Diversity

I laugh when I hear white people from Montgomery County, MD, talk about how they believe in diversity. If you go into most of the middle size single family home areas in that county, you will see that the vast majority of the residents are as white as can be. I guess that's diversity. There are Hispanic neighborhoods and Black neighborhoods, but you don't see a lot of diversity, except in the condo communities, because of the cost of housing. The single family homes in the Hispanic and black neighborhoods, tend to be small, and those neighborhoods are not all that safe. Yes, that's diversity. You have economically "gated" communities to help you celebrate diversity.

Now, over here in good old College Park, Prince George's County, MD, currently majority black with a mostly black county council, we are quite diverse. At one time, College Park was all white, except for one area, Lakeland. That area is still  90% black, with a smattering of Koreans thrown in for good measure. Originally, Lakeland was the only area in College Park where blacks were allowed to live, welcome to the South, so they tend to continue to live there out of tradition, and a desire to have their own community, even though they are no longer restricted by covenants from other neighborhoods. Except for the university, most of College Park was as white redneck as they come. I found that out when I moved here. I'm from the north, and I'm not used to Southern culture to begin with;
all things considered,  I am not comfortable with Southern working class, redneck culture. It is too foreign to me being a Yankee.  Back in the old days, most of Prince George's County was majority redneck white.

Times have changed. In my neighborhood, which was mostly white redneck when I moved in, there are white families, black families, mixed race families, gay families, lesbian families, Asian families, Hispanic families, and every combination that you can think of. Why? Because, this area is reasonably affordable. Most of the people that live in my area, except for a small representation of lawyers, doctors, and other professionals, are lower middle class white collar workers, or lower middle class blue collar workers. A $250,000 single family home here, would go for over $450,000 in Montgomery County. We haven't been able to price ourselves out of celebrating diversity, by being able to keep our neighborhoods 99% upper middle class white economically gated communities.

Yes, we have Starbucks, but no Whole Foods or Trader Joe's. As a side note, I wish we had a Trader Joe's. We have an Aldi up the road in Beltsville, and if we had a Trader Joe's nearby, that would be the best of both worlds. We do have an REI Sporting Goods, and a MOM's Organic Market, and the Berwyn Heights area has a vegan coffee house and cafe, but we don't have the designer boutique shops and restaurants like they have in the next county.

Also, unlike Montgomery County, except for Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Greenbelt, our public schools are quite sub-standard. Despite having the University of Maryland College Park, the flagship university of the state university system, we are lacking in quality public education. Hopefully, this will change as more and more lower end professional families move into the area. You are seeing this in the Hyattsville and Mount Ranier areas, which are becoming quite gentrified. This, however, could still be offset by the fact that there are a vast majority of families that are blue collar lower middle class, and they tend not to put a high value on quality education. Those that do, send their children to either religious schools, or if they can pass the entrance exams and get a scholarship, the private schools in Montgomery County. Many families concerned with the quality of education, home school. Prince George's County, which is majority black, has the largest black educated upper middle class in the country. Most of them send their children to private school or home school. They don't sent their kids to the low quality public schools in this county. Quite a few of the black students in the Bullis School, a high-end private prep school in Potomac, MD where I teach, are scholarship students from Prince George's County. Of course, they had to pass the same entrance exams as anyone else, and there are no Affirmative Action points for race. You either can cut it or you can't. More to follow...

My Crazy Mixed Up Beliefs

.Recently, I finished reading a book by Michael Lind, called "The Radical Center." After reading his book, I can identify with most of what he talks about. I disagree with Lind on some specific details of certain issues. However, I do agree with most of his reasoning. I consider myself to be a Radical Center Conservative. I'm sure that many Liberals would consider themselves to be Radical Center Liberals. If that were the case, we could fix a lot of the problems in this country, by agreeing on 90% of most issues, and agreeing to disagree on the other 10% where we don't agree, but are willing to wortk together to reduced that 10% to about 5%.

What a  lot of it boils down to is the fact that we are not really a red America or a blue America. We are a purple America. Some of us lean more to the red side of the purple and some of us lean more toward the blue side of the purple. For example: I can't think of any conservative senior citizen that would be willing to give up their social security checks that they get each month. They may bitch and holler about handouts and entitlements, but don't you dare touch social security or medicare.

