You know, A lot of teachers, including myself are historically Democrats. Supporting wage increases for teachers. Supporting the AEA. Supporting things like the issue of PreK that is before us today that fall under the purview of the Alabama Legislature . But I also know that most teachers are also Christian Conservatives.

I am running as a financially conservative Republican with a Baptist background. Often I get introduced as a former Democrat. Kind of a warning to the audience not to take too seriously what I might say. But in our district we have more than 120,000 registered voters only 1/3 of which will vote in the election in the fall. But we also have 8000 registered teachers and spouses of educators and you can bet that near 100% of them will vote. With near three decades of education under my belt you can know that I will always support public school teachers.

But I believe two things.

1 -Locally and nationally, the Democratic party has run out from under me.
2- The "Bailout" well can, and will, run dry.

I vote, and I run as a candidate on economic issues. Even hot button issues I step back and say " How does this affect the economics of our community". If it is morally acceptable and doesn't cost the taxpayer money then I will consider it. I believe we need, and we are going to get some fiscally responsible leadership in November. On a State level we have to be forward looking enough to open our eyes see the things that are a coming.

Things like record budget deficits. Unemployment levels at all time high. Medicaid shortfalls and education cutbacks.

Sometimes the answers are available but not always easy. But we need to be careful that we get people in the legislature this time who are going to take care of our teachers and the education system.

Energy costs will continue to rise. Our young people will die in increasing numbers from drug overdose and their children will go hungry.

With that in mind it is time to state a personal platform.

I ) I pledge to vote against tax increases and be ever mindful of the hidden tax increases in "fees" charges by government agencies.

II) I pledge to support our schools and teachers. If elected I will use every dime of my discretionary money in competitive grants for school supplies for our four to twelve year old's in public schools instead of handing out checks to a privileged few.

III) I pledge to go completely draconian on the drug issue. Seeking stiffer penalties for drug offenses, lock down rehab, and to go after drug dealing doctors.

IIII) And finally the main difference between me and the other guy. I pledge to vote against every and all gambling bills put forward by the Democrats. laws that could result in slot machines in your corner store right beside your church or school.

V) And finally, finally -Last but not least I will spend the next four years explaining to every legislator who will listen, That when we get a budget shortfall the solution is more income so the people can pay more tax, not more tax that will drive the people further down.

Sholanda Speaks!

Thanks to Sister Sholanda for the 400% bump in my web traffic this morning. Apparently there is some renewed interest in my piece of bewilderment on the state of the State when it comes to big money poured into projects that do little to create jobs. {http://shoalandaspeaks.blogspot.com/}

But for the reader who might be interested in a fresh correspondence I would like to mention my good friend Roger Bedford. Now I have pledged to say nothing bad about Roger for the duration of the campaign. And I mean it. But facts are neither bad or good, they merely are.

The facts, insofar as I understand it, are thus:

On the Tuesday morning 95.5 Radio show WFMH, I may have mentioned that the sitting State Senator had not attended the yearly get together at Northwest Shoals, The first Alabama Public Junior College, in my 25 year recollection. Twenty minutes after the show aired I got a call giving me a "heads up" that Senator Bedford would be attending. ( For newcomers to the blog, my 25 year Democrat, Incumbent, Opponent in the upcoming contest in November. AKA my DIO.)

On the same week as the radio show I met with the candidates for Fayette County school board to give them an opportunity to talk about the needs for schools to their Senate Hopeful. The issue on the table was books for the grammar schools.

Now I don't know all the particulars but it seems that the State Board has mandated a certain curriculum upon which the young students will be tested.

The public schools progress, and their ranking, will be related to how well those students do on this mandatory curriculum. The schools have no money for books. Particularly second grade math books. So the schools are in a position of having students tested on material the teachers cannot teach because funds are not available to buy the required books. Typical.

Also of concern were the amount of supplies the parents have to purchase each year. This is a problem. If you have a half dozen kids starting school then you need to be ready to fork out more than $100 per child for supplies for the school.

