Recently we happened to have the tv tuned to Channel 6 outside of the regular City Council time and we caught another group in action: the Human Rights Commission. They were listening to presentations on the question of giving ex-offenders preferential treatment similar to the "affirmative action" model, particularly in the job interview/hiring process. Whatever the Human Rights Commission decides will be presented to the City Council as a recommendation, so if this issue concerns you, it might be a good idea to contact the City Clerk and find out when meetings, hearings, and decision-points are likely to be reached.
Here is a link to this commission's page in the City hall site: http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/agenda/2008/rights_062308.htm
You know, "Affirmative Action" started out as an idea that made sense. Our history and culture has allowed us to erect unconscious barriers in society to the advancement of people who have certain physical, inborn traits that we know have nothing to do with mental or intellectual competence: race and gender, and "Affrimative Action" seemed like a necessary step to take in breaking down those barriers. It has been somewhat expanded to include lifestyle choices such as homosexuality, culture and religion because there are strong arguments that these are at least partially inborn traits or are important private choices, and in any case are not normally violating another person's rights. But the notion of giving "ex-offenders", people who have been found guilty of crimes and done time, anything like an "Affirmative -Action" eligibility boggles the mind.
The main point seems to be "Ban the Box", a movement to prohibit employers from asking about criminal convictions on job applications. But affirmative action requirements that include bringing job offerings to ex-offender populations were also mentioned. These could be requirements for employers.
There are legitimate issues about job applications that ask such questions as "have you ever been arrested?" which probably should be prohibited because it is too easy for a corrupt society to subject people to arrest for no good reason. Such arrests usually are tossed out of court, if they get that far, and the person should never have to refer to it when filling out applications, but convictions? There are processes by which an unjust conviction can be overturned or expunged. We may need to expand and strengthen those processes, but we don't need to protect the people who were rightfully convicted of crimes. We may even be giving a message to young people that they can get extra points in careers if they get in trouble!
Job applications should certainly be simplified and sensitive questions should be held back to a more secure level, especially concerning the ease with with completely unauthorized an unqualified workers can read them in some companies where they are left sitting on a shift-manager's desk or a public counter, but affirmative action for ex-offenders????
Comments welcome, because this subject sure does need discussion!
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Governor's Mansion Fire Cited As Warning
Today at City Hall a young child addressed the City Council on a consolidation proposal by first saying that what happened to the Governor's Mansion needs to be noticed. She then spoke about graffitti as art, referring to the famous "frog" icon on the drag and mentioning that this icon has shown up in other cities. She gave a most unchild-like speech about graffitti as art. She closed with an appeal to the Council to support article 59.
(An aside: here is a very interesting link to an article about the City Council voting last year to spend $50,000 on "graffiti education", dailytexanonline.com )
She was followed by an adult who spoke about meeting with the NEA in Colorado in preparation to bring this new division program to Austin.
Forgive this reporter for not noting all the names down for this article. This reporter was sitting in near-shock. This reporter is a survivor of the graffitti-driven and violent gang that set up a similar commission in Pittsfield, Massachusetts in the late 1980's that drove all independent artists out of that city while the political group that remained shoved death-oriented and extreme left-wing violent art projects into the high schools and into the public arena. Several people died suspiciously while fighting that group. The corruption in Massachusetts has always been notorious and need not be discussed here, except when it casts its shadow as far as Texas.
The proposed creation of this new Arts Division involves the merging of six city committees/commissions and looks like simply a move towards efficiency, but it covers a more sinister agenda. Someone coached that young child to open her remarks with reference to the burning of the Governor's Mansion and reference to the "need" to see graffitti as art, something no child of her apparent 9-12 years (at most) would have done on her own. Someone brought her around to see graffitti matching Austin marks in several cities, according to her own remarks as she described her surprise and she was told that the appearance of these marks in places like New York means Austin is very important.
The child who spoke in Austin is African-American, but the people responsible for exploiting children in New York and Massachusetts in this left-wing "art" tactic are mostly white racists. They are skilled at choosing unsuspecting or vulnerable people to deflect responsibility for their well-orchestrated violence and propaganda.
The Austin Egalitarian believes we have been given a warning, and that a very surreptitious and home-grown terrorist group is taking credit for the arson at the Governor's Mansion as their opening salvo.
Notice the new graffiti around town, the hanging bat? Look for more art-edgy projects involving school children and teachers who will be claiming this is art.
