Ten years ago when I moved to Arizona it was still the Wild West. The government was decidedly pro business and pro-consumer. Now its much more 'Californiafied' and become a national hot spot for illegal immigration. I thought I would include two completely separate Top News topics for today.
County sheriff Joe Arpaio, "The toughest sheriff in the country' backs down to no one. In the past he has blasted the mayor of Arizona and his sometime advocate the county prosecutor among others. Now its the governor, Janet Napalitano, who yesterday signed an executive order cutting a million dollars of the sheriffs budget tied directly to policing illegal immigration.
The sheriff has really focused on smugglers, drop houses and rounding up illegals at pro-immigration rallies. To deflect his effectiveness, protesters including the mayor are saying he is not doing his job bringing in felony warrants. He shot back that its not his sole responsibility to bring in fleeing felons and every other policing department gets funds for warrant captures. Plus Arpaio's department is the only police organization with unilateral training and support from federal agencies to capture illegals.
Needless to say there is a great deal of debate on this. The other point is that ASU, one of the largest universities in the country cut three mens sports programs; wrestling, swimming and tennis. The reason for this is to save over one million dollars but also be compliance with Title 9, a federal law barring discrimination in womens eduction which later incorporated high school and collegiate sports.
Title 9 has long had history of being a contentious program for college sports. In this case, all three sports are waning support in the West and dropped over 70 male athletes. However I think the other side is correct in saying these athletes had been involved in their sport competitively since before high school whereas ASU has been accused in the past of giving womans scholarships to co-eds pulled from intermural college squads simply to fill their quota in Title 9 spots. I think the decision to cut mens teams is incredibly difficult. Any sport would be difficult and when football takes the lions share of mens scholarships, with Title 9, a balance has to created.
What galls me is that a major university that has spiked it tuition exponentially and receives millions in federal funds can't balance its budget. Especially when ASU was giving providing almost $2 million to students who could not afford in-state tuition which is a fraction of the out of state fee. To receive this money the student only had to prove they could not prove their citizenship. Crazy.
But this state is in a budget crunch and I would rather see programs dropped over increased taxes. How about dropping light rail. How about eliminating redundant programs. Ack. This post is not a rant.
County sheriff Joe Arpaio, "The toughest sheriff in the country' backs down to no one. In the past he has blasted the mayor of Arizona and his sometime advocate the county prosecutor among others. Now its the governor, Janet Napalitano, who yesterday signed an executive order cutting a million dollars of the sheriffs budget tied directly to policing illegal immigration.
The sheriff has really focused on smugglers, drop houses and rounding up illegals at pro-immigration rallies. To deflect his effectiveness, protesters including the mayor are saying he is not doing his job bringing in felony warrants. He shot back that its not his sole responsibility to bring in fleeing felons and every other policing department gets funds for warrant captures. Plus Arpaio's department is the only police organization with unilateral training and support from federal agencies to capture illegals.
Needless to say there is a great deal of debate on this. The other point is that ASU, one of the largest universities in the country cut three mens sports programs; wrestling, swimming and tennis. The reason for this is to save over one million dollars but also be compliance with Title 9, a federal law barring discrimination in womens eduction which later incorporated high school and collegiate sports.
Title 9 has long had history of being a contentious program for college sports. In this case, all three sports are waning support in the West and dropped over 70 male athletes. However I think the other side is correct in saying these athletes had been involved in their sport competitively since before high school whereas ASU has been accused in the past of giving womans scholarships to co-eds pulled from intermural college squads simply to fill their quota in Title 9 spots. I think the decision to cut mens teams is incredibly difficult. Any sport would be difficult and when football takes the lions share of mens scholarships, with Title 9, a balance has to created.
What galls me is that a major university that has spiked it tuition exponentially and receives millions in federal funds can't balance its budget. Especially when ASU was giving providing almost $2 million to students who could not afford in-state tuition which is a fraction of the out of state fee. To receive this money the student only had to prove they could not prove their citizenship. Crazy.
But this state is in a budget crunch and I would rather see programs dropped over increased taxes. How about dropping light rail. How about eliminating redundant programs. Ack. This post is not a rant.
3 comments:
As much as I don't like Arpaio in many ways, I do think he's doing the right thing regarding immigration, and it troubles me to see such an imbalance with the Mayor and Gov. I guess you can't please everyone all the time, but you have to do what is right. It's time to stop derailing the efforts to make the right decisions and look at the greater good of the city and state.
Speaking of derailing, don't get me started on LightRail. I think the idea is sound (in some ways), but the execution was grossly mishandled; however that's a post for another day...
Please don't get me started on Title IX ruining men's minor sports. Let's talk instead about the whole 'red shirt' program that uses millions of dollars to let 40 or 50 hopeful men sit on a bench and do some practice work. Suppose the football team cut its average size from 100 to 50 therby leaving plenty of guys to fill in for the injured first string without the team having to launder all those uiforms and cover travel costs for all those non-players. Mulitply that by baseball and basketball, too. Get rid of that bit of excess and women's althletics could be supported without a lot of specious backlash and men's minor sports would survive just fine.
When I was a girl there was nothing for women - no opportunity at all. Playing sports was considered un-ladylike and besides, everyone figured girls didn't really like sports anyhow. Title IX was critical in forcing the world to see that women like sports and they deserve to be supported.
one way to balance the budget and be able to keep the teams? stop paying your football and basketball coaches over a million dollars.
but, that's a fantasy world.
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