Academy of Local Politics

I like stories about youth involvement in politics.

 My newest hero is Sean Richards  from Conejo County, California.

Most members of the Democratic Club of the Conejo Valley are on the far side of 30 years old; Sean Richards — who graduates Thursday from Oak Park High School and who turns 18 today — has not only been a member for two years, he serves on its executive board.

Jay Kapitz of Oak Park organizes the Democratic Club's precinct walking and community outreach; it was his daughter who suggested to Richards that he check out a meeting.

The teen takes his work seriously. On his own, Kapitz said, Richards came up with plans to register voters on high school and college campuses.

"He also created a program where students registered voters at retirement homes," Kapitz said. 

Richards, now the club's youth coordinator, also is in charge of scheduling volunteers to man the voter registration table at the Oaks shopping center.

This is one serious politician! Is it in his genes?

No one in his family is involved in politics. Dad Chris is a commercial real estate agent, Mom Sheila is a physical therapist and brother Adam, 23, is an ambulance driver. The family does discuss current events, but Sean credits his maternal grandfather, Seymour Zimmerman of Camarillo, for sparking his interest in politics. "He was the first to openly discuss his views with me and, although we don't always agree on issues, he's probably the reason I'm fascinated with politics," Sean said.

When he was 10 and the 2000 presidential campaign was in full swing, his fifth-grade class had a debate. Richards, representing Al Gore, won. "I remember that feeling of winning as one of the best feelings I ever had," he said, and he was hooked.

Winning. It is infectious. Be it on the golf course... the baseball diamond... politics.

Winning. That is ... what it is all about. Winning. It it a great feeling isn't it Sean.

Richards plans to attend Sonoma State University and major in political science; he hopes to go on to law school.

"My ultimate goal is to serve in the U.S. Senate," he said.

Law school? Maybe he will change his mind. Let's hope so.

We have enough damn lawyers in the Senate.

Spying on the citizens. That is what some are calling a study that tracked 100,000 people via their cell phone.

Seth Borenstein, an AP Science Writer gives us the details. 

Researchers secretly tracked the locations of 100,000 people outside the United States through their cell phone use ...

The scientists would not say where the study was done, only describing the location as an industrialized nation.

The first-of-its-kind study by Northeastern University raises privacy and ethical questions for its monitoring methods, which would be illegal in the United States.

So, what did this study find?

The study found that nearly half of the people in the study pretty much keep to a circle little more than six miles wide and that 83 percent of the people tracked mostly stay within a 37-mile wide circle.

The results also tell us something new about ourselves, including that we tend to go to the same places repeatedly... (That is news...Duh?)

Nearly 3 percent of the population regularly go beyond a 200-mile wide circle. Less than 1 percent of people travel often out of a 621-mile circle.

I bring this issue up because I have long said that many of the loudest critics of local government are those citizens that never go anywhere else.

They have no comparison of the quality of services provided by their local government...they just know things must be better elsewhere. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence theory.

If people with cell phones travel these short distances from home, those without cell phones probably travel even less. 

That is a large pool of potential critics to quiet! 

No wonder the job of being a local official is so tough. 

Did you see this last week?

One of South America's few remaining uncontacted indigenous tribes has been spotted and photographed on the border between Brazil and Peru.

The Brazilian government says it took the images to prove the tribe exists and help protect its land.

The pictures, taken from an aeroplane, show red-painted tribe members brandishing bows and arrows.

More than half the world's 100 uncontacted tribes live in Brazil or Peru, Survival International says.

Tribes that have never had contact with civilization, as we  call it.

These are the questions that come to my mind:

What form of local government do they have? They have a city of thatched huts...someone has to be "in charge".

Do they hold elections or is it a dictatorship or kingdom?

Who gave the order for the tribe to fire their arrows at the "aeroplane"?

Are those "state-owned" bows and arrows or are they privately owned and protected by their 2nd amendment?