What it really is, is an opportunity for some "teachers" and other adults to bring children into contact with street violence, teaching them to see police authjority as the "enemy" and moving them into the role of violent confrontation with the "evil" authorities, because the children do not have the experience to understand that the innocent appearance of a bat or a frog is not the point: the vandalism of property is the point.
These home-grown terrorists who are snatching the minds of children right in front of us in City Hall are teaching the children the "property is theft" extremism of anarchist socialism, that is the kind that results in violence. And in order to succeed, they need not only the protection of City Hall which will fear embarrassment if they are investigated, but they also need to drive all the independent professional artists out of town, in order to silence the voices most likely to be influential in the early stages of resisting this incredible coup in Texas.
(An aside: here is a very interesting link to an article about the City Council voting last year to spend $50,000 on "graffiti education", dailytexanonline.com )
She was followed by an adult who spoke about meeting with the NEA in Colorado in preparation to bring this new division program to Austin.
Forgive this reporter for not noting all the names down for this article. This reporter was sitting in near-shock. This reporter is a survivor of the graffitti-driven and violent gang that set up a similar commission in Pittsfield, Massachusetts in the late 1980's that drove all independent artists out of that city while the political group that remained shoved death-oriented and extreme left-wing violent art projects into the high schools and into the public arena. Several people died suspiciously while fighting that group. The corruption in Massachusetts has always been notorious and need not be discussed here, except when it casts its shadow as far as Texas.
The proposed creation of this new Arts Division involves the merging of six city committees/commissions and looks like simply a move towards efficiency, but it covers a more sinister agenda. Someone coached that young child to open her remarks with reference to the burning of the Governor's Mansion and reference to the "need" to see graffitti as art, something no child of her apparent 9-12 years (at most) would have done on her own. Someone brought her around to see graffitti matching Austin marks in several cities, according to her own remarks as she described her surprise and she was told that the appearance of these marks in places like New York means Austin is very important.
The child who spoke in Austin is African-American, but the people responsible for exploiting children in New York and Massachusetts in this left-wing "art" tactic are mostly white racists. They are skilled at choosing unsuspecting or vulnerable people to deflect responsibility for their well-orchestrated violence and propaganda.
The Austin Egalitarian believes we have been given a warning, and that a very surreptitious and home-grown terrorist group is taking credit for the arson at the Governor's Mansion as their opening salvo.
Notice the new graffiti around town, the hanging bat? Look for more art-edgy projects involving school children and teachers who will be claiming this is art.
What it really is, is an opportunity for some "teachers" and other adults to bring children into contact with street violence, teaching them to see police authjority as the "enemy" and moving them into the role of violent confrontation with the "evil" authorities, because the children do not have the experience to understand that the innocent appearance of a bat or a frog is not the point: the vandalism of property is the point.
These home-grown terrorists who are snatching the minds of children right in front of us in City Hall are teaching the children the "property is theft" extremism of anarchist socialism, that is the kind that results in violence. And in order to succeed, they need not only the protection of City Hall which will fear embarrassment if they are investigated, but they also need to drive all the independent professional artists out of town, in order to silence the voices most likely to be influential in the early stages of resisting this incredible coup in Texas.
Friday, June 6, 2008
Nightmare On Second Street
It boggles the mind. One begins to wonder if one accidently signed up for some kind of Orwellian "Reality" show. One begins to wonder if some kind of Jim Jonesian kool-aid is being sipped up there on the dais.
I'm talking about Article 18:
"Approve an ordinance authorizing the acceptance of $30,000 in grant funds from the TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF STATE HEALTH SERVICES, GOVERNOR’S ADVISORY COUNCIL ON PHYSICAL FITNESS, Austin, TX; and amending the Fiscal Year 2007-2008 Health and Human Services Operating Budget Special Revenue Fund of Ordinance No. 20070910-003 to appropriate $30,000 to restructure the Mayor's Fitness Council and create a web-based Austin Fitness Index. Funding in the amount of $30,000 is available from the Texas Department of State Health Services, Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness, Austin, Texas. The grant period is May 1, 2008 through October 31, 2008. "
By itself, it looks innocuous. Maybe the City Hall is going to engage in a little promotional propaganda for getting people to use stairs instead of elevators, etc.
