Don't Just Dream

DO SOMETHING!

And the scientific community is united in that fact.

Dummycrat State Representative Wayne Ford went off the deep end when he was caught complaining about government response to this year's flooding of the Union Park/Birdland neighborhood.

Per the Ragister on 6/12...

officials have not been responsive enough since the 1993 floods — and help is coming too slowly now. He said there aren’t enough sandbags to protect homes and businesses in the area and he worries about flooding at North High School, directly across Second Avenue from the area being evacuated.

"...If we can protect Sec Taylor stadium, we should also be able to protect North High School.”

First off Wayne, it's Principal Park and has been since 2004.

Second, it was sandbagged by Iowa Cubs employees.















RODNEY WHITE/REGISTER photosIowa Cubs assistant of stadium operations Janelle Videgar, right, helps other front office and grounds crew employees sandbag on Monday afternoon. Principal Park is skirted by the Des Moines River on the east and the Raccoon River on the south.

Thirdly, get off your fat ass and help sandbag.

Were you a part of the huge effort in Union Park to fill sandbags to be stacked by the National Guard?

CHRISTOPHER GANNON/THE REGISTER

Volunteers scurry to fill sandbags to strengthen the Birdland levee Thursday night at Union Park in Des Moines.

How about utilizing your organization Urban Dreams?

In today's Ragister they corrected Ford's comments for him...

Ford remarked on efforts taken earlier to build a wall around Principal Park south of downtown and said "we should also be able to protect North High School."

It's all Ratio

The Ragister's headline today was serious...

Iowa's black-white prisoner ratio is the highest in the nation.

How can that be changed?

Just brainstorming here, but how about...

Commit Less Crime!

And the scientific community is united in that fact.

It should come as no surprise that Ako Abdul-Samad or Wayne Ford, two blacks who represent Des Moines in the Iowa House of Representatives don't agree with my solution.

Abdul-Samad thinks...

the biggest areas to be addressed were the lack of availability of drug treatment through the courts, lack of job opportunities for minority youth, and racist sentencing practices in the state justice system.

Ironic considering his real (?) job, at $70,000 + per year, is running Creative Visions...

The purpose and mission of the agency is to engage youth and young adults in creating a safer community for the purpose of attracting quality jobs and encouraging entrepreneurial activity in the greater Des Moines community.

Ford would like to see existing agencies work together more to help convicts transition out of the corrections system, get jobs and build more productive lives.

Hello Wayne that doesn't address the ratio issue.

Personally, I think the black community needs to clean its own house before it points fingers at others.

I'm weary of the Blame Whitey and Kill Whitey attitudes because that's the easy way out.

Bill Cosby and Juan Williams agree and get labeled as Uncle Tom's.

Cosby chastises the African-American community for its rates of juvenile delinquency, its parenting, the coarse language of its youth. You can do better, he tells his fellow blacks. Don't let yourself be victims, and especially don't let the poorest in the community let themselves be victims.

Williams writes...

With 50 percent of Hispanic children and nearly 70 percent of black children born to single women today these young people too often come from fractured families where there is little time for parenting. Their search for identity and a sense of direction is undermined by a twisted popular culture that focuses on the “bling-bling” of fast money associated with famous basketball players, rap artists, drug dealers and the idea that women are at their best when flaunting their sexuality and having babies…

Last December I blogged on a story about the U.S. having the most prisoners in the world and this view rings true in this story too!

Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in California, said the high prison numbers represented a proper response to the crime problem in the United States. Locking up more criminals has contributed to lower crime rates, he said.

"The hand-wringing over the incarceration rate is missing the mark," he said.

Scheidegger said the high prison population reflected cultural differences, with the United States having far higher crimes rates than European nations or Japan. "We have more crime. More crime gets you more prisoners."

PS: The cartoon pictured ran in the Hartford Courant in July 2003.

Son Of A Gun

Outgoing, in more ways than one, State Representative Wayne Ford has a solution for the 4 shootings that have occurred in his district this week.

"The answer is jobs, jobs, jobs."