With these thoughts in mind, here are where I currently stand on certain issues. I can't name them all, because things change over the years. I'll add posts as I think of things to say...

My Utopian Society

I have a great way to piss off the Left. Let's have a nice managed society just like they want, but let's set it up like the social structure of the military. How could they resist a society where everyone has a rank that creates total job fairness? A male E-5 truck driver makes the same salary as a female E-5 day care worker. Along that line, military salaries for the most part are not on equal par with a comparable civilian salary for the exact same job, with the same seniority. The military pays less. With everyone making less money,  we can all subscribe to the president's statement, "there comes a time when you've made enough money". How fair is that?

Then there are the benefits. That's where you make up the difference...well, kind of...Here's what you get: You get free housing, or if housing is not available, you get a housing allowance. You get reduced cost shopping at the commissaries and exchanges. You get 30 days paid vacation per year, and if you get sick, you get sick and convalescent leave that doesn't count against that 30 days of ordinary leave. I've known people that had catastrophic illnesses, that were on ConLeave for up to a year or more, drawing full salary and benefits while they recovered. You get free medical and dental care, free medical care for your dependents, and very reasonable cost dental insurance for your dependents.

While you are on active duty, most common carriers like Amtrak, Greyhound, and a host of others like most airlines,  give you a military discount when you book travel with them, even if you are not travelling on orders. You get free space-A travel on military aircraft and contract charter air travel anywhere in the world. The military services have their own R and R facilities, that are open only to military personnel, retired military personnel, and their dependents. Those include the New Sanno Hotel in downtown Tokyo, Shades of Green in Orlando, Florida, and the Hale Koa Hotel on Waikiki Beach in Hawaii. I remember staying at the Pine Tree Inn at the Bangor, Maine Air National Guard Base with my wife and my parents for $8 per night per person. It was a 5 minute drive to the commissary for grocery shopping, and the facility had a fully equipped  kitchen and dining room, that you could use to cook and serve your own meals. All you had to do was clean up after yourself, and put everything away.

Wow! Any and all benefits to your life are provided by the government. Who wouldn't want to live in free government housing? Who wouldn't want free medical and dental care? Who wouldn't want this wonderful Utopian society?  I'll tell you who wouldn't want it. The Left wouldn't want it, because a large percentage of them would never become the officer ruling class.

By law, the Officer Corps is only allowed to make up 15% of the military. As we start to lean toward government provided higher education, college will have to be rationed. Only 15% of all high school graduates will be allowed to go to college. You need a college degree to become a military officer. Be careful what you ask for hippies, you just might get it.

All is not lost, however for you Liberal Arts and Revolutionary Underwater Basket Weaving majors, There are other options if you are not part of the top 15% of high school graduates. 10% of the military make up the Warrant Officer Corps, Warrant Officers are highly  specialized technicians that are afforded the benefits and courtesies of the Officer Corps, without the executive managerial responsibilities. For everyone else, there is the  Enlisted Corps. Now don't get your panties in a knot. Senior Enlisted personnel make pretty good money, and have a very high level of responsibility. They are the equivalent of a shop foreman. There is also prestige to being a Senior NCO, especially if you make E-9. E-9s are treated about the same as general officers, because they are few and far between. 20% of the Enlisted Force make E-7, 3% make E-8, and 1% make it all the way to the top at E-9. I made it to E-8.

The system worked very well for me. As a retired member of the military, and having experienced a full military career firsthand, I would have no problem with a society based on the social structure of the armed forces. President Obama said that he wants to "fundamentally transform America." Yes, let's "transform" it.

Ferguson. The Lid Is Off Of The Trash Can, And You Can See The Maggots Crawling Around In The Garbage

So a cop doesn't get indited for murder, because he shot and killed a deranged thug, whom he struggled with in his cruiser, reaching for the officer's gun, and then got out of the cruiser, turned around, and charged the officer like a angry bull. I guess the Grand Jury didn't believe the fabricated statements of the "witnesses," who collectively decided (probably created by a Community Organizer brought in for the occasion, by one of the riot organizers, like the Answer Coalition, (a Communist front organization)  on a story about an innocent African-American, who strong armed a store clerk minutes before, stole a $40 box of Swisher Sweets cigars, and was walking down the middle of the street, high as a kite on drugs. I guess he was going to hollow them out, stuff them with marijuana, and get even higher, before he went out to hang with his gang bros. So the "community" burns the community to the ground as their way of showing respect for the rule of law.

