Reefmonkey

Some interesting numbers I found about exposure to pollutants from cigarette smoking in bars. University of Wisconsin performed air quality monitoring at several Madison-area bars before the Madison ban took effect. http://www.publichealthmdc.com/documents/M...ualityStudy.pdf For one cigarette pollutant, PM2.5 (particulate matter below 2.5 microns, which, being small, settles in the lungs and and causes irritation), the researchers found the average concentration in all the bars was 168 mg/m3. In one bar it was as high as 300 mg/m3. National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) has a maximum allowable 24-hour exposure to this pollutant of 65 mg/m3. Anyone still want to claim it isn't a public health issue? I believe earlier in the thread RedScare tried to counter talk of it being a public health issue by dragging car exhaust into it, saying that we inhale more pollution from car exhaust that from bars. Houston's maximum PM2.5 levels are rarely above 60 mg/m3. Maximum allowable PM2.5 over a 24 hour period: 65 mg/m3 Houston outdoor air PM2.5 level maximums: usually less than 60 mg/m3 Bar PM2.5 average levels: 168 mg/m3 I was going to type something else, but I won't rub it in, RedScare.

As I have pointed out before, OSHA, MSHA etc. require that employers reduce all risks to a reasonable level, including eliminating unnecessary risks. A nuclear power plant can't say to its employees "We don't want to pay for adequate shielding to protect you on the job, if you don't like it, you can take your ball and go home." A construction firm working on skyscrapers can't say "we're not going to pay for full body harnesses, so either don't trip, or find another job." A skydiving instructor, if he is self-employed, has a responsibility to himself, but if he is employed by someone else, his company has a responsibility to give him access to proper equipment, to make sure he is properly licensed, and make sure his equipment is inspected. If there is a fatality, you'd better believe the government is going to be investigating, looking for criminal negligence, including neglect of required procedures and equipment maintenance. What world are you living in where you don't recognize this reality? I don't think you've been paying attention. I am not whining. I am smugly satisfied that this ordinance has finally passed, after waiting patiently for it for a long time. Sure, I am not entirely pleased with the provisions for enforcement, but I am patient enough to wait until that changes, too. It is the bar owners who are doing the whining. Accusing me of whining was just a cheap rhetorical trick you pulled out of your meagre bag of tricks before checking to make sure it actually fit the circumstances, which it doesn't. Again with the asinine assumption that anyone who doesn't want smoke blown on them is a tofu-eating, yoga-doing, patchouli wearing health nut. But wait, I thought you guys are all saying bars can't possibly stay in business if they don't allow smoking? How can there be "waaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy too many" bars for nonsmokers staying open if they don't get all that vital income from nonsmokers? Hhhmm? What was that? Oh, man, it sucks getting caught in your own contradictions, doesn't it? If bar owners are right, and bars can't stay in business without the vital business of smokers, then that means there can't possibly be any viable bars for nonsmokers to go to, therefore we don't have the right to choose nonsmoking bars as we are being told we should do. If there are successful nonsmoking bars for us to choose from, then bar owners are wrong, bars can be successful post-ban. You and Red Scare, railing against an "authoritarian" government that "tramples" people's "rights", you sound like a couple of rebellious 16 year olds, and your characterization of a bar as a place to "get your drink on to the point of intoxication" doesn't reflect well on your maturity level either. No, History proves that, left to its own devices, Business is not capable of consistently looking out for the well-being of its customers or employees. It's not even particularly good at looking out for its own longterm interests, or the nation's longterm economic interests. Even a cursory study of America's Gilded Age will plainly demonstrate that to you. It's not about whether individual humans are sensible or smart or not, it's about who has the power, and business interests generally have more power, because they offer what people need - employment. Letting market forces control workplace safety, even product safety, was tried and failed. So yes, government is intervening, and enforcing a more healthy environment for bar employees and patrons. But you and Red Scare see this as a case of big bad authoritarian government trampling the bar owner's "right" to run his business as he pleases, and the smoker's "right" to smoker in the bar. This has nothing to do with "rights", and it never has. It is about competing Interests. For years the bar scene was controlled by the Smoking Interest, which used peer pressure, aggressive marketing tactics such as tobacco companies sending hot girls to give out free cigarettes in bars, and other means to keep numbers of smokers up so that it could stay in control. Now the Nonsmoking Interest is strong enough that it has successfully used City Hall tactics to gain control. It's just nice that the Interest in power happens to be healthier for everyone. This has to do with two competing Interests, not "rights", that's how politics and society work in the real world, and failure to understand that is as childish as it is naive.

