October 2013 – Page 3

GO Friday: On education

In the first of what I hope becomes a weekly series of guest opinions I introduced last week, I bring you a treatise on public education by Jason Boisvert.

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There are two important premises in discussions on public education. The first is that it’s necessary, and the second is that it works. Let’s look at these and see if they’re true.

The first goal of public (herein “state”) education is providing a well-rounded education in language, science, math and history. But the results are students with almost no knowledge of science or history, limited math skills and, often, functional illiteracy. It’s clear, from both national and international testing, that state education fails in this goal.

Second is life preparation, managing a budget, understanding social and professional protocols, and being able to work in an entry-level or low-level job. The plain proof of failure here is credential creep; what was once a high-school level job now requires a bachelor’s degree, and the first lesson in any job-training program is “Don’t wear jeans to interviews.”

But state educators claim that their job is to prepare students for college, and it’s the job of college to prepare students for work. The number and growth of explicitly remedial courses put the lie to that claim.

Moreover, ask an average student if they love learning. They’ve been taught through direct experience that learning is a tiresome, boring, mind-numbing exercise that doesn’t result in anything of value. After all, the same kids who “can’t” do math can rattle off baseball statistics and calculate how long they need to last to the next health pack in a video game.

Since it’s clear that state education fails, what are the explanations given?

Money is their top complaint, and with the condition many schools and their equipment is in, it certainly looks that way. But what is bought is not necessarily what is spent. Take a class of 25 kids, at $10,000 a year for each – a low estimate – and you get $250,000. Subtract a teacher’s salary of $50,000 and you’re left with $200,000 for that year’s textbooks, desks, materials, rooms, etc. At this level of spending, what could you buy to teach kids?

This level of spending makes plain that the issue is not money. Over a quarter-million dollars per classroom makes it plain as day.

The second complaint is blaming parents as being not involved enough, too poor, bad neighborhoods, and so forth. Leaving aside that this contention undercuts the entire justification of state education, excellent teachers have demonstrated that this is a burden that can be overcome. Jaime Escalante, in East Los Angeles, created an AP Calculus program that won national acclaim.

If these justifications are so much empty air, what are the real reasons for this widespread failure? There are many, but all have one of two roots – monopoly privilege and unionization.

The monopoly privilege isn’t a traditional monopoly, but comes from two things: required student attendance to some facility, and exclusive access to tax support. Both these together shield state schools from the consequences of their bad decisions, and render them free to ignore parental concerns.

But it leaves them vulnerable to political pressure, and most of that pressure comes from teacher’s unions. One of the largest factors in American politics, they use that power to benefit their membership rolls and shield bad, incompetent, or abusive teachers.

While private unions have their impulses to maximize membership mostly balanced by the threat of business failure (though not always, such as the case of Hostess), public unions never have to worry about such outcomes. Their maximization comes at the cost of educational quality, as rules kill innovation and development.

Worse, the union’s focus on seniority over performance destroys educational quality. Long-serving teachers are never in line for layoffs; on the other hand, not even a teacher-of-the-year award can protect a new teacher from layoffs. There are several cases where a teacher was awarded Teacher-Of-The-Year and fired in the same year.

These factors shield the education system from the consequences of bad, selfish or destructive decisions. One such decision is the certification system for teaching in public schools. They require, not a degree or experience in the subject, but a degree in education. Experienced doctors, lawyers, and scientists are not qualified to teach medicine, law and science and can’t, but a newly-graduated Education major without any background in these subjects is and can.

Also, state schools teach to the middle, writing off the top and bottom. If the top succeed within the system, great, but those talented students who require some accommodation to succeed are shoved aside and drop out. State schools simply do not have to care about outliers, whereas some private schools may decide to specialize in them.

But that still leaves the middle, and another destructive choice – the choice to teach down to a level that doesn’t challenge students, but meets the bare minimums for state exams. Students learn to feign ignorance to avoid new (hard) material in favor of re-hashing things already taught.

Another common example of selfish, destructive choices is one that public school system and it’s unions claim to oppose. The phrase “teaching to the test” is the shorthand method of referring to it, but it has two separate meanings, one of which is actually beneficial to student achievement, and another, which is actively harmful. But what the system is actually opposed too is the testing, and any metric by which the system can be evaluated.

The two meanings of the phrase are contradictory; the first meaning is “teach the material on the test.” Teaching material on properly-designed tests of basic skills will give students basic skills, many of which are missing from educational programs. This is what the system is opposed to. The second meaning, however, is what the system actually does. They teach students to pass the test, independent of the material. The biggest example of this is the “Whole Word Recognition (WWR)” method of teaching “literacy.”

WWR teaches the shortcuts readers develop on their own as they gain experience in reading. It does not teach the core concepts of phonics, allowing students to move quickly past words they have been taught, but without any ability to learn new words on their own. This gives illiterate students the ability to pass reading comprehension tests with grade-level word-sets, like state exams, and deny illiteracy, while remaining unable to read books outside specific, grade-level criteria. It gives the teachers credit for doing their jobs without actually doing it. This policy extends widely throughout education, and WWR is merely the most extreme example.

