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From the way some of them yammer away, it is like if
you vote for them, you will be immediately transported to
Fantasy Island where all of our dreams will come true:
clean streets ... safe streets, more jobs ... clean water
... great parks ... fantastic public schools (more about
that later on) ... a thriving downtown ... lower taxes ...
highly competent city governance ... (ha..ha..on that one!)
... Age of Aquarius! .... well, you get the drift.
Sorry to say, but the above "stuff" won't happen under
any administration without a bigger tax base and more
innovative and aggressive city hall leadership ("in
Toledo...you say!").
As you can see, most if not all of the leadership and
new ideas of development are not coming from the moribund
city hall or mayor's office, but rather from the private
sector.
Why? They saw the handwriting on the wall and decided
to step up and step out and let the city fathers (and
mothers) play catch up.
What drives innovation and creativity? Ideas! ....
ideas! ... ideas and the guts to put them into action and
not the utterance of mealy-mouthed public service statements
about what needs to be done but what will be done.
Sadly, the presently constituted group of city
politicos are abysmally clueless as to
grabbing the bull by the horns and going for a ride. They
play it safe and put in the requisite number of lame chicken
dinner speeches to the Rotary Club and VFW Posts and call it
a successful day.
They follow an old, outdated political playbook that
says that you do not rock the boat or offend anyone and you
do not make waves that will upset the status quo, or, if you
do, you better have a day job as your default position.
Question? Have any of the current crop of politicos
asked the mayor about the offering of the 11 low-hanging
fruit ideas for growth and development that were offered for
her consideration some months ago and, if so, what happened
to those ideas?
So, when the general election rolls around, expect the
same ol' same ol' and you will not be disappointed! No
surprises there.
Note Two: Well, well. It appears that the Ohio
Department of Education has come to Toledo, peeked inside
the school system and what they saw caused them to
give Toledo Public Schools a good caning...almost to the
point of child abuse.
TPS got another, "F"! ( I say, "another" since it is in
a long line of distinguished F grades over past years). By
the way, the "F" grade does not stand for fine or fabulous.
It means, TPS is not meeting the bench mark in educational
standards of excellence.
Did you see the full page Toledo Blade ad that the
board put out the day before the report card grades came
out? They knew that they were in for a whipping and wanted
to minimize the damage by putting their spin on their
accomplishments.
I know, I know ... Toledo, being an urban school
district, has a host of problems with its students:
homelessness, hunger, poverty, one parent households and
downright apathy including the perennial problem of young
teachers cutting their educational teeth on inner city
school kids (as if they were being experimented upon).
But, did you also notice that the overwhelming number
of past superintendents have been in-house or in-grown
products? Where is the needed mix of bringing in
superintendents and staff from outside of Toledo or Ohio?
Why the need to always circle the wagons and have John
Doe or Jane Doe always take the head honcho position instead
of a Darren Greaves from Austin or a Karen Mysong from
Seattle coming in and tossing out the dead weight and
equally dead teaching materials or slacker teachers?
Someone said, and I do not know who said it but, "There
are no un-teachable kids, there are teachers who just can't
teach!" There! Is that throwing down the gauntlet?
Sure, Romules Durant is seemingly a great cheer leader for
TPS. His zeal is catchy and inspiring. He is a dynamo in
trying to single handedly carry TPS on his back.
But, there comes a time when it might be time for Mr.
Durant to say adios to TPS and farm out his considerable
skills to other school districts around the country.
I know, I know...I will catch the devil for these comments
but so what. Catch me if you can!
Note Three: Well, it seems that President Trump is
impervious to any instruction regarding his woefully
appalling lack of American history in regards to civil
rights and
white supremacy in America.
When he met with Senator Tim Scott, the only black
senator in Congress, for a grand total of 40 minutes,
Senator Scott, to his credit, was trying to pour water on
a rock and hoping against hope that the rock would absorb
it. Fat chance!
A obtuse person like Trump, who hails from NYC and is
old enough to know, or should know, the basic rudiments of
the civil rights struggle and the history of the KKK,
acts as if all of this is news to him.
Granted, 40 minutes to educate an old white man who is
set in his ways about the pernicious effect of him
constantly making any statement that gives aid and comfort
to white nationalists or the KKK or white supremacists is a
gargantuan task at best.
One would think that being from NYC, Trump, by mere
accident of association or osmosis, would have had a better
understanding of these United States including Jim Crow,
slavery, de jure segregation and police misconduct.
But, alas, he appears to have intentionally missed
those junior high and high school history classes wherein he
could have been told the real deal about the reasons for the
Civil War and the effects of post Civil War slavery and
racism, both seen and unseen.
Trump is intractable about his views on race and racism
in America. We have seen that many times in his buffoonish
statements about Charlottesville and the Central Park Five
and birtherism and the Wall and a host of other mind-numbing
dumb statements that he puts forth as being true.
So, kudos to Senator Scott for his effort to try to
re-orient this President. What Trump needed was to be
locked in at Camp David (without his Twitter account) for 72
hours with Andrew Young, Michelle Alexander, Tim Wise, John
L. Lewis, Cornel West and Roland Martin.
Now, that would have been an education!
Contact Lafe Tolliver at tolliver@Juno.com
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