 What is their health system like?

Do they keep crime statistics?

What is their currency?

Do they play Rock, Paper, Scissors?

My wife often pines for the "simpler days"...is this what she means?

What question comes to your mind?

Lithonia or Snellville? That is the question?

Last week Rick Badie of AJC.Com weighed in on who owns the title of...

“The most dysfunctional governing body in metro Atlanta.”

In contention are both Snellville and Lithonia.

In order to feel the pulse of Snellville, Mr. Badie found a local diner and started to chat with the customers. He found citizens like Theron Carmen who stated...

Mayor Jerry Oberholtzer and a five-member City Council can’t seem to do anything but fuss, belittle each other and call names. In Snellville, politics is personal. A bloodsport. Ugly and disgraceful, too.

It seems that the battle in Snellville is the classic "old guard vs. newcomers".

Then there is a dispute over a who authorized a $31,00 check is still a bone of contention. A defamation lawsuit between an "Old Guard Alderman" and his successor. But the biggie as of late is...

the vacant city manager’s position. Jim Brooks had been hired as interim city manager, but the mayor didn’t want to extend Brooks’ contract. Oberholtzer has been filling in, so to speak, but he says he doesn’t actually tell city workers what to do. Mayor Pro Tem Warren Auld sought the opinion of state Attorney General Thurbert Baker. Baker ruled that the mayor cannot legally fill the vacant city manager’s spot. Big deal, Oberholtzer said in so many words.

The citizens of Snellville wish it would all go away. As Mr. Badie observed...

residents I talked to on and off the record hold hope that a change is going to come, that egos, pettiness and vindictiveness will subside.

Meanwhile, over in Lithonia according to WSB Radio...

The feud between Lithonia Mayor Joyce McKibben and the city council reared its head again at a Monday night meeting.

McKibben told a standing room only crowd at City Hall that she is being denied access to her office by the police department.

The interim city attorney, Debra Golymbieski, told the Mayor she would be allowed into her office once she signed a letter agreeing to protect city property and city documents.

Let's see...A Mayor illegally serving as the City Manager vs. a Mayor not allowed in her office by the City Attorney.

Most dysfunctional?

Decisions, decisions, decisions.

A couple weeks ago I posted a Letter to the Editor which was in the Tipton (IA) Conservative. This letter objected to St. Mary's Catholic Church in Tipton not allowing the U.S. Flag inside the church.

I have waited for the rebuttal letter to be posted on the Tipton Conservative website, but for some reason it has not appeared although is was in the printed edition. The letter follows...

In last week's Tipton Conservative a writer expressed his "shame" at the funeral liturgy of the Catholic Church. He was ashamed that there was no color guard or flag covering the coffin throughout the service. He indicated that veterans were not being properly honored by the funeral liturgy of the Catholic Church.

At least for the past 40 years in every Catholic Church in the country and for every funeral, even for veterans, the coffin with the body is met at the entrance of the church. The coffin, containing the body of the deceased, is sprinkled with blessed water as a sign and reminder that the deceased was baptized into the Body of Christ (the Church) usually at birth, or perhaps later in life. The coffin is covered with a white pall, usually with the assistance of family members, to recall that at Baptism the deceased was clothed with a white baptismal garment. A sign that the deceased "put on Christ" at baptism and accepted a new way of life.

Then, the procession with the church minister, the body of the deceased and the family proceed into the sanctuary led by the Cross. The Cross represents the "One-Jesus" who passed from death into "new life." A journey many of us hope to make one day.

Our Church does not believe that a color guard with flags, nor a flag draped over the coffin is appropriate for this part of the funeral journey. A the end of the service, the pall is removed and the flag of the United States is placed over the coffin, for the journey to the cemetery and military honors.

Father David Hitch, Pastor at St. Mary's Church

For the past 40 years it has been this way? 

It must be a Vietnam War protest still in effect by the Catholic Church.