Finally, because they don’t have to, schools refuse to change in the face of new conditions or new facts. Research has discovered, for example, that teenagers are biologically predisposed to wake and fall asleep later, and that early-morning studies are detrimental to many students. This research is nearly twenty years old, but many schools have shifted to earlier start times, not later ones.

Likewise, mechanics, machine operators and other skilled trades could be taught at the high-school level and are in high demand, but schools cut auto shop from the curriculum thirty years ago and never looked back. Reacting and adjusting to either of these facts would improve their students’ ability to succeed, but schools simply demand more money for what they are already doing, despite enough money being available to add useful programs.

There are solutions to these issues, however. The first step is to introduce voucher systems at the state and local level. Vouchers are government grants in the value the state is already paying for an average child’s education. The money is paid to the school the student attends, instead of the school assigned to the fief the student lives in. The money could be used to send students to any public or private school, within the jurisdiction of the government, or even without. To reduce the burden on the state, and introduce price competition, parents who send their children to schools that charge less than the value of the voucher could receive some of the savings in cash.

This would be an immediate policy-level solution as it wouldn’t require removal or reform of the public system, but would allows parents to evacuate their children to an alternative, competing system. The profit-motive would cause a wide variety of schools to appear, catering to specific need-sets of the students they serve, solely and only because parents could punish failing schools by leaving, and reward successful schools by joining or staying. Schools that act as indifferently to student needs and parental desires as the modern state school would quickly find themselves out of students, and that is the only real objection – it endangers the union-monopoly on education.

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About the author: Jason Boisvert, 29, is a Connecticut native now living in Baltimore County. He is a political activist with an active YouTube page and a newly-minted blog, A Horrible Monster.

Case dismissed

In a spectacular flameout, the allegations of wrongdoing in the controversy over Cecil County Executive Tari Moore’s sudden affiliation change and subsequent appointment of a candidate not on the list submitted by the county’s Republican Central Committee were dismissed in the county’s Circuit Court via a seven-page decision by visiting Judge Thomas E. Marshall, a retired Harford County Circuit Court judge.

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Also dismissed in the suit due to a lack of standing was a claim that the county’s Tier Map was unlawfully submitted to the state.

The controversy closes another chapter in the ongoing war between supporters and opponents of former State Senator E.J. Pipkin and current Delegate Michael Smigiel. (Opponents have generally had the backing of former State Senator and now-Congressman Andy Harris, who defeated Pipkin as well as former Congressman Wayne Gilchrest in a bitter 2008 GOP Congressional primary.) Those allied with Smigiel control the county’s Republican Central Committee, and it was Chair Chris Zeauskas who filed the complaint. On the other hand, Tari Moore was backed by Harris in her quest to be Cecil County’s first executive.

Just before assuming office as the incoming County Executive last December, Moore suddenly changed her party affiliation from Republican to unaffiliated, making the switch because she wanted to bypass the county’s GOP Central Committee in selecting her successor. By becoming unaffiliated, she retained the right to pick once County Council became deadlocked in a 2-2 tie between Smigiel supporters and Harris allies. Eventually Moore picked Joyce Bowlsbey, a Republican. (The Republicans control all five seats on Cecil County Council, so this was an intraparty fight.) Judge Marshall agreed that, despite the GOP’s backing in the 2012 election, Moore’s status as unaffiliated at the moment of her resignation from County Council complied with the method of selection prescribed in the county’s Charter and eventually followed.

Yet there is one other piece of business on the table, notwithstanding the possibility of an appeal by Zeauskas. At last fall’s state GOP convention, a motion was made to censure Tari Moore for her “corrupt and reprehensible decision“; a motion which had support from some quarters but was tabled via a fairly close vote. Because of the abrupt cutoff of our Spring Convention this year, we did not revisit the Moore controversy but it may return next month at this year’s Fall Convention in Annapolis.

But now that the court case is settled, the question will be whether Moore rejoins the GOP fold. Those calling for her censure had a point in that Republicans backed her election in the primary; had she gone the independent route in 2012 she would have likely lost badly. Yet I’ve been assured by Moore’s backers that the decision to be unaffiliated was just temporary and would be rectified once the court case was settled. Obviously it would be to her benefit in 2016 to run as a Republican, although this episode has probably assured her of a primary opponent. She would have a hard time in a three-way general election race if the county GOP stays loyal to its nominee and the Democrats run someone, too.

So the clock is ticking. If she changes back before the state convention, the question of censure may be moot in a “no harm, no foul” sense. But if not, even the assurances of Andy Harris may not spare her the state party’s wrath.

One extra seat

I received an amusing pictorial e-mail today from the Democratic National Committee. I guess when you’re targeting low-information voters you need plenty of pictures.