I'm glad you admit that it was a ridiculous analogy. You know, they say that admitting you have a problem is the first step.... I have repeatedly provided cogent arguments that the smoking ban in bars is a logical extension of city health codes for food and drink establishments, as well as workplace smoking bans, because, after all, the bar is a workplace for the bartender. Besides what you admit is a ridiculous analogy about concealed handgun permits, and now some ramblings about the Kileen Luby's shootings, you have provided no argument. "but..but...you're wrong!" is not an argument. Accusing me of wanting to stifle bar owners' business for my own gains and wanting to "make the scene on [my] terms" are not arguments. Even if that were true, even if I were just some malicious person who twisted my mustache at the idea of stifling owners' business and whatnot, that does not change the fact that I have shown sound legal precedent for this restriction from a food/drink establishment health code standpoint, and from a workplace health standard standpoint. Until you can come up with legal arguments for why this isn't true, you aren't even a blip on the radar as far as this discussion goes. You may say you disagree with me about being treated rudely by smokers, but the fact is I have been treated rudely when I have politely asked them to move their smoke so it did not drift into my face. I would not dream of threatening violence as you suggest. Maybe Red Scare is on the polite end of smokers, but that doesn't change the fact that many smokers are not, and I have personally experienced that. Laws are necessary because people can't seem to figure out how to treat each other considerately. If everyone lived by the Golden Rule, we would not need laws. For generations, smokers have not treated nonsmokers considerately, and nonsmokers are fed up - these smoking bans would not have gotten the traction they have if this were not the case. If you, Red Scare, or bar owners want to blame anyone for this ban, blame inconsiderate smokers, they are the reason it has gotten this far.

I thought they looked like this: Like I told Red Scare, we've been drinking around you all the time, you just haven't noticed. Most of the people around you were non-smoking real drinkers, you just couldn't tell that we nonsmokers, because we silently endured.

Yeah, like that's going to work. One thing my sainted grandmother taught me was that it does no good to return rudeness with rudeness. I'm not going to provoke every smoker I see by saying "you're violating the smoking ban". In the past even polite requests like "I don't think you're aware your smoke is drifting into my face, would you mind moving your ashtray to the other side?" have been returned with rudeness. Smokers have never been considerate of nonsmokers' wishes in bars before, and this surely isn't going to make them so. All it will do is lead to bar fights. One thing I have noticed - many bars that allow cigarette smoking don't allow cigar and pipe smoking. Why is that? It's like only half-admitting that you realize people find smoke irritating, but not wanting to go all the way. Native Montrosian - getting thrown french fries at you by rambunctuous kids in the Village - are you going to BW3's? Now there is something that the city should enact an ordinance about - parents who let their little brats run around unruly at restaurants. Kidding, everyone, but poorly behaved children not kept in tow by parents is a pet peeve of mine.

I think you may have had a few drinks before posting this, judging from your post - especially the non sequiter about concealed weapons. I generally only respond to coherent posts. "Reefermonkey", how clever. I've NEVER heard that one before. Really, you can? I don't know where you work or what malls you go to, but concealed handguns aren't allowed in any office building or mall I have been to. Just separates the wheat from the chaff, so us nonsmokers don't have to figure out which girls are going to have breath that smells like....I made my move on my now wife in Barfly while her aggressive (and psycho) smoking friend was trying to bum a smoke.

