January 2016 – Page 3

The quality of Salisbury’s life

One of the talking points that Salisbury mayor Jake Day has continually made about bringing jobs to Salisbury is that we need to improve our quality of life. Perhaps I’m oversimplifying the argument, but if we have a quality of life attractive to younger workers they will come here and create the jobs – or so the thinking goes.

So it was interesting that a few weeks back I received an e-mail from a company called LawnStarter. The reason I received it was that I have used business-related survey data from Thumbtack.com in the past and this entrepreneurial outfit had created something they called their Quality of Life Index. (Naturally, the company specializes in assisting lawn care startups by bringing customers and businesses together.) As a state Maryland ranks 13th out of 50, but the lone metropolitan area considered (Baltimore) ranked 73rd out of 101. (We in Maryland surely had assistance from 9th-ranked Washington, D.C. though.)

You may ask how they come up with this index – well, let them explain it:

The index is based on six quality-of-life factors analyzed by LawnStarter and borrowed from The Economist — GDP (economic output) per capita, average life expectancy, divorce rate, unemployment rate, geographic location (latitude) and male-female income equality. The Economist considers these factors to be good barometers for quality of life.

Based on some of the factors cited I suspect Salisbury would be near the bottom of the city list. However, they may not be at the very bottom because the lowest seven cities (and nine of the bottom ten) share one of two things in common:

They are in California (Sacramento, Riverside, Fresno, San Bernardino, and Stockton) or
are in close proximity to Lake Erie (Buffalo, Toledo, Cleveland, and Detroit)

Memphis is the outlier to that group, with Detroit occupying the 101st and bottom position.

However, Salisbury doesn’t have a particularly high GDP per capita or low unemployment rate, nor is life expectancy that great compared to other places. As a state Maryland is certainly aided by its close proximity to Washington, D.C. but Baltimore’s far lower rating may be closer to the conditions we have to endure here. It could be argued that our area has several of the same pitfalls that plague inland California (Sacramento, Stockton, et. al.) – chronic high unemployment in an area best known for agriculture due to a temperate climate. The agricultural base contributes to the low per capita GDP while the high unemployment eventually manifests itself in a shorter life expectancy thanks to crime and lack of preventative health care.

Short of a Bill Gates suddenly showing up and showering the area with wealth, these factors will remain common to our area. Unfortunately, the few assets we seem to have are difficult to leverage into productive careers. Most of our more lucrative jobs have to do with health care and government as opposed to STEM-based or manufacturing positions, which add more value and GDP. The exceptions to this are having the headquarters of Perdue in Salisbury and the Wallops Island NASA complex; while the latter is a government installation there are a number of private companies which use their facilities. While it’s almost 50 miles away, Salisbury is the closest city of reasonable size to the remote installation on Virginia’s Eastern Shore.

But those two entities need to be joined by many others to truly bring a better quality of life to Salisbury. To use a good local analogy, it’s like a chicken-and-egg question: does the quality of life come from good jobs or do jobs spring from a good quality of life? I believe the former is true, while our mayor seems to side with the latter. Over the next few years, we will see who is correct in our local case.

A quick lesson in narrative

I don’t want to write a long post tonight – fortunately, I don’t think I’ll have to. Let’s take a look at what’s become an all-too-common assumption from the media, thanks to today’s Baltimore Sun.

The lead from writer Erin Cox states:

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said Thursday he will ask the General Assembly to grant “modest” tax cuts to working families, small businesses and retirees.

But the Republican governor offered no details on his proposed cuts nor on how he would pay for them. (Emphasis mine.)

First of all, I seriously doubt the budget will actually be reduced in real dollars – although that would be nice. No, a “cut” is now a situation where spending is less than the increase assumed to be granted. Back in the O’Malley (and Ehrlich) eras it was not uncommon for the annual budget increase to be between three and five percent, so each line item was figured as increasing by a commensurate amount. If you spent $1 million one year, you figured the budget for the next would be $1.05 million.

