Wading In

What Washington could learn from Fairfield By Kelvin Wade Fairfield Daily Republic From page A7 | August 23, 2012 | There are myriad reasons why our political system is broken. But one of the biggest is Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform “Taxpayer Protection Pledge.” And because of that, Washington and the Republican Party could learn a lot from the Fairfield City Council. Norquist’s pledge to never raise taxes under any circumstance has been wildly successful. In the Congress, 238 out of 242 Republican representatives and 41 of 47 GOP senators have signed the pledge. Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has also signed it. But the effect has been to throw our government into chaos. Though Republicans haven’t raised taxes, the pledge didn’t stop them from going on a spending spree in the Bush years: passing massive tax cuts, waging two wars, increasing defense spending and adding a Medicare prescription drug benefit with no means to pay for any of it. And in recent y...

Thursday, August 16, 2012 It’s a crazy, context-challenged campaign By Kelvin Wade From page A7 | August 16, 2012 | When I was a junior at Armijo, my best friend, the late Bill Dunn, suggested we run together to be co-rally commissioners. He had this crazy idea that we would wear sunglasses and bowties like Black Muslims and tell people we’d schedule rallies all the time to get kids out of class more. He said we’d have live music, show slasher movies and have girls in bikinis. Thankfully, we never ran. I think about that crazy time when I look at the current presidential race. Now, I like the selection of Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney’s running mate mainly because it makes the race a stark choice rather than a referendum. Although it doesn’t look promising, I hope it’ll eventually elevate the debate. The most insidious thing about this campaign is the rush for both campaigns to take the other’s words out of context and create fictional arguments. Mitt Romney ran an ad with Barack Obama say...

Curiosity benefits us all Fairfield Daily Republica By Kelvin Wade From page A11 | August 09, 2012 | When I was in Mr. Encalada’s sixth-grade class at Tolenas Elementary, I not only wrote Martianused to write stories about a Martian boy while at the same time claiming to my friends that I was a Martian and had an invisible dog. So as someone who has always had a (not so healthy) fascination with Mars, the Curiosity landing this week thrilled me to no end. But with massive debt on the federal, state and local level, can we afford the space program? While the Curiosity rover has captured headlines, made a heartthrob out of Mohawk-wearing NASA nerd Bobak Ferdowsi and rekindled American pride in our space program, some see space travel as a luxury we can’t afford. At $2.6 billion, is it worth it to send a robot to another planet? I can understand those who don’t see what the big deal is. While the video animations and explanations of the “Seven minutes of terror” landing of the C...

Can’t get worked up over Chick-fil-A Fairfield Daily Republic By Kelvin Wade From page A7 | August 02, 2012 | Even after all of the time I spent at Solano Mall in my youth, I never had a bite of what I’ve come to hear is a delicious chicken sandwich at Chick-fil-A. So I guess I can say I’m boycotting the company because of CEO Dan Cathy’s opposition to marriage equality, but the truth is, I wouldn’t have been eating there anyway. In fact, I’m not inclined to apply litmus tests to every place I frequent. As someone who believes in marriage equality but is indifferent to Chick-fil-A, I’m sure my view will satisfy no one but myself. Look, business owners are free to think what they want and support whatever cause they choose to. Do I think it’s smart business sense to make such a public statement? No. And that’s reflected in the fact that according to global brand indexing giant YouGov, positive opinions of Chick-fil-A’s brand have dropped by 40 percent since the flap. Ouch. By the sa...