This blog is going to be about some things I’ve read and witnessed firsthand over the last week. I’m going to be honest with you. The world is a complicated place and you are not going to make it simple by tearing the government down or reducing the situation to a binary argument or art of the deal. As I’ve told my children, the world is so far beyond Van Buren County Iowa population 7,266 and Carroll County Illinois population 15,526.

First issue, I was at the barbershop to get all six of my hairs cut. The barber to the South of me and his customer were going on and on about the cost differential of Illinois vs. Alabama with college tuition, and then this turned into a discussion on world trade of how $47 was going to show China who was boss.

The University of Illinois in-state tuition has been far more expensive than neighboring states out-of-state tuition because the state of Illinois had not increased funding to the university for years. Neoliberal economic philosophy by the G. Ryan,(R) Blagojevich (D), Quinn(D), and Rauner(R) administrations put the state in a world of hurt by bad spending, a recession, corruption, and a pension system that was extremely underfunded. They lost more money than they were receiving in taxes. Education K-College suffered. Illinois had no choice but to pass off the rising expenses to the student through tuition increases. Other states have been funding upper eduction, but not at that levels they should. It doesn’t matter which party is in charge in Illinois, neoliberal economics will always kill the tax payer. The state and the city of Chicago gave up millions in revenue to bring Caterpillar, United Airlines, and even Ted Ricketts of the Chicago Cubs to come to Illinois and make jobs, and money… It really didn’t work, but the Cubs won the series in 2016. This all could have been avoided if the Republicans would have support Governor Jim Edgar’s proposed tax plan in the mid 90’s. Edgar saw the pension issue coming, because he paid attention to research and statistics. His party refused to support it. Edgar left politics, because he refused to play the neoliberal economic game. The state lost a good legislator. This is what the barber and his customer didn’t understand. They do not read the news, nor follow proposed legislation and their bias is directly linked to their lack of knowledge. Selfishness also plays a part in it too. BTW, $47 supporters I voted for Jim Edgar. He had ethics and brains. As for the trade issue with tariffs the two discussed, I will let that slide. They were so out of their league. They couldn’t understand or comprehend that tariffs drive up their cost, not Chinas. This is the complexities of governance, nothing is simple regardless of how hard you try.

Second issue was a facebook feed of a colleague of mine. His brother and sister in law were going off on the DEI meme going around social media. Merit this, and my wife isn’t a DEI hire she earned everything, blah blah blah. Everything was fit into their tight little conservative bias. Oh, where to begin….

Ok, your wife is a DEI hire. It’s not disrespectful to say so. The purpose of DEI as an additional rubric to hire qualified candidates (of merit) that fit into underserved populations. It’s a “Hello consider your workforces representation.” DEI uses researchable statistics that show women, people of color, people of disabilities, and people from the LGBTQ spectrum were not hired with the same frequency of their population percentages. White men like to hire white men. Look up labor statistics from the 1970’s and 1980’s. I’m sorry, but that man’s wife is a DEI hire. She earned the job with merit, but without DEI statistics and a woke mind she may not have received that job without DEI awareness. BTW (Mr. Husband) did you know precisely what was in the mind of the person who hired you or your wife? Was it merit? Something you shared in common? Think about it, please! The privileged white man bias exists and without DEI it will continue to exist in the $47 administration. Not understanding or recognizing that skew within hiring data throughout the history of the nation does not give you the right to be defensive and biased. You’re simply bringing a two-dimensional argument to a four dimensional playing field. You lost when you tried to say she was all merit. Her gender played a role in the hiring. Just as my gender, skills, and open-mindedness played in all of mine. I’ve lost jobs to women, people of color, and people who were younger with less experience. There are more variables at play than merit when it comes to hiring an employee. We need more of DEI to promote an awakened state of knowledge towards one’s own perceived bias. This is how we fight sexism and racism.

Another news line about the transgender athletes with such ugly and hostile commentary by conservatives saying it’s about time this happened… Men shouldn’t compete in women’s sports, this is an abomination, etc. etc. etc.

The Olympics have had a policy since 2004 if not before. The NCAA has had a policy since 2010 and they updated it constantly as new information comes available. The latest EO has cancelled all transgendered competition. High School athletic organizations were having to face this issue recently as gender identity and health has advanced considerably in the past decade. Here is a nice resource on the NCAA transgender policy. https://ncaaorg.s3.amazonaws.com/inclusion/lgbtq/SSI_UnderstandingTSAP.pdf Now from a sociological standpoint there are not very many transgendered athletes winning events. Lia Thomas got beat plenty of times before finding success in 2022. Here is an article about 24 athletes who won in their athletic fields including Lia Thomas. The people that came in second-seventieth are not victims. They were competitors still worthy of respect that enjoy competition. They weren’t losers, cause they were competing. https://www.outsports.com/2024/12/6/22948400/transgender-trans-athlete-championship-national-world-title/ All of these athletes abided by the rules of their competitive sports prior to winning. They are a statistical minority (less than 2%.) If you go back to the beginnings of Title IX those statistics drop significantly. Then we have the women who naturally carry a lot of testosterone being victimized by these anti-transgender activists that $47 has aligned with. The Eastern European boxer, rugby players from New Zealand, Australia, and the US. Why all this hate? Why is winning the only thing we are concerned with in the US. Where’s the joy in doing better than one did before with individual competition? Where’s the joy and camaraderie in team sports? I’m sorry, but the statistics are pretty clear at this point. Let them all compete. Allow the governing organizations (like states) do their jobs. Exclusion does not help our society. It separates us, it discriminates, and it spoils the joy of sports. If the NCAA chooses to allow transgender athletes to compete, so be it. They are celebrating the athletes, not just the winners. If the NCAA were to award a separate winner for transgendered people competing alongside their identified gender that is something to consider for the future. (Where was that suggestion, activists?) Stop vilifying individuals because of one’s bias or fear of the unknown. One’s lack of education on the issue is not an excuse to discriminate. Maybe you should volunteer for the Special Olympics and see the joy of winning first hand.

The final case was with a member of my family. They are conservative, because of cultural influence nothing else. They are young, naive, impressionable by peers of a particular micro culture, etc… When asked why they opposed diversity, equality, and inclusion, the answer was, “What is that?” When asked why they supported misogyny the answer was, “What is that?” Here we have a $47 voter who has no idea what he voted for, but they are falling in line because their peers did it. How many $47 voters out there have done this? I bet millions. $47 has preyed on the ignorance of the American people and sold you a bias that they can’t see beyond. When I explained this to my family member, they got defiant but it was short-lived. This is what happens when we don’t read and don’t know the difference between facts and misinformation. It takes a little time to do some research. (Website, news articles, actual studies, congressional record, etc.) When I don’t know something I go look it up. I dig into the problem of my ignorance. I like to learn. When are the $47 supporters going to learn? I hope my family member and their micro culture learn before it is too late. My protests are more to save them and their generation than they are to save my generation. Gen Xers are survivors baby….

Thanks for spending some time with me today… Keep dissenting… the fights is far from over… on it goes…