Hoptown News

0116 Dropout age change

It appears the state is going to seek a dropout age increase for school students to begin not next year but in 2016! People will forget why we're doing it if it takes that long to get it started. 4 years is too long. 1 year or maybe 2 would be ok but 4 is not good. More time to spend more money to study the problem. The problem is pretty obvious. Let's get busy and get this done next year.

0102 Happy New Year

Christmas and New Year have come and gone. It was a pretty good time for us. Matt's birthday is the 28th so we had like two Christmases in one. The weather couldn't have been better and we had no bad news in the health department. Everyone was healthy in our little family. Now for 2012. It's anybody's guess. One war ended another ongoing. our troops at Campbell are home for the time being. That's good. Unfortunately the Army started taking the dredges of society and we may have to pay a steep price for that once they are out of the war zone and back in the civilian world. We trained them to be killers and some don't know where to draw the line.

All we can do is hope for the best.

1220 Don't Forget

Winter is upon us with the attendant cold weather. Don't forget to check the anti freeze in you vehicle. Also, if you have batteries in yard maintenance equipment or boats or jet skis or whatever, it' s a good idea to take the batteries out and charge them up then put them in a warm place for the winter. Warm means warm, not just in a storage space with no heat. Batteries are very susceptible to cold weather especially when they are not fully charged. Batteries, like everything else, have gotten expensive, so it's worth a little effort to keep them warm. If you can find a place in the house, like the attic, put them there. Don't get a hernia.

Bad Actors 1212

A couple of days ago I was discussing with a friend of mine who teaches at HHS, the need for law officers in the schools to keep order. He said that was blown all out of proportion. I opined as how having to have law officers in schools at all was out of proportion. He responded that the reason it was out of proportion was that of the 1200 some odd students in the high schools, only about 50 caused all the problems. FIFTY. Even one is too many, much less fifty. I couldn't believe a teacher would be so satisfied with such a large number of trouble makers wandering the halls of our high schools. I say isolate the 50 and put them in separate facilities so the other 1150 can learn something. I'm for raising the drop out age to 18. An unemployed 16 year old on the streets is just trouble waiting to happen and is bound for the court system. Raising the age will undoubtedly raise the number of bad actors from 50 to who knows what? Fifty may not be a big number but being close to the bottom statewide in education is being caused by something. The fifty probably have a lot to do with it.

1208 New City Hall

It sure looks like we're going to get a new city hall and a refurbished police station to the tune of what appears to be close to 10 mil. I don't deny there is a need to  plan for the future, but our future doesn't look all that bright to me right now. Maybe someone knows something I don't. A new city hall will not produce a single dime to the income of the city. Nor will a police station for that matter. They can only cost money, not make money. Three council members oppose them but they can't stop them. I wish the others would give more consideration to the projects before passing them. I am a fiscal conservative and don't like taxes for the sake of allowing government to grow. Government is big enough already. There seems to be little interest from the public in these projects which surprises me. With our unemployment rate high and per capita income low, I would think there would be more voicing of negative sentiments. Maybe no one cares.

1208 Violence Abounds

What is causing all this violence with the police? It's fairly normal to have shootings and stabbings between individuals but the police seldom have to resort to guns to enforce the law. I think maybe we should look into the law enforcement procedures and see if we have inadvertantly put pressure on the police to shoot people rather than outsmarting them.

1205 The winning ticket.

Last week the Chamber of Commerce sponsored the Festival of Trees at the mall. There were a lot of trees decorated by various organizations which were judged in 3 categories. Also, you could buy a raffle ticket and put it in the bucket next to the tree you would like to have. My grandson, Matthew bought a ticket and put it in the bucket for the UHA tree. You have probably guessed it, his ticket was pulled and now we have a tree to pick up and take somewhere. Sometimes good luck can be a pain in the neck.

1203 Bad News

We were eating lunch today at a Hoptown Restaurant and the waitress asked us if the parade was over. We didn't know. She said she didn't know the parade was today until some customers had told her. Peggy assured her it had been on the radio for several days. She said she didn't listen to the news or watch it on tv or read the paper. I asked why. She said it was depressing to read about sex abuse, kids being molested, kids being beaten to death, people doing terrible things to each other, war, the economy etc etc. I wonder how many people are in the same boat as this individual. It's so much easier to tune the radio into a good music station or watch a sitcom on cable or satellite. The paper is optional and a little pricey for some people.

But, I can't argue with her logic. Missing the Christmas parade is not the end of the world. Keeping up with current events is important for a well informed electorate but it can be hard to swallow the news day after day when you are reading about adult men having sex with babies and adults killing their children for no apparent reason, not to mention big banks in trouble, people setting off bombs and on and on. All we can do is elect people who will use the power of government to punish these offenders and try to find out why they are doing the things they are and stop it.

1201 Police Officer DUI with kids

The officer who drove drunk ( he admits it) with his kids deserves the max the law will allow. Talk about bad judgement. Of course there were other people on the road with their kids that could have been victims of a wreck resulting from his condition. There is no excuse for such activity. Alcohol is not to blame. Bad judgement is to blame. It could just as easily have been too much prescription medication. We must be careful what we imbibe so that we don't go over the line regardless of what we're taking. In any case a crime was committed and guilt has been admitted so now the law must do its job.

1130 The Shopping Spree

If we have so many unemployed people, where is the money coming from to set the shopping records? All sales are higher than last year in the retail markets. Sales for some higher ticket items are up 25% over last year. I'm beginning to doubt the government's unemployment figures. There must be a lot of people working that have been missed in the count. Just my opinion.