Livin and Lovin as a Kenoshan!

Well, the local elections are coming up soon. Does everyone have their info all read and their minds made up?

If not then get with the program would ya!

While many people in Kenosha are really sick of this issue or that issue, personally im sick of the people who are so complacent that anything can happen in this town without any real backlash from the people. The local government here has gotten away with a lot of stuff over the years, and noone was watching. It is most definitely time for that to change.

The current mayor has been in office for 12 yrs now, and most people don’t even know who the mayor is. That’s really sad. Not only should they know who has squandered millions of tax payers’ dollars, they should know who is going to replace him to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

I actively encourage everyone to get off their duffs and vote on the 1^st. not only am I going to vote, I’m going to be a poll watcher in the 4^th district. That’s right, im watching you. lol

Seriously we as kenoshans need to get involved, as the average kenoshan ignores local politics we only empower those in office to get away with whatever they want. Do I need to mention the boat barn, how about a few museums?’

The local candidates have been putting out door hangers like crazy, there is no way everyone has not had access to the information on the candidates. The signs are out in waves on the side of the road. So there is no way we can say that we don’t even know who’s running.

It really is time for us to show those in office that were paying attention, and were not going to allow the special interest groups free rein in the public funds anymore.

Remember, the 1^st of april, its time to show you actually care.

In the past the school district has came under fire repeatedly for a lack of effort to communicate with the parents of the district, especially when there are serious or controversial issues involved. There has always been the rumors that the administration does this on purpose because they don't like the parents to know. According to this long lasting rumor it is a simple technique used to maintain their unquestionable authority. This rumor is usually partially confirmed when they quietly push a referendum through hoping that no one but their supporters notice till its to late. In reality this lack of communication causes many problems, especially when there are millions of dollars on the line.

The resentment caused by this perception has caused groups in the past to demand an increase of communication with the district, and actively promote awareness among the taxpayers and parents. I have participated in one of these groups in the past. The Kenosha parents union, addressed some very important issues and made a real difference in the community, but was short lived.

I don't think this is a Kenosha issue as much as its a American issue. its not unusual to hear community's from around the country complain about their school districts. The administration of our school districts seems to be very controversial by nature. This is not surprising because they are responsible for our children's education, and if you ever wanted to get under someone's skin, just mess with their child's future. They tend to get real upset, even to the point of expressing irrational emotions.

In many cases this is not necessary the school districts fault, because they have made the attempt to communicate with the public, we just haven't been paying attention. I recently noticed one of their attempts to communicate with us that I had not noticed before. This prompted me to write this post.

Just a few days ago, while updating my desktop RSS feeds (real simple syndication). I happened across a feed from the school district. At first I was delighted, then it occurred to me that even with a hundred or more feeds, I had somehow missed this one. This caused me to reevaluate my perception of school district communications. here I could have been getting the information sent right to my desktop all along. I find fault with myself for not knowing this feed existed. As a former news site owner for the Kenosha area, I should have most definitely known, but I didn't.

Kenosha's school district RSS feed can be found here

or you can copy and paste this into your reader. http://www.kusd.edu/rss/news/rss.xml

Now I wonder, how many other computer literate parents out there could be receiving a news feed from their own school districts. The knowledge of these feeds would greatly facilitate communications between society and the district.’Maybe even stop misunderstandings caused by lack of information, before they start. That would be great, school districts have enough controversy without misunderstandings.

Having said all that, I would encourage everyone. Find out for yourselves if your district has a website, and if it has a RSS feed. Then you will be able to receive the information ASAP from the administration. If for some reason the site doesn't get updated regularly, that's another issue. Perhaps if they knew people were actually paying attention to it, they would ensure that it got updated regularly.

so now I have found my issue for the moment, it gives me something to rant about this week, or till another issue takes it place.

Hey, why don't you have a RSS feed to the school district set up yet! now you cant tell me that you didn't know. I just told you about it.

While this is far from being my first blog, this looks like the one that I will be concentrating on for at least a while. The others were Community Blogs ( community centered News Outlets, Webzines) that have suffered from lack of time, money, or patience. While community blogs are extremely interesting to administer they definitely take a heavy toll on those that commit the majority of effort into them. Those would include moderators,editors,author,etc.
Many marriages, friendships, etc have been sacrificed for the good of the online community. If you have ever been lucky enough to administered one of these blogs you will understand.
For the time being I will be happy enough to have a blog that gets administered by someone else and all I have to do is write. Thats the best feature of this blogger site. No software to research,install, test, modify,update,debug,etc. I can leave all that to the powers that be, and just sit back and gratefully write my blog entry's.
Not that I don't find the world of C.M.S's (content management systems) interesting,because im still fascinated by them. Its nice to take a vacation from administering them for a little while.
I don't even have to install banner rotation software or find the ever allusive customer, Google has done all that for me. That just can't be beat.
Having said all that I would like to say goodbye to the latest of the community blog fatality's, the dailykenoshan.com has been shut down with the exception of the forums. It had been a while since I sold it back to the founder, but after all the years of effort that was put into it by the many, many members it finally has fallen to various circumstances beyond anyones control. Thats just how life goes sometimes.
Unfortunitly also going soon to the graveyard somewhere in the hidden depths of cyberspace is another community blog that had suffered from the lackoftimeitis. The greatamericanoutdoorsmen.com which was my attempt at connecting with outdoors men from across the continent is also being shutdown the first of May. I will be adding the domain to the growing list of lost loves.
Hopefully soon everyone from those sites will soon find me here. That would be great.
lets hope its sooner then later.


btw, hello!! Is anybody out there?