4 shootings and you're only offering 3 jobs as a solution?

That doesn't add up, you're not trying Wayne and the scientific community is united in that fact.

What about your organization Urban Dreams?









Where's all that dough go?

It looks like some entrepreneurs may already be ahead of Ford on this.

The driver of a passing car stopped for one gunshot victim and took him to Broadlawns Medical Center.

The victim did not know the person who took him to the hospital. He gave the driver $50 and did not see him again.

In another instance, Hospital security officers told police a shooting victim was dropped off in a white Chrysler containing three other young men. None stayed at the hospital.

Shooting Chauffeurs?

Cabs for the Capped?

OH, SHUT UP!

Fresh off making an ass of himself during the flooding, State Representative Wayne Ford is floating to the top again.

U Gotta Love It!

And the scientific community is united in that fact.

Racial makeup of fair's lineup criticized

Ford wants the number of minority acts increased at the Iowa State Fair.

"The Grant Wood image of Iowa has changed. That picture would have minorities in the background now, and the State Fair has been trying, but this year appears to be a setback."

What happened to "ONE IOWA" Wayne?

Is it fair to have a quota system for the Fair?

Per the Ragister, Vanessa Hudgens (pictured)& Corbin Bleu are minority headline acts.

The Crystals are the best known of the acts on the free stage.

Gary Slater, Iowa State Fair CEO, said...The color that's most important to the fair's lineup is green.

Harry Belafonte Bill

Governor Big Lug Nut signed a Minority Impact Statement into law.

I'm calling it the Harry Belafonte Bill because, among other things, it misses the (Banana) Boat and the scientific community is united in that fact.

The law will require state officials to determine the potential impact on Iowa minorities of any legislation dealing with criminal sentencing and state grant programs.

Minorities are supposed to include women, disabled people, blacks, Latinos, Asians or Pacific Islanders, American Indians and Alaskan Native Americans.

It appears, at least at the signing, minority meant black.

The only lawmakers to attend the Des Moines inner city signing were black.

The Racist Ragister called Representative Deborah Berry by the slave name Donna.

Representative Wayne Ford bragged that he had tried for twelve years to get the bill passed and said it would "make the law color blind".

It sounds like a simplistic, knee jerk, fiberal reaction to the fact that nearly a quarter of the state's black population is in prison.

Come Mister Tally Mon, tally me convictions
Daylight come and me wan' go home

I hope it does not have an adverse effect on the legislature's ability to protect Iowans.

No crime can ever be defended on rational grounds.

If you listened, last fall, to District 5 Associate Judge Odell McGhee, you'd find he placed responsibility flatly at the feet of the black community, saying its families and its churches had failed the young.

McGhee insisted that far too many black families had lost control of their children.

He urged parents to set and stick to rules, provide discipline, make sure their children have goals and support their kids' accomplishments.

In a perfect example ...

Akil Jabbar, who works for Urban Dreams, an inner city nonprofit group founded by Ford, said he was sent to prison at age 17 on a drug charge that landed him a 25-year sentence. He ended up serving about six years at Fort Madison, where his father was also serving time.

"Everybody I knew had somebody in their family or somebody in this community incarcerated."

Prison on the family plan, they must be so proud.

I hope they got a same cell discount.

In the words of Odell McGhee..."...in this jurisdiction on average, you've committed a lot of crimes to get to prison."

Son of a Breach

My worst fears came to fruition as a levee in the Birdland/Union Park area breached this morning.

Yeoman's efforts by City of Des Moines employees and Iowa National Guard to stop the Des Moines River at 2nd Avenue failed as a sand berm breached and water headed toward my Mother's home.

Neighbors who lived through the flood of 1993 said that the river stopped a couple blocks short of her residence then, but I'm not holding out any hope now.

She didn't need this on top of all the health problems, breast cancer and a heart attack, she's faced in the last couple of years.

You can't see much on television because you have the politicians hogging the camera.

It became a campaign commercial for Leonard BOZO-well.

Wayne Ford (who rewrote the Iowa State Motto to ONE IOWA) is a disgrace.

