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Ray Schoch

Ray Schoch_2's picture
Minneapolis, MN
Commenter for
2 years 9 weeks

Recent Comments

Posted on 05/01/13 at 02:39 pm in response to How a heavy police presence in high-crime neighborhoods hurts democracy

…and I'd like to see more about it. I, too, have wondered why we seem to go out or our way to generate hostility toward the society in general by treating every criminal (unless it's a truly white-collar crime) as persona non grata. Years ago, the notion that one paid one's debt to society in prison, and that, once released, you were essentially being given another chance, a "do-over," to start a second, better life, was reasonably widespread and also reasonably popular, or at least it was...

Posted on 05/02/13 at 09:11 am in response to How a heavy police presence in high-crime neighborhoods hurts democracy

I have to disagree with Mr. Clegg.

If you've done a crime so serious that parole is out of the question, then it's a non-issue, and I can't say that I have strong feelings about denying the franchise to people who are currently in prison, and seem likely to spend the rest of their lives there.

I'd have to know more, and it would be a more nuanced conversation, if the focus of the discussion were people now in prison who had a reasonable expectation of parole, and whose crimes...

Posted on 05/01/13 at 02:30 pm in response to Get ready for more White Bear Lakes: Two new looks at groundwater depletion

…from the Governor on down, not to mention the DNR, need to get their collective heads out of their… um… sand boxes.

I spent 50+ years at the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi, where no one thinks twice about water except in terms of quality. Quantity, after all, should be a given, right?

Then I spent a dozen years on the Colorado Front Range, where water quantity is ALWAYS an issue among the thoughtful (and yes, there are some who are not especially thoughtful), and...

Posted on 05/01/13 at 03:09 pm in response to Education Minnesota's election: A change of style, not policy

…this will be interesting to watch from the sidelines, and having been saddled from time to time with partners who were decidedly "not," I want to heartily endorse Alec's line above: "No one wants effective colleagues more than teachers themselves."

Posted on 04/30/13 at 08:10 am in response to New Vikes stadium will be 100 feet taller than Metrodome

…is the way the ‘Strib’s cheerleading piece above the fold this morning describes the stadium’s design.

To those terms should be added “ironic.”

In last Saturday’s ‘Strib, John Kass described rather accurately, I think, what will make a new NFL stadium a sizable purple elephant in the living room of Minneapolis and the state. Thousands of athletes around the country, their parents, their loved ones, and their survivors, have joined lawsuits against numerous sports entities,...

Posted on 04/26/13 at 11:44 am in response to Minneapolis mayoral candidate Cam Winton grilled, but doesn’t wilt

There IS some attraction to a candidate who hasn't spent his entire adult life in government, and I don't think the notion of a "fresh pair of eyes" is entirely off-base. Mr. Winton's eyes, however, appear to suffer to some degree from the same sort of myopia that afflicts Republicans in general, though his case might be a degree or two less severe.

As we have seen before, and will surely see again, businesses don't exist for the purpose of enhancing the quality of life of a...

Posted on 04/27/13 at 06:08 am in response to Christian-based Teen Challenge treatment program prompts fight over state funding

Fortunately, I was not a teenager with drug issues, nor was my son, so I have no direct experience with programs like this. Nonetheless, it does seem that both Mrs. Kiffmeyer and Rob White are misreading the criticism directed at Teen Challenge.

Based on the article and the quotes therein, I'm not seeing an insistence from the DFL, for example, that separate programs be established for every religion. What it looks like instead is a reluctance to support a program that apparently...

Posted on 04/26/13 at 12:49 pm in response to Pluses and lots of minuses of a new convention hotel in Minneapolis

…taxpayer, I side with the near--apoplectic hotel owner. I'm already paying for millionaires to play baseball, and will soon be paying for millionaires to play football. In both cases, the audience will consist in large part of people who are wealthier than I am, but who are paying little or nothing toward the facility they're enjoying that operates at my expense. To phrase it politely enough to escape the censors, I'm not at all interested in watching millionaires speculate in hotel real...

Posted on 04/26/13 at 12:34 pm in response to Scott Honour Q-A: GOP's first candidate for governor wants to reform government, improve business climate

…one of my usual lengthy diatribes, but then I read Jody Rooney's comment. Bravo!

"Investment bankers" have destroyed far more jobs in the past half-dozen years than they've ever created, and beyond that, well, I refer readers to Mr. Rooney, above.

Posted on 04/24/13 at 01:35 pm in response to Scott Shane’s thought-provoking questions about ‘targeted killings’ using drones

…were he still alive, what George Orwell might have had to say about this… Senator William Fulbright, as well.

Eventually — I've no idea when, but eventually — if we continue with this tactic, someone, somewhere, will feel justified in turning the same tactic (and justification) on an American ally or, most interesting of all, on someone who's on American soil. What will we have to say then? The usual neofascist rationales for this sort of thing vanish like a puff of smoke, and...