I truly expected Roger to show up at our inservice with a 6.6 million dollar grant to build a new building like he did for UNA, or $625,000 for another sewer system for another goat farm. or another 1.6 million for a new "spec" building for industries that ain't here and ain't on the way. But he didn't..

He showed up and raffled off six $250 checks to state employees. Some say four, some say two, I counted six.

Now, I know this money was not his personally. That would be vote buying which is illegal. As a lawyer he is not going to do anything illegal (cough-hatchact). And I know the money wasn't campaign finance money, that too would be illegal. So I suspect it to be that nefarious kind of money known among the taxpayers as

"Your Money".

Your tax dollars raffled off according to the recipient's birthday while seven year old's in Fayette county start second grade without the proper math books. The money apparently channeled through our Northwest Community College Foundation. That, gentle reader is the current legislative leadership's commitment to education.

Let the second grade in Fayette County do without math books so that a smiling Senator can hand a few dollars to folk that don't really need it.

And it is the fundamental difference between the incumbent and myself. I believe we need to put the money where it is needed. In the schools to buy scissors and toilet paper and even math books occasionally - Instead of handing it out willy-nilly to people who already draw a State check.

I invite you, gentle reader, to look into this. Call the director of the NWSCC foundation, ask where the money came from, Ask where it is going and what restrictions there are on people who received it. And while you are at it remind them that funny handling of the foundation money already brought down one President and ultimately a Chancellor.

So Roger, If you are listening, trot on down to Fayette and do your job. Raffle off a few second grade textbooks with that money instead of using it to buy votes in my home town.

Tell'em Jim Bonner sent y'a

Can I trust you?

Yesterday I met with a group from Fayette and after the speeches one gentleman, even older than I, walked up and took my hand, looked me in the eye and said " If we elect you - Can I trust you?"

I said yes. But he didn't let go. Holding my hand with the grip of a man 20 years younger, he said " Can you hold the public trust?" Looking me right in the eye to the point that it was getting uncomfortable.

He wanted more from me than a simple politicians' yes. He wanted a vow. He wanted to hear "To Have-and-to-Hold, from this day forward, I will hold the public trust!"

Like jilted lovers - the citizens of the counties in district six are so tired of being betrayed by their elected officials. They are sick and tired of being sick and tired of politics as usual. Being stolen from lied to and made to sit for re-election photo-ops to get back a fraction of their tax dollars. This resentment for the status-quo extends, I believe, beyond the seven counties in district six, beyond Alabama all the way from Canada to Mexico and Sea to Shining Sea.

The place that we have come to know as America is hurting.

I spoke to a bee keeper along route 129 about the drug problem in his front door. He held my hand in the same grip I had seen a few hours before and with pleading in his eyes asked me to do something to stop the drugs and corruption. I spoke to the Wal-Mart Greeter who took my card. Looked at it for a moment then in a flash of recognition, said " I know who you are running against -Give me a hundred cards!"

I am struck with the sadness and desperation of the people who remember having jobs, even jobs in the woods and coal mines and trailer plants. Jobs that fed the family without having to "sign up every week" for a handout.

I spoke to the mayor of one city and asked him if the town had a drug problem. He said "Only one" and started to cry. I didn't dig deeper. I didn't have to because I know the story. It might be his daughter, his wife, his brother. But I know the story.

Last night on my way home the immense responsibility of being the senator for these aching people struck me with such enormous force that I had to pull over on that dark backwoods stretch of highway 241 and get something out of my eye.

So there it is. My vow. If you will have me, I promise to have and to hold your trust above all special interest and above the desire to get re-elected for the tenure of my office and beyond. Until death do us part.

Signed and sealed this day August 11, 2010

Jobs for the comming economy

A few minutes ago a friend asked "what kind of jobs are you going to create?"
This is a valid question.

Many times I have said that if you plop down from your spacecraft in the middle of district six and open your eyes the first thing you see is trees..

Lots and lots of trees.

What I know about trees is that they contain lots of clean energy. Although a tree emits carbon when it is converted to fuel A tree sucks in whatever is belched out when it is burned during the time it is growing.

