Hi Mr. Graham:
There's no doubt in my mind that Minneapolis
residents are consistently getting shortchanged
in lots of ways. That reflects the bi-polarity
of US urban politics: All sorts of lip service
paid to progressive, enlightened, culturally
diverse, greenie-weenie notions, but the real
power and money goes to big developers,
polluters, banksters, union members (to a much
lesser extent) .... Most big-city mayors are
two-faced in this way--they probably don't have a
choice--but nobody has been more flagrant about
it than one Rybak. How the current
administration will play out remains to be seen,
I suppose. The pollution-belching wood burner
proposed in Phillips (thankfully stopped), the
stadium scam, the near-total victory of Xcel
energy in the recent franchise negotiations, the
continuing disparate outcomes in education, the
pollution-belching garbage incinerator downtown
... I'm sure there are ten examples for every one
I'm aware of. And examples of good stuff happening.
Looks like the population of Mpls peaked around
1950, hit bottom in 1990, and has been increasing
since. People voting with their feet, for
whatever reasons, are saying Mpls is a Good Place.
am
At 08:07 AM 10/21/2014 +0000, james graham wrote:
>Actually, this just gave me the chance to use it
>as a vehicle to vent on a couple or three of my pet peeves.
>
>
>One is of course how Minneapolis tax payers
>simply do not get the same return of our tax
>dollars that out state people do. And certainly do not from Federal sources.
>
>
>Two is the amount we (Minneapolis Tax payers)
>get stuck for sports teams that are called
>"Minnesota Vikings, Minnesota Twins, Minnesota
>'Wolves, etc.. They serve at minimum the whole
>Metro area, and certainly the State of Minnesota.
>
>
>Three, and most important of my pet peeves is
>the terrible education we Minneapolis tax payers
>pay for when it comes to some poor
>children. And yes, it is a piss poor
>education. And even though some other states
>also have the same problem we seem to have a
>proportionately worse one. And by the way, we
>do not need to have that chasm of difference
>between what more affluent students get and what
>poor children get. WE should be
>better! Politicians are simply unable to
>provide that difference as they are the
>political whores of Unions and
>pseudo-progressive political correctness. I say
>pseudo because education in Minneapolis Public
>Schools sure as hell is not "Progressive".
>
>
>Of course I have never been much of a fan of
>"public education" as it is offered. And
>especially secondary public school. It has
>pretty much always been little more than a
>warehouse for young people. And especially for
>poor children who might not have received an
>adequate basic education to begin with. Now I
>must admit my prejudice against Public High
>School is colored by my own experience of not
>having done it and finding I really did not need
>it. And sadly it seems to have become even
>worse than it was I came to Minnesota. My
>experience as a father of children going through
>Minneapolis Public School, and running my own
>"After School" programs for poor children and
>seeing how badly they were served by Minneapolis
>Public School added to that prejudice.
>
>
>So I end up supporting some people who I could
>not be more in disagreement with on many issues
>(such as Mr. Mann when runs). Why? Because
>they at least recognize and will openly discuss
>the shortcomings of that system and at least
>acknowledge how badly the system needs to be
>changed. So ANY change from what is offered is
>preferable to continuing with the failure that is MPS.
>
>
>There are models of educational systems that DO
>work for poor children, and I wonder why we do
>not use them. One of course is the religious
>schools such as the Catholic and Lutheran
>Schools, but also those offered by many
>different religious groups. They simply offer
>not only higher graduation rates and successful
>post secondary educational success for poor
>children, but do it often for less cost than is
>paid per child per year for Minneapolis Public School.
>
>
> The second model that REALLY works is that
> used in Military schools. Not the rich kid
> military schools, I mean the United States
> Military schools. That military system has
> proven to be able to take the failures of
> public schools and quickly bring them up to speed with a basic education.
>
>
>Both those systems rely on teaching discipline
>as well as the demand and expectation that the
>'student' will succeed at receiving a basic
>education before going on to a 'higher'
>education. Of course neither of those systems is
>thought to be 'Politically Correct" so
>Minneapolis politicians would never think of using them as a model. :-)
>
>
>So I really do understand why those outsiders
>keep involved in Minneapolis politics. They are
>simply more interesting than in most other areas
>where they have moved to. Remember folks, we
>should measure the 'Quality'of our community by
>how well we take care of our most
>vulnerable. Not by how well we take care of our most well off.
>
>
>Jim Graham,
>Ventura Village and Minneapolis Tax Victim
>
>
>So ends my late night diatribe on outsiders
>playing at School Board Politics in
>Minneapolis. But I might as well throw in
>another subject and that is the street cleaning
>that goes on in my own poor neighborhood each
>year. I knew we would quickly get fall street
>cleaning when I saw the leaves had begun to
>fall. Minneapolis ALWAYS cleans our streets
>FIRST before the boulevard trees (they planted)
>get a chance to drop their leaves. This of
>course leaves a real mess afterwords when the
>trees have actually dropped their leaves. Then
>in the Spring the City with their rotating
>system cleans our streets LAST. Which of course
>means that we have a rotting mess in the gutters
>for at minimum seven months of the year.