But it shows just what’s at stake in 2014.

Never mind that the poll the Democrats cite (from the left-leaning Public Policy Polling) pits these Republicans against a “generic” Democrat – once an actual candidate is selected the numbers generally go down. It’s also a simple registered voter poll, and may not accurately reflect the electorate in the region. (No one’s ever oversampled Democrats to get a desired result before. </sarc>)

The PPP survey is sort of like the generic ballot polling an outfit like Rasmussen does, where they pit the broad base of Republicans vs. the broad base of Democrats. At this time the numbers are even, which suggests not much will change. (This is particularly surprising given the negative coverage House Republicans have endured throughout the Obama ~~temper tantrum~~ ~~shutdown~~ slowdown.) Bear in mind as well the PPP survey was conducted in the first few days of the Obama/Reid shutdown, before many major developments in the story.

So it’s important to cede no ground to the Democrats. And history isn’t on their side – with the exception of 1998, where Democrats picked up 5 seats, the opposition party to the President has added seats in Congress in every second-term midterm election since 1952. The range was from 5 seats in 1986 (Reagan) to 49 seats in 1958 (Eisenhower) and 1974, the post-Watergate Ford election. 1966 was another watershed year, with incumbent Democrats under Lyndon Johnson losing 47 seats. So Barack Obama would have to buck a historical trend to gain seats, let alone recapture the majority.

Nor has it been considered that the Republicans might pick up some vulnerable Democrat seats as well. Certainly the opponents of Sixth District Congressman John Delaney aren’t taking this lying down. They’re either playing up the trustworthiness angle, like Dan Bongino does in this video:

(By the way, if you look closely you’ll see my cohort Jackie Wellfonder in the video in a couple spots.)

Or they’re hammering the incumbent for turning his back on veterans, like Marine David Vogt:

A conversation about the Affordable Care Act and the harmful effects it is having on the American people is one we need to have. But we can’t have that conversation while our leaders are engaged in a partisan, political playground feud. Each side is guilty, and neither side is leading. Leadership means getting in the conference room and hammering out a solution, not holding a press conference just to call the opposition a new name and to repeat the same talking points that have obviously gotten us nowhere.

Our leaders have forgotten who they are in Washington to represent. Last week, I watched in amazement and disgust as my opponent voted to block funding for veterans’ benefits because he decided politics and standing by his party’s leadership came before service to his constituents and the American people. This is inexcusable.

Washington is supposed to work for us, not against us. These days it often seems that our elected officials do more to work against the American people than they do to help us. We don’t have time for political bickering. We have more pressing issues than each side’s attempt to save face. We need leadership, but it doesn’t appear we are going to get it anytime soon.

Obviously we won’t get new leadership until after the 2014 elections. And while I wouldn’t mind replacing John Boehner as Speaker, I’m hoping we do so with a much more conservative bulldog with TEA Party roots, not the shrill uber-liberal shill Nancy Pelosi. She had her time and set the stage for Barack Obama ruining the country, so let’s send a message to the Democrats and seize the narrative.

Irony you can cut with a knife

After his lieutenant governor and heir apparent decided to skip a Maryland manufacturer’s meeting, the idea that Martin O’Malley would talk about job creation seems ludicrous at best. But that’s what he did in a press release last week, and Larry Hogan of Change Maryland – that jagged burr under O’Malley’s saddle – pounced on the irony:

Governor O’Malley finally recognizes – six years too late – the importance of manufacturing to our economy. But we wholeheartedly disagree about the solution. The O’Malley-Brown plan includes a whole lot of talk – more studies, commissions, roundtables, a monthly blog post, and even a proclamation – but no real solutions for an industry that has lost over 26,000 jobs since 2007, and has lost over 2,000 jobs between July and August of this year.

The O’Malley-Brown administration has been openly hostile to manufacturing and the private sector in this state since the day they were sworn into office. A monthly blog post isn’t going to reverse the troubling downward trend of manufacturing in our state. In fact, it is an insult to the thousands of middle-class workers and their families who have struggled to find employment and make ends meet because of the O’Malley-Brown misguided policies.

No amount of lip service can undo this Governor’s deplorable record on jobs. 120,000 more Marylanders remain unemployed since O’Malley took office, and 26,000 of those are in our manufacturing sector. It’s time we had a governor who will put action behind their words.

This manufacturing proclamation is just the latest stunt by this governor to hide his horrible jobs record. Last month, the governor made a ridiculous claim about recovering 100% of the jobs lost in the recession when in fact 120,000 more Marylanders are out of work today than when he first took office.

Will Larry Hogan make the bid to be that “governor who will put action behind their words”? Only time will tell, although some I talk to are dead certain he will get in.

