Good morning!!!
It's a lovely day outside and my son's coming over to squire me about town so I should be able to accomplish something today. I need to get some sort of community service started and with any luck at all, I can find some that doesn't cost me a dime. I think that the city or county or whatever, would probably benefit from having their own "department" that handles that sort of thing.
Obviously, it could be staffed by community service people and that way they could get things done that THEY want done. I'm sure that taxpayers pay for things that could easily be done by us criminals. My understanding is that a lot of the services performed here are contracted out and even if they wanted to keep those contractors, there's so much else that could be accomplished without getting rid of them.
It seems as though a lot of the not for profit places have the criminals pick up trash. Trust me, there's a bunch of trash here in Marietta. There's grass to be mowed, phones to be answered, windows to be washed and a whole host of things that could be done by people working off their punishments. The YWCA said that they had to charge for this because there were so many people needing to do the work that it actually ended up costing them money. I don't think that I believe that, but if it is true, I imagine that there would still be enough criminals left over to help the other agencies that may actually rely on them.
My father once said that the government paid tens of thousands of dollars for the Radford aresenal in Virginia to be mowed by private companies. He thought that taxpayers would have been better served by having peacetime soldiers do some of that work. I know soldiers aren't supposed to be gardeners, but they seem to do a lot of marching anyway, why couldn't they just march with a lawnmower in front of them? They also seem to do a lot of other things that aren't really "soldier" related so what's one more thing?
I'd be curious to find out why they don't let the criminals work under the supervision of the community. They could figure something out with just a bit of creativity. I know that government isn't known for doing things the easy way or the cost effective way, but surely they could come up with something that would benefit the taxpayers as well as the community itself. If they were concerned about security, they could limit their own Community Service to people with certain charges and disqualify those who were violent or had actually stolen things. Even if they just limited it to people like me who's crimes were traffic related, I think that they would benefit.
The prisons have people picking up trash along the highways, surely they could do something like that. As I've been walking lately, I've seen a lot of trash along the roads of our town that could be picked up. If there were insurance issues involved, surely people could sign waivers or somehow release the city from liability. It would certainly help me if they gave me an area around my own home to keep clean and I think the neighbors would appreciate it as well. Every morning I have to pick up a few pieces of trash that have been tossed out of the cars of slobs who couldn't care less if the planet was filthy.
When I was in college taking a course in philosophy, there was one philosophy that said that you could tell if an act was truly "good" by universalizing the act itself and asking, "What if everybody did this?" If everybody tossed their trash out of their car windows, the place would be one huge dump.
Anyway, I guess that's one of those things that makes too much sense for the government. That's not a cut directed toward Marietta itself, just goverment in general. Even the employees of Marietta City themselves would have to agree that government entity's, even the better ones, are not always as efficient as they could be. I bet most thoughtful employees have had ideas that they feel would better the city and make their jobs more economical, financially and temporally speaking.
My son is here now and he has actually OFFERED to mow the lawn! It's getting to be that time of year. I have a few things to take care of this morning so he can do that while I handle my own tasks and get dressed. I hope his helpful attitude continues!
Well, I can't let him do all the work as I sit here at the computer so I better get up and act like there's work to be done and things to be accomplished.
See ya!
Meg
It's a lovely day outside and my son's coming over to squire me about town so I should be able to accomplish something today. I need to get some sort of community service started and with any luck at all, I can find some that doesn't cost me a dime. I think that the city or county or whatever, would probably benefit from having their own "department" that handles that sort of thing.
Obviously, it could be staffed by community service people and that way they could get things done that THEY want done. I'm sure that taxpayers pay for things that could easily be done by us criminals. My understanding is that a lot of the services performed here are contracted out and even if they wanted to keep those contractors, there's so much else that could be accomplished without getting rid of them.
It seems as though a lot of the not for profit places have the criminals pick up trash. Trust me, there's a bunch of trash here in Marietta. There's grass to be mowed, phones to be answered, windows to be washed and a whole host of things that could be done by people working off their punishments. The YWCA said that they had to charge for this because there were so many people needing to do the work that it actually ended up costing them money. I don't think that I believe that, but if it is true, I imagine that there would still be enough criminals left over to help the other agencies that may actually rely on them.
My father once said that the government paid tens of thousands of dollars for the Radford aresenal in Virginia to be mowed by private companies. He thought that taxpayers would have been better served by having peacetime soldiers do some of that work. I know soldiers aren't supposed to be gardeners, but they seem to do a lot of marching anyway, why couldn't they just march with a lawnmower in front of them? They also seem to do a lot of other things that aren't really "soldier" related so what's one more thing?
I'd be curious to find out why they don't let the criminals work under the supervision of the community. They could figure something out with just a bit of creativity. I know that government isn't known for doing things the easy way or the cost effective way, but surely they could come up with something that would benefit the taxpayers as well as the community itself. If they were concerned about security, they could limit their own Community Service to people with certain charges and disqualify those who were violent or had actually stolen things. Even if they just limited it to people like me who's crimes were traffic related, I think that they would benefit.
The prisons have people picking up trash along the highways, surely they could do something like that. As I've been walking lately, I've seen a lot of trash along the roads of our town that could be picked up. If there were insurance issues involved, surely people could sign waivers or somehow release the city from liability. It would certainly help me if they gave me an area around my own home to keep clean and I think the neighbors would appreciate it as well. Every morning I have to pick up a few pieces of trash that have been tossed out of the cars of slobs who couldn't care less if the planet was filthy.
When I was in college taking a course in philosophy, there was one philosophy that said that you could tell if an act was truly "good" by universalizing the act itself and asking, "What if everybody did this?" If everybody tossed their trash out of their car windows, the place would be one huge dump.
Anyway, I guess that's one of those things that makes too much sense for the government. That's not a cut directed toward Marietta itself, just goverment in general. Even the employees of Marietta City themselves would have to agree that government entity's, even the better ones, are not always as efficient as they could be. I bet most thoughtful employees have had ideas that they feel would better the city and make their jobs more economical, financially and temporally speaking.
My son is here now and he has actually OFFERED to mow the lawn! It's getting to be that time of year. I have a few things to take care of this morning so he can do that while I handle my own tasks and get dressed. I hope his helpful attitude continues!
Well, I can't let him do all the work as I sit here at the computer so I better get up and act like there's work to be done and things to be accomplished.
See ya!
Meg
posted by Meg Kelso | 7:12 AM
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