Welcome to Obama's America and its belief in victimology. However, it's not going the way that the Left and the Liberals wanted. The lid is off of the trash can, and the Average American doesn't like what he or she sees crawling among the filth of society. I'm predicting that there will be a revolt, and it's not going to be pleasant when it happens,  Michael Brown is a failure of the  "Industry,"which exists solely to benefit those working in that industry, and except for a token hand out, does little to help their "clients" move up out of poverty. The bottom line is they don't want the ghetto to move up out of the ghetto, unless it benefits them. What is comes down to is federal and state grant money feathering their own nests.

The more you help people remain failures, the more money you can receive. It's amazing how it works.

Cultural and physical demise

I have been reading some articles on the internet, and I can't vouch for their accuracy, but they do make good reading, and make you think. Some were about White people populating the US and South America, before the Indians came. They also were about a White race that came from the Caucasus region of Europe and populated India and China, before the Mongols wiped them out. It's fascinating reading, to say the least.

When the Pilgrims arrived in 1620, they were greeted by Squanto, who spoke English. OK, here we go...If the Pilgrims were the new settlers in that part of North America, where did Squanto learn English? It seems like Squanto had spent quite a bit of time in Europe. How did he get there? Just a thought. More on this as time goes on.

Stolen Bicycle

It's amazing how officials and the police don't want to get involved when something gets stolen from a Metro station. My grandson has been riding one of my bicycles to the Metro station, locking the bike up, and riding the Metro Rail. Last night he rode the Metro and went to retrieve the bike. Someone had cut the lock cable and stolen the bicycle. He said that the Metro Transit Police, and the Station Manager, were not all that cooperative. He spend an hour filling out paperwork, and asked that they review the tapes from the security cameras. The gave him the run around, stating that it would be impossible to identify the thief from the tapes. Maybe so, but if you zoom in, you just might get a look at that individual. My feeling is they are trying to skew statistics.  I'll leave it at that. I was thinking about buying a cheap bicycle to ride to the metro, but if I do, I will rent a bicycle locker at the station for $120 per year, in order to keep the bike safe. I'm not all that crazy about riding in the coming winter months, but it might be an easy alternative to trying to make later night bus connections, or having to park at the Wayne Avenue garage in Silver Spring, and taking the crosstown J bus. I'll have to see about it. In the meantime, I'm not a happy camper. That bike cost me over $300 used, and it was a really good bike. It's time for a little hard ass law and order. Maybe Metro will let us form a citizen watch committee, who's members can hide and observe the bike racks. Make sure there are at least three watch members at all times, so that they can be credible witnesses in cases involving theft. It's time to get tough on petty crime. If you do, the bigger stuff goes away too. It's the "broken windows" approach that worked so well, along with "stop and frisk," both of which worked very well in New York City.  It's time to get real tough on crime.

Things turn full circle. India has elected its Ronald Reagan. Narendra Modi was elected Prime Minister in a massive electoral victory. India has been ripe for this sort of thing to happen for at least 30 years. Back in the 1950s, the socialist Nehru ruined the emerging Indian economy, and drove the country into a nation of very rich and very poor. Gee, does that sound familiar? However, India was smart. They send their best and brightest here and to Australia, England, New Zealand, Canada, and other first world nations, to study STEM disciplines that would benefit both their economy, and the adoptive countries where some of them decided to stay.

Over the next 20 years, you are going to see a lot less Indians taking jobs from Americans, Australians, Kiwis, Brits, and Canadians. You might actually see Americans, Australians, Kiwis, Brits, and Canadians relocating to India for high paying tech sector jobs. Reason being, the Indian economy is going to skyrocket over the next 20 years, and become the Mecca for the tech industry. Poverty will decrease substantially in India. Eventually, you will have a huge middle class in India. And...you might be able to drink the water...