For the children...

KFAB had an item on it's newscast this morning that caught my attention. Some city government type wants the schools to pony up with some of the money they get from fines and share with the cities. The cities need the money because they are running out of ways to collect it. (The recession has caused cash flow problems and things like the $200,000 payoff to a mayor's mistress are causing problems.)

These folks are going to run into a brick wall.

Schools are never going to give up a dime. Make that a penny. They tell you they are in the business of creating the next generation of great Americans and they are running on a shoestring right now. If you doubt that, walk into Lincoln's Northstar or Southwest high schools. Dumps.

School administrators are suffering through impossible budgets because they are better than the rest of us. Their lives are devoted to making life better...for the children.

Anyone who goes after the school system budget may as well stand up at the NAACP convention and use the "N" word in the greeting. It's for the children. Hands off.

Well, maybe it's time we put that to the test. What is for the children? Unless times have drastically changed since I was there, children still hate going to school. Children hate homework. Children hate cafeteria food. The only folks who appreciate all of the nice stuff that got put into the new school budget at the teachers.

Maybe all of this untouchable money is "for the teachers..."

Administrators will tell you students are more difficult these days and the classroom is out-of-control. What do you expect from people who view success as being a rapper, or a drug dealer, or a pimp driving around all night in a black SUV with dark windows? Who needs an education to do that? Well firearms training maybe.

These are tough times. I don't think they will get much better very soon. At some point in time-probably sooner rather than later-the tax payer will be taxed out and those without children are going to say..."enough of the children."

Maybe the drop-outs-to-be need special ed. How about a program called "Last Chance." Bring in an emergency room doctor who treats gunshots. Take a field trip to prison and let the inmates tell you how cool it was to be a drug dealer. Take them to a funeral home so they can see what it will cost Mom to bury them. Call the parents in and hand them a bumper sticker..."My kid is a high school drop out."

Then, take them back, set the G.P.A. goal and tell them to make it or get out AND they will be barred from all school events if they flunk out. No football games. No basketball games. No marketing opportunities for dealers-to-be. No place to show off and be cool.

Schools, you have enough money. You have adequate facilities. You have adequate training. Teach. Show us something for all of that money you get. Teach. Stop bitching that the conditions are deplorable. Teach. Get tough and teach.

And to parents, if you can't supply a home environment that points children in a positive direction other than dealing drugs and prostitution, take birth control pills.

We could make those free for the asking by diverting some of that fine money. Now that would make a difference.

Should Nebraska Change The Death Penalty?

She cooperated and gave the two black masked gunmen all of the money in the register in midtown Omaha convenience store. But on their way out, one decided to stop and shoot this 42 year old lady to death.

Cowards.

They'll get caught someday. They'll get convicted someday. But they won't have to face Old Sparky, as folks liked to call Nebraska's electric chair. The Nebraska Supreme Court threw out the chair because it was too cruel to use for capital executions. If capital punishment survives the expected do-gooder lobbyist onslaught, the new method will most likely be lethal injection. Do the crime, get sleepy time.

One Nebraska state senator (yes, I did leave that in small letters instead of the more respective title case) has been in the way of approving a new means to exterminate vermin such as the ones who killed this lady. The new method will probably pass this time because the problem senator was term-limited out. And, with luck, maybe someday these lowly, cowardly creeps will be strapped to a gurney, put to sleep, and put away. Painlessly of course.

Hell, Nebraska makes death tougher on cows and pigs than on killers.

But before this terminal time-out, the creeps will get to live out most of their lives. By then, most Nebraskan's won't remember the early January day in Omaha and the fear this woman must have felt as these cowards took her life. Their attorneys and various do-gooders will battle the State of Nebraska and try to overturn their death row convictions because the offender will have learned how to paint or write poetry. They will have wed some lonely cow who thinks breeding in a cell under supervised visits is height of true human romance. By then, there will be value in their lives and they shouldn't have to pay for one...little mistake.

There was a time when Nebraska knew how to handle low-life killers. After all, Nebraska was the home of one of the first serial murderers. His name was Charles Starkweather. He killed nine innocent folks on a three-day or so killing spree in Lincoln and the farm country surrounding it. He fled West and rather than die in a gun battle with Wyoming Troopers, he gave up.

Cowards usually give up when they are about to die.

Starkweather was caught in November 1958. He was tried in May 1959. He had his date with Ole' Sparky in June 1959. He was buried in an unmarked grave until some do-gooder decided that was wrong and put a marker on him. Bruce Springsteen's song "Nebraska" was about this James Dean looking dropout who worked on a Lincoln garbage truck. The movie "Badlands" glorified him.

There were no movies or songs about the nine people he killed.

Do-gooders never waste time on those folks. They never see the loss of the nine, the loss of their families; the loss of their children's families; the family tree that never had a chance to flourish. They only see the "immorality"of the State killing a killer. What good does that do? (Nebraska has a record of a prison guard killed by a killer. That mistake was corrected the second time by Ole' Sparky. No more problem.)

Perhaps we should be more sympathetic. After all, times are tough. There are two war going on. The economy is bad and people need work. And, with a new administration, we are going to lose good housing like Guantanamo Bay before long.

So, before the Nebraska Unicameral votes in a new way to execute society's worst, before we have to listen to new "significant" songs and watch new "significant" movies, I have a win-win idea.

Let Nebraska adopt one of the Guantanamo Al Quida be-headers. Heck, I am sure the do-gooders think those folks should have a chance for a new productive life. Let him contract to handle Nebraska's executions. He can wear his black Arab hood and use a big knife that he pulls from a scabbard on his back. He can rant-out the death warrant. He can bind the convicted killer's hands behind his back and force him to kneel before a camera in front of a red prison basement wall with a big white N on it. Let the executions sounds be recorded and have the entire event broadcast live on the Internet.

After a couple of those, maybe the cowards-to-be will think twice about committing a violent crime in Nebraska.