white, black suspensions

The Sunday edition of the Northwest Florida Daily News included an excellent front-page story by Rachel Kyler examining school suspensions on the Emerald Coast.

The story, and accompanying information at nwfdailynews.com, includes a lot of data of interest. The most interesting comparison to me is this: Black students are about twice as likely to be suspended from school as white students. And black male students are the most likely of all to be suspended.

Why is that? What do folks think are the reasons behind this disparity? Let me know.

The county's tough choices

Last week's busy news cycle -- the Virginia Tech mass murder, the Alberto Gonzales hearing, and the huge shark caught near Navarre Beach -- overshadowed another major local news story.

In a meeting with the Northwest Florida Daily News editorial board last week, Okaloosa County officials said they expect to trim millions of dollars from the county's budget for the upcoming fiscal year. This is a result of anticipated changes the state Legislature is considering that will lower property taxes.

The anticipated lower taxes come as great news to homeowners, and especially business owners who have seen their property taxes head through the roof in recent years.

But it will also mean some tough choices for Okaloosa and other Emerald Coast counties. What do you cut? Proposed construction projects such as the courthouse annex or the jail expansion? Or, do you cut the budget of other constitutional offices such as the sheriff's department or EMS? Or, do you lay off personnel?

Okaloosa County Manager Jim Curry and Commissioner Bill Roberts said those options and others will be on the table as the county develops its budget for the upcoming year.

I'm an advocate of tightening government's budget at ALL levels -- county, state and federal. Simply put, government spends too much. But I don't envy the task that will soon confront county officials. If anyone has some advice for them, share it.

Gun control vs. gun rights

Predictably, the horrific shooting at Virginia Tech has fed the national debate about gun control.

Gun control advocates argue that the shooter, 23-year-old Cho Seung-Hui might not have committed mass murder if it hadn't been so easy for him to obtain the handguns he used to shoot 32 people.

Gun rights advocates counter that guns don't kill people, wackos like Seung-Hui do. They also argue that Seung-Hui might have been stopped if others on campus had been carrying guns themselves.

Here's your invitation to join the debate.

Comics you love/hate

As editor of the Northwest Florida Daily News, one thing I have learned is that readers have very strong opinions about individual comics. And changing comics is a lot like closing your eyes and putting your hand on top of the stove to see which burner is on or off.

Knowing all that, here I go.

I am thinking about changing a couple of comics, and I'm asking for a little guidance.

I want to know which comic published in the Daily News you like the most.

And (or) more importantly, I want to know which comic you DISLIKE the most, and why. I say knowing which comic you dislike is more important because it's often easier to replace a comic most people seem to dilike than to cut loose a comic that at least some people do like. Know what I mean?

So, please share your thoughts with me, and ask your friends to pitch in, too.

I'll let you know in a column in the Daily News how this informal survey turns out, and what I plan to do next.

MSNBC fires Imus

Well, Don Imus is no longer part of MSNBC.

As you know from my previous blog on this subject, I'm sorry to see him pulled from morning cable television. I loved his show's vicious satire of some of our most pompous politicians and other public figures.

But I also understand why so many people believe he needed to go after his incredibly stupid characterization of the Rutgers University women's basketball team as "nappy-headed ho's." As a number of people who responded to my initial blog point out, that comment was racially insensitive and sexually offensive to the extreme, and it was a comment about a group of young women who did nothing to deserve the derision.

I'm still storry to see Imus go. But I understand why others believe he needed to get the boot. And I thank you all for sharing your opinions about Imus with me.

Don't fire Imus

By now most people know that and cable television personality Don Imus has gotten himself into trouble over racially insensitive comments he made about the Rutgers University women's basketball team.

The day after Rutgers lost in the national championship game, Imus referred to Rutgers players as "nappy-headed hos." Most of the team's members are black.

That comment -- as Imus has repeatedly admitted in repeated apologies -- was not just racially insensitive. It was plain stupid.

Imus will begin serving a two-week suspension from CBS Radio and MSNBC next Monday. But a chorus of people -- led by the Rev. Al Sharpton -- are calling for his dismissal. CNN's coverage seems almost to be hoping that Imus is fired, which isn't surprising to me, given that Imus has taken a big bite out of CNN's morning viewership in the past year.

Here's hoping Imus remains on the air.

Anybody who watches Imus in the Morning knows that the show is known for its often-over-the-edge brand of humor. His willingness to satirize, criticize and offend people is the key to his success in the past three decades.

But Imus has always been an equal-opportunity offender. The shows imitators are equally vicious to Bill Clinton (and by extension Hillary), Teddy Kennedy, the Rev. Jerry Falwell, Ray Nagin and Dr. Phil, among others. Imus is no fan of President Bush, but his politics are all over the map. He championed Republican Sen. Rick Santorum and Democrat Senate candidate Harold Ford Jr. equally in last fall's election. And he's been outspoken in support of veterans, even as he has been vehemently against the war in Iraq.