I was late for the meeting. As I sat down, a well-tanned middle-aged man was speaking. It was Lou Earle, publisher & CEO of Austin Fit Magazine. He was describing a plan to use the $30,000 grant in a program that will facilitate the placement of volunteers inside "faith-based organizations" and "affinity groups" as well as places of employment, in order to accomplish "real behavior change" regarding tobacco use, obesity, and other health issues.
Not one comment or question came from anyone on the dais. No one seemed to realize that if you have a government-paid set of "volunteers" embedding themselves inside existing organizations for the purpose of coercing "behavior change" in the members private lives, then you have.......
Well, you have....
Full-blown, unadulterated, pure FASCISM.
What else is it? A person joins a faith-based group for many reasons having nothing to do with "fitness" and certainly has the right to engage in faith-based activities without worrying about "fitness". What kind of misery is going to be visited upon such people when they discover they cannot engage in their chosen activities without facing invasive, intrusive questions about their diet, exercise, and health from these intrusive "fitness" experts? What about the other affinity groups? The art groups and book clubs, the garden groups and charity orgs? Are they all going to be forced to treat perceived "unfit" people as pariahs, are they all going to be trained in the art of mobbing and ostracizing the recalcitrant smoker or drinker?
And couple this with the other looming shadow of Fascism, the Parks Dept recent decision that groups of people exercising with an instructor need to pay $500 a year to assemble on public land, and you see why I call this a nightmare. It is a real one-two-punch.
Consider this hypothetical situation: an individual develops a personal network of friends with a common interest, maybe they sing in a choral group. The group gets noticed by the city-supported "fitness promoters" who will embed one of their trainers in it to start forcing the singers to gang up on any smokers or fat people. All of a sudden the rehearsals are places where snide, nasty remarks and syrupy-scary "invitations" to change are going to be repeated every week.
Now since smokers and fat people are approved hate-objects, many readers might say "so what?" Well, what about the thin person who may be using the easy camaraderie of a faith-based singing group to overcome anorexia or bulimia? And what about the fat person who is not a glutton but who is carrying weight that may have accumulated over a number of years after a heart ailment or other issue put the kabosh to exercise? Do these people now have to face being spoken to in that elitist, patronizing, dehumanizing tone that Fascists use for average citizens?
Ok, so we don't care about exascerbating normal human frailties with City-hall sponsored fascism. Let's look at the compliant, obedient members of our hypothetical "affinity" or "faith-based" group: the ones who try to overcome the psychological bullying by agreeing to meet together to exercise and support each other.
Now they are going to be approached by the Parks "thought police" who are going to publicly humiliate them with questions about what do they think they are doing, showing up to exercise together, because they are going to have to prove that none of them is an instructor.
End result: average people will stay home. Harmless little volunteer groups and hobby clubs will disband because of hurt feelings and well-founded fears of intrusion into family and private lives. The animosity that will be encouraged by City Hall's support of the fitness trainers will cause more illness, more unhealthy habits, than will be cured. People will be forced to answer personal questions asked by strangers and if they don't co-operate with those trainers, the trainers will step up to "interventions".
And what really is known about fitness? I am no expert but I do know this: at one time all alcohol was considered the demon's work, but then science showed that moderate wine and beer consumption has health benefits. I know that the explosion in obesity followed the drive to eliminate tobacco from common use, and I have wondered about the actual relative cost of lung cancer compared to type II diabetes and other complications of obesity. I also am aware that many prescription medications have weight gain as a side effect and some are known to cause type II diabetes in most people if they are used continuously for three or more years.
What people need is to be left alone. The City can best encourage fitness by telling the Parks department to forget the $500 fees and let people enjoy a safe and pleasant landscape in which to walk, jog, dance and play. The City should eliminate most car traffic from the core and also set up bike-only arteries into it so that people will just naturally become more active. Give that $30,000 to a fitness program that may include some kind of reward to businesses that install fitness equipment and showers or that give employees credit in nearby fitness centers like Gold's Gym, but don't burden us all with yet another layer of obnoxious attitude-police!
I'm talking about Article 18:
"Approve an ordinance authorizing the acceptance of $30,000 in grant funds from the TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF STATE HEALTH SERVICES, GOVERNOR’S ADVISORY COUNCIL ON PHYSICAL FITNESS, Austin, TX; and amending the Fiscal Year 2007-2008 Health and Human Services Operating Budget Special Revenue Fund of Ordinance No. 20070910-003 to appropriate $30,000 to restructure the Mayor's Fitness Council and create a web-based Austin Fitness Index. Funding in the amount of $30,000 is available from the Texas Department of State Health Services, Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness, Austin, Texas. The grant period is May 1, 2008 through October 31, 2008. "
By itself, it looks innocuous. Maybe the City Hall is going to engage in a little promotional propaganda for getting people to use stairs instead of elevators, etc.
