High school drinking

The double standard is alive and well at my house. I can drink beer, smoke cigars, roll through stops and participate in other adult activities, but if my teenagers do it, they’re busted.
The current issue is drinking alcohol. My teens think it’s okay. I don’t.
I have mixed feelings about 18 year olds, but my kids are under 18.
So now we have what I compare to a POW camp. Prisoners have an obligation to try to escape, and the guards have an obligation to shoot them if they try.
I tell my teens why the law is what it is - decreased inhibitions, 40% of alcohol-related fatal crashes are teens, general withdrawal and disregard for other laws, and that alcohol can be a gateway drug and/or lead to addiction.
Apparently other parents think it’s okay for their high schoolers to drink. Or they just turn a blind eye. They allow parties with alcohol at their house.
I’ve talked to school officials and the Sheriff’s Office. I was impressed by their concern, but discouraged by the outcomes. Sheriff’s deputies bust retailers; they even arrested parents last year. But few seem to care, and it’s tough to enforce fake IDs. Schools offer programs, but few participate.
I will keep talking and stay on guard. There will be no teen drinking at my house. I pray that no one gets hurt because of what happens at some other parents’ house.
I know this is an age-old problem. But now it’s my turn and any advice is welcome.

Person of the Year

As years go, 2009 rates as a two on a scale of ten. On the bright side, the weather was mild, gas prices behaved and warnings of a pandemic didn’t pan out. But in March, the stock market wobbled so badly that we thought the sky was falling. Those of us lucky to still have a good job lost a chunk of our savings, and America was thrust deeply into debt.
But even in a hapless year, one person must stand out.
Nobel chose Barack Obama. Time picked Ben Bernacke. AP sports picked Tiger Woods. Many wanted Michael Jackson.
(I think the Wizard of Oz had more depth than those four.)
My pick for person of the year is Susan Boyle, the frumpy woman who belted out the Les Mis tune to 100 million viewers on youTube. She had talent and nerve, but more importantly the woman under promised and over delivered. She was real, at least in that initial appearance, not some illusion shaped by the media. Her star quickly dimmed, but only after warmly enlightening us all to not judge a book by its cover.
For 2010, I’ll be looking again for substance over form and for people who lift us up collectively.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxPZh4AnWyk

And this from an admirer...

“Though the American left and right don’t agree on much, they are both now coalescing around the suspicion that Obama’s brilliant presidential campaign was as hollow as Tiger’s public image.”
Frank Rich, New York Times columnist, December 19, 2009.

Drowning in unintended consequences

People think that conservatives want to dismantle government. Not true. We’re proud of our military, parks, mints, highways, and for the most part, judicial system. We just understand that when the government attempts to fix social issues, the results are worse than the problem.
The government wanted no one to go hungry; now we have a nation of obese people. The feds wanted to upgrade education and now everyone gets a very expensive but often inflated degree. They loosened immigration and now we have millions of illegals living here like citizens. They wanted everyone to own a home and the resulting bad credits may capsize the system. They want the U.S. to pay for keeping the climate constant without addressing the much bigger problem of third-world overpopulation.
The liberal politicians and bureaucrats who run Washington mean well, they just won’t use judgment, try new approaches or ever scale back. Government rewards failure with more funding.
Free market forces may be uneven and messy, but at least they drive efficiency.
Norman Thomas, a six-time candidate for President from the Socialist Party of America said this in 1944: "The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism, but under the name of liberalism, they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program until one day America will be a socialist nation without ever knowing how it happened."

Over-reaching amateurs

A friend of mine, a professional in the health insurance industry for many years, was in Washington recently to talk to legislators about health care reform. He left depressed and embarrassed at how little the lawmakers and their staffs understand the issues.
There are accounts of federal minions telling Detroit executives how to build cars. Local power company experts are alarmed at how much the proposed cap & tax legislation will cost Georgians. And if Congress doesn’t pass cap & tax, the EPA will back door us.
Every organization – for profit or not - is spending an inordinate and rapidly rising amount of resource complying with massive new regulations, in addition to defending against frivolous litigation.
We have some serious problems in this country – high unemployment, exploding debt, un-fundable promises (Social Security and Medicare), illegal immigration, and more.
What are we getting from the Democrats? Re-engineering medicine, trying to change the climate and redistributing wealth.
Good grief.
It’s like a bunch of kids with new power in Washington, and they're very quickly killing the goose that has produced golden eggs in this country for over two centuries.

Obama could learn a lot from Governor Perdue

What a contrast we have in the leadership styles of Sonny Perdue and Barack Obama.
Sonny grew up in the country, has been an Air Force Captain, a veterinarian and a businessman. He walks the talk. He understands that government is the servant, not the master of the people - quietly, humbly running the state and letting people live their lives.
He was a Democrat in his younger days, but developed into a Republican.
Sonny gets it. Money doesn’t grow on trees. Least government is best government.
I’ll take a get ‘er done leader over a fancy talker any day.

Dealing with Dems is like Whack-A-Mole

Cap & Tax… whack. Health care reform… whack. Higher taxes… whack. Crushing regulations… whack.
Miss one and a mushroom cloud of debt appears.
The Democrat social engineering attempts just keep on coming.
Solution: lower taxes to stimulate investment and create jobs.

An independent press – key to freedom

I heard the publisher of The Telegraph, George McCanless, speak recently.
I agree with him completely that a robust press is critical to freedom in this country. I was also glad to hear him say that he wants no part of government subsidies.
But I completely disagree with his statement that The Telegraph is politically balanced. He cited that the opinion page runs the same number of left as right leaning political cartoons. In whose judgment?
My biggest beef with the Telegraph is their national news coverage. Someone at the paper decides what AP stories will run and where, and that person (or persons)is highly selective and left of center.
Have you seen appropriate coverage of Climategate? Or anything about the scandalous people Obama has appointed as czars?
The rising popularity of talk radio and Fox News proves that Americans want to hear both sides. We expect a left slant from the lamestream media (AP, network news, TV shows, movies, etc.). You’d think that The Telegraph would see the opportunity to increase readership by offering more balance, especially in this conservative part of the country.
If only the media invested a fraction of their resources in tracking government waste and corruption as they have in Tiger Woods or the crasher couple, more people might have jobs.