Wiederaenders: Schools should already be 'real creative'

Tim takes the PUSD Facilities Manager to task for his expression, "Short of a bond, we are going to have to get real creative," inferring from the comment that the school district is talking about borrowing money before "creative" options are explored. And I thought I was Prescott's most annoying pedant.

This my be a class-related idiom, but when a working man says to me, "we're gonna have to get real creative," I take it to mean that the next step is cutting corners and skirting good practice. In certain situations it can mean going around the law. It's sarcasm, Tim, and it bodes an ugly result. The college-guy translation would be, "Without bonding, our services and facilities will suffer unacceptably." Make a note.

I'll bet if you dusted off your old reporter's hat, showed up at the PUSD Facilities Department and asked a few questions, you'd be surprised at how creative our public employees are and have been in dealing with their diminishing budget. You may also notice that though you deserve it, they don't take a poke at you for insulting them so ignorantly and publicly.

Tim was a bit less clear with his anecdote about fundie Xtian Dave McNabb (an old radio colleague of mine) asking the school board to stop teaching evolution as fact. If I take the section at face value, Tim seems to be smiling smugly about his advanced knowledge that evolution is (just) theory. I've long known that Tim believes in the Big Guy In the Sky, but I shudder to think that our local print monopoly might be run by someone no smarter or better informed than your average Afghan Taliban.

Note to Dave: What do you care? You're lifting off tomorrow.

We also learn that until the recent school-bus crash, Tim didn't know that our local districts go out and pick up kids in adjacent districts if their parents want them to attend a different school, they do it at no cost to the parents and they've been doing it for years. This is just one of many silly results of kowtowing to the god of competition in public services.

I happened to be talking about this at dinner the other night with one of our local school bus drivers, who offered one fascinating story after another about the ridiculous contradictions drivers deal with on a daily basis, starting with the lack of seat belts and other basic safety measures for the kids. Again, Tim, consider asking a question of a working stiff once in a while.