From today’s paper: “Bill would restrict voting to property owners.”
Last week, [Republican State Rep. Deborah] Hudson introduced House Bill 358, a one-line bill that would restrict voting in school-tax referendums to those who actually pay the tax. Only citizens who live in the district and own property there would be allowed to vote in referendums, though renters and other nonproperty owners living in the district still could vote in school board elections.
But by Thursday, Hudson learned that there was a problem with her bill: the Constitution.
Oh, right, the Constitution. Pesky that.
Makes one wonder whether the elementary schools Rep. Hudson attended were adequately funded. Maybe they couldn’t afford history or social studies teachers when she was in school. Or math and economics teachers — since she also seems to think renters don’t contribute to paying property taxes.
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“Your friends got brains in their heads,” the ridiculous Officer Rivieri says, “they know when to shut their mouths.”
Unfortunately for Rivieri, those friends also had a video camera. And a YouTube account. Here’s to the Internet for making it slightly more uncomfortable to be a bully with a badge. (via Avram at Making Light)
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Also from today’s paper: “Study didn’t warn families of sludge risks.”
BALTIMORE — Scientists using federal grants spread fertilizer made from human and industrial wastes on yards in poor, black neighborhoods to test whether it might protect children from lead poisoning from the soil. Families were assured the sludge was safe and were never told about any harmful ingredients.
Nine low-income families in Baltimore row houses agreed to let researchers till the sewage sludge into their yards and plant new grass. In exchange, they were given food coupons as well as the free lawns as part of a study published in 2005 and funded by the Housing and Urban Development Department.
… There is no evidence there was ever any medical follow-up.
… Another study investigating whether sludge might inhibit the “bioavailability” of lead — the rate it enters the bloodstream and circulates to organs and tissues — was conducted on a vacant lot in East St. Louis next to an elementary school, all of whose 300 students were black and almost entirely from low-income families.
In a newsletter, the EPA-funded Community Environmental Resource Program assured local residents it was all safe.
“Though the lot will be closed off to the public, if people — particularly children — get some of the lead-contaminated dirt in their mouths, the lead will just pass through their bodies and not be absorbed,” the newsletter said. “Without this iron-phosphorus mix, lead poisoning would occur.”
Soil chemist Murray McBride, director of the Cornell Waste Management Institute, said he doesn’t doubt that sludge can bind lead in soil.
But when eaten, “it’s not at all clear that the sludge binding the lead will be preserved in the acidity of the stomach,” he said. “Actually thinking about a child ingesting this, there’s a very good chance that it’s not safe.”
I suppose it’s important to keep in mind the big picture here, remembering all the lives this research might save in the future due to all we’re learning about syphilis lead poisoning.
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