Well, I am always going to believe that NIOSH is a better judge of how the average person is going to react to health hazards than the average person. I have seen the tragic results when people have thought they knew better than OSHA and could cut corners on safety regulations. Your model is how things worked before the days of OSHA. Since OSHA, industrial accidents, deaths, and illnesses have steadily decreased. I see that as VERY fortunate. Why have a laissez-faire attitude about running job sites and then let the courts take care of compensating for injuries/deaths, when sensible workplace health and safety standards can prevent the injuries/deaths in the first place. OSHA regs have a proven record of reducing injuries/deaths when compared to pre-OSHA days. The Dickensian idea that employers should be left to their own devices when it comes to workplace health/safety, and then should pay off victims/survivors is simply vomitous - and it doesn't work. After much suffering on the part of numerous workers, unions seek to fill the void if government won't. I think OSHA does a better job of balancing worker needs versus employer needs than any union. Of course not. I am only expecting that at the very least, real, easy to remedy conditions be remedied. Second-hand smoke hazard is one that is very real, and very easily remedied. It doesn't require expensive control technology, other than a simple sign that says "No Smoking."

Actually, I was disappointed when they gave up. They were funny guys and great company. After they left, it was just my brother, me, and a middle aged couple - both lawyers - from NYC. Very proud of living in Midtown Manhattan and looked down on a couple of Texans. Oh, I am willing to bet we have passed each other at Rudyards, La Carafe, Davenport, LZ's, Barfly, places like that. I am just always careful to only wear clothes that can be machine-washed to those places. I am glad I'll be able to start wearing dry-clean only there. See, that's the thing. You've sat in smoke-laden bars and been surrounded by people you didn't know anything about. You assumed that all non-smokers stayed away from bars and were "boring" people, and everyone around you must be a smoker, just because we didn't say anything about it, pretended to tolerate it because social taboo was against us, complaining about it would not have gotten us anywhere in the bars. So you built this myth in your head that nonsmokers were boring people who would never go into "your" bar. This national movement is happening in cities across the US because the tide of public opinion is with us now. For decades those of us who didn't smoke just had to silently endure as we walked through clouds of cigarette smoke in movie theatres, on airplanes, at work, etc. (When I go to Asia on business it is a reminder of how things used to be). We just had to suck up and silently endure because we had been the minority for so long, we had no chance of asking for a smoke-free environment. The will of the majority was imposed on us. It may not have been codified in city ordinances, but it was culturally institutionalized nonetheless. Now the worm has turned. It's not a matter of an increasingly authoritarian society taking away any rights, and it is overly dramatic to characterize it as such. The rights are just being redistributed according to a shift in demographics and general public attitude. That has always happened, will always happen. It's nice when it happens in a way that is good for people. Not just the nonsmokers who don't want to breathe it in, but also for those coming up, who might otherwise pick up smoking because it's "the thing to do at bars."

We fascists have our secret police. We create a climate of fear to encourage people to turn in their neighbors before their neighbors turn them in. Trust us, we know how to handle this. It's what we do.

Actually, it's very good. We all change our names and move to farms in Argentina or Brazil.

And he's back, folks! Nice to see you again, RedScare. Whew! And here I was afraid all you were going to bring to the discussion was conjecture and unverifiable anecdotal "evidence". Yes, those of us who don't revel in inhaling the results of incomplete combustion are all tofu-eating, yoga-doing, patchouli wearing health nuts, and boring. You know, normally, reducing three quarters of Americans over 18 to a simplistic characterization is likely to be grossly inaccurate, but I think in this case you've captured us nicely. Yeah, I've often thought that my decision to refrain from smoking has kept me from enjoying life. I don't truly appreciate simple things, like climbing a flight of stairs, because I can do it without wheezing. It's too bad I wasted 5 days in 2001 climbing Kilimanjaro when I could have been hanging out at the bottom with the Brit smokers in my group who had to give up after the second day. And why do I waste time paddling my surfski when I could sit on my couch and smoke. All the wasted opportunities.....if only I had lit up. That's very ominous. I am impressed. It's like you are a member of a secret society. If I were a member maybe they'd "take care" of me, too. Is there a secret password or do I just give a phlegm-rattling cough?

