Gub'ment Budget

Gub'ment Budget, HA! What a joke. A $1.3 trillion spending package. What they can't spend money on. (Money they ain't got!) Uncle Bubba believes he has a voice in the United States government. He is an active citizen and is not beyond writing his congressmen, congresswomen, and Senators in regard to issues that cause him concern. Emailing an elected official opts y'all in to receive their pandering newsletters. Uncle Bubba just received one from Senator Bill Nelson. He was proud to tell his constituency that he secured federal funding; something to be proud of?

Uncle Bubba read the newsletter out loud to Sweet Pea and then they paused and looked at one another. After a minute Bubbie said to Sweet Pea, "Darlin', I don't reckon that one thing on that list concerns us." He read through the list again, pausing after each title and say,"Nope, don't concern us..." In Bubbie's view, Senator Nelson is sure 'nough proud of spending taxpayers money, just wished he'd asked us all first.

Hiding In Plain Sight

Cousin Earl had to ride to the county seat to pay his tax bill and what-not and he asked Uncle Bubba to ride along just to keep him company. Uncle Bubba hadn't seen much of Cousin Earl lately so he took him up on the invite. It was a beautiful sunny Spring day though a little chilly for the wind; after all, it was March. Cousin Earl parked in the lot across the street from the courthouse and as he stepped out of the car he left the keys with Uncle Bubba so he could listen to the radio while he waited. Uncle Bubba cracked open the window and heard voices as he noticed several small groups of people standing between cars and talking. There were young and old, little children and grandmas. It didn't take long for Uncle Bubba to realize that there was a lot of drama happening in that parking lot. Well, it made sense since folks were coming out of the courthouse and walking back to their vehicles. They were probably there fighting over split-ups, divorces, child custody and what have you; maybe some small claims stuff, sad stuff. Come on man, if you lie with dogs, you're bound to get fleas.


Beyond the angry gestures and foul language, across the street and right under the American flag was a black granite statue of the Ten Commandments. Uncle Bubba stared at them intently, with a twinkle in his eye as he thought about the political statement that the county made by placing them there; it felt good, it felt right. But then the irony of the tragedies that were happening around him struck his heart. If these hurt and harmed folks would only live by the words etched in that stone monument they wouldn't be standing there up to their eyeballs on such a beautiful Spring day. In Bubbie's view, the answer to most of the drama in their wretched lives was hiding right there in plain sight.

Just Throw Money At It

Uncle Bubba doesn’t like to get too current with his current events since the world is filled with hate and bad news and he definitely doesn’t want to contribute to it. So this is a post that may help in shedding some light on a dark subject; one that seems to have our political "leaders” stumped though there are smart people with viable answers. Our topic is the once unheard of occurrence of school shootings. Uncle Bubba felt compelled to get this information out there due to a recent headline in the local newspaper: “Making An Impact”. It was a typical, political fluff piece about how wonderful our local Sheriff (and Sheriff’s office) is. Among other things, in the wake of the recent shootings, he proposes to hire 10 new officers to protect the county middle and high schools. The school board had proposed to hire 5 but the sheriff, as a political monster’s nature is, wants 10. The board offered to pay just more than $82,000 to cover half the cost of those five additional officers for the rest of this school year. And where do they get that money from? The sheriff's office would pay the other half. Uncle Bubba wonders what criteria the Sheriff and school board used to come up with their solutions?

"There are associated upfront costs that no matter what we do, we must have the upfront cost covered," the Sheriff said. "That's purchasing the vehicles, the uniforms, the equipment, the weapons, doing the mandatory training as mandated by Florida statute to deploy these assets out into the communities."

To help cover those costs, the sheriff says he has asked county commissioners for a budget amendment of $978,000 for the rest of his current fiscal year… uh, Sheriff? That’s taxpayers' money. With that in mind, Uncle Bubba asks you to read the following excerpt from a podcast called Brain Stuff.

“On Valentine’s Day this year, 17 people including students and teachers were killed by a 19-year-old former student at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas that was high school in Parkland Florida. This was the tenth mass school shooting in the United States in the past five years. A mass shooting is generally defined as one when at least four people are killed in a single incident. And, once again, Americans are left asking ourselves why? Lost in the noisy debate over gun control and mental health screening is another compounding question; why schools? Why do so many troubled young man see schools as a place to act out there violent and vengeful fantasies? And what if anything can a school do to avoid becoming the next Columbine, Sandy Hook, or Stoneman Douglas? We spoke with Bryan Warnick, a Professor of Educational Ethics and Policy at the Ohio State University who co-authored a paper on the meaning and motivations behind targeted school shootings. Even though many associate gun violence in America with poor inner-city communities, many school shootings almost always occur at upper-middle-class suburban schools. That’s where the status tournament takes place explains Warnick. He said suburban schools do a lot of things to select winners and losers in ways that go beyond academics; think the adulation of athletics and the crownings of homecoming kings and queens. He continued, the way we see it, when schools set themselves up as judges in the social status tournament the resentment will sometimes be directed against the school itself.

