One of the mistakes many people make is not noticing the beauty in their own backyards.
From a political standpoint, I have been guilty of this as well.
After all, international politics is about war and peace, life and death. National politics allows for raging debates about economic, social, and cultural issues.
Local politics is about fixing potholes and christening minimarkets.
Local politics is boring.
Yet local politics is also vital.
I have no idea what is going on in my neighborhood. I do not even know who my neighbors are. Somehow, this cannot be a positive thing.
Therefore, with the presidential election in the rear view mirror, and national races mostly a year away except for a couple of governerships several months away, the attention should briefly shift to my own backyard.
On May 19th, 2009, there are some critical local elections. I have had the pleasure recently of meeting some local stars. I hope everybody gets to know them in time.
Ari David has his election in 2010. He is running for the 30th congressional seat currently being held by Henry Waxman. I live in this district, and am getting tired of apologizing for Congressman Waxman. Don’t blame me, I vote for his opponents.
Anyway, help Ari David send Congressman Waxman into a much needed and long overdue retirement.
http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/adavid/2009/01/24/i-despair/
Rabbi Nachum Shifren is running for the 26th State Senate district. Rabbi Shifren is a one of a kind person. He is a Chasidic Jew and an avid surfer. In his spare time he teaches surfing to people. His book is “The Surfing Rabbi.”
Rabbi Shifren, Ari David, and Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich got together with many others for a fundraiser for Tina Park. Tina Park is running for the 2nd seat on the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees.
I have to admit that education is not normally my issue. Yet Tina Park explained things perfectly when she pointed out that if our children are not properly educated, that will hurt every aspect of our ability to compete in the global marketplace.
What I also was able to glean from Tina was the impression that she was not a political climber. Some people win one election just to use as that a steppingstone for future elective office. With Tina, it seems to start and stop with education.
Yet beyond her passion, she offers solid qualifications.
She has deep experience as an auditor. This is vital because more good money gets thrown after bad down the sinkhole of our local educational system, and one question never gets answered.
Where did all the money go?
The results are not being delivered. Tina understands that while money alone cannot solve the myriad of problems, money that gets mired in bureaucracy does not help the students.
Tina has vowed to use her auditing skills to determine where the flow of funds is going, and what can be done to improve the schools once that money is located.
As I said, to get a person like me, who focuses on national issues, to stop and focus on a local education race, tells you about Tina Park.
While her race is officially non-partisan, she does understand that the old way of throwing money at the problem without demanding accountability is what got the schools into this mess to begin with.
Lastly, I want to spend a moment talking about Tina’s heritage. She is Korean, and the Korean community showed up to support her with great pride.
Yet what unites Tina Park, Nauchum Shifren, and Ari David is not culture. It is values.
These three people really do represent diversity, and not the kind that involves doing head counts of race or religion to ensure artificial feel-good quotas.
From the Korean community to the Orthodox Jewish community to the many other cultures that were represented at the fundraiser I attended, the Los Angeles community showed that what binds right of center office seekers are core principals.
It is the message that matters. Reducing taxes, bureaucracy, and overburdensome regulations will lead to a releasing of the stranglehold that bad ideas and policies have over people today, including our students.
It is for this reason that I took the time to look in my own backyard.
The election is May 19th.
For those eligible to vote in the election, do so.
For those able to donate, do so.
Support these local stars.
eric
Waxman should retire, oh come on! At most he is about 65 give or take
a year or two. I really don’t know? But he is the most powerful legislator in the House., as we all know. He obviously to survive, is pro-Israel….just as legislators in mainly Arab-Muslim districts in Michigan and Illinois, are pro-Abbas (Fatah).
John McCain ran for the Presidency, a far more difficult political position,
and you Eric were for him to a fault. His balding (follicly challanged
plate) really says it all.
Ted Kennedy is not exactly a teenager..neither is Reid nor Pelosi.
Spector is 79, and still has a lot to offer US. He was one of the
most outspoken advocates for our putting down Saddam Hussein.
When the war lingered on, and deaths climbed over 1,000 (wars are not cheap), the tide turned against it and him. Soooo, he now has done
what all good politicians did, he switched, rather fight a losing fight.
Frankly, politics being what it is, I don’t blame him.
He saw the Republican cycle of wins (typically 40 years) shifting to the
40 year cycle of the Democrats, who got the youth vote and thus won.