Fair enough, now I know where you stand on that, and you are very consistent. It comes down to a fundamental philosophical disagreement abotu public health between you and me.But even if I were swayed to your POV on this, that anything should be allowed as long as full disclosure and understanding takes place, do we really have that right now? The tobacco industry has spent billions of dollars over the years trying to squealch evidence that smoking is harmful. Even on this thread here, there are people claiming that they have heard second-hand smoke was not as dangerous as it is made out to be. Let's say that there is a good case to be made that second-hand smoke might not be that bad, that would still mean the jury is out, we are not sure if it is bad or not, and there are people who are believing the tobacco-lobby funded studies - I would call that an imperfect understanding of the risk. Yes, of course it is everyone's choice to work in a smoky bar, a coal mine, or a hazardous waste site. And as I have said, even though it is their choice to work there, the government still requires the employers to reduce risk as much as possible, wherever possible. Employers can't just run their job sites however they see fit and then pay the employees a little more. If a mine or a hazardous waste site can't be made safe enough, MSHA or OSHA comes in and shuts it down. If a worker comes to OSHA and complains about unsafe working conditions, OSHA doesn't say "if you think it's dangerous, go get another job." Just doesn't work that way.As far as "employers [paying] high enough wages to compensate" employees for hazardous conditions, you could not have picked a worse example for that then bar employees. Typically bar owners don't even pay their employees minimum wage, they expect tips to cover that. They certainly don't give them medical insurance to take care of any pulmonary illnesses they are at increased risk of suffering from due to second-hand smoke. Yes, some jobs have inescapable harzards. At a hazardous waste site, there is no way to make the hazardous waste safer before I get there. That was my job. But other hazards are escapable. I can suspend nearby welding/grinding operations if I am dealing with a flammable substance. I can lock out/tag out machinery that could make the job more dangerous, even if it costs my client more money. Those are not inescapable hazards, they are escapable hazards.Second-hand smoke is not an inescapable hazard of being a bar employee, it is an escapable one, even if it will cost the bar some money. The fact that it is an escapable hazard will be proven September 1. Well, if that's true (though again, it has been disproven in reality nationwide), then starting September 1st, the bar owners are going to have to get creative about attracting us more casual drinkers to come in and drink more. If they can't come up with a way to do that, they're lousy businessmen.

So where will the smokers be on Friday and Saturday nights now? What will they stay home reading? Despite proof to the contrary (http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/12/1/13, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...amp;sec=health), it appears MidtownCoog and even bar owners are still afraid that the smoking ban is going to harm business for bars. So I have been thinking long and hard about this, and the thought that popped into my head is "who cares?" Now I know how flippant and callous that sounds on the face of it, but bear with me. A lot of people have been talking about "choice" here - the anti-smokers have been saying "smokers choose to smoke" while pro-smokers have been saying "snon-smokers can choose not to go to smoky bars", etc. Those points all make good sense when you are talking about a pre-ban environment, but in 19 days, all those points will be irrelevent. The ban will be in place, smoking will not be allowed in bars anymore. The only choice that will be important then will be the choice that smokers, at less than 25% of the population, will make: "do I stay home to smoke, or do I go to the bar and hold off smoking until later?" The majority of the population and the majority of bar goers, like me, are non-smokers, who have been silently enduring the smoke for as long as we have been 21, we have been showing our loyalty to bar owners by choosing to go to bars despite the smoke. But the bar owners seem disproportionately concerned about losing the business of their most flakey and disloyal customers - those who are going to choose smoking over patronizing them. Sounds a little pathetic to me. It's not like the bar will be the only place that smokers can't smoke - smokers are required to abstain for hours at a time every day. They abstain at work. You can't smoke on an airplane - do smokers choose to stay home instead of taking vacations? So smokers can delay smoking for at least a few hours at a time, and regularly do. Here is another time they will be asked to make a choice, the cigarettes, or the drinks and socialization. My instinct, as well as a significant amount of data, tell me that the majority of smokers will choose to keep the Camel Lights unlit for a few hours so they can have a few drinks, see their friends, get out of the house for a few hours. As for those who choose to stay home so they can smoke, that's their choice, and it's a sad one, if you think about it. When your need to intake a chemical for its recreational effects becomes so strong that it trumps your desire to have interaction with friends and family, that's the classic definition of a hardcore addiction. So for the people who make that choice, why do we wring our hands?

