Blah blah blah, a kid's more likely to be hit by lightning than be abducted by a psychopath. Most abductions are one parent in a divorce or a family member. Stop drinking hyped-up media Koolaid.
A pig of an SUV isn't a "car." A station wagon is a car and generally has more interior room than an SUV of the same size. It's just not lifted and dolled up to look like a truck. Look at the old Legacy wagons, Passat wagon, or Volvo V series.
Sheesh. Either take less stuff or get a small trailer to pull when you need it. With a trailer, you can normally leave the extra size/weight/inefficiency at home except when you need it.
Not only that. There's... (1) The obesity crisis in the US. (2) The fact that Americans are generally 'fraidycats who feel "safe" in a big landbarge (3) Cheap gas
Hope gas shoots up to $5 per gallon to get some of the mastodons off the roads and restore some rationality to the US auto market.
They've been using rear-facing car seats in Europe for longer than in the US, and generally, cars aren't as big as the barges driven in the US. (Northern Europeans are also taller than Americans, on average.)
Apparently, there's now a Federal law (ESSA, passed in 2016) that makes school districts and towns lose Federal funds if they don't allow kids to walk or bike to school with parental permission. So things might be changing for the better in this respect.
The real question is, what's wrong with the kidlets walking to school in the dark (or more likely twilight) in an era of streetlights and cell phones? Make everyone walk -- maybe this will be the push required for Americans to support livable neighborhoods with sidewalks and bike paths instead of suburban-hell cul-de-sacs off a 4-lane road.
Cops SHOULD be forced to act slowly by the need for warrants, etc. I'd rather a few people who steal from tech firms get away than cops be allowed to act rashly, kick down the wrong door, and maybe shoot the wrong person (or get mistaken for an intruder and shot, as just happened in Maryland). Human life is more important than some GPS tracking bugs.
The problem was that schools were locally funded in the US, and schools in Black areas were often UNDERfunded. Thus the desire to bus kids to "better" schools.
Of course, the better solution would have been public schools under state control, with equal amounts of funding per students, subject to minimum national standards.
But yes, many US parents are fearful helicopter parents who freak out at the thought of their Biffy and Buffy walking half a mile to school.
Problem is that the helicopter parents will start yowling that their Biffy and Buffy might get hit by a car or abducted by aliens if they don't have a nice safe bus or can't drive their kids to school.
That's why we need more SOCIALISM. That's right. Socialism. If a 35-40 hour work week were the norm and respected, and parents were allowed enough free time to care for their kids, maybe such problems wouldn't arise. Two working parent families are fine, but hours should be cut and made flexible enough to deal with the situation.
As far as making up your wife's share of income, there's an option. Downsize. Do you live in a single-family home on a bigger lot? Sell it, buy a duplex in a less posh part of town (often available for the same price as single-family 'burb homes). Rent one apartment, have some other poor sod paying a large % of your mortgage and taxes.
Keep cutting. No need for a new iPad every year, one phone and e-device per person, go on the cheapest cell plan possible, drive used cars that are paid off.
Who knows, you might make up enough money to take a nice backpacking trip every year:D
Discipline is bullshit when stupid rules are involved. The people who say "Why? Because I SAID SO, kiddo" deserve nothing better than a kick in the face.
Not a bad idea to just get rid of busing or drastically cut it down and require kids to walk or bike. All parts of Cambridge basically have a school within a mile of them.
Other than coverage in the far west side of town (might require one more school), it should be possible for middle/lower school students to have no more than a mile's walk to a local school. It might take some shuffling of usages of facilities, though, and adding on to buildings.
For high schools, a 2 mile walk is generally acceptable. Most of the city wouldn't need busing to do this.
Solution is to fix all schools -- require building elementary and middle schools within walking distance in urban and dense suburban areas, even if some land has to be taken using eminent domain. State control, equal funding per student for all schools (or more funding if the students are ESL). Get rid of school property taxes, use state income/sales taxes to pay for all education. Randomly assign teachers to a school within under 30 minutes' commute of their home to avoid teachers "cherry picking" "good" schools.
Actually, Massachusetts almost totally got rid of "forced busing" rules around 2013. Many towns and cities the size of Cambridge (~100k population) in the US have their own districts and route kids to local elementary schools within a mile or two of their homes.
Even bigger US cities do this -- in NYC, kids typically go to local elementary schools, semi-local middle schools, and then take public transportation to high schools.
Slashdot Mirror
No choice? Even if you're not buying new, you can buy a Corolla or Civic that makes 40 mpg instead of an SUV barge that makes 20.
You sound like a coward. Get a vasectomy before you raise kids damaged by your control-freak ways.
Blah blah blah, a kid's more likely to be hit by lightning than be abducted by a psychopath. Most abductions are one parent in a divorce or a family member. Stop drinking hyped-up media Koolaid.
Child seats, not built-in seats.
The "working class" is also responsible for the sorry state of US carbon emissions. They needn't be exempt from being forced to change.
A pig of an SUV isn't a "car." A station wagon is a car and generally has more interior room than an SUV of the same size. It's just not lifted and dolled up to look like a truck. Look at the old Legacy wagons, Passat wagon, or Volvo V series.
