I didn't post a blog last week. I posted so much before the election that I thought I posted some last week but no, I took last week off.
Actually I was working at my other job, teaching online for University of Phoenix. I taught two three-day workshops starting on Wednesday and finishing up Friday at midnight.
On Tuesday night I spilled a bottle of iodine on my keyboard and I couldn't type on the first two rows of letter. I really needed more than the bottom row. There aren't even any vowels down there.
Wednesday morning I rushed over to Target and bought a $10 keyboard, which I'm using now. It isn't very good, but at least I can use all the letters; so I was able to teach my workshops and write this belated blog.
I'm glad the election is over and the emails demanding money or something dire would happen have stopped. The local results were not surprising. I'm glad Catharine Baker won, but Tim Sbranti didn't have much chance considering the anti-union sentiment here after the BART strike.
I looked at the blogs I wrote on both candidates. The last-minute mailer against Sbranti was a serious attack and after researching the accusations, it turned out to be mostly true.
The attack on Baker in retrospect is laughable. The worst thing Sbranti's supporters could say against Baker was she opposed Proposition 2. She didn't and I proved that, but So What! So what if she opposed Prop. 2. A lot of people did. 1.7M Californians voted against it.
Actually Baker's comments about the cap on School District savings caused me to take a second look at the details behind Proposition 2. As often happens with euphemistic names and descriptions there's a lot more going on when you look behind the curtain.
The money saved in Prop. 2's Rainy Day Fund will be used to pay off existing state debts, but the amounts saved by school districts could be capped. Baker called it "loss of local control," and "micro managing," and she is right.
The law that establishes the fund was passed by the State Assembly with bipartisan support, so it is pretty tightly structured and defined. It isn't simply putting pocket change in a jar to use later for milk money.
Proposition 2 passed by a landslide. Despite 1,767,806 No votes, the Prop passed with almost 4M YES. Proposition 1, the Water Bill, passed by almost the same 2-1 split. The other Measures on the ballot didn't do nearly as well.
The mega money spent by Insurance companies to kill Propositions 45 and 46 paid off big time for them. I see bonuses to the executives, while regular people like Bob Pack and April Rovero continue their fight to protect people from losing loved ones, like they did, to prescription drugs and medical malpractice.
April's organization, the National Coalition Against Prescription Drug Abuse is hosting a fundraiser this Monday night, November 10th, at Gianni's Restaurant in San Ramon. I booked my reservation for 6:30 pm. I hope they get a big turnout for this event. It has two things I'm especially fond of, Good Food and Good Deeds.