Ah, must have been just a coincidence that the fascists will drink red wine, which I said was my drink. Plausible deniability, I love it!

I am going to move a few smoking ban related posts from the lawn parking ordinance over here where they belong. Anyway, the story so far......... So to address TheNiche's last argument, what TheNiche is saying (and correct me if I got this wrong, TheNiche), is that if you go into a restaurant that has a dirty kitchen, you are not going to see that the kitchen is dirty, so you don't have enough information to choose not to eat there, therefore the city should make sure the restaurant keeps its kitchen clean. On the other hand, if you go into a restaurant or bar where you can see smokers smoking, or even know they allow smokers, you are aware of this, so you can make the decision not to eat or drink there. Likewise, potential employees can choose not to work there if they don't want to be around smoke. Okay. Well then, abiding by that principle, would it be okay for a restaurant to be exempted from city health code requiring employees to wash their hands, exempted from keeping perishable foods at proper temperatures, as long as they put a big sign on their door that says "Our kitchen is unsanitary. Eat here at your own risk"? Then the patrons have "perfect information", so would this be okay? Now let's talk about the argument that employees can choose whether or not to work at bars that allow smoking. People can choose whether or not to work in a coal mine, right? That doesn't stop the Mine Safety and Health Administration from requiring mine companies to meet safety requirements. Mine owners can't just say "mining is dangerous, you know that, so you don't have to work here if you don't want to, but we aren't going to install proper ventillation, because that will cut into our bottom line." I have my 40 Hour HAZWOPER card. I have worked some pretty dangerous hazardous waste sites, and I knew the dangers going in. That does not mean that my company or clients didn't have to reduce my risk by eliminating as many hazards as they could. They were required to do so by law. A city ordinance banning smoking in bars, which are a workplace for bartenders, backs, and waitstaff, is an easy way to eliminate a very easy to eliminate hazard to working in a bar. I have disproven the "their choice to work in a bar" argument more than once in this thread, and no one has even attempted to refute my argument, but people keep making the argument. I would love to see someone bring in a new slant to directly refute me.

So now I am a fascist. Well, that's not so bad. Fascists are pretty snazzy dressers, and boy can they march. Yes, I demand that a bar owner provide a healthy environment that is not full of airborne carcinogens. I also demand that his employees wash their hands after using the restroom. I demand that restaurant owners keep meat, eggs, and dairy at proper temperatures. Maybe a bar owner's way of conducting business as he pleases involves spitting in the glasses to clean them, but I doubt arguments about his "rights" will cut any ice with the city health inspector. I don't think arguments of "if they don't want to get diarrhea, they can choose not to come here" will get him out of a citation. I guess the health inspector is a fascist, too. Maybe he'll save a seat for me at the next meeting. No business owner has a right to conduct business "as he pleases". As soon as he opens the business to the public, he has a responsibility to provide a safe, healthy environment for anyone over 21 who wants to patronize him.

Well look at it this way, instead of carrying around a lighter to offer a light to a girl you want to pick up, you can carry around an inhaler of Albuterol and an epi-pen.