A tree mature typically contains 3o-50 cubic feed of wood, only one third of which is usable for lumber. A third can be chipped into building products and the remainder is just waste.

Waste unless there is a Electric energy plant in place to convert waste wood to electricity.

That one thing for which Americans seem to have a boundless appetite. " Is there enough?" my friend asked. "well," I reply " there are about 80,000 pounds of scrap wood per acre in a district five thousand square miles in area. Each 80,000 pound load contains 80 million BTU of energy. This is equivalent to 20 thousand barrels of oil. 20,000 times 640 acres per square mile times 5000 acres.. Check with the math department but the number boggles the mind. Boggles it a small amount anyway until you figure that amount is the 5% growth and cull trees that proper management of a forest requires you see the potential, in the billions, that our forest products can provide for energy every year. It becomes boggled squared plus one.

As a sawmiller I am often amazed that a load of firewood will bring more than a load of cut lumber. Energy is THE salable commodity in the new millennium.

Which brings us to the other hot commodity..

The Sun.

Solar radiation can be captured and stored on the grid using modern technology at reasonable prices. Add to that the 30% tax credit and energy incentives from the local electric company we see a potential of upwards of 50,000 home energy installations of solar power in district six.
All of these installations are going to require certified electricians (which coincidentally my department at the college provides) and licensed contractors to install them.

This could account for 150,000 jobs installing Photovoltaic generation equipment in zero energy homes.
But the panels also have to be built.

The manufacture of solar cells of silicon is a technical specialty products requiring clean room technology but those facilities exist and the raw materials can be purchased readily.
The assembly of these components into power producing units is a fairly low tech -high paying occupation.

A company to build such panels, along with the accompanying electronics to make them grid tie might employ 500 people in $25 per hour jobs. This plant could be put in Alabama for a reasonable sum.

Perhaps, what?

$1.6 million dollars?

What does it mean to be wealthy?

A friend from high school who attended the generic reunion in Phil Campbell said something bout the "Upper Crust" of Phil Campbell, "Society People", she said. I didn't make much of the comment but in my recollection of the small town America I grew up in I have to assume she was speaking of those citizens who had shoes in the summertime.

The question arises from time to time of what is rich, what is poor, middle class, and what is truly wealthy. I recall once in the middle seventies seeing a government statistic that put middle class at a certain dollar amount per household member. I immediately took out my pencil and checked to see if I was middle class.. "Whew" Just made it by a few dollars. Unfortunately by the end of the year a new child was born and according to the United States Government I was poor again.

Unsatisfied with that set of rules I set about to establish my own standard of evaluating the classes, and myself among them and I came up with these guidelines. Actual lines one can draw in the sand to find out where you stack up in the socioeconomic ladder. I did no better in the standing but I did feel ownership of the measurement medium.

Test one, The line between poor and middle class.
Walk into the supermarket, if there is anything in the store you cannot buy then you are not middle class. Sorry to be the one to break the news but many in Alabama look into over the meat counter and wonder who buys a ten dollar steak. I have been there. You likely have been too.

I admit living on that line of middle class and poor America most of my life. Fortunately I have never been in the situation where I couldn't get in the supermarket. (although I was asked at a steak house once if I knew what it costs to eat there) If you just can't get in the supermarket then you are not on the socioeconomic ladder, you my dear friend, are a brick they use to scotch up one side of it.

The next rung on the social ladder occurs in the car dealership. If, like I, you sometimes find yourself in the automobile supermarket and your your transportation selection is influenced by the sticker price instead of your desire - you my friend are not rich. If you wonder as I do how any person can be so wasteful to drive a land barge or a hummer or that little red number that whispers your name as you walk past. Then my dear, you are not rich.

And the final line, or at least the last line that I know anything about is the Realtors office. If you dear friend have to base your home selection on your income. If they "pre-qualify" you for purchase.. then friend, you are not wealthy.

Of course we know that true wealth, wealth beyond measure is internal but it is somewhat difficult to engage in existentialism when the whispers of your soul are drowned out by the rumblings of the stomach.