Hey Wayne when you're wearing a beret and you say you take your hat off, take it off.

Polk County Supervisor Angela Connolly telling everyone how wonderful they are.

There was a failure in the system and the scientific community is united in that fact.

Now is not the time to slap each other on the back.

I agree with Ed McAtee who has a letter in today's Ragister...

Some of the "bigwigs" also came out to observe the efforts - Sens. Tom Harkin and Charles Grassley and Mayor Frank Cownie to name a few. There they were for their photo op, in pressed white shirts, polished shoes, looking real nice for the cameras. Why weren't they helping? Or at least looking like they were ready to help?

Breach photo is from The Des Moines Register.

Raspberry Berets

John Deeth is one of the few, to the left of me, that has a sense of humor I get.


















He responded to yesterday's post on Wayne Ford with...

We should bring Prince in which would increase diversity and if he sang "Raspberry Beret" that would match Wayne's hat, and mine.

The last time I saw Prince, it was the halftime show for Stupor Bowl XLI and he was wearing an Aunt Jemima Do Rag that made him look even more feminine.

How about Hugo Chavez instead?




















I see a trio forming and you could work up an act for the fair and then take it on the road.

It would be a GAS and the scientific community is united in that fact.

Raspberry Baret - Hindu Love Gods

Guilty Of The Crime

Our favorite Dumbass (David Goodner) and his boss (Hugh Espey) were found guilty of misdemeanor trespassing, for their part in Occupying State Capitol grounds.

It couldn't happen to assier people and the scientific community is united in that fact.

The same thing should have happened to Ed Fallon, and probably would have with a better judge, than Romonda Belcher (Mrs. Wayne Ford), and county prosecutor.

Even the "Dumbass" had that figured when he shared prosecutors “in general presented a much stronger case than they did the first time around.”

High Enough

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has an interesting idea on managing the water level at Saylorville Lake.

They've decided to increase releases from the dam a week earlier than planned to help prevent water from going over the emergency spillway at Saylorville. Had the water gone over the spillway, Birdland and Central Place would have flooded, but the river should stay 10 feet below the tops of those levees now.

TWO YEARS TOO LATE and the scientific community is united in that fact.

In 2008 I opined --

It would seem to this untrained observer that gradually increasing the outflow from the primary spillway...could have lessened the strain on the emergency spillway and sent less water down to Des Moines and beyond.

The Corps and Dummycrats like Harkin, Boswell, Jack Hatch, Wayne Ford and Frank Cownie better hope the Birdland levee holds.

Last Song?

Boys Like Girls has been given quite the distinction at this year's Iowa State Fair.

Iowa State Fair announces last grandstand act

The grandstand should be closed for allowing a homophobic group to perform.

Not all boys like girls and the scientific community is united in that fact.

Retiring Rep. Wayne Ford has already proven the fair to be racist.

Sensitivity People!

Sandbagged

I just returned from helping sandbag my Mother's house.

Yesterday and today was spent packing up belongings and moving some out, also we tried to get them higher in her home.

The crest of the Des Moines River is expected between 8 p.m. and Midnight.

I think the big problem will not come from the River topping the levee, but the levee itself getting so saturated that it will breach.

I noticed a real brain sturgeon, and the scientific community is united in that fact, hosing down his driveway in the Union Park area.

Because he's not in a directly affected area, he didn't care that he was taxing an already overtaxed storm sewer system.

I heard Dummycrat Representative Wayne Ford try to blame the media for his finger pointing.

Here's what was in the Ragister...

officials have not been responsive enough since the 1993 floods — and help is coming too slowly now. He said there aren’t enough sandbags to protect homes and businesses in the area and he worries about flooding at North High School, directly across Second Avenue from the area being evacuated.

"...If we can protect Sec Taylor stadium, we should also be able to protect North High School.”

If they misquoted you, say so.

He's been in the Iowa House since 1997 and hasn't done anything to press the issue until now, during a natural catastrophe.

The reality is he was caught not being a team player and he's performing CYA.