I guess your nicotine addiction is making you a little paranoid and irritable, because otherwise I can't figure out why you take such umbrage with what I said. Like I said, people go to bars for a variety of reasons. By no means was my list of some reasons people go to bars meant to be exhaustive. The point is, in other cities, bar owners claimed they would lose business with a smoking ban. That was disproven when those cities' bans went into effect. Now in Houston cigar-bar owners are saying the ban is going to make cigarette smokers flock to their bars and screw up their tobacco/alcohol sales ratios. I'm saying the first dire prediction proved untrue, and logic says the second one will be untrue as well. And if you think of it, it was not me, but the cigar-bar owners who were explaining to you what you will do once smoking is outlawed in bars. Don't worry, I won't expect an apology from you. Listen to what you are saying, though: "....non-smokers....whose rights supercede everyone else's." You're saying we think our rights should come before your rights. Who is really pushing their rights over everyone else's, though? The pro-smokers say "if non-smokers don't like our smoke, they can choose not to go to bars." It's just as easy to turn the argument around, and say that you smokers right now are putting your rights above everyone else's. You may think you have a right to smoke, but we have a right not to breathe in smoke that irritates our lungs, our eyes, and stinks up our clothes and hair. Which right seems more reasonable? You choose to smoke, we choose to drink. You can choose not to smoke and still drink and socialize, but if we choose not to inhale your smoke, then we can't drink and socialize. On the math alone, you lose. And for asthmatics and people who are allergic to smoke, it isn't a matter of choice. They simply cannot be around smokers. So you are saying your "right" to smoke while you drink and socialize is more important than their right to drink and socialize, so much so that your right prohibits them from exercising theirs?. Again, it is obvious that it is the smokers who are trying to foist their "rights" on everyone else, not vice versa. Actually, I am not a fan of either red bull or vodka. I'm a red wine drinker, which is healthy. But thanks for letting me have my bar smoke-free . Oh, you reminded me of another good line from the aforementioned Simpson episode "excuse me, I ordered a Zima, not EMPHY-sema." That was a good episode. They don't write them like that anymore.

I am not a cigar smoker so I don't understand the cigar bar business - does a cigar bar have to retain some ratio of liquor sales/tobacco sales in order to be considered a "cigar bar"? Even so, bar owners' concerns that smoking bans would reduce their revenues have proven unfounded in NYC, LA, Dallas, and so my gut tells me that cigar-bar owners' fears that non-cigar-smoking drinkers will innundate their bars are just as foundless. As the exlosion of the myth that bar revenues would go down with a smoking ban demonstrates, smokers haven't stopped going to bars just because they can't smoke there, and they aren't going to flock to cigar bars because they can smoke there. People go to bars for a variety of reasons - atmosphere, good drinks, cheap drinks, the crowd that goes there, because their friends like the bar, because good-looking members of the opposite sex go there. Just as smokers didn't give up chances to meet women/men at bars so they could stay home and smoke, they aren't going to give up chances to meet men/women at traditional bars so they can smoke in cigar bars. In general, a lot more men than women like to smoke cigars, and from my trips to Downing Street, most of the girls there were on the arm of a cigar-smoking sugar daddy, so guys aren't about to sequester themselves off in cigar bars where there are no available women. What is more likely to happen is what happened in LA, etc - people choose not to smoke when they go out drinking, or catch a smoke between bars. I think this will be a good thing. Pretty much everyone I know who is a smoker now started because they would go out to bars with people who smoked while drinking, and most started out saying "I only smoke when I drink" and are now full-blown smokers. Smokers are already in the minority. Separate the social connectedness of smoking and drinking, and the smokers will choose to not smoke so they can hang out at bars with their nonsmoking friends and potential hookups. In ten years you'll see smoking become some strange anarchronism that no one does anymore, like wearing Members Only jackets. You reminded me of an episode of The Simpsons, where Marge's sister Patty is dating actor Troy McClure, and on a date to a trendy restaurant, she lights up a cigarette, to the horrified gasps of the other patrons. A Waiter comes up to her and says "we don't serve contemporary California cuisine in yours lungs, so don't smoke in our restaurant."

