for the last two games.
It turns out that there’s more to my curse and prediction that neither team would make it to the Super Bowl than just fan frustration.
Anyone who saw the Colts lose to the Steelers on Sunday watched an inept Indy team that was enormously out of sync, even noticeably rusty in the first half.
It was vindication for my statement that an NFL team should never lay down, not even with the playoffs in the bag.
The chemistry was shredded, the momentum was gone, and the Colts looked like they were playing their first game of the year after an extended pre-season.
There are so many intangibles that go into the making of a champion.
It’s not just about X’s and O’s, or the front line’s combined body mass.
It’s involves pride, ego, momentum, confidence, rhythm, habit, routine, luck, and even a little bit of kharma.
The Colts, and to a lesser degree the Patriots, squandered all of those things by taking it easy as the regular season wound down.
Meanwhile, Denver, the other AFC bye team that actually started their stars in the season finale, won handily over an uncharacteristically slothful New England team.
And the Steelers, the team that dismantled the Colts in the division playoffs, were another team which played their starters in week 17, in spite of the fact that their big-name heroes were dinged up and injured.
The management of this weekend’s two losers defended their actions by claiming they didn’t want to risk injury to their star players.
Well they are to be congratulated.
They are now the healthiest two NFL teams to be sitting at home during the conference championship.

Publikin Backlash

A wise man once said that the easiest way to get through life without an argument is to never discuss politics or religion.

I swear to God the guy was probably right.

I’m about to open up an ugly, smelly can of worms that will polarize readers, offend members of both parties, and in some bizarre way contribute to global warming.

(I’ve often thought that if the environmentalists would just shut up about it, the reduction in hot air from their silence would eliminate the Earth’s rising temperature.)

For my Republican friends, I think that snapping sound you just heard was the crack of a camel’s back being broken by the last straw.

The straw’s name is Abramoff.

Back when Brother Clinton was in office, the ‘Publikins couldn’t stop wringing their hands and salivating at the prospect of the 2000 elections.

After eight years of White Water, Gennifer Flowers, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, Not Inhaling, and finally Monica-gate, the elephant party was practically wetting their pants in anticipation of capitalizing on all of Big Bill’s improprieties.

(They could have cashed in on Clinton’s follies sooner, but the likable lug kept bailing himself out with such annoyingly unimportant political tactics as maintaining a vibrant economy, balancing the budget, reducing the deficit, and not invading any Middle Eastern countries whose names start with vowels.)

The payoff was enormous.

A country which had tired of the obviously deficient collective morals of the donkey party (I didn’t make that up…the logo for the Democrats is an ass, and was the logo LONG before Clinton got into office) decided that conservatism had to be better.

So we elected a Republican president.

Sort of.

There are zealots in the Democratic party who are still secretly counting ballots in Palm Beach in hopes of finding spelling errors.

We’ve been unable to confirm the rumor that they have engaged psychic John Edward in hopes of proving that, while someone may have punched a hole in the card for Bush, a quick mindreading session indicates that the person really meant to vote for…whoever that Democratic candidate was in 2000.

(It’s been a while, and I can’t remember his name. Which just confirms the old saw that history never remembers the losers.)

The backlash continued, as Americans also voted in a ‘Publikin majority in the house, the Senate, and the first season of American Idol.

(We’re not sure Kelly Clarkson is a ‘Publikin, but that frizzy-haired goofy guy named Justin just HAD to be a Dumocrat.)

So the U.S. got their conservative majority across the board in hopes of improving the honor and integrity of our government.

Then questions began to arise about whether the new top dog actually showed up for his National Guard duty in the 70s.

To show that his military record was above reproach, Mr. President went right out and bombed Afghanistan.

(Sort of like a guy that has his sexuality challenged then goes out and shoots small furry animals with a high-powered rifle as proof of his machismo.)

Most Americans applauded the attack on Afghanistan.

After some turban-turd knocked down our twin towers, we needed to kick SOMEBODY’s ass, and they looked like a good candidate.

During the fracas, Top Dog promised to find Osama Bin Laden, the head baddie.

