THE STATE OF THE VILLAGE - AN ECHO OF THE WORLD

    Reading the paper this morning made me think again of the comparison between the world outside our gates and that within. Take the issue with people who are presently in office or who are running for office.
     Sam Brownback, of Kansas, is fighting for his political life as people are very disappointed in the state of the state's finances after his years in office. They are in a financial crunch, have a shortfall, as funds were cut and now important programs such as education cannot be funded. Sounds familiar doesn't it? We, too, are in a financial crunch, not because revenues were cut but because funds were mishandled and now we have the 1.3 million dollar shortfall and growing every day, especially with ridiculous and costly projects being pushed. Gina Raimondo of Rhode Island is finding her numbers are great as people realize that spending and costly programs MUST be reined in and redrawn. We, too, need to do just that. We need an austerity budget, spending money only as need be and remember, much of it we have no say as to yes or no as it is contractual, so we must be extra careful with discretionary funds and with contracts, squeezing every penny and every benefit out of it that we can. To be sure that happens, we need new people, new blood, new ideas, new capabilities in office at UCO.
     We read of so many instances where governmental offices and departments did not live up to the terms of their duties and responsibilities, easily seen in the whole debacle of the cars and ignition, airbags and other faulty items. Why they did not follow the rules I cannot answer for sure, be it laziness, ignorance, "gifts" or whatever, but faulty it was, and faulty we have had with the lack of supervision and proper procedure in the whole contract process with the roads and indeed with any major contract, done or planned, such as the Wi Fi crisis waiting to smack us in the face and pocket if this UCO administration is allowed to have its way.
     We read of so many lies, half truths and evasions that our governments put forth and I think to myself of the lies our UCO has put out, about rights being denied, about evasions of responsibility and some of these statements are like the Newspeak, the statements that come out of the" Ministry of Truth" in George Orwell's 1984, where the truth is actually a lie, or at best, an evasion of the truth.
     Finally, over the weekend there was an extremely interesting article about the experiments done years ago, or studies, actually, about the power of delaying gratification and getting an extra bonus for the delay. Walter Mischel, a professor of psychology at Columbia, writes about the study and its current evaluation and writes how important it is to exert self control, that one's supposed needs and desires need not be immediately gratified; in fact, a delay and self control is often offering a much better return. How often have I stated that? How often have I said that just because someone in UCO wants something, a pet project, it does not mean it must be done STAT. Deferral until a better time, a better plan, a better project, a better whatever is often the best way to go and such is the way to go with Wi Fi, especially as there is a concrete alternative to it, a working, viable and much more economic one to boot.
     We do not live in a vacuum here in the Village and must learn lessons from wherever we can - and take them to heart. If not, the future picture of things is not too rosy.