I don't understand how the lawsuit can claim Houston is overstepping its authority in regulat[ing] differently" businesses licensed to sell alcohol for on-premises consumption. I don't see how this is regulating bars any differently from any other business. And what does the alcohol consuption have to do with anything? If anything, this is leveling the playing field, making bars adhere to the same regulations every store, office, etc in Houston already adheres to. Bars are a place of work for the bar employees. Anti-smoking ordinances are meant to protect workers from smoke in the work environment, among other things. Why should bar employees have less protection than anyone else?

Katiedidit - I graduated from SMU in 98 Vicman - I noticed you said more than once that some HISD kids are allowed to attend SBISD schools. I have never heard of this. Can you elaborate?

I am glad to see this happening, hopefully it will go all the way this time. Second-hand smoke is a public health issue, as well as a nuisance. I like to go drink in bars - why should I have to endure someone else's second-hand smoke, and my clothes reeking, to do it? Why should asthmatics not be able to enjoy bars because of others' disgusting habits? Working in bars is flexible hours and good money for people like students, why should they have the choice of "either accept the smoke or find another job"? That's like telling mine workers "no we're not going to improve ventilation, either accept you're going to get Black Lung or find another job." We ban smoking in workplaces, right? Guess what? For the people who work in a bar, that bar is a workplace. Done. For those who say bars are private establishments, and the owners should be able to make the decision, come on. People used to make the claim that restaurants were "private establishments" and therefore should be able to decide whether or not to serve black people. That ultimately didn't stand up to scrutiny. Public health trumps the rights of "private establishments" all the time. Ethnic restaurants may have "traditional" ways of making certain dishes, but if they don't pass health code, they aren't allowed to serve them. The owners can't just say "well, if people don't want to risk salmonella, they should eat elsewhere."

My wife said that was one of the big problems with the old principal, my wife's colleagues were telling that principal that the demographic had changed and she needed to adapt, but she stuck her head in the sand about it. General diversity in a school doesn't bother me, but Katrina diversity does. It isn't a race thing, it's a Louisiana culture thing. That entire state has been so corrupt for so long, that even in the school districts there is no accountability. My wife has worked with several Katrina kids, and just in general finds that the education there is awful - the 5th grade level of education in LA is equivalent to maybe 3rd grade, and there is a cultural difference in behavior, too, the kids are allowed to get away with a lot more over there, so they are used to acting that way here. Because of your post yesterday, my wife and I talked more about what we are going to do in two years, and we are now pretty much decided that we are going to get our oldest into Cornerstone, with WAIS as a backup.

What problems have you heard about? We are considering our options for our oldest, who would be going to Spring Forest in Fall 2009. We are considering Cornerstone instead (my stepson is high achiever). My wife had heard negative things about SFMS, mostly associated with its old principal, and she was under the impression that there was a new principal? I'd be interested in any information you have on specific issues at Spring Forest. Is it just the demographics? At least for us a diverse population isn't a bad thing unless it is accompanied by problem behavior that could interfere with learning and be unsafe. I'll have to check with my wife, but I was under the impression that the main problems were conflicts between a principal who wasn't well liked and the teachers.

I think for most of us the price differential would not be a big problem if we weren't aware of what Randall's used to be, and what a hollow shell of that it now is. For me there is a principle involved in not paying the same prices I used to when the service and selection are not what they used to be. I find the Kroger's signature stores to have much better selection now, a better shopping environment, and maybe slightly cheaper. For all that I will drive a little father, rather than letting myself get irritated when I find Randall's has stopped carrying yet another item they used to, which I happened to want/need that night. Though I do agree the Krogers in the old Albertsons suck, as the Albertsons did before them.