But regardless of who’s installed as our state’s next chief executive – and no, Doug Gansler, I don’t necessarily believe it will be a Democrat – is going to have to clean up a failed state economy which has come to depend too much on federal dollars and employees who happen to live in Maryland. Onerous regulations, a poor educational system which doesn’t focus on students who may be better suited to skilled labor, and misplaced priorities in our transportation system have done their damage to Maryland’s manufacturing industry. While not all of these symptoms can be traced to Martin O’Malley, the prognosis is bleak if we get more of the same, and lip service from our current governor qualifies as being more of the same.

Yet the solutions advocated by the candidates – who seemed to be playing a game of who could lower the corporate tax the most, with the consensus range running from 5 to 6 percent – aren’t necessarily bold enough. Why not scrap the corporate tax altogether, as one economist suggested recently? And instead of wasting transportation money on rail lines few will ride (but many will subsidize), perhaps we should invest on the means to most efficiently move people and goods, partnering up with neighboring states as needed?

If Anthony Brown is elected as governor, that puny 106,000 or so manufacturing jobs might be 80,000 or less by the time the 2018 election rolls around. Those 26,000 people may well be sorry Doug Gansler was correct and a Democrat was sent yet again to Government House. It’s time for a change.

Conservative victories – wherever you can get them

Tuesday is a big day for a Maryland-based PAC as they attempt to broaden their reach and influence.

That evening the Conservative Victory PAC is sponsoring a fundraiser for Virginia gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli, with plenty of influence from Maryland: Dan Bongino will give “special remarks” and the host committee features both former Maryland governor Bob Ehrlich and lieutenant governor Michael Steele. As they note, “proceeds will be provided to the Cuccinelli Campaign Team,” and there should be plenty of proceeds seeing that the admission prices start at a steep $135. This ain’t no little spaghetti dinner fundraiser.

My erstwhile Red Maryland colleagues Brian Griffiths and Greg Kline have been critical of the CVPAC on their website and radio show this week, contending the group should be paying attention to local races in Annapolis and Frederick. But unlike last year, Diana Waterman stated to me in a recent conference call that there were no plans for the state party to help in Virginia as they did for Mitt Romney. So in that respect the CVPAC is taking up that slack.

Yet there’s a factor which makes the CVPAC decision less surprising for me. With the exception of Jim Rutledge, the CVPAC Board of Directors lives in the Washington metropolitan area, so they likely follow Virginia politics almost as closely as Maryland’s because their local media deals with both. And while I disagree that the host committee is necessarily the shining example of conservatism, certainly Ken Cuccinelli would be considered a conservative rising star and perhaps future Presidential material in 2020 (after his one term in Virginia would be completed) if he succeeds in winning this year.

And it’s not like this should be a surprise, coming from the CVPAC. If you recall their trailer for 2014, the video narrator intoned that “alliances will be formed” between Maryland and Virginia. Moreover, their stated goal for Maryland is 19 State Senate seats and if they can get some reciprocal help from the commonwealth to our south – yes, that’s a big ‘if’ but they’re trying to form the alliance – we may be able to tip those scales. (Meanwhile, a member of their Board of Directors is running for governor here, so one might think CVPAC may be looking for assistance there, too.)

Are the races in Annapolis and Frederick a big deal? To an extent, yes – perhaps they can succeed and show us a path for success in Salisbury come 2015. (By population, Salisbury is quite comparable to Annapolis and is Maryland’s ninth-largest city; it’s also the largest on the Eastern Shore.) But every political operation has its priorities and it sounds like CVPAC is trying to leverage conservative success in Virginia into victories next year in Maryland.

But you have to have the Virginia success first for that plan to work.

The legal fight against guns

As a means of getting back into things political after my weekend away, I found this chart – compiled by newly reinstalled Senate Minority Leader David Brinkley – quite instructive. It’s meant to be an ongoing narrative of the legal fight against 2013’s SB281, better known as the O’Malley gun law. (Some also refer to it as the Firearm Safety Act of 2013, but the only people who will be made safer by it are the criminals.)

As you can see, the good guys have been shut out so far, and to be perfectly honest I think that as long as this stays in Judge Catherine C. Blake’s courtroom the side of right will continue to be denied. Perhaps we’d have a better shot at the appellate level; unfortunately, the Fourth District Court of Appeals based out of Richmond is littered with Obama appointees, as 6 of the 15 jurists were appointed by our current chief executive. Conversely, just three judges remain from those appointed by George W. Bush; out of the other six there are four Clinton appointees and one holdover each from George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan – so the odds for a positive outcome aren’t exactly stacked in our favor. This despite the fact that Senate Bill 281 clearly infringes on our right to bear arms.

So it comes back to the decision on whether we should have put more effort into the referendum to stop SB281. Sadly, that ship sailed long ago and while I understand the track record for ballot issues on the conservative side isn’t very good, it should have been noted that the ballot issues which passed did so in a year where turnout was higher than would be the case in a gubernatorial election and no one named Obama will be on the ballot. In short, the electorate should trend more conservative in 2014.

