chuck schick

Ha-- that it is! For some reason I'm not predicting a whole bunch of public outcry on this one. Lol

Amen, brother. Until that day comes, Go Sabres!!

See, I think the Civil Rights movement is exactly opposite to some of these ideas. There doesnt need to be asterisks or special wording depending on a person's color, sexual preference, etc. A hate crime is a crime; if you rob and then kick the crap out of someone, the punishment needs to effectively suit those actions. Who cares why the perpetrator did it? Its totally meaningless, in a legal sense. I would love to see long entrenched racial bias put to an end. My opinion is that none of this stuff will ever accomplish that, and will in fact make it worse. Back to my example of the 5th grade girl not being suspended.. No doubt it started with a well-meaning school administrator who looked at the statistics and saw that black kids were being suspended at a higher rate than others. So he/she decides that there is now a maximum number of suspensions allowed, so next year's statistics will show that discipline is much more equally dispersed. Problem solved!! I don't know the answers. But I would prefer to see the focus put on how the police enforce the laws, and what is considered acceptable behavior when doing so. If we keep sidetracking this into worrying about who is biased and to what degree, we will just go around in circles like we've been doing for decades.

I would compare this whole issue more to gay marriage. The problem was that individuals were being treated differently by the government. The solution was to simply say "What's good for <this group of people> is also good for < that group of people>". We didn't need more rules and hoops to jump through. For this swimming pool case, the question should be whether or not the cop did something wrong. Period. If he did, there needs to be a protocol in place to address the severity of the infraction. I also can't stand the term "Hate crime"... Is it a crime, or not? I'm not saying I don't see the value in using statistics. But my counter to your argument (as I see it) would be : "OK, we found out that racial bias among police officers is....Bad? Good? Really, really bad?" Now what would the next step be? We all know the answer is to implement some bogus policy or initiative that would further divide and alienate the groups of people involved.

I just don't see the end game to this type of thinking. The more we divide people into collectives, and set up special rules to handle each of them ( which is where this is all heading), the further we get from actually solving any of the problems. I've got a buddy who is an elementary school PE teacher. A 5th grade girl was repeatedly beating up some kid, so he brought her down to the office to have her suspended. The principal informed him they had already reached their maximum number of suspensions for black kids for the year, so he would have to figure out a different/lesser punishment. This is 100% true and I'm guessing not that uncommon (not the specific case but similar situations). I think we have plenty of laws that protect individuals' rights. We just need to better and more consistently enforce them.

Oh good...The Federal Government will know what to do! ( just kidding....this is probably a good thing if it doesn't get twisted around too badly)

I agree and think TM's comments and demeanor since the draft selection are done very purposefully. I mean, at what point would he have truly EXPECTED to get that first pick.....I just don't believe it. I admit I don't know why he is putting out the whoa-is-me act about not getting that #1 though. Maybe it'll make sense in time?

What I'm saying is that everyone gets a free education until at least age 18. If you want to continue your schooling beyond that, there exists a means to do so, even if you don't have money at the time. Just one way of many to find a way to make a living.

Man, I get the point that it's tough out there, and for sure tougher on some than others. But I really don't get the whole doom-and-gloom thing. In my lifetime, I honestly can't think of a single person- young, old, black, white, ugly, short, poor, whatever- who was motivated, hard-working, and competent that couldn't achieve some degree of success. Sure there are obstacles and injustices, but there are also many opportunities to those willing to take advantage. It doesn't mean we shouldn't keep trying to improve, but hoping for the perfect system is not the answer.

I can imagine that internet access and a laptop - with access to courses, libraries, counselors, etc.- for each kid would become part of the public education system. If it could replace having to go to a physical building, the savings would be enormous. I won't argue that a supportive home life and healthy meals aren't important for a child. But I don't believe that this responsibility should fall on the public school system. We have tried to make a school the surrogate parents in many ways, and it is obviously not working. I would even argue that the more that's been done in this area, the WORSE the situation has gotten. (See Washington, D.C. as an example).

I think the internet is going to bail us out of a lot of the problems in education that we've created. Anybody who has taken an online course has experienced the benefits vs the traditional on-campus experience. The massive expenses and logistical problems that can be avoided include: feeding the kids (most schools are now serving 2 or more meals per day), costs of building and maintaining the school, busing and transportation, and weather-related closures, just to name a few. And it will open up the opportunity to take all kinds of different courses (language, math, tech, etc.) which would be impossible for many smaller schools to offer.

I think this episode made Jimmy wake up to a couple of realities. One is that he thrives and enjoys the hustle/scamming that he's been made to feel ashamed of (by people whose opinions suddenly don't mean so much any more). This brings him to the realization that the life and career he is about to step into doesn't give him the satisfaction he thought it would. And finally, the role that money plays in Jimmy's life is not as cut-and-dried as he/we originally thought. He's obviously a very generous person, and quite unselfish. But he loves to outwit people and get rewarded financially for it. He was FAR more excited to get the $110 from the guy at the bar than he was receiving the $20K from HHM. Earning a six figure income and drawing up wills for the next 20 years probably didn't sound too great.

That was my first impression. The "article" didn't sound anything like a real interview, but rather a couple of phrases plucked out of a conversation. Could very easily have been a joke by TM.

Sorry to stick my nose into your(plural) conversation, but I really enjoyed this post. As a conservative, my honest question is : Doesn't the Democrat/liberal platform lend itself more to the pitfalls you describe? Redistribution of wealth (I.e. voting yourself more money) and a political machine that sustains itself by attracting voters who think similarly are a big part of how I identify Democrats (rightly or wrongly :)). It just seems to me that it becomes a never-ending cycle, where a central government creates more and more dependence while assuming more control. I'm not trying to compare this to other alternatives, just wondering what folks on the left think about this potential problem, or if it is even seen as a problem.

This is a great argument why we need to give people more choices through their kids' education. The whole one-size-fits-all approach you get when the federal government is calling the shots. I really thought the voucher system could have opened up some new ways of doing things. And, no offense to anyone, but I am not going to look to Europe to provide a model for how the US should do much of anything.

We are getting one of these up the street from me here in Va Beach. I've heard good things! My mom's side of the family is from East Aurora, and my grandfather used to get these things called "faz nochs" (I have no idea how to spell it). You HAD to eat them while they were warm, but they were awesome!