In the book, 'Hollywood Goes To The Movies' sociologist and author Robert Bulman says that while Hollywood films that in urban schools focus on heroic teachers and academic achievement, films set in suburban settings focus on student journeys of self-discovery. In the same vein, many suburban school shooters see what they are doing is acts of self-expression. 

Warnick said there’s a different value system at play in suburban schools, it’s called expressive individualism. What we see in movies and TV is students engaged in the process of self-discovery, breaking through norms of the school, breaking through social cliques. Discovery and individual expression aren’t necessarily bad things says Warnick, but for certain troubled young man who harbor deep resentment of the system that rejected them, there’s no better way to express their true tortured selves than through a dramatic act of violence and the higher the body count to be more powerful the message will be. 

We also spoke with Cheryl Johnson, a Professor of Criminal Justice at Cincinnati’s Xavier University where she studied whether increased security measures, namely armed guards on campus, locked down buildings, and metal detectors are an effective means of preventing school shootings. She found that although beefed up security may deter overall crime and violent crime in schools there’s little evidence to show that those measures alone thwart a mass shooting. First, school shootings are just too statistically rare to gauge the efficacy of different security methods. And second, there’s antidotal evidence that even the best security can fail.

There were armed school guards at Columbine. The Sandy Hook shooter shot through glass pans to bypass locked doors. And in 2005, a student in Red Lake Minnesota passed through his schools metal detector before killing an unarmed guard who tried to stop him, along with other people including himself. There’s also concerned militarizing schools with armed guards and security checkpoints contribute to the idea that the school is an unsafe place where violence is almost expected. Johnson 2017 paper, obviously written before the February 2018 Parkland instant, pointed out that the raw number of homicides at schools each year since Columbine in 1999 had actually decreased or remain stable over the years. 

One of the best ways to prevent school shootings, both Johnson and Warnick agree, is to encourage people to speak up when they suspect a classmate friend or family member is contemplating something terrible. The day before the Parkland shooting a grandmother in Washington state called 911 when she found her 18-year-old grandson’s handwritten plans for a gruesome school attack involving homemade explosives. 

Johnson said, 'That’s a school shooting we’re not talking about today.' Citing a report from the Secret Service and the Department of Education, that in 81% of school shootings at least one other person knew about the plans. In 59%, two or more people had information about the attacks before they occurred. Warnick said, 'Usually when school shootings are prevented its when students trust the teachers enough to share that information with them. If we could really build up schools as a place of the trust, where children feel like they had adults you care about them, that would facilitate the communication that’s been proven to prevent school shootings.'

Of course, speaking of hasn’t always been foolproof. We now know that the FBI received a tip about the Parkland shooter dating back to September 2017 for making disturbing comments on YouTube, but he was never detained or even questioned. A second person contacted the FBI on January 5, 2018, to report their concerns and to warn them about the shooter’s guns and desire to kill. But the FBI has admitted that the proper protocols to follow up were left unfollowed. 

Instead of school Districts spending money on expensive and unproven security solutions Bryan Warnick suggests they hire more teachers and counselors to shrink class-sizes and encourage more meaningful interactions between staff and struggling students. He’d also like to see more creative outlets like art, literature, and music classes which often get cut from tight budget for safe individual expression."

In Bubbie's view, if the county is going to spend $1,060,000.00 it should be on Warnick and Johnson's suggestions above. In other words, spend it on the children and not to inflate the size of peripheral local government agencies.

Highway Robbery

The previous post was Uncle Bubba's story of how it took him nearly one week to purchase a piece of glass for his old camper. Since he got it installed, I asked him how he felt about it now that it's done. He said that, because it looks good, he feels good about it; but it's tainted by the hassle it took to buy it. I can completely understand that. He was astute at pointing out that we run into this phenomenon all the time, people that are either self-centered or incompetent, either way, they are robbing us. Of what? Beyond the obvious of time and money, how about peace? When we're at peace, aren't we content? Don't we have a good feeling when we're at peace? Isn't that where we'd all like to be?

Uncle Bubba says, say y'all drive to the feed store, the Piggly Wiggly, or twist off to the Vallero station for gas and a cup of coffee. On the way, someone cuts you off or nearly runs into you with their car. Maybe they even give you a dirty look and pop off madder than a wet hen in a tote sack. And here you were just fixin' to make your way, in peace. Now you're fighting the urge in your mind to tell that Jasper, "I'm fixin' ta jerk a knot in your tail!" Well, brothers and sisters, I'm here to tell y'all, don't do it. Whether y'all are Christians or not you should not be easily angered; be patient, be kind and willing to forgive. Don't let people rob you of your peace. Give up your childish ways and choose not to be easily offended; it's not worth it. Don't let them highway robbers steal your peace!

And for those who attempt to rob the world of its peace by your thoughtless acts, bless your heart, you can't go far but what your tail will follow you.