Let’s face it, that same youth, after another 10 years of striving to
succeed in this competitive world, and realizing how hard it is to make
a buck, will swing back to reality. (It’s always about whose ox is being
Gored). We should appreciate that IT IS NOT THEIR MONEY NOW AT LEAST THAT WILL PAY THE TRILLION DOLLAR DEFICITS.
I admit to being a Democrat most of my life. Then after I worked a few
years and saw how hard it was to just retain my job (competition from
an ever younger growing work force), keep abreast of current laws,
satisfy supervisors who knew that their promotion depended upon demotions ( opening up “slots”), taking home progressively less and less after taxes and benefit fees (even though I was achieving higher pay scales), I understood the consequences of the New World Order (sound
familar?), and it’s impact on people like me.
Soooo, I have voted for the Republican heads of the ticket for decades now. I did vote for Clinton….thinking he was an exceptional person, brilliant and able to articulate even better than Obama (later on).
Clinton’s mistake was in his flaw of being seduced too easily., a common
ailment sad to say. I mean even Roosevelt and Eisenhower were not
exactly angels..or Ted and John Kennedy for that matter, good Catholics.
So, we have Catholics, Baptists, Jews, and others…….violating the laws of
Moses (see 613 commandments, for those who don’t know behind
the 10). But, I admit, only the Noahide laws apply to the non-Jewish world, so maybe I’m being too harsch?
I ask myself, should I vote straight party (Republican) or vote the person?
I still believe that we should vote the person.
Anyone read today that the Obama team, through Biden, has begun to
court the J Street, a pro-peacenik type group, which is competing at a certain level against AIPAC. They blame Israel for all the world’s ills, and fault Israel for defending itself from time to time with incursions into
enemy territory (Gaza Strip/Lebanon). They seem to think that with Christian love, Israel can stop the Kassams, Grad Rockets, and soon to be fired Fajr Rockets (3 stage Iranian made) which can reach Tel Aviv, Ben-Gurion Airport, Haifa, Eilat (South) and Dimona (Israel’s nuke site).
Personally after a successful Jihad, these same J Street types will be the
first to be rounded up, gassed, shot, hung, experimented upon by
the Islamists and their supporters. I’m sure they dismiss this analysis
as pure b.s., Zionist propaganda.
Recall that the Russians knocked off 20,000 Polish officers during WW2..their supposed allies against the Reich.
Some people seem never to learn.
Henry Waxman is going to continue to be your congressman, I can asure you. I just read Ari David’s piece and can tell you right now – no one who thinks like that and concerns himself with the sorts of things he does is going to unseat a heavyweight like Waxman.
“It is the message that matters. Reducing taxes, bureaucracy, and overburdensome regulations will lead to a releasing of the stranglehold that bad ideas and policies have over people today,…”
You guys have GOT to come up with more than that. You HAVE to have a plan to ACCOMPLISH new things, not just clean up and complain about the old. Your party is just as guilty as the other when it comes to throwing money at issues – just different issues. You have to actually SHOW that you can cut spending while accomplishing something of value: EFFICIENCY. That’s what the people want – not simple-minded slogans like “lower taxes,” and “less regulation,” but “fair taxes” and “only necessary regulations.” You can’t just rail at “bureaucracy,” you have to rail at “inefficient” or “unnecessary” “bureaucracy.” And you can’t just say “cut spending.” You have to say exactly what spending you’re going to cut. You can’t just say “deregulate.” You have to say what regulations you’re going to change. People need more substance, not cheap, broad, easy answers to complex problems.
JMJ
Dan, you’re suffering from severe dellusional paranoia, not “zionist propoganda.” Okay?
JMJ
Eric, Backyards are great, but they bring a reality that is sometimes too personal to stomach. I can watch “the one” stumble mumble around; see Pelosi’s disingenuous babble about waterboarding and lauding the troops for their brave efforts fighting a war they aren’t equipped to fight and one that they shouldn’t be fighting even though she voted for it, and through her arrogance she tells military people they are too stupid to understand they volunteered to do this…and I can watch the Frank farter lisp through boy lover entitlements, and listen to tired arguments on both sides of the aisle and turn a blind eye to some of it because I have a job, and it would take a LOT to make changes at the national level…and the state level is too much for me…and I look to my neighbors…a jewish family with an Obama sign still stuck in the yard…former hippies…he’s a salesman for a home alarm company and his wife teaches school…imagine that…and I took an informal poll of 4 LTCs who work for me…3 of 4 said they thought the media was fair and balanced except Fox was way biased…and these are people I deal with every day and could influence…but one can’t reason with rabid dogs… So in my head I know I must get more involved locally, but in my heart I know it would cause high blood pressure and the potential of employing my Dad’s philosophy that there are few problems a good right hand can’t solve…and this once common sense bit of advice gets people arrested in today’s wimpy society… I don’t mean to be harsh, but sometimes we simply have to look at history – we would never have been a great nation had we employed the foolish mealy-mouthed correctness we use today.
