Smile, you're on HCDE camera!
During a walk through your local Walmart, you're on scores of cameras. Pay for gas at the convenience store, and your face is visible on a videotaping system. Now, you can add your children's public school to the places where their images will be recorded.
Hamilton County Schools Superintendent Rick Smith told Board of Education members Thursday he wants to use $1.9 million the $2,201,000 the system received from the sale of the former Ooltewah Elementary School property to install cameras throughout the interior -- though not in restrooms and dressing areas -- and exterior of 64 schools (45 of which have no cameras and 19 of which have cameras that need replacing).
He said the cameras might have prevented damage from one individual at Westview Elementary School earlier this year because they would have showed police -- who will have access to the security cameras through their laptops -- how many people were inside.
At a minimum, Smith said, vandals may think twice about burglarizing a school if they know the cameras are there. Principals, he said, already have had a positive response about the idea. Students also might feel less of a need to start trouble during the regular school day if they know their actions may be on camera.
The school board can approve the proposal at its December meeting, then the County Commission must sign off.
It's a shame money has to spent on this extra measure of security when teachers and classrooms lack the things they need, but most parents would agree if the cameras keep one student safe they're worth it.
Hoping for no indictment?
If only the printed words and broadcast time expended on the possibility -- the possibility, mind you -- of rioting following the release of the St. Louis County grand jury decision on whether to indict Ferguson, Mo., white police officer Darren Wilson in the death of black teenager Michael Brown could have been used on reports of cities across the country where relations between the races are positive.
All the recent reports have done is fan the possibility of disruptions and protests in Ferguson and elsewhere. But reports on places where races work together for the good of all don't play well, do they?
Rioting in the Missouri town following the shooting hurt at least 10 and caused property damage to innocent business owners. More of the same there and elsewhere won't bring Brown back and doesn't do much to repair relations between the races in places where rioting occurs. In fact, it does just the opposite.
We only have to look back less than 50 years to the riots of the late 1960s, the damage they wrought across the country and the calls for law and order that followed.
Following the Aug. 9 shooting, cities such as Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Philadelphia and Phoenix saw demonstrations in support of Brown, so police there have geared up for problems should Wilson not be indicted.
In Oakland, Calif., according to The New York Times, officials have advised residents and businesses near downtown to protect their cars and reinforce their doors with steel plates. In Pittsburgh, the acting police chief said the city was "in an extremely precarious position" and added that his department was hoping for the best but girding "for the very, very worst."
For news organizations for which violence sells, you'd almost think what might -- could? -- happen following the reporting of a nonindictment is the desired outcome. But perhaps cooler heads will prevail.
How high will they go?
A second recent commissioned study indicates United States residential electric rates will jump 20 percent and natural gas prices 65 percent by 2020 if the carbon rules proposed earlier this year by President Obama's Environmental Protection Agency are implemented.
The typical household's annual electricity and natural gas bills would increase by $680, compared to 2012 rates, and grow from there as regulations get more stringent, says the study by Energy Ventures Analysis Inc., consultants hired by coal company Peabody Energy Inc.
Just last month, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity said electricity rates would rise up to 18 percent due to the administration's Clean Power Plan, which has a goal of reducing carbon intensity by 30 percent by 2030.
Further, it's evident from both studies -- even if you factor that they were done by the industry which stands to lose the most from the new rules -- that such higher energy costs will hurt those least able to handle the higher costs -- the poor -- and demonstrates once again the true lack of compassion the Obama administration has for the less fortunate.