A Pain In The Glass

Uncle Bubba needed a pane of glass to replace a broken window in his old camper. Being unfamiliar with how the window was assembled, he carefully removed the plastic trim from the aluminum frame and took the measurements of the glass area. Then he was off to the local hardware store to get the glass cut to size. One of the oldtimers that work there asked what he needed.
"A piece of glass for a camping trailer window" he replied.
"Do you know the size?"
"Yessir, 18 inches by 10 inches." But he was thinking, "Do you think I would come here and not know the size?" And in the immortal words of comedian Bill Engvall, "Here's your sign." Uncle Bubba let the thought pass as it does no good to harbinger a foul thought.

The oldtimer scribbled down the dimensions on a small white scrap of paper and turned to the supply of glass and consulted a chart on the wall. He pulled a pane from a stack and placed it against a large vertical cutting table against the wall. He used a tape measure and adjusted the glass and then slid a long aluminum arm down across the glass and snapped off a piece. He tossed the smaller piece into a scrap bin on the floor with a crash. Then rotated the glass on the table and repeated the procedure. Crash! The leftover hit the bin. He wrapped the finished piece a heavy paper wrapper, wrote out a ticket and handed them both to Uncle Bubba. Bubbie thanked him and walked to the front counter to pay.

Back home he had to pry the old, broken glass from the frame before scraping a gummy gasket strip off of the aluminum. He reapplied a new, very sticky black gasket to the frame and then laid the glass into place... oh no, it didn't fit! It was a little out of square for sure and cut slightly bigger than the specs that Uncle Bubba had supplied. So, reluctantly, he drove back to the hardware with the piece of glass to rectify the situation. He walked back to the glass cutting area and the oldtimer was standing there.
Uncle Bubba piped up, "Sir, this glass that y'all cut fer me doesn't fit, it's too big."
"Well I cut it to the dimensions that you gave me," came the oldtimers reply. (And once again, "Here's your sign.")
"Sir, it's not cut to the size that I gave y'all or it would have fit. It don't fit. Therefore, it was not cut to the size I gave you." Bubbie retorted.
The oldtimer pulled out a tape measure and stretched it across the glass. "It reads 18 inches by 10 inches." he mused.
"No, it reads 18 1/8 inches by 10 1/16 inches."
The oldtimer slid the tape over the glass once again. "Well, on this end it's even a little bigger. Were they tight measurements that you gave me?" asked the oldtimer, "Because glass should be cut an 1/8 inch less so that it fits."
"They weren't real tight measurements, and if you'd have asked me that before you cut it I would have told you so. Sir, y'all are the glass cutter, not me. If I had cut it, I'd have given it a little room to play. And the fact that it's out of square means that your cutting table needs to be adjusted."
"Well, I don't know what you want me to do about it," said the oldtimer, "I can't trim this to fit."
Uncle Bubba said, "Look, I got the window out in my camper so I need a piece of glass cut to the right size so that I can get the window put back in. I reckon that you should cut me a new piece of glass."
"OK, but I'll have to charge you fer it." said the oldtimer.
"Oh no you won't." said Bubbie, "I'm not paying for your mistake. Y'all gave me a piece of glass that didn't fit."
"I cut it to the dimensions that you gave me." the oldtimer said. (Here's your sign again!)
"Look here, I'm not going to keep arguing this with you. If your policy is that the customer is wrong and y'all don't make mistakes, then cut the glass an 1/8 inch smaller per side and I'll take it up with the store manager."

I'll spare y'all the details of the rest of the story, like the next piece didn't fit either because it was still out of square; it's too painful to rehash. What a pain in the glass! In Bubbie's view, these things happen way too often in life. The good old days of courtesy are gone like rotary telephones. He wasted 2 hours of his time in two trips. He didn't need an argument and to pay for someone else's mistakes, he just needed a simple piece of glass. My question is, what do we do when this happens to us?

Edit: The next day, Uncle Bubba decided to go to a local glass shop to get his piece of glass. He waited at the counter as the employee assisted a gentleman with his window order, then it was his turn. He ordered an 1/8 inch thick pane of glass, 17 3/4" X 9 3/4" and told the nice lady that he had already taken into account the adjustment by reducing the dimension by an 1/8 inch per side. While ordering he even showed the lady the dimensions he had written down to reinforce her writing down the correct measurements. To his astonished disappointment, she then informed him that they could not currently cut the piece because "the boys" were unloading a truck.
"It could take hours or even tomorrow but I'll call you when it's done."
Uncle Bubba turned from the counter, dazed, and walked out to his truck, and drove away with an irked laughter and shaking his head.

The day passed without a phone call but they did finally call the next afternoon so Uncle Bubba went to pick up his glass. He could not make up what happened next; the lady handed him a pane of glass. See for yourself:

Near tears, Uncle Bubba explained that the measurement was wrong, it was supposed to be 9 3/4", not 9 3/8". Then she told him that the feller that cuts the glass just left for the day so he couldn't recut the glass until tomorrow. Stay tuned...

Finally, though it took two trips back to pick up the last piece of glass, it wasn't cut yet when he stopped in the morning because "We are fixing our cutting table"; Uncle Bubba was able to install it and put the entire ordeal to rest. It was an expensive fix costing more time than money, and all because of ineptitude, to be polite. Still, what would you do if it were you?