Apparently, Bush hired the same detective agency that O.J. Simpson used to find Nicole’s “real killers,” because nobody has seen hide nor hair of either offender.

A few years later, Bush apparently received some intel from that same detective agency about some weapons of mass destruction.

With his popularity numbers fading and another election just around the corner, Mr. National Guard decided to drop bombs on somebody else.

Once again, like Bin Laden, we didn’t find the WMD’s.

I’m not saying Bush is a bad president.

I’m just saying that he sucks at “hide and seek.”

Americans have been growing tired of repeated incidents where our elected leader said we were going to do something, then we didn’t.

“We’re going to find Osama Bin Laden and bring him to justice…”

“We’re going to find those weapons of mass destruction and bring somebody to justice…”

“I did not have sex with that woman…”

(Whoops, wrong president.)

Now in the old days, to say we were going to do something and then not do it would be called a “lie,” but political correctness precludes the use of such terms in the 21st century.

(GORE! That’s the guy’s name! The one who Bush beat in 2000. I knew it would come to me!)

Anyway, it isn’t just the President who is having problems with honesty.

That ‘Publikin congressional majority has turned out to be a pretty bad idea as well.

First, Speaker of the House Gingrich got caught with his Newt in a place it didn’t belong.

Then Tom DeLay, the House Majority Leader, was indicted for playing patty-cake with his PAC funds.

In September, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist was accused of pulling a Martha Stewart, selling stocks based on insider information.

Now, it turns out that a lobbyist named Jack Abramoff has been playing a real-life version of the board game “Monopoly,” but instead of buying properties, he’s been buying up Congressmen and Senators.

(I’m not sure how you put a red hotel on a Senator, but Backslap Jack could figure a way.)

Apparently, Mr. Abramoff had a particular fondness for ‘Publikin officials.

Current House Speaker Dennis Hastert has admitted to accepting green (as opposed to the orange, yellow, and blue money used in the board game version), although he won’t admit he did anything to earn the grease.

Tom DeLay was apparently so deep in Abramoff’s pocket that he could scratch Jack’s knee on command.

With Abramoff pleading guilty to charges earlier this week, then agreeing to blow the whistle on everybody he ever bribed, er, made contributions to, ‘Publikins are scrambling like high-heeled waiters on the iced and canted deck of the Titanic after the iceberg.

Over the next few months, you’re going to see more high-speed foot action in the nation’s capitol than ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars” as lawmakers try to tango around the truth and save their jobs.

But I suspect the American people have had enough.

I’m not much of a betting man (I actually started the season believing the Cowboys would make it to the Super Bowl), but I’d be willing to lay a sizeable wager that America won’t be featuring a one-party system in the House and Senate after the next election.

I’m also convinced that we’ve seen our last elephantine president for a decade or two, unless the ‘Publikins are smart enough to finally let John McCain, Congress’s last honorable man, stand on the ticket.

Or the donkey’s are dumb and stubborn enough that they insist on nominating a more testicled Clinton in ’08.

Those caveats aside, the GOP should brace for the deserved House cleaning that is on the way.

And learn how to spell “minority” in their next mythical “Ethics” class.