So when Hogan came along and nearly level-funded the budget last year with an increase of barely one percent, this was considered a “cut” because instead of the $5,000 increase the mythical agency expected, they “only” received $1,000. They got more than the previous year but $4,000 less than they thought. It’s why we spent the most on education ever yet Democrats whined about “cuts.”

But more important to this lesson is how easily the writer makes the implication that government spending less money is something that has to be paid for. We who are on the outside, with our incomes limited by how much skill and worth we have to our employers or customers, indeed have to worry about how we have to pay for expenses both expected, like rent or insurance, and unexpected, such as the extra heating oil you need. But we don’t think of cutting our family vacation out of the budget as paying – to us, it’s spending less money so that income and expenses come closer to evening out.

So if Larry Hogan wants to spend less on particular line items in the budget, these don’t have to be “paid for” because the tax dollars are already coming in. And it’s not like there’s not a long list of secondary items to consider such as paying down the state debt that O’Malley dramatically hiked or making up for raiding the pension funds.

Now that Larry has had a year to consider a budget, instead of being forced by the vagaries of the political calendar and state law to have one ready just days after taking office last year, we will see just how fiscally conservative he really is. Pushing it back under $40 billion may be a pipe dream, but since he has the most executive power over the budget of any governor in the country he may as well use it for good and point the state back toward fiscal sanity.

What do you think the narrative pushers will say about that?

When Salisbury arrives

There are news stories that turn out to be much ado over nothing, and recently the Salisbury community has been roiled by such a story. To some, it’s a scandal and an outrage that our little community will once again be denied…a Cracker Barrel.

For some unknown reason, ever since I have moved here it’s been the dream of some for that restaurant chain – which has over 600 locations around the country including those on Kent Island and Rehoboth Beach – to open one in Salisbury. In general, the company opens their locations within sight of a major highway, so the first rumor was that there would be one built where the old Zia’s was torn down just north of the junction between U.S. 13 North and U.S. 50, which is perhaps the true crossroads of Delmarva. That interchange is close by the Centre of Salisbury, a regional enclosed mall.

After the former Zia’s parcel went by the boards (to become the location for a second Chipotle restaurant in Salisbury) the attention and gossip turned to a vacant parking lot outside the Centre of Salisbury in front of a shuttered J.C. Penney store. But that option has also been rejected thanks to one of the anchor tenants at the mall, according to this published report. Thus, local residents are up in arms.

I don’t make a living as a restaurant critic, but in my Ohio days I had eaten at Cracker Barrel perhaps a half-dozen times because I lived relatively close to the junction between I-75 and the Ohio Turnpike (definitely major highways) and there’s a Cracker Barrel close by that exit. While my ex liked it, to me Cracker Barrel was nothing special – unlike Buffalo Wild Wings, for which I was thrilled when they finally made it here from Ohio. (Admittedly, BWW has lost some of its charm since it went national – I go back to when it was called BW-3.)

It also amuses me that there are people who are pining for Cracker Barrel to come in on the one hand, but lament that there are no good local restaurants to eat at. Obviously Salisbury has a large enough market base that dozens of national and regional chains are located here, but they mainly tend to congregate around the Centre of Salisbury or Salisbury University. Located in other parts of town, particularly downtown, are a number of local business we’re continually being told we need to patronize. “Shop local,” everyone says. So why do we need a Cracker Barrel?

Of course, the answer is obvious since there’s apparently a pent-up local demand for average food and overpriced knick-knacks. But to go on for the better part of ten years? People were excited to get a Famous Dave’s here, but that folded up in short order.

If you ask me, the best spot for Cracker Barrel (or similar tourist-driven enterprises) is the parcel of land close by Perdue Stadium that was once slated for mixed-use development before the Great Recession tried to wipe the local economy out. It’s already annexed into the city, infrastructure can be added easily, and the site has major highway access and visibility. Another possibility is a parcel farther west on U.S. 50 recently purchased for development, according to the Daily Times.

Whatever the case may be, in the interim those who really like Cracker Barrel will have to drive an hour or more to get their fix.

Lame duck hunting season?