“my Dad’s philosophy that there are few problems a good right hand can’t solve…and this once common sense bit of advice gets people arrested in today’s wimpy society”
Eagle, if you don’t like this “wimpy” (re: civilized) society, perhaps someplace else would be nice for you. After all, here in the First WOrld, we try not to act like slobbolas anymore. Perhaps Somalia. I hear they live by that “once common sense bit of advice.” There are some groups out there who do share your “advice” here in the US – like Nazi Punks, Honky Tonk Alley Brawlers, Wife Beaters of America, the National Association of Sado-Masochists, etc. So, I guess you don’t have to go to Somalia to enjoy the level of civilization that apparently suits you. It’s really up to you. Hey, it’s a “free” country, right? Too bad for you that freedom ends at the tip of another person’s nose. I wonder how you’d feel if someone employed your “dad’s philospohy” on someone you love? It’s kinda like sexual harrassment, when you think about it. Morons complain about SH laws until you remind them of the mothers, sisters, daughters, girlfriends, wives, aunts, and so forth, in their lives. Then suddenly that “common sense” seems pretty &^%$#@ stupid.
JMJ
Oh, and by the way Eagle, that “common sense” to which you refer was once known as “social Darwinism.” The Nazis loved that.
JMJ
Jersey, Tip of the nose is a bad place to hit people unless one wants to really do damage… there’s a nerve along the jaw line, when connected, makes people’s legs go out from under them…it doesn’t hurt one’s hand, and it is seldom damaging to the person except for his ego.
Your typical knee-jerk response is what one can expect from a rabid dog, but I actually give you more credit than that, and I would think you would afford the same consideration. To wit, one must employ just a touch of common sense in reading my post. From a disinterested observer, I suppose my comments imply that it’s ok to go around punching people for no good reason. That isn’t my point. My point is, the very people you mention, Nazi Punks, Honky Tonk Alley Brawlers, Wife Beaters of America et al are the very people who would benefit most by people using my philosophy… in other words, if we didn’t cater to these special rights groups who are protected by wimpy laws, we might not have as many of them. Spare the rod, spoil the child…everything must be within reason…but that is an uncommon trait among rabid dogs, which is why we have a telepunkster in the white house.
Yea Eagle.
I’ve run into the lack of common sense many times, mostly over my feelings towards Palestinians which is that they need to be delivered a blow so intense that submission of the entire society would be the only outcome. To that I’m called by many a genocidal Hitlerish maniac, when I never asserted any such thing. God forbid we use any colorful speech yet for example the left supports gay rights but attacks the only country in the Middle East where gays are protected by law. The left supports Hamas, an entity that kills as punishment for being gay. The left supports Iran which hangs gays, but the left also praises them as an agent of anti-imperialism, and then allows them to get on with its job of stoning women and chopping the heads off of dissidents and Christians and Jews. The left supports Ahmadinejad who threatens to eliminate Israel and is invited to speak to the UN General Assembly and Columbia but dont you dare joke about raising your hands to anyone
Israel guarantees civil liberties to all its citizens, Jew or Arab alike, but the left calls it an apartheid state as opposed to Hamas who kills its opponents and denies everyone else the simplet most basic rights. The left prefers the bully because the bully represents a finger in the face of the past administration.
Here at home they offer support to murderers, cop killers, child rapists yet when you mention appropriate reactions to these people you’re somehow less than them.
Dont let it get to you.
Its all self contradiction thats going to catch up eventually. Things are shaping up as we speak due to people beginning to get hip to all the lies and contradictions being put out by this administration who speaks of rights for those who want to kill us yet want to convict those who save American lives although they have no proof. People are starting to see the a$$backawardness thats taking place and they’re curling up their fists in anticipation of that blow to the chin.
I myself prefer the left roundhouse that delivers toupees flying across the room.
Yea, telepunkster cut back on the prayer sessions in the White house only because its getting to be a little awkward praying with a teleprompter. It really takes away from the sincerety and it looked like he was actually praying to the thing so he just said screw it.
Micky, Did you provide Eric information for his book? Great stuff.
Actually, most of my knowledge came from Eric.