Thus, it will be left to us to inflict the punishment as best we can on the party which sponsored and created the draconian measures. While seven Senate and seventeen House Democrats voted against the bill, they were mainly from districts deemed vulnerable by Democratic leadership so I’m betting they were given a pass to vote as if their jobs depended on it. Why have the faux conservatives when you can have the real thing?

If the right governor and enough members of the General Assembly are elected, the first bill out of the chute in 2015 might just be the one entitled “Firearm Safety Act of 2013 – Repeal.” That has a nice ring to it.

Ironically, another referendum effort gone awry is now winding its way into court as well. This came from MDPetitions.com last week:

If someone asked you whether or not you supported the US Constitution, would you say yes or no? Of course you would say yes! Hopefully, most Americans would say yes to that basic question.

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened in November 2012. The Maryland government pulled a “bait and switch” trick on Maryland voters. An overwhelming majority of Marylanders voted to uphold the requirements of the US Constitution, not realizing that they were voting on a redistricting map that has made Maryland the laughing stock of the country. See here for references to quotes about how bad our districts are, even Comedy Central poked fun at our “ugly” districts.

How can people vote on the redistricting map, when they had no idea that that was what they were voting on? The hard-won voice of the people was snuffed out through trickery. That’s not right, and MDPetitions.com has been working hard for you to RESTORE YOUR RIGHT TO A FAIR REFERENDUM.

(snip)

The illegal ballot language deprived Maryland voters of a fair opportunity to approve or reject the law/map, and therefore, justifies a re-vote on Maryland Question 5. MDPetitions.com and Judicial Watch believe that a re-vote on Question 5 with language that actually describes the situation is the only accurate and truthful way to govern our state.(Emphasis in original.)

I hate to say it, but it was MDPetitions’ decision to forgo a referendum on SB281 that got us into this gun law mess. The redistricting would have been more appropriate for a court case, but instead we got it to the ballot (barely) and the voters supported the redistricting – in part because of the language and the fact the map wasn’t shown on the ballot. All that a 2014 revote would do now is confuse the issue, although there is the chance we could elect a GOP governor who could draw things in a more logical manner.

On the whole, though, we really shouldn’t have to rely on the legal system to safeguard us.

Weekend of local rock volume 56

It wasn’t quite a garden party, nor did I reminisce with old friends – I made a couple new acquaintances, though.

Regardless, the music was pretty good so I decided on the spot to make this volume 56 in the long-running series and place it the day after volume 55. Why not make a single weekend of it? Because the events happened 15 days apart, that’s why. And while Kim had mentioned there would be a band at the party, I just assumed it would be some cover band playing old standards. So I was pleasantly surprised by the difference from expectations.

Anyway, from what I read about Muskrat Sally, they are originally from here but they don’t often play here as they make a lot of appearances across the Bay.

Many of the songs they played while I was there I didn’t recognize as covers, but once I heard them I immediately thought of a much more well-known performer, George Thorogood. Like Muskrat Sally, it seemed that Thorogood plucked a number of retro blues tunes out of obscurity, put his own stamp on them, and sold them to the masses. In fact, their finale was a song Thorogood remade in the late 1970s, “Who Do You Love?” And they indeed played one standard – what band doesn’t know “Mustang Sally” by heart?

What makes Muskrat Sally different and unique from other similar local blues acts, such as Tom Larsen, was the female vocalist and performer. It also afforded more interesting banter between songs. (Interestingly, she’s not listed on the websites. Maybe this was an all-star band of sorts? It’s a private party, so why not?)

And since it was a party with presumably well-heeled clientele, why not make a little money on the side? (Literally.)

If you liked slide guitar and gritty old blues, this was the band for you. They had my toes tapping as I ate some barbecued pork (it was a pig roast, after all) and batches more food and homemade beer than I probably should have (just the food, not the beer. I could tell it was potent stuff.) Fortunately, there was still plenty left for the band when the sun went down and it became too dark to play out there. (Hence, the reason the photos are dark. My cell phone doesn’t do bright backgrounds.)

I’m certain that many a band has played an event like this – literally in someone’s backyard on the grass, with part of the pay being all the food you can eat. Sounds like a lot of fun, and if I’d thought about it maybe I would have dusted off my moribund YouTube channel for a video. Too bad we didn’t get there earlier when the light was better.

Since it’s likely we’ll have an invite next year, we’ll see if Muskrat Sally makes a return. They certainly played well enough to deserve one.

Weekend of local rock volume 55

Subtitled: the 5th Annual (Save the…) BreastFest edition.

I’ve been to all five of these events and I have to tell you this was probably the most successful. They finally got the two ingredients they needed to maximize success: a location in Ocean City and a Friday night slot during Bike Week – the last few StBFs were relegated to Thursday night.

But more on that in a bit. Let’s talk about the bands involved – by the way, all of them volunteered their time for the cause.

We arrived a little late so we only caught the tail end of Elwood. Hearing their last few songs, I was mentally kicking myself for not being ready to go a little sooner because they were solid. They also play a number of originals, which to me is a plus.