I normally don’t go into great detail when it comes to internal Central Committee business, but I had already broached the subject when I covered the recent Maryland GOP convention. Moreover, I’m a representative of the county GOP voters so I think it’s only fair to bring my thoughts and opinions on this particular subject out to the public, as it will be debated in the General Assembly and eventually affect the representation of all Republicans in the state. Here Republicans have a forum for response should they choose to.

In the Executive Committee meeting we had as part of our November convention, Senator Bryan Simonaire went over his proposal to change the date new Central Committee members are sworn in. More recently he sent a letter to Central Committee members asking for their input. Simonaire stated in his letter that the change in inauguration of Central Committee members dates from the mid-1980s, when the period was changed from about a week after the primary (then held in September) to after the November election (as it has remained.) With the change in our primary date from September to late June, it leaves a long lame duck period for those who chose not to run or were defeated for re-election. Bryan seems to think the will of the voters was expressed in June and should be reflected more quickly.

In a perfect world, the primary would not have been moved back quite so far – to me, a mid-August primary date would have been appropriate for the federal regulations and better compressed the political season. But we are stuck with late June and the five-month interim between election and swearing-in.

Yet this doesn’t bother me for two reasons. First of all, voters in the many districts where one party or the other is either unopposed or has token opposition already have to wait from June to January for new representation. A local example was Delegate Sheree Sample-Hughes, who won her seat when no one stepped up to challenge her (granted, the incumbent waited until immediately after the filing deadline to withdraw and leave her as the only candidate in the race.) She was the Delegate-in-waiting for most of a year before she actually took office.

Secondly, and corollary to this, is the theory that most of the campaign experience comes from those who had been in office for the prior three-plus years. We recruited the candidates and had given them advice and support, experience which a new member might not have. Simonaire points out that the majority of those who seek re-election win, but speaking as a member of the minority that didn’t I was glad my term extended through the November election. It allowed us to bring the new members up to speed, giving them a little bit of on-the-job training for the next cycle. On our group we only turned over three people, with two choosing not to run and one losing in the primary.

When we elect people assuming they will serve from the beginning of a term or session it seems a little unfair to stagger the terms of the Central Committee members that far off the remaining state political offices. We may be elected in the primary, but the idea is to be the representatives of the Republican Party and the job of the Central Committee is to help elect Republicans.

Given how the state runs its electoral cycle, and even though it defies logic to some extent, I think we should keep things the way they are.

2016: a pivotal year

By Cathy Keim

Here I am writing this piece on January 3, 2016, after being absent for most of the month of December. I had a wonderful holiday filled with family and friends from all over the world, and I hope that you had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year too.

My husband and I were just over in Washington, DC, to visit with some family and had the opportunity to go to the Smithsonian’s National Zoological Park. It’s a great zoo, but I was trying to figure out where in the Constitution it said that the federal government should be funding a world class zoo. I couldn’t remember where that would be.

The Smithsonian Institute receives about 70% of its funding from the government. This is just one example of how our tax dollars are spent on “worthy” projects that are not Constitutional, yet most of us don’t even think about it anymore. We are used to the federal government encroaching into every sphere of our lives.

I read some of the propaganda that they have gotten children to write, then posted for the visitors to read. One piece was from a young girl that was calling upon us to work harder to save the tigers. It was an excellent example of Common Core English skills using emotionally charged adjectives to drive people to take action. (I have read the lesson plans for just such activities. Common Core would rather have the students use emotion than reason to write a persuasive piece.)

I kept wondering why this young lady was so worked up about tigers when our federal leadership could not take the time to cut the funding for Planned Parenthood despite being caught red-handed selling baby parts for profit. It seems that tigers are much more important than easily replaceable babies.

The inability of our leaders to act upon such horrific revelations as selling baby parts leads to my premise that 2016 is a pivotal year for our Republic. We have sunk to such depths in our understanding of what the American Experiment is about that many are calling this our last chance to right the ship of state.

Over my break I took the opportunity to look through some of these assessments.

Daniel Horowitz listed the top ten betrayals of the GOP elites, all of which Michael and I have covered as they happened.

