Mayors have power. No doubt about it. The power of the bully pulpit is one of the powers. When Mayors talk … people listen. They don’t necessarily agree but they listen.

Who’s listening now?

An outspoken Kiwi politician has proposed a new solution to the country’s child abuse problem – pay the “appalling underclass” not to breed.

Michael Laws – who stirred up controversy by calling the late Tongan King a “bloated brown slug” – has again hit the headlines.

“That there is a group within our society who give their children no hope nor opportunity from the moment that they are born,” the regional mayor wrote on the New Zealand radio websitewhere he broadcasts as a talkback DJ.

“That these ‘parents’ are known to authorities … and yet the authorities can only intervene after children have been harmed.”

Mr Laws goes on to write: “it would be far better for this appalling underclass to be offered financial inducements not to have children, given the toxic environment that they would provide for any child in their care.”

The mayor believes “the consequent financial and social savings to our community would be considerable.

“There are too many people who should not have children.”

Mr Laws said a report in New Zealand’s Dominion-Post newspaper yesterday had incorrectly attributed the view to him that all those who got welfare should be sterilised.

Mr Laws wrote on the website ”that most welfare beneficiaries are good parents” but it was the problem ones who should be offered money not to breed.

Yesterday’s Dominion-Post newspaper quotes him as saying: “If we gave $10,000 to certain people and said ‘we’ll voluntarily sterilise you’ then all of society would be better off.” 

“There’d be less dead children and less social problems.”

Any volunteers to defend this position?

With all the real issues a city council must deal with, to spend time on nonsense issues makes no sense to me.

What is a real issue and what is nonsense?

You tell me what this is.

A key committee of the Los Angeles City Council voted today to seek a law banning veterinarians from declawing cats, saying the procedure constituted cruelty to animals.

The council’s Public Safety Committee unanimously recommended that City Atty. Carmen Trutanich draft an ordinance banning the practice. The proposal was made by Councilmen Bill Rosendahl and Paul Koretz, who said the procedure caused “unnecessary pain, anguish and permanent disability” to cats.

Councilman Tony Cardenas threw his support behind the measure but voiced doubts that the city’s Animal Services Department had enough employees to enforce such a law.  He also worried that cat owners will simply go to veterinarians in neighboring cities to get the procedure, sometimes known as an onychectomy.

“I don’t want to give you false hope,” Councilman Greig Smith told the audience of cat advocates and assorted city employees. “This is not going to stop the problem.”

The Political Philosophy Class will be discussing this next week.

Your comments are welcome now.

Everyone has ideas how to win elections. Even those people who have never run for election think they know how to win elections.

Joe Garecht has written a piece “How NOT to Win Election Campaigns.”

It is recommended reading for Election Class.

It is election day some places in the country. There is none more important than the one being held in Snellville, GA.

I have read many articles over the past couple of years about the Snellville, GA City Council. The latest from the Atlanta Journal Contstitution relates …

Tuesday’s election could tip the balance of power on Snellville’s City Council, an often dysfunctional body described by one member as “a cul-de-sac of inaction.”

A cul-de-sac of inaction. That is a classic line. I gotta remember that one.

For almost two years, the six-member council hasn’t gotten along. In council chambers, they hurl insults like arrows. In work sessions, they employ political ambushes with last-minute agenda changes.

But the governing body’s penchant for tie votes on issues ranging from a controversial crematory to Sunday alcohol sales has raised even more eyebrows among residents, political observers, even a state senator.

“This election is going to have impact on the future and in what direction we go forward,” Mayor Jerry Oberholtzer said. “People are tired of the bickering. They’re tired of the arguing.”

I have no preference who wins in Snellville. I only wish them a little peace.

If your community has problems like Snellville I also wish you may achieve some degree of civility.

It was a very quick trip to Phoenix over the weekend for me.

Said good-bye to an old friend.

I didn’t check emails even once.

I didn’t read a newspaper for over 48 hours.

I feel blissfully ignorant.