Chainbreak came on next and pleased the bikers with a collection of songs that included some Southern rock covers. If it’s Bike Week in Ocean City, you will hear something from Skynard, Molly Hatchet, or the Allman Brothers.

Veteran musician Lauren Glick and her Moodswingers were up next, and she belted out a number of old favorites.

Before I get much farther, I need to note the creator of the event, Michele Hogsett.

She’s the beauty and the brains behind the (Save the…) Breast Fest as a cancer survivor herself. And she shrewdly recruited her husband Jim to serve as the emcee of the event.

The reason I bring this up here is that they got a lot more busy once Lauren Glick cleared the stage. It was time for Semiblind.

Like Lauren Glick before them, Semiblind showed why they’re still a popular local group after nearly a decade of playing. I found this video from the event as the band jammed out on the Ted Nugent classic “Stranglehold.” That was their final song of the evening, but the rock wasn’t over by a long shot.

Like Semiblind, the next band has made all five StBF events, and they vowed to keep coming.

Now if you want to discuss a group which doesn’t compromise on being heavy, Witches Brew would be that group. They hammered out a lot of hard rock staples from the 70s through the 80s, and actually served as a good complement to the final band of the evening, Vivid Season.

If you add about a decade to Witches Brew’s playlist, you’d get Vivid Season. They concentrate on songs put out during the last 15 years or so – not to say they don’t throw in older stuff, but it’s arguably the most current of the groups who played. (Semiblind will play some more recent stuff in their extended shows and as I noted, Elwood does quite a few originals.)

Yet while all the music was going on, my friend Melissa was selling raffle tickets. This WAS a fundraiser, you know.

Each of these little bags represented a raffle prize, with everything from free hotel accommodations to golf to apparel to tattoos and bike accessories in the mix. The list of sponsors grows a little each year.

Now I didn’t take any photos of the contestants in their tattoo competition, but I did snap a shot of these luscious cupcakes.

Speaking of luscious cupcakes, it should be noted the event sponsor did quite well this year.

The Delaware Breast Cancer Coalition raised $1,609 from the event, which Michele said doubled their take from last year. Going from Thursday night to Friday night was a lucrative move for the group, for whom StBF now seems to be settling in as an annual occurrence at Pickles Pub.

The last photo I’m throwing in for fun.

If they can hold their spot, you may want to pencil in September 12, 2014 on your calendar for the 6th annual event. With an attitude like that, it should be a good time.

Pelura: Why I support Ron George for governor

Once in awhile I turn this site over to commentary from others, and this is one of those times. More on that thought in a little bit, but allow me to give former Maryland GOP Chair Jim Pelura some space to sell his choice for governor, Delegate Ron George. I took the liberty, though, of slight grammatical editing as needed.

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Why I support Ron George for Governor

By Dr. Jim Pelura

Martin O’Malley states on his website: “Governor O’Malley knows that small businesses are the foundation of our economy, providing 2 of every 3 jobs in Maryland,” and, according to President Obama’s web site: “President Obama is committed to helping America’s small businesses grow and prosper. Small businesses are the engine of job creation and essential to strengthening our national economy.” Furthermore, “President Obama is committed to creating an environment where America’s small businesses – our engines of job creation – can prosper.”

It is well known that I don’t agree with anything that these two men say, however, they are both right on target with these statements.

As a small business owner, every day I am burdened by the heavy hand of government regulations, laws, taxes, and fees that do nothing more than support a bloated, inefficient bureaucracy and stifle all attempts to grow my business, hire new employees and benefit society in general by providing a needed service and being self-sufficient. We are proud of our businesses, our independence, our service to our fellow citizens and proud of the fact that we contribute to society and are not a burden on it.

Unfortunately, Maryland has become the poster child for an oppressive government that strangles private business and burdens taxpayers to pay for an ever expanding entitlement society.

Ron George has the perfect blend of experience to lead our state as the next governor.

Ron is the only candidate that truly understands small business. For over 25 years he has been a small business owner who knows what it is like to suffer under the oppressive business environment that the Democrats in the General Assembly and the O’Malley/Brown administration have designed and perpetrated in Maryland.

In addition to his private business experience, Ron possesses extensive experience in the workings of the Maryland General Assembly as an elected Delegate for 7 years and serving on the powerful Ways and Means Committee.

Ron’s perfect storm of experience is just what Maryland needs to grow and prosper, and I believe only someone who works in the small business private sector understands where the real potential for Maryland lies.

Ron George knows what is needed in Maryland and has the perfect mix of public and private experience to fulfill that need.

Please join me in my support for Ron!

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Now it’s my turn. No, I have no substantive beef with what Dr. Pelura wrote – my point is this.

For the longest time I have attempted to serve two masters: this website you read here and my outside work schedule, which includes other writing jobs as well as a “real” job which essentially has grown over the last few months from part-time to full-time hours. Through all that, I have managed to keep something new up here practically every day, and not all bloggers can say that. Fortunately, I write fast when I need to!