My youngest reported being shunned once upon a time because she said she was rich, meaning that she had all she needed, she had food and shelter and clothes and she loved and gave love. The doctors daughters she ran around with said " You don't even have a four wheeler."

So don't get me wrong, money is not everything. Not unless you don't have it and the baby needs milk and school starts next week and there are no new shoes and check is late and the rent is due.

This is the center of my concern about the social ladder. That the people who live within a fifty mile radius of me live on that line between middle class and poor. And the people whey continue to elect to represent their interest have never seen even the line between wealthy and merely rich. Truly wealthy lawyers who manipulate us into believing that they are doing us a favor by giving us back a part of the taxes they levied on us right after the past election.

My concern is for the people. People just like you. And me.

What Soviet Threat?

I recall in the late seventies I warned that the Soviet Union could collapse under the weight of its own debt.

I was told that the Soviets could require the workforce to work whatever hours necessary for whatever pay was available, they could be taxed at whatever rate necessary to support their military complex and that no free nation could compete. They could not "collapse". Today you will note that most of your incoming freshmen regard the Soviet Union, If they have even heard the term, as something of an anachronism. A state government something like the CSA, as remote in their thinking as the Civil War.

Alabama Education Association

I am a member of the Alabama Education Association. I am a member of a lot of other organizations and like you I’ll bet there are some things you support in the organizations to which you belong and some things that you disagree with, maybe even loudly and heartily. That, gentle reader is my relationship with the AEA.

For starters, the AEA apparently isn’t going to support me. Even though I’ve been a member for 27 years. Even though I have been an elected delegate to the the annual convention more years than not. I’ve sent in my dues regularly and enjoyed the benefits AEA provides to teachers. Nobody else is going to look after my well-being and my ability to survive in education like the AEA. One wonders then, Why won’t the Imperial Grand Poobah of the organization back me? AEA apparently does not even recognize my candidacy. Because I’m a Republican? Because of favors owed to other candidates? Who knows.

But, the AEA does have a couple of sacred cows which need to be de-horned. The first of these is serious review of the tenure laws. While I support the current laws for teachers in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade, tenure for people who work for community colleges needs to be reformed. When I talk to people in the district the perception of teachers and administrators who remain on the payroll after they commit crimes seems to be a serious sore point with the working taxpayers.

I do have to agree with AEA's rules preventing the review of incompetent teachers who need to be removed by incompetent and overpaid administrators who also need to be removed. There is simply to much room for a qualified teacher to be removed simply because a brother-in-law needs the job. AEA can help with that but still, The tenure laws need a review.

Some years ago, Republican Representative Tripp Pittman, of Baldwin County, introduced legislation which provided for some improvement in the existing tenure law. Administrators—those people who run the colleges and their various divisions - could only obtain tenure as members of the faculty.

This meant that people responsible for academic, vocational, and technical areas would have to be members of a faculty first. My friends and I supported this portion of the measure. But hurtful to the entire concept of tenure lurked the idea that faculty members on continuing service, once fired, would place an unfair burden on men and women who can’t afford that expense.

AEA objected to this package and killed it.

In addition, community college faculty members should only be able to obtain tenure after five years’ service. And I think it ought to be expanded to require peer review evidence of superior teaching, community service, and professional growth in the teaching area.

Lost in the proceedings was a overly-wordy piece of legislation from the 1990s called “The Articulation and General Studies Agreement.” This agreement says that credit hours at our community colleges transfer to public four year institutions with the same status as if the student took the course at the senior institution. The other side of that coin must be that equal credit hours mean equal conditions of learning. First of these equalities should be the hiring, professional growth, and retention of our community college faculty. Second, but not less important is funding for facilities that are at least equal to the University setting. This is going to require a complete review of the regulatory body of the Community College System.

I’ll have more to say about the Alabama Education Association in the coming weeks. You can depend on me to stand up for honesty and ethics reform in every nook and cranny of government. That reform will start within the cranny in which I live.