Sometimes I cringe when I hear Imus or others on his show go over the edge. And clearly Imus crossed the line last week when commenting about the women at Rutgers. There's a difference between making vicious fun of politicians and taking cheap, racially insensitive shots at young women athletes.

But I hope Imus isn't fired. Yes, he's offensive. But he's also very funny. If he goes, who'll be left to make of our most pompous politicians and personalities?

John McCain's skewed Iraq

During his recent visit to Iraq, Republican Senator and presidential hopeful John McCain spoke of the success of our recent troop surge there, and said the media aren't adequately covering the improvements in security. He added that he visited a Baghdad market -- something he would not have been able to do in previous trips.

Fortunately, "60 Minutes" went along with him and was able to capture the truth on video.

McCain visited the market under heavy guard by the U.S. military, with 10 armored Humvees on the ground and two Apache helicopters overhead. He was surrounded by soldiers during the entire visit. Not exactly your weekend trip to the average Emerald Coast supermarket.

The troop surge may be working -- certainly some evidence suggests it is, at least in parts of Baghdad. But McCain ought to know better than to bend the truth so much. Americans deserve to know the real facts in Iraq, not the distortions of political candidates.

not trolley buses!

I hate to disparage an idea before it has a chance to succeed, but I'll make an exception when it comes to Okaloosa County Transit's decision to put two WAVE "trolley" buses on the streets.

First, let's call them what they really are. They're buses dressed up to look like trolleys. The cost $139,000 in federal tax dollars apiece. According to a story in today's Daily News, "county officials hope the trolleys will draw locals and out-of-towners."

Here's reality. WAVE ridership is anemic at best. The bus service operates at a deficit of several hundred thousand dollars a year, which local taxpayers have to help make up. And two "trolley" buses will do little if anything to increase ridership.

There is a need for mass transportation services, especially for the physically disabled. But putting two more empty buses on the street at the taxpayers' expense isn't effective mass transportation, no matter how cute or stylish the buses look on the outside.

Do drug laws work?

Fort Walton Beach police brought in quite a drug haul on Tuesday. About 460 pounds of marjiuana and more than 100 pounds of cocaine.

That's a lot of dope. But the reality is that the bust will probably do little to dent the illegal drug trade here or anywhere else. There's too much demand, and too much money to be made supplying it.

Which leads to a question that's been debated for a long time: Would it make more sense to legalize or de-criminalize drug use?

Doing so would eliminate the need to lock up all the drug users who currently fill up our county jails and state and federal prisons. That would free up billions of tax dollars a year, some of which could be used to provide treatment for the many drug users who want to come clean. Or, they could just give us those tax dollars back. Legalization also might take the drug trade out of the hands of gangs and other organized crime elements.

On the other hand, there's the legitimate worry that legalizing drugs might make them more available. But if pretty much any teen-ager can tell you where to buy pot right now, then aren't drugs already REAL available?

What's your opinion?

Still more about politics

A couple respondents to my blog have asked me further questions about my politics.

Mike wondered about my party affiliation before I became an independent. Well, Mike, my father was and is a yellow dog, blue-collar, union-supporting Democrat. So I guess that would be the start point for my own political views. And I still view the world from the perspective of the working class. Growing up as the son of a sometimes laid-off construction worker in a single-parent family -- my mother died when I was 14 -- that often did not have enough money to go around will tend to give you a view of the world that sticks with you.

But my perspective has certainly evolved. As a younger man, I thought government programs could cure poverty, if only we'd let them work and make them bigger. Wrong! As a journalist, I have reported a quite a bit about various welfare programs, and my belief now is that most welfare programs do more to perpetuate poverty than to cure it. I further believe government -- especially at the federal level, but also at the state and local level -- is bloated and ought to shrink. And, I believe that the more government in general stays out of our lives, the better. For example, do we really need a U.S. Department of Education? I'm not sure we do.

Does that make me a conservative? Some readers seem to think so, and others don't. (One person called me a Nazi in a letter after I wrote a column critical of Democrats a couple years ago. I thought that was a bit strong, but I defend his right to have an opinion.). I can say that I have voted for Democrats and Republicans, and I'll continue to do so if that's what makes sense to me. As I said, I'm an independent.

Another blogger, however, believes that everything he's ever read from me is from the viewpoint of the "left wing." Sir or madam, (I'm not sure of your gender because you have chosen to be anonymous.), your characterization of my politics is no doubt a result of your own view of the world, through which you filter the views of others. Let me guess; you consider yourself to be a right-wing conservative with all the answers, if only everyone else could be just like you. Well, good luck with that.