In this case, though, Jim’s piece came at a perfect time for me to introduce a concept I’d like to try; something which would suit a number of purposes: give me a little bit of a break from the creative grind, perhaps give exposure to up-and-coming writers – believe it or not, by Alexa rating this humble webpage is in the top 250,000 sites worldwide – and perhaps build up a network to be leveraged for whatever purposes I find necessary.

What I’d like to do is turn over my space each Friday to different voices, a “guest opinion Friday” I’d call GO Friday for short. (I thought the title catchy.) This doesn’t have to be a candidate advocacy piece like Jim wrote, but can be a subject of state or national importance expressed with a conservative viewpoint. All the writer would have to do is send me something he thinks interesting, a little bit of a biography line with a link to their site if they have one, and if it’s good I’ll put it up.

Now I realize I run a risk here: there are a lot of people out there who send me solicitations about providing content for me. I’m not looking for content mill stuff, I want pieces which are relevant and interesting. The fact I’m turning over a portion of my overall content does not mean I will accept a decline in quality.

Anyway, if GO Friday works out you can expect different commentary here on a once-per-week basis. If not, I just figure out a way to keep grinding. Either way readers don’t lose.

Self-imposed distractions

It’s hard to run a statewide campaign without making any mistakes, but it seems like everything Charles Lollar has done wrong in the last three years has come out in the last couple weeks. One can question the motives of those who have been spreading the news, in particular the Red Maryland website, but – give credit where credit is due – they’ve done the research and allowed Charles the opportunity to address the issues.)

But for the ultimate in unforced errors, I can echo Jeff Quinton’s assessment of a recent e-mail sent by the Lollar campaign. Yes, it was pretty bad – particularly for new media.

Allow me to let you in on a little secret: anything I can be given to make my writing life a little easier is manna from heaven. So inserting a .jpg in lieu of a message (which means I can’t copy and paste something I may find interesting and quoteworthy) is simply a bad move. It’s even worse when you have a “To fight back and donate click here!” hyperlink unworkable because you used the .jpg file! And if you think Quinton is pointing out his isolated case, I received the exact same e-mail as well with the same issues.

Perhaps the problem is one of scope and experience. There is a big difference between running a “draft” campaign, primarily through social media, and having to deal with the real thing. I’ve heard enough criticism of the Lollar campaign leadership to wonder if they have any experienced hands there. I get the idea that Charles is somewhat running against the establishment (although nowhere near to the extent that Dan Bongino has messaged his two campaigns) but I think it may be time to find someone who’s run a successful statewide race to cut down on the unforced errors. There’s no shame in seeking the best leadership, someone who can work behind the scenes to make a candidate look gubernatorial. Loyalty is good, but can be taken to the level of a fault.

I understand things happen in a campaign, and it’s not just Charles. Read the third line on this page and tell me the mistake: apparently it’s been there awhile from what I’ve been told. Proofreading is your friend here, too. Needless to say, these are picayune compared to a campaign finance violation but all these things detract from the overall message a candidate attempts to convey.

Listen, I write for part of my living, and putting out a clear message is what I strive to do each day. Slowly those in the political world who are familiar with my work are leaning on me to make their message sound better, and it’s something I enjoy doing for the right candidate. (Let’s face it: no amount of massaging can make a liberal message palatable, since I don’t do emotional appeals all that well.)

But beyond that, I think Charles is a very promising candidate who has a very upbeat and positive message and knows how to communicate it to an audience better than either of his two Republican opponents (and probably better than any of the Democrats as well.) There’s not a whole lot he can do about past transgressions of the sort Red Maryland has highlighted; in fact, having them come out early may be a blessing in disguise to eliminate otherwise potential October surprises next year.

It seems, though, that the Lollar campaign moreso than others gets in its own way and doesn’t seem to be the most coordinated. Perhaps this can change in the next few weeks but for now they need to get out in front of their issues and get their act together with an improved website and better communications.

I’m no political expert insofar as I’ve not run a campaign, but common sense dictates two things: if you are getting flak, you’re above the target – and you need to be damn accurate while you’re there. Right now I’m just seeing scattershot.

Tax credits blown away?

A sideline of mine – besides the frequent discussions of Maryland politics I write – is discussing energy issues. I didn’t seek out that aspect of the universe to write on, but I find it fascinating and quite important at the same time.

Today was a monumental day in Congress for the wind industry – yes, wind blows every day but those who profit from collecting the energy created and converting it (albeit somewhat clumsily and inefficiently) to electricity had their day in Congress today. Their goal: maintaining their cherished production tax credit at a hearing of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Yet a large group of conservative and pro-liberty organizations are urging Congress to dump this credit, with the Competitive Enterprise Institute a leading voice. They co-wrote a letter last month calling on Congress to dump the subsidy, and followed up with further guidance today from CEI’s Myron Ebell:

Congress should not renew the Wind Production Tax Credit for another year and thereby upset the planned phase-out that was passed just last year.

