All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.
Anon.
Sunny, warm days and cool nights – the St. Louis weather hasn’t lived up to its reputation so far this year. We had good amount of rain (albeit in May rather than April) and we have been spared the sudden jump into the 90s with humidity hovering around the 100% level.
I sometimes wonder if people in Seattle or the region truly realize what a good day is weather-wise. If 78F is the norm, do they appreciate the occasional 95-degree day? We here in the Midwest have learned to grab a hold of a good day’s weather and stretch it as long as we can, and if we get a week’s reprieve from the typical St. Louis summer weather, why it’s enough to change even old Bob Hoepfner into a happy cat. That’s not an easy thing to do!
Here’s why I mention this rather mundane topic this week: Midwesterners, I think, are still pretty down-to-earth kind of people who know that a cool day today can mean a scorcher tomorrow. A wet spring this year might turn to a drought for months or too much rain until our rivers burst out of their prescribed paths and flood our neighbors, our families, our friends – our towns. I think Midwesterners are mostly good, family people trying to make a living; enjoying life with friends and neighbors; happy for others who work hard and get ahead. We value our schools, our faith, and our blessings. We are realists who know that it won’t always be sunny and 75F.
Of course, politics too is like the weather and you have to know what good politics is in order to know what bad politics is. In Missouri, we have had ¢em both – periods of progress and periods of decay. There are even proud periods in our history when we were on the cutting edge! It was here where public kindergartens were started in our country. It was progressive 1904 Saint Louis and Missouri that brought a world’s fair to St. Louis and since public funds were used in this venture, the legacy is public spaces where all St. Louisians (or St. Charlesians) can freely enter regardless of their socio-economic status – from the Zoo, to the Muny, to our outstanding art museum. It would have been appropriate for our new ballpark to set aside a few seats in the same way! Public money means public use…
To continue, during the Great Depression, Missouri began a Conservation Department that was the first of its kind followed by New York and eventually all states in our union. Just because we are Midwesterners doesn’t mean we haven’t been progressives.
Unfortunately, today’s Missouri is another matter. One of our governor’s first acts was to cut assistance from some of the state’s poorest children. This isn’t the will of the people I knew growing up in Missouri. We are all too eager to demonize anyone who needs help to pay bills, feed their family, receive medical attention, while at the same time handing tax giveaways out to corporations that pay so poorly; that do not offer affordable health insurance; that do not provide workers with pensions so their very workers are often those who turn to the public for help.
What a foolish way to conduct business! To anyone listening in Jefferson City – let’s tell the huge retailers in our state that if you want to do business here, you will pay your workers a living wage and provide health insurance instead of passing the buck to the residents of our state. For many of us, it is an affront that our tax dollars go to subsidize lousy pay and working conditions.
Next, our schools languish both as a state and as a city. Right on our riverfront sits a behemoth of a casino – something not everyone is happy about. To add insult to injury, our city schools have realized no significant benefits from playing host to this cash cow.
Francis Howell receives more money per pupil per year than does St. Charles schools?
Here is a plan: after we regulate the gigantic retailers (sadly, Wal-Mart is our nation’s top employer) so that they pay their workers a living wage, the money that is saved by removing thousands off of social welfare can be transferred to our schools so that we might move out of the 40-something range in school performance. Next, we make all state license offices public with all proceeds going to local school districts.
We have a chance to prevent schools from closing in our town if the political will is there. Our city’s choice really comes down to spending money as investment in education or spending money later to re-develop our town. The former makes sense to me, the latter is as foolish as allowing retailers to pay poverty-level wages then ask the public to pick up the slack by providing assistance. Take care of the problem on the front end, and your problems on the back end will be minimized.
By the time this paper hits your lawn, who knows what the weather will hold for us? Maybe there will be sunshine, maybe thunderstorms; however, one thing is for certain, if Jefferson City stays the same, you can expect grey skies for another two years!
