FARGO, N.D. (FargoPhantom.com)–It’s not just West Fargo School District officials who are grappling with the “emotional” issue about whether to build a second high school.

Parents, teachers and students who also are struggling with this decision weighed in Wednesday.

It was the second of six meetings district officials are hosting to gather input to shape what the district’s May bond referendum looks like.

While the district says they need another elementary, middle and high school – among the biggest projects – most of Wednesday’s conversations centered on the “big question”: Does the public support one high school or two?

“We need that answered first as far as putting together this puzzle as how we go out to the public for a bond issue,” said School Board President Tom Gentzkow. “That kind of gives us the direction as a body to move forward.”

“If it’s presented right … we might be able to get past that,” Althoff said. “Around here, we’re big Packer fans. I think (having two high schools) will be a hard sell for the community because we’re used to the small community. I would like to support two buildings, but not necessarily two schools. But I’m still open.”

Parent Lori Anderson said, “We like that hometown feeling, and we don’t want to lose that.”

Both parents and other community members looked Wednesday at how keeping students in one high school or adding a second could affect academics, athletics and attendance boundaries.

More athletic opportunities and smaller academic settings were among the pros the public listed for having two high schools. The cons included an inter-town rivalry, equity issues and athletic performance.

WASHINGTON — President Obama urged the nation on Tuesday to see the economic crisis as reason to raise its ambitions, calling for expensive new efforts to address energy, health care and education even as he warned that government bailouts have not come to an end.

In his first address to a joint session of Congress, Mr. Obama mixed an acknowledgment of the depth of the economic problems with a Reaganesque exhortation to American resilience. He offered an expansive agenda followed by a pledge to begin paring an ever-climbing budget deficit. Read more

Lately the news, particularly the sports news, has been filled with news about Yankee baseball star Alex Rodriguez

and his history of steroid and performance enhancing drug use.  There is also an old saying that “those that don’t learn from history are destined to repeat it.”

What do these things have to do with each other?  A lot, I think.

No one denies that our country is in a deepening recession, perhaps the worst in our history.  There seems to me to be no indication of recovery.  Since I have always behaved myself fiscally, I am one of those that don’t like my mounting tax dollars going to bail out those that were, or are, fiscally irresponsible.  But if that’s what it takes, that’s what it takes.  But there is no indication that these bailouts will work.

So, what’s the connection?
Read more

I think everyone knows our country is in trouble.

Most politicians and civic leaders alike agree that we desperately need to put differences aside and work hard to get us out of this mess.  Everybody, it seems, except Republican Congressmen and a certain far right talk show host I’ll mention later.

To set the record straight, I consider myself a-political.  Some strong conservatives call me a liberal, but when asked to define liberal, it seems to be anyone that disagrees with them.  Those more moderately conservative call me a conservative.  I think of myself in terms of a line from an old Kingston Trio Song, “… and I don’t like anybody very much.”

Cheered on by the far right, it seems to me that President Bush, while spouting much rhetoric about preserving freedom, proceeded to remove much of our freedom through the Patriot Act and Homeland Security.  I don’t really believe either of these is necessary, but that’s another issue.  It is true that you could at least be investigated if not arrested for bad-mouthing the President, had to be screened in order to hear him speak, without the opportunity to plead your own case, and that those citizens choosing to exercise several of their first amendment rights in his presence(petitioning the government for redress of grievences is one of these rights) had to do so out of his sight and, presumably, hearing.

What’s all this got to do with the present, when Bush is out of office?  Well, the other day I saw a full page ad in a local publication showing a large photo of talk show host Scott Hennen, with the quote “I hope Obama’s socialist policys are a disaster.

Mr Hennan, if you had said a similar thing about your hero Mr. Bush you could well have wound up in jail.  You would at least have been investigated.  I would point out that in Mr Obama’s town meeting in Indiana, people that disagreed with him were admitted without screening and allowed to question him.  If you have an issue with his polices, it seems that you can go ask him about them instead of being screened out.

One might question conservative talker Scott Hennen loyalties at this point.

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