Phyllis Schlafly shocked people with her statement after the passage of the omnibus bill last month,

This is a betrayal of the grassroots and of the Republican Party. We thought we were electing a different crowd to stand up for America, and they didn’t. We’re extremely outraged by what Congress has done. Nancy Pelosi couldn’t have engineered it any better. I think the people are going to react by electing Donald Trump.

Maryland’s own Ann Corcoran has started a new blog to encourage people to join the fight to save America. She has done yeoman’s work for years at her Refugee Resettlement Watch to bring attention to the deeply flawed Refugee Resettlement program. Her new blog is American Resistance 2016!

They are changing America by changing the people! Will you fight to save it, or allow the greatest nation on earth to perish?

But the quote that most caught my attention was by Diana West. She was responding to a plea by Brent Bozell for conservatives to get behind Ted Cruz because he has been leading the fight for conservative issues. Diana said:

To be honest, if these were the only issues under discussion in this GOP presidential primary season I would hardly be able to make myself pay attention. It’s not that they are unimportant issues. Personally, I support every one of them. But they are not existential issues. They are not the issues on which the very future of the Republic hangs. They are issues that a responsible Republican House and Senate, if they were loyal to their oath and to their constituents, could today begin to rectify all by themselves. (Emphasis mine.)

Our elected leaders could have stopped the funding for Obamacare, Planned Parenthood, immigration, etc. but they did not. That is why the base is done with them. That is why Donald Trump is drawing such support.

I went to Donald Trump’s website and read his immigration plan.

His three bullet points are:

1. A nation without borders is not a nation. There must be a wall across the southern border.

2. A nation without laws is not a nation. Laws passed in accordance with our Constitutional system of government must be enforced.

3. A nation that does not serve its own citizens is not a nation. Any immigration plan must improve jobs, wages and security for all Americans.

It is remarkable that his plan is seen as remarkable. Most of the points on his plan are common sense, but our leadership seems to have lost their common sense.

Roger Simon says at PJ Media:

The rise of Donald Trump is a good thing, not because any one man can easily change the course of history, not because he’s necessarily the best candidate (although he could be), but because his rise indicates that a lot of people who often ignore things are waking up to this extreme situation.

We are in for a rough ride in 2016. Our GOP leadership has given President Obama a pass on everything he has wanted right up until he finishes his term with their funding of the omnibus bill.

Winston Churchill was the man for his time. He spent the years leading up to World War II pleading with his government to rearm and to prepare for the fight ahead. The appeasers refused to listen to him, but when the time came, he was ready to lead. Donald Trump has not spent the last decade in opposition to the government and many of his statements give me heartburn, but on the great issue of our time he is leading as no other candidate.

Hanging on the fringes but straddling the center

This was an item lost in the interim between Christmas and New Year’s, but there is still the threat of an independent candidacy siphoning votes away from a major-party nominee. And no, it’s not Donald Trump threatening to bolt if the GOP doesn’t elect him.

If you thought his withdrawal from the Democratic presidential race spelled the end of Jim Webb’s campaign, you may have thought wrong. He’s still pondering an independent run which has the potential to draw voters from both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, should he win the nomination. Polls suggest that Trump’s biggest base of support comes from voters who can’t vote in a Republican primary.

The dynamics of a third-party or independent run are always intriguing to me. While it’s rare to see one of those efforts succeed in a large-scale run – perhaps the best example is former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura – the thought that a moderately successful third-party candidate who gets 5 to 7 percent can swing the election scares both the major parties. There’s a scenario where I can see a Webb candidacy taking away more support from the Republican nominee than Hillary Clinton on the Democratic side: let’s say the nation is on war footing and desires a Presidential candidate with military experience that neither Clinton nor the GOP nominee could boast.

But the message Webb brings is one of populism – after all, his first issue is “economic fairness,” where he pits CEOs vs. workers and states “(t)he loopholes and exceptions that have evolved (in the tax code) have made a mockery out of true economic fairness.” This stance wasn’t all that different from his Democratic contenders, but Webb can also portray himself better as an outsider who was bipartisan enough to work under a Republican president but serve as a Democrat in the Senate. That could draw people from Hillary’s center, particularly those with a military or working-class background who believe Hillary is a creature of the Washington establishment.