Sheesh. Either take less stuff or get a small trailer to pull when you need it. With a trailer, you can normally leave the extra size/weight/inefficiency at home except when you need it.
Not only that. There's...
(1) The obesity crisis in the US.
(2) The fact that Americans are generally 'fraidycats who feel "safe" in a big landbarge
(3) Cheap gas
Hope gas shoots up to $5 per gallon to get some of the mastodons off the roads and restore some rationality to the US auto market.
They've been using rear-facing car seats in Europe for longer than in the US, and generally, cars aren't as big as the barges driven in the US. (Northern Europeans are also taller than Americans, on average.)
Amen. May more of them go to the crusher. Give me an Impreza or a European Levorg, not the porky-pig Outback or Ford-Taurus-clone Legacy sad-dan.
Or make kids walk if they live less than 0.5 to 2 miles from school, depending on age. Might reduce childhood obesity a bit.
Apparently, there's now a Federal law (ESSA, passed in 2016) that makes school districts and towns lose Federal funds if they don't allow kids to walk or bike to school with parental permission. So things might be changing for the better in this respect.
Exactly.
Cut military pork. Cut frivolous law enforcement. End the War on Drugs. Replace highway cops with speed cameras.
Use the money saved to pay for education, health care, and infrastructure.
The real question is, what's wrong with the kidlets walking to school in the dark (or more likely twilight) in an era of streetlights and cell phones? Make everyone walk -- maybe this will be the push required for Americans to support livable neighborhoods with sidewalks and bike paths instead of suburban-hell cul-de-sacs off a 4-lane road.
OK, so you're genetically wired to be a "lark." Not everyone is. Nothing wrong with coffee, either, it tastes delicious.
Speaking as an "owl," Spanish and Portuguese speaking cultures have it right ... late to bed, late to rise.
Argy-bargy-grunt-grunt-grunt. Muh lahf was so hard so those damn kids shouldn't have it better grumble grunt.
Cops SHOULD be forced to act slowly by the need for warrants, etc. I'd rather a few people who steal from tech firms get away than cops be allowed to act rashly, kick down the wrong door, and maybe shoot the wrong person (or get mistaken for an intruder and shot, as just happened in Maryland). Human life is more important than some GPS tracking bugs.
The problem was that schools were locally funded in the US, and schools in Black areas were often UNDERfunded. Thus the desire to bus kids to "better" schools.
Of course, the better solution would have been public schools under state control, with equal amounts of funding per students, subject to minimum national standards.
But yes, many US parents are fearful helicopter parents who freak out at the thought of their Biffy and Buffy walking half a mile to school.
Drug your kids? Seriously?
Also, early school start times still sucked sweaty donkey yarbles before mobile devices and the Intarwebz.
Problem is that the helicopter parents will start yowling that their Biffy and Buffy might get hit by a car or abducted by aliens if they don't have a nice safe bus or can't drive their kids to school.
That's why we need more SOCIALISM. That's right. Socialism. If a 35-40 hour work week were the norm and respected, and parents were allowed enough free time to care for their kids, maybe such problems wouldn't arise. Two working parent families are fine, but hours should be cut and made flexible enough to deal with the situation.
As far as making up your wife's share of income, there's an option. Downsize. Do you live in a single-family home on a bigger lot? Sell it, buy a duplex in a less posh part of town (often available for the same price as single-family 'burb homes). Rent one apartment, have some other poor sod paying a large % of your mortgage and taxes.
Keep cutting. No need for a new iPad every year, one phone and e-device per person, go on the cheapest cell plan possible, drive used cars that are paid off.
Who knows, you might make up enough money to take a nice backpacking trip every year :D
Discipline is bullshit when stupid rules are involved. The people who say "Why? Because I SAID SO, kiddo" deserve nothing better than a kick in the face.
Not a bad idea to just get rid of busing or drastically cut it down and require kids to walk or bike. All parts of Cambridge basically have a school within a mile of them.
https://www.cambridgema.gov/~/...
Other than coverage in the far west side of town (might require one more school), it should be possible for middle/lower school students to have no more than a mile's walk to a local school. It might take some shuffling of usages of facilities, though, and adding on to buildings.
For high schools, a 2 mile walk is generally acceptable. Most of the city wouldn't need busing to do this.
Solution is to fix all schools -- require building elementary and middle schools within walking distance in urban and dense suburban areas, even if some land has to be taken using eminent domain. State control, equal funding per student for all schools (or more funding if the students are ESL). Get rid of school property taxes, use state income/sales taxes to pay for all education. Randomly assign teachers to a school within under 30 minutes' commute of their home to avoid teachers "cherry picking" "good" schools.
Actually, Massachusetts almost totally got rid of "forced busing" rules around 2013. Many towns and cities the size of Cambridge (~100k population) in the US have their own districts and route kids to local elementary schools within a mile or two of their homes.
Even bigger US cities do this -- in NYC, kids typically go to local elementary schools, semi-local middle schools, and then take public transportation to high schools.