I was late for the meeting. As I sat down, a well-tanned middle-aged man was speaking. It was Lou Earle, publisher & CEO of Austin Fit Magazine. He was describing a plan to use the $30,000 grant in a program that will facilitate the placement of volunteers inside "faith-based organizations" and "affinity groups" as well as places of employment, in order to accomplish "real behavior change" regarding tobacco use, obesity, and other health issues.
Not one comment or question came from anyone on the dais. No one seemed to realize that if you have a government-paid set of "volunteers" embedding themselves inside existing organizations for the purpose of coercing "behavior change" in the members private lives, then you have.......
Well, you have....
Full-blown, unadulterated, pure FASCISM.
What else is it? A person joins a faith-based group for many reasons having nothing to do with "fitness" and certainly has the right to engage in faith-based activities without worrying about "fitness". What kind of misery is going to be visited upon such people when they discover they cannot engage in their chosen activities without facing invasive, intrusive questions about their diet, exercise, and health from these intrusive "fitness" experts? What about the other affinity groups? The art groups and book clubs, the garden groups and charity orgs? Are they all going to be forced to treat perceived "unfit" people as pariahs, are they all going to be trained in the art of mobbing and ostracizing the recalcitrant smoker or drinker?
And couple this with the other looming shadow of Fascism, the Parks Dept recent decision that groups of people exercising with an instructor need to pay $500 a year to assemble on public land, and you see why I call this a nightmare. It is a real one-two-punch.
Consider this hypothetical situation: an individual develops a personal network of friends with a common interest, maybe they sing in a choral group. The group gets noticed by the city-supported "fitness promoters" who will embed one of their trainers in it to start forcing the singers to gang up on any smokers or fat people. All of a sudden the rehearsals are places where snide, nasty remarks and syrupy-scary "invitations" to change are going to be repeated every week.
Now since smokers and fat people are approved hate-objects, many readers might say "so what?" Well, what about the thin person who may be using the easy camaraderie of a faith-based singing group to overcome anorexia or bulimia? And what about the fat person who is not a glutton but who is carrying weight that may have accumulated over a number of years after a heart ailment or other issue put the kabosh to exercise? Do these people now have to face being spoken to in that elitist, patronizing, dehumanizing tone that Fascists use for average citizens?
Ok, so we don't care about exascerbating normal human frailties with City-hall sponsored fascism. Let's look at the compliant, obedient members of our hypothetical "affinity" or "faith-based" group: the ones who try to overcome the psychological bullying by agreeing to meet together to exercise and support each other.
Now they are going to be approached by the Parks "thought police" who are going to publicly humiliate them with questions about what do they think they are doing, showing up to exercise together, because they are going to have to prove that none of them is an instructor.
End result: average people will stay home. Harmless little volunteer groups and hobby clubs will disband because of hurt feelings and well-founded fears of intrusion into family and private lives. The animosity that will be encouraged by City Hall's support of the fitness trainers will cause more illness, more unhealthy habits, than will be cured. People will be forced to answer personal questions asked by strangers and if they don't co-operate with those trainers, the trainers will step up to "interventions".
And what really is known about fitness? I am no expert but I do know this: at one time all alcohol was considered the demon's work, but then science showed that moderate wine and beer consumption has health benefits. I know that the explosion in obesity followed the drive to eliminate tobacco from common use, and I have wondered about the actual relative cost of lung cancer compared to type II diabetes and other complications of obesity. I also am aware that many prescription medications have weight gain as a side effect and some are known to cause type II diabetes in most people if they are used continuously for three or more years.
What people need is to be left alone. The City can best encourage fitness by telling the Parks department to forget the $500 fees and let people enjoy a safe and pleasant landscape in which to walk, jog, dance and play. The City should eliminate most car traffic from the core and also set up bike-only arteries into it so that people will just naturally become more active. Give that $30,000 to a fitness program that may include some kind of reward to businesses that install fitness equipment and showers or that give employees credit in nearby fitness centers like Gold's Gym, but don't burden us all with yet another layer of obnoxious attitude-police!
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