The wind energy lobbyists spend more time seeking handouts than in trying to make their product competitive. The tax credit amounts to the worst kind of cronyism, costing taxpayers billions, foisting mandates on states and driving up electricity rates for consumers and manufacturers.

Over the course of the last several years, efforts in both Maryland and Delaware to harness the wind have fizzled out, most notably the lockdown of the much-ballyhooed Bluewater Wind project. And while Maryland is attempting to jumpstart that market with a public subsidy effective this fiscal year, it’s questionable whether anyone will attempt to build the turbines, even with the set-aside put in place.

Unfortunately, while the wind blows for free, the places where it blows the best tend to be difficult locations for infrastructure. Moreover, as we all know, those hot, humid days during the summer when we could use the cooling breeze rarely have enough wind to blow a scrap of paper around, let alone turn a turbine. It’s one of many good points made by Dr. Robert J. Michaels, a professor of economics at Cal State – Fullerton and Senior Fellow at the Institute for Energy Research.

Surely some will counter with the fact that fossil fuel industries have their own set of tax benefits and these subsidies for wind energy are simply a matter of leveling the playing field. But consider the number of jobs in these fossil fuel industries everywhere in the process – everything from working at the point of extraction to transport to conversion into electricity. In many cases, these jobs are among the most lucrative in their respective fields despite the fact the raw material is relatively cheap compared to the cost of wind energy.

It’s also worth pointing out that the “market” for wind energy is a relatively artificial one thanks to those states which have a carveout for a renewable energy portfolio, including Maryland. Generally, since neither the cost-effectiveness nor the necessary infrastructure is in place, the laws simply serve as another form of taxation of already-beleaguered utility companies because non-compliance carries a monetary cost. On the other hand, no one is saying that any proportion of our electricity has to come from coal or natural gas nor is it necessary because the market price dictates the direction utilities prefer to go.

With any luck, the production tax credits will become a thing of the past at the end of the year. Like zombies, they were resurrected from the dead at the end of last year thanks to a Congressional deal but maybe this year their time will run out.

A tale of two judges

Two judges, one a Clinton appointee and one an Obama appointee, made news with their decisions over the last couple days.

In Baltimore, U.S. District Judge Catherine C. Blake, the aforementioned Clinton appointee, refused to halt Maryland’s new and draconian gun laws, stating she was not convinced the plaintiffs, gun owners and advocacy groups, would suffer irreparable harm if the law took effect. Blake was quoted in a Washington Times story by Meredith Somers as noting, “Potentially the only economic harm could be on behalf of the dealers… There’s a strong public interest in lessening the risk of tragedies.”

So it’s obvious this jurist is an economic expert who ignores the fact that crime is a detriment to the overall economy and places with more (legally-owned) guns on the street tend to have less crime. She also must be a crack shot, because she also stated that “the worry that 10 rounds would not be enough for a homeowner to defend themselves against an intruder ‘appears to be based on a lack of accuracy.'” In my way of thinking it’s better to have more bullets than you need than to run out because you’re limited to ten, but she probably has multiple security personnel so for her there’s more opportunities to incapacitate a would-be attacker.

Yet the overarching question reaches beyond Judge Blake’s decision, which only means the law goes forward to a future court date to be determined. While I think Blake has let her judicial role and political leanings go to her head – as tragedies brought on by armed criminals preying on an unarmed population continue apace – one has to ask whether it was the right move to not back more fully a referendum drive to stop the law in its tracks earlier this year. MDPetitions and those who argued for this method of fighting the law in court certainly rolled snake eyes on this bet, whereas we could have had the law stopped many months ago and perhaps overturned for good next November had the referendum been more strongly backed.

On the other hand, an Obama appointee made a surprising decision in the Eric Holder Fast and Furious case. As my blogging friend Bob McCarty writes:

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled Monday against Eric Holder, saying the U.S. attorney general could no longer hide behind executive privilege and refuse to produce a portion of the records called for in a subpoena issued by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform of the United States House of Representatives.

In short, this likely means that a fierce battle will take place soon in the Republican-controlled House to get at the truth about the “Fast and Furious” scandal involving supplying criminals and Mexican drug cartel members with guns that were later used to kill Americans along the nation’s southern border.

Of course, that doesn’t mean the Obama administration won’t obfuscate, connive, or otherwise try to throw cold water on an investigation which would have probably had a Republican president impeached. (With this chief executive, it’s like take your pick between Benghazi, Fast and Furious, the IRS scandals, and probably a couple others already forgotten thanks to the next shiny object.)

Nor is this the first time Judge Jackson stymied the Obama regime, as she also ruled against the EPA in a 2012 case involving their withdrawal of a waste disposal permit for a West Virginia coal mining project.

So we see once again the problem of rolling the dice and depending on a court to rule correctly or stop bad law.