Monday, October 10, 2011
Occupy Buffalo--Hey ho, let's go
Hey ho, let's go
Hey ho, let's go
They're forming in a straight line
They're going through a tight wind
The kids are losing their minds
The Blitzkrieg Bop
They're piling in the back seat
They're generating steam heat
Pulsating to the back beat
The Blitzkrieg Bop.
Hey ho, let's go
Shoot'em in the back now
What they want, I don't know
They're all reved up and ready to go.
The Blitzkrieg Bop.
I don't fully get all of the lyrics to the Ramones Blitzkrieg Bop, but it instantly popped into my mind minutes ago. Channel 4 is showing all of the pup tents and cardboard tents on the Buff (Fluff) State College campus. Yep. They've also joined the Occupy Wall Street movement--and overnight. Sheesh. They can't even wait until November to symbolically demonstrate how rough things are???
It's early in the semester. How many of these kids will bite the bullet and walk past all of those tables from credit card companies offering credit cards to them, offering credit based on how much they SHOULD make in their major once they graduate? How many of them will grow up and vote for responsible politicians, not the younger ones who seem to relate to them but offer contracts to shady construction companies, offer tax incentives to shady companies like Adelphia and Bass Pro who promise high paying jobs (here, high paying means $40-60K/year) but never deliver?
Simple solutions:
1. do NOT under any circumstances get a credit card. Using a pre-paid debit card or pay cash. Otherwise put things on layaway (more stores are offering that again).
2. Hold politicians responsible. If they act irresponsibly during one term, boot 'em in the next election. Protest if they continue to award contracts to companies that contribute to their campaigns.
3. Live within your means. Sorry, but many of the problems the Occupiers and Partiers are facing are entirely self-imposed, either by living beyond their means or voting for politicians who impose things like a garbage tax and foreclose on your house for failing to pay the crummy $150 garbage tax. We shouldn't even have a garbage tax.
Then there's the Home Energy Assistance Program (HEAP). It's one thing for HEAP to assist poor families with their heating bills. Nobody wants kids sitting in cold apartments during the winter, or the elderly dying of hypothermia. BUT, there's something drastically wrong when the government provides free furnaces and windows (yup, they do) to homeowners on HEAP. Check the Erie County Social Services web site.
Meanwhile, if my sister's furnace blows out, she has to shell out money from her retirement account.
4. New York State--stop using lotteries to fund NYS schools. People can't really afford lottery tickets, they're largely a waste of time and money. Yeah, they fund NYS school which are inept and reward incompetence among teachers.
5.More charter schools!! Every kid that goes to a charter school brings government money allocated towards their education with them. Charter Schools are businesses. Teachers fail to perform, they're out. Generations of kids aren't doomed to failure because the city hires teachers and never evaluates their competence. So yeah, support politicians who support charter schools.
Well, that's some suggestions. These Occupiers and Tea Partiers are getting on my nerve. We're Americans, not oppressed people in communist countries. We do have some control over our futures.
That about all I can think of to write about the occupy movement. Oh wait. One more thing--all of these protests are only revving up politicians. You'll get them unrattled to the point that they'll lie and promise even more things they can't/will not deliver.
Hey ho, let's go!
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2 Comments:
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on 10/12/11, 12:50 AM,
Chana @ Lemon Lime Moon
said: -
on 10/16/11, 3:04 PM,
Daniel Greenfield
said:
"Keli... regarding the post about Columbus on Knish...
Italians are many tribes mixed into one nation. They used to be city states as you well know. Lombards were very fair and blue eyed.
The Boudini of Italy were red heads with freckles!
There are many Italian Sephardim and contrary to the modern thinking, sephardim are not all dark some are very fair.
Today, though Sephardic has come to include Arabic people and Mizrahi and ,well, they are not Sephardim really.
As you may know my family is half Italian sephardim."