Webb also points out that:

I have seen many people come to public service from highly successful careers in the business world, only to be devoured and humiliated by the demands of moving policy through the bureaucracy and then the Congress.

The administration of our government needs to be fixed. With the right leadership and the right sense of priorities, it can be.

This seems to be a statement directed at Donald Trump, and those who believe Trump can stroll right into the White House and clean up government should take heed. It’s a good way to temper expectations.

The obvious difference between the primary and general elections, moreover, is the impact non-affiliated voters can have. If Trump doesn’t get the nomination and decides to forgo the independent run, you’ll have a candidate from the extreme left and another certain to be painted in the media as being from the extreme right. Jim Webb may only get five percent, but the question becomes where that five percent comes from – Hillary or the Republican.

With ten months to go before the election, all this may be academic as one major-party candidate or the other wins outright and Webb becomes just a cipher in the overall race with a percent or two. But those of us who recall the Bush-Gore 2000 saga aren’t going to discount the possibility of a Ralph Nader spoiler in the race just yet. Al Gore lost because his challenge was from the Left, so who could be affected with a 2016 run from the center?

monoblogue music: “New American Century” by Midwest Soul Xchange

When I saw the name Midwest Soul Xchange, somehow it made me think of Motown and those ubiquitous hits from nearly a half-century ago. But this band of two players with Midwestern roots but distant addresses (Ryan Summers lives in Wisconsin while Nate Cherrier recorded his parts in Arizona) instead draws on a wide number of influences to create an album which sounds surprisingly tight given the manner in which it was put together.

Perhaps the biggest drawback to the effort is the song they selected as the sampler single, Roots. This somewhat ponderous track would not have been my first choice to introduce the band. Because I had a reviewer’s access, I first heard the lead song to the album called Set A Course For Common Worlds, a bouncier but midtempo song that to me is more representative of the overall sound. Another similar choice would have been Occupy The Piper, which features some nice harmonies within.

Nor was I completely sold on the tracks which served as the ballads, the closing song Four Score And Seven To Go and She Flies, which slides into a short rework of the chorus called The Return. These don’t seem to have quite the staying power as Kings Among Kings, which I enjoyed for the storytelling and wistful tone of remembering days gone by. It steps a little into Bruce Springsteen Glory Days territory with its concept but fortunately realizes that and runs away quickly.

I did find the pair had a sense of humor with the brassy, quirky song Has Anybody Seen Bob? As far as I know, they are still looking for the son-of-a-gun and that’s important because $63.05 is still a nice chunk of change. (You have to listen to get the reference.)

There are eleven songs on this debut album, which came out just before Thanksgiving. Although I’m not a Pink Floyd fan by nature, you could hear their influence in a couple of the songs I enjoyed most. Sun Dried has an exotic open that becomes a slow but heavy rocker with atmospheric keyboard and wailing guitars. Similarly, Truth Attention takes about a minute to kick in but has a good payoff in the end.

The album’s highlight, though, is the song immediately afterward. With its sinister-sounding keyboards providing a haunting melody to complement its pounding rhythm, Revolt Of The Guards seems to send the message of the band’s vision of the new American century. When the guitar outro comes in, it’s a song that gets your attention.

So while “New American Century” has a few weaker links, I still think it’s a well-crafted album. There is certainly enough potential there to anticipate more from these two in the future because the marriage of keyboards and guitar and its unique sound has been too long ignored in the music business. These guys have been billed as folk meets prog rock, but I think they lean a long way in the latter direction and that’s a sound we could stand to hear more of.

By the way – it’s sort of a cheat, but if you go the MSX website and sign up for updates you can download all 11 tracks so you don’t have to take my word for it – just listen for yourself.

Transcending the political

First off, welcome to 2016. As a politically-minded blogger, even-numbered years in America always seem to draw more interest in my site so I hope it begins today.

But to begin 2016 I want to write about something which on its face would appear to be political but goes beyond party politics. It comes from the 9-12 Delaware Patriots, a conservative political group and one that has its interest in pushing Delaware in a different direction than its leadership tends to want to go – a recent example was their opposition to Syrian refugees entering the state.