No Finish League

If a baseball team decided to run up the white flag on 1/16th of their season, they would give away 10 games.
If a drywall hanger decided to call in sick for 1/16th of his year, he would miss 16 days of work.
If a NASCAR driver chose to coast for 1/16th of the race, he would consistently finish in next-to-last place, right behind Dale Earnhardt, Jr.
But nobody seems to mind that the NFL’s elite teams regularly take a dive for at least one of their measly 16 regular-season games.
This weekend was an abomination and a slap in the face to football fans, as team after team showed up with only half their starting lineups on the field.
The most egregious offender was the Indianapolis Colts, who phoned it in for two and a half games after their “perfect season” was ruined by the San Diego Chargers.
While Tony Dungy is usually a class act, it was a classless display by a team that was destined for greatness and is now destined for infamy as they will soon become another example of teams who chose to write off the end of their season to keep their athletes healthy, then bungle their shot in the playoffs.
On Sunday, my own beloved Patriots followed the example, pulling Tom Brady after the first half and handing the game over to the Miami Dope Dealers.
Had Brady remained in the game, New England could have finished a mediocre season (for them) with a big win.
The NFC West saw a similarly pitiful display by a professional team when the Seahawks rolled over for the hapless Green Bay Packers.
The Chicago Bears, the crappy, lucky, untalented and embarrassing kings of the NFL’s most inept division, the NFC North, followed suit by giving their starters a breather, giving up an easy win to the Vikings.
In fact, the only class act of the weekend came from Denver, who showed up to play in their 23-7 whipping of the Chargers, in spite of the fact that the Broncos had long since clinched the AFC West title.
Jake Plummer played the entire first half, in spite of being roughed up early.
John Lynch, the outstanding safety for Denver, espoused the spirit that more NFL owners and coaches should embrace.
"In my mind, every time you get an opportunity to play in the NFL, you owe it to yourself, to your team and to the people who pay to watch the game, to play hard," said Lynch, whose high school coach was in the stands.
Unfortunately, too many of the “winners” in the NFL want to act like losers, phoning it in during the last weekend of the season.
So this season, for the first time in years, I won’t be rooting for the Patriots.
And while I buried the hatchet on my hatred of the Indianapolis Colts this season while they were pursuing the “perfect season,” the hatred is back.
They were a cowardly organization when they snuck out of Baltimore back in 1984, and they’re a cowardly organization now.
The Panic Ponies choked against a mundane Chargers team three weeks ago, and they’ll cave in the playoffs again this year, just like they did last year.
And while they don’t have the talent of some of this year’s other contenders, I will cheer for the Broncos every step of the way simply because they are the only team in the 2006 post season, along with the Pittsburgh Steelers, with the heart, honor, and respect for their fans to play every game of the 2005 schedule.
Go Broncos!

Clean Slate Day

Today is my favorite holiday.

I’ll admit, Christmas is nice.

It would be better if you could eliminate the obligatory waste of life-minutes in your nearest wallet-emptying facility (also known as Wal Mart, or Target, or any other store where money disappears faster than elephants in a David Copperfield concert).

I’m fond of Thanksgiving as well.

What could be better than a day dedicated to football and overeating?

(Heck, who am I kidding, I get that every Sunday from September through February).

Easter isn’t a big day at my house, mostly because it doesn’t usually translate into a day off from work.

(How sly was it for somebody to schedule a holiday on a Sunday, when everybody’s off already? Where was the union when the powers-that-be were concocting this idea?)

It’s also one of the more confusing holidays, since it tends to hop around the spring-time calendar each year, and continues to use bunny rabbits laying multi-colored chocolate Easter eggs in an inexplicable tribute to the resurrection.

But my favorite is New Year’s Day.

While most of the American holidays celebrate something from the past, New Year’s Day celebrates the future.

It is the one day devoted to my most cherished ideal:

Hope.

Every time December 31 rolls around, people stop and make resolutions, a burning flare of hope in a darkened sky of despair.

“This is the year I lose 20 pounds,” they exclaim while finishing off the last drumstick from the Christmas feast.

Then they light up a post-meal cigarette and proclaim “this is the year I give up smoking.”

New Year’s Day is also the moment when we collectively take life’s proverbial Etch-A-Sketch, hold it upside down over our heads, and shake away the mistakes and regrets of the previous year.

In my vernacular, January 1 is “Clean Slate Day.”

No matter how badly you’ve botched the previous 365 days, “Clean Slate Day” marks the chance to start over with an empty score book.

It’s fitting that the turning of the page on New Year’s Eve is denoted by the dropping of a ball in Times Square.

Regardless of how many times you “dropped the ball” in the year past, now is your chance to start anew.

I’m excited about 2006.

It’s an unexplored adventure waiting for me to get in the boat.

It will be filled with changes and new opportunities and fun and heartbreak and all of the things that make life worth living.

And I’m going to do it in a body that’s 30 pounds lighter.

As soon as I’m done with the last of the New Year’s Eve cheese sticks and chicken wings.

Happy New Year, everyone!