Sunday, July 08, 2007

Smoking Ban Effects

Smoking bans are spreading across Amerika faster than the invasive species purple loosestrife.

While the politicos would have us believe the spreading smoking bans are for our own good, these bans appear to be having as negative an effect on local economies as the purple loosestrife has on local native ecosystems.

Bar and restaurant owners interviewed by Hawaii Reporter say their business is down between 10 percent and 25 percent since the 2006 smoking ban…

Gov. Linda Lingle, who signed the smoking ban legislation into law, acknowledged after returning from a trip to Japan this past June that Japanese tourism has been impacted.

There is a 10.3 percent decrease in Japanese visitors here in May 2007 over May 2006, according to a state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism report – part of a continuing trend downward. Convention and corporate meeting business from Japan declined between 28 percent and 57 percent in the first give months of 2007 when compared with the same 5 months in 2006; and Japanese tour groups saw a 17 percent drop during this same period.

Individuals should be battling the invasive smoking bans with the same vigor applied in the battle against invasive purple loosestrife.

Defiance – One Puff at a Time

Via The Dougout.

Posted by John Venlet on 07/08 at 07:38 AM
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Abdicated Reasoning and Common Sense

Schools’ zero tolerance rules have a tendency to relieve teachers and administrators from utilizing their reasoning skills, and their common sense. 

While I can understand sending a kid packing if he, or she for that matter, carries a handgun into a school, some of the other reasons schools send kids packing, or enact draconian punishments for, as part of their zero tolerance policies, border on the absurd.

Writing “I love Alex” on a school gymnasium wall brought a 12-year-old the same punishment as if she had made terrorist threats.

The Katy Independent School District rated the message, written with a baby blue marker by sixth-grader Shelby Sendelbach, as a Level 4 infraction — the same as for threats, drug possession and assault.

Only murder, gun possession, sexual assault and arson are considered more severe by the suburban Houston district.

Young Miss Sendelbach’s parents are fighting back against the school, and I wish them success, but they also appear to be disconnected from their reasoning and common sense.

"We are shocked that the school district rules as they are written make no distinction between what Shelby is accused of and what a gang member does with a can of black spray paint,” Stu Sendelbach said.

The school administrators are simply foolish for sending young Miss Sendelbach off to an alternative school for four months for her misuse of a magic market, and their fall back for applying this punishment, “just following a state law,” exhibits the same lack of judgment young Miss Sendelbach exhibited when she penned her enamoration of Alex on the school wall.

A more reasoned punishment for young Miss Sendelbach would have seen her scrubbing her love missive off the wall, followed by applying a new coat of paint.

As for young Miss Sendelbach’s father’s assertion that the punishment applied to her is reasonable for a gang member with a can of black spray paint, but not to his daughter, exhibits the same lack of reasoning and common sense that the school administrators exhibited.  The same reasoned punishment I mention above for Miss Sendelbach, should be applied to any kid defacing a school wall, whether they’re a gang member or a little twelve year old girl.

School rates ‘I love Alex’ graffiti as bad as drugs, suspends 6th-grader for 4 months

Posted by John Venlet on 07/08 at 06:45 AM
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Handicapped by Roosevelt

Many individuals are enamored of Roosevelt and his New Deal, which may not be surprising because the deal gave many something, for nothing, via misappropriation.

But Roosevelt’s legacy is not the New Deal, but the development of a culture of dependence on the state.

George Will notes this in a piece titled Declaration of Dependence that is worth a read.

Posted by John Venlet on 07/08 at 05:07 AM
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