However, a conservative movement is well-served in branching out beyond politics so I thought this part of their New Year’s message was appropriate in that regard:

Many of our members face challenges this year; health, financial, employment, etc. We hope to build a network of support throughout this new year for our members to bring resources to bear. One of the exciting things we’ll be doing is developing a directory of members who provide goods and/or services in the community. We also will be setting up resources for people to receive donated items and to donate items to our members or the community at large. If you are familiar with setting up and managing one of these “Needs & Seeds” programs, please contact Karen Gritton.

Perhaps the best places to learn more about their particular program are their social media page and website. This, though, brings up a larger point about the willingness of political groups to help out.

I have been involved to some degree or another with party politics for over two decades. Many people who are connected to a party – speaking from experience as a Republican, but assuming it’s not uncommon among Democrats, Libertarians, Greens, or anyone else – also spend a lot of time helping out in the community on an individual level. They may be Jaycees, volunteer and donate their time to lead the local Relay for Life, be a deacon in a local church – whatever the case, they aren’t creatures of the party. On the other hand, while individual members of a political party may be community leaders, the party itself by definition serves solely as a vehicle to get their favored or voter-selected candidates elected to public office.

So there are interest groups which try and straddle the line between politics and community. To use an example I’m familiar with, the Wicomico County Republican Club has a scholarship they give to a local high school senior. While there is competition to win it, the most basic requirement is that the recipient be a registered Republican – so it’s not inclusive of the entire community. (This is true of many other scholarships and awards as well, such as those only available to public school students.) In previous years, the WCRC also had a food stand at the old Salisbury Festival. But as a group their primary goal and interest is to elect Republicans.

On the other side of the coin are interest groups that aren’t necessarily political, but have a strong common interest and desire to do politically-based things. Foremost in my mind in that regard is the Free State Project, which is a movement to gather 20,000 liberty-minded people who promise to move to the state of New Hampshire, deemed to be the most advantageous pro-liberty state. (As of this writing, they are at 18,406. Once the 20,000 goal is reached, which could be this year, those who signed pledge to move to New Hampshire within five years. Almost 1,900 already have.) It’s likely that this group would be politically active upon arrival, but as it stands they are more of a community.

As the TEA Party movement evolves away from the label that was unfairly tarnished by half-truths and innuendo, it also needs to become more attuned to how it can be of assistance in a broader sense. I don’t think it’s unfair to consider the 9-12 Delaware Patriots a TEA Party group, but by rule they do not endorse candidates and it’s rare that anyone left-of-center would come be a speaker at their meetings. (Kudos to those who do.) What they seek in this call to action is sort of a mini-Free State Project in the regard that it would be encouraged for them to patronize the businesses members own and help each other out in times of need. To me, that echoes some of the functions of the religious community, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find a disproportionate percentage of the 9-12 Delaware Patriots are church members compared to the population at-large.

At the heart of all this is the question of where we want to go as a nation. There are many in this society who would be perfectly happy to cede their decision-making to an all-powerful government in return for subsistence, almost to the point of needing assistance to wipe their behinds. Sadly, I suspect that number is growing because the Millennials and beyond aren’t being educated in the concept of American exceptionalism and the progress to which our laissez-faire capitalist system has led the world.

Yet there are still a fair number of us who desire the limited government we were taught the Constitution guaranteed to us. We may argue about whether or not certain functions are legitimate and proper, such as our role to combat radical Islam, but the overall idea is to be self-reliant and to try and obey the Golden Rule. Some argue that the 2016 election may be our last stand, and we don’t want Custer in charge of it. (Many portray Donald Trump as Custer, while others believe any politician with Washington ties will lead us straight to that ambush.) Regardless, they have been disappointed with the political trends ever since the TEA Party movement began in 2009 as the opposition to statism.

Over this year, the electoral process will play out and hopefully the side of liberty will prevail. In the meantime, though. the idea behind the 9-12 Delaware Patriots’ initiative will be worth following. Perhaps it can lead to a local resurgence in the TEA Party movement that faded away a couple years ago.