Rual America coming to save our cities

On Thu, 2 Feb 2017 23:34:54 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 2/2/2017 8:55 PM, John B. wrote:
On Thu, 2 Feb 2017 11:52:42 -0500, Frank Krygowski wrote:



In Ohio, our governor brags about having re-built the state's Rainy Day
Fund after Bush's near-depression caused it to tank. Among other
strategies, he rebuilt the fund by slashing support funds for local
governments and for schools. So items that had been free (like playing
on sports teams, playing in the band, field trips to museums etc.)
became "pay to play" items.

In addition, many school systems found themselves so broke that we
suddenly had piles of local school levies on the ballots. But the "No
new taxes!" idea got so popular that lots of those failed, and continue
to fail.

Not that there aren't benefits. One nearby system had to cut lots of
its school busing, so kids are walking to school again - a good thing.
Our own school board, in the midst of this, decided that it was time to
knock down the several grand old historic school buildings and build a
new campus out in the cornfields. The proposed levy for that purpose
set a record with its failure margin, although I can't say what
percentage of the "no" votes were historic preservation folks vs. "no
new tax" folks. But as a guy who loves the old buildings, I think that
levy failure was a good thing.

When I was a kid the School Bus was only for people that lived "out of
town", and was determined by whether you lived "inside or outside "the
precinct". When I went to my first school we lived roughly 100 yards
inside the precinct which resulted in me walking about a mile to
school as a first grader.

Wow. You did have it tough. I didn't have to walk a mile to school
until I was in the _second_ grade! ;-)


This is not to say that just because a thing used to be that it must
always be, but if kids successfully walked to school for generations,
or even hundreds of years, is it really progress that they cannot, or
will not, today?

Re "old buildings". It depends. Many "old buildings", particularly in
New England were built perhaps as much as 200 years ago and often lack
amenities that are considered normal, or even adequate, today.

These are about 100 years old, I think. Supposedly, there are two
issues: The heating systems need replaced, and it will cost too much to
run the internet to every classroom.

#1 will happen eventually with any building. But regarding #2, I
wouldn't be surprised if technology will remove the need for the wires
or cables within ten years or so.

Actually it is here now. My house - 2 floors - is all wireless and
I've stayed in a number of hotels that had wi-fi to the rooms and even
most large shoipping malls here are pretty well covered.

In fact other than electrical distribution I suspect that nearly
everything will become "wireless". It used to be that if your business
cards showed a cellular phone number people sneered; "you don't aeven
have an office". Now nearly all of the "busines signs" I see are
showing cell phone numbers with, perhaps, a land line number way down
at the bottom of the list.

--
Cheers,

John B.

On 2/2/17 10:48 PM, Sir Ridesalot wrote:
On Thursday, February 2, 2017 at 3:02:23 PM UTC-5, W. Wesley Groleau wrote:
On 2/2/17 3:04 AM, Tim McNamara wrote:
streets. Cops won't even pull you over on the highway unless you're
doing about 25 over, to my observation- unless they're in a bad mood and
you're black. Hell, they're cruising at least 15 over themselves.

In Toronto, it's illegal to bicycle with anything that prevents you from
having both hands on the handlebars. If I hadn't been obeying that law,
I'd have a nice photo of a cop with one hand on the handlebars, and a
nose and thumb in a smart phone. On a very busy street.

--
Wes Groleau

That's a great way for any bicyclist to beat any ticket for not signaling. "But your Honour, in order to signal i have to ta hand off the handle bar."

I think they get around it by the "with anything that prevents." It
doesn't say you have to always have both hands on, but if something in
one hand prevents you from grabbing the handlebars....

Didn't say anything about preventing you from watching for hazards, but
the cop also had that problem.

--
Wes Groleau

On 2/3/17 2:55 AM, John B. wrote:
When I was a kid the School Bus was only for people that lived "out of
town", and was determined by whether you lived "inside or outside "the
precinct". When I went to my first school we lived roughly 100 yards
inside the precinct which resulted in me walking about a mile to
school as a first grader.

Mine was only a half-mile K-4, quarter-mile 5 & 6 but 7 & 8 about a
mile. Don't know whether buses were an option. My sister decided to
learn the cello, but after carrying it to school one day, she decided
flute would be more fun. :-)

Five miles in high school but that was on a bus.

--
Wes Groleau

On Friday, February 3, 2017 at 12:01:31 PM UTC-8, W. Wesley Groleau wrote:
On 2/3/17 2:55 AM, John B. wrote:
When I was a kid the School Bus was only for people that lived "out of
town", and was determined by whether you lived "inside or outside "the
precinct". When I went to my first school we lived roughly 100 yards
inside the precinct which resulted in me walking about a mile to
school as a first grader.

Mine was only a half-mile K-4, quarter-mile 5 & 6 but 7 & 8 about a
mile. Don't know whether buses were an option. My sister decided to
learn the cello, but after carrying it to school one day, she decided
flute would be more fun. :-)

Five miles in high school but that was on a bus.

--
Wes Groleau

Mine was 2 1/2 miles in K-6 and another block to 7 through 9. I think that the first couple of months my older brother walked me to class but that ended after about that couple of months and I was left to myself. I used to take my 2 year younger brother to school. Then 10 - 12 was 5 miles. By that age I was used to walking 20 miles a day exploring the salt marshes and walking to high school at a full tilt walk was easy.

The idea of the school providing a bus in Oakland would have been hilarious..