>
>Just another little pet peeve about the level of
>service that my poor neighborhood receives from
>our City. Anyone else have that early street cleaning already going on?
>
>Hey, I pay my taxes so unlike outsiders I
>actually have a right to bitch about how they are spent. :-)
>
>Jim Graham
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>On Monday, October 20, 2014 2:13 PM, Alan Muller <<email obscured>> wrote:
>
>
>Mr. Graham:
>
>I'd accept your "mind your own business" critique
>if it appeared that you are also applying it to
>the big-money intervenors from the East and West
>coasts. But you aren't (maybe because you
>support those positions?) , so I don't.
>
>I was really just pointing out that Mr. Samuels
>had outed himself in a certain way.
>
>It's clear that there are serious problems with
>educational outcomes--all over the country, not
>just in Minneapolis--and many people feel this
>needs to be understood and corrected. They
>differ on HOW. Many people understand that the
>root cause of the poor outcomes very often does
>not lie inside the schools themselves, making it
>very hard for the schools themselves to address effectively.
>
>A personal concern of mine is that a "corporate
>takeover" of the schools is likely to lead to
>even further corporate takeover of the
>curriculum, further eroding the quality of
>political education (I recall it being called
>"civics" and "political science") and the
>capacity of emerging young citizens to participate in a functioning democracy.
Rest of post
>
>am
>
>At 09:07 AM 10/20/2014 +0000, james graham wrote:
> >Talk about outsiders being involved in the
> >Minneapolis School Board race? Why the heck
> >would someone from Red Wing be writing about the
> >Minneapolis School Board or hot dog
> >calls? Doesn't Red Wing have a School Board to play with.
> >
> >
> >I am always amazed by the number of people from
> >the suburbs or St.Paul who try to play in
> >Minneapolis politics, but Red Wing? If you do
> >not pay Minneapolis taxes or have children in
> >those less than stellar schools, why would you care?
> >
> >
> >We (Minneapolis taxpayers) get robbed enough by
> >supplying City Parks and all the other use of
> >our City by the outside. Heck on any given
> >weekend we have more outsiders using Minneapolis
> >paid for infrastructure than Minneapolis
> >residents (well at least parks anyway). Not to
> >mention the rape of our taxpayers that those
> >damn stadiums cost us and which certainly are
> >used mostly by non-Minneapolis fans. Perhaps
> >that is why outsiders have to dabble in
> >Minneapolis politics. There own just are not
> >interesting enough to be entertaining. :-) And
> >I must admit that Minneapolis politics and the
> >silliness of its politicians is entertaining. I
> >know that the rest of the State laughs at our politicians all the time.
> >
> >
> >They have to be laughing at what suckers we are
> >for paying for that football stadium for
> >"Minnesota" and about spending over $23,000.00
> >per child per year, for a system that fails more
> >than 50% of the poor children of color.
> >
> >
> >Jim Graham,
> >Minneapolis tax payer
> >
> >
> >
> >On Sunday, October 19, 2014 5:45 PM, Alan
> Muller <<mailto:<email obscured>>amuller@dca.net> wrote:
> >
> >
> >Don Samuels, candidate for Minneapolis School Board
> >
> >Dear Mr. Samuels:
> >
> >Many complaints are circulating about your recent
> >action in calling the police on get-out-the-vote
> >efforts by Neighborhoods Organizing for Change (NOC).
> >
> >I have a different view: I am REALLY glad you
> >did that. It's hard to imagine anything else
> >you could have done that would have helped people
> >so much to understand what your campaign is
> >really about, and who they might want to vote for.
> >
> >Nobody has any excuse now for being
> >confused. Great work! Keep it up. You might
> >want to check in with Tom Emmer for some other brilliant ideas.
> >
> >Best regards,
> >
> >Alan Muller
> >
> >"If there is no struggle, there is not progress.
> >Those who profess to favor freedom, yet deprecate
> >agitation, are men who want crops without plowing
> >up the ground... Power concedes nothing without a demand."
> >
> > Frederick Douglass
> >
> >
> >Alan Muller
> >N/A, Red Wing, MN
> >About/contact Alan Muller:
> ><<http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/alanmuller>ht
>
tp://forums.e-democracy.org/p/alanmuller>http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/alanmuller
> >
> >View full topic:
> >
> ><<http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/2ocNEsC
>
1iFoRI0zvn5o0qa>http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/2ocNEsC1iFoRI0zvn5o0qa>http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/2ocNEsC1iFoRI0zvn5o0qa
> >
> >* Election 2014 in Minnesota - Who is on your ballot?
> >
>
<<http://bit.ly/myballot2014>http://bit.ly/myballot2014>http://bit.ly/myballot2014
> >
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>Alan Muller
>N/A, Red Wing, MN
>About/contact Alan Muller:
><http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/alanmuller>http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/alanmuller
>
>View full topic:
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>
>* Election 2014 in Minnesota - Who is on your ballot?
> <http://bit.ly/myballot2014>
>
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