One of the many ways government limits job growth, personal realization, and individual liberty is occupational licensing: requiring people to jump through bureaucratic hoops to cut hair and polish nails. Florida shows the hoops can get taken down, as Mike Riggs reports for Reason magazine.
Read MoreSan Jose debates how to create an iconic public space and how to design the Google Diridon project. Nate Hochman in National Review has some ideas for what to do, and what not do.
Read MoreMany residents were floored over the recent San José Office of Cultural Affairs art exhibit, “Holding the Moment” which included a work many people thought glorified, or at the very least normalized, violence against law enforcement.
Read MoreThe Housing Department of the City of San Jose recently introduced a new podcast series, "Dwellings," produced by department staff, which claims to present expert opinion on the housing issues facing the city. "Dwellings," however, fails to deliver on its stated purpose. Instead of presenting neutral, or at least balanced, viewpoints on local housing issues, the podcast takes a one-sided, hard-left posture towards housing issues--even on issues about which the council has not given the department direction.
Read MoreWhile local DA's refuse to prosecute lawbreakers, local progressives call for defunding the police, and SJ's Office of Cultural Affairs throws money at art that falsely maligns and incites violence against the police, guess what happens? Murders soar. San Jose's increase of 22% aligns with national trends. NPR reports.
Read MoreJust weeks after SJ Mayor Sam Liccardo showed the political will to demand local school districts quit holding students hostage and reopen, the San Jose Unified School District relented and announced reopening plans for next month. But there are still 18 local school districts to go. Liccardo's reopening efforts were part of a new advocacy organization, Solutions San Jose, which is focused on pragmatic, common sense approaches to local issues. Solutions San Jose (edited) email announcing the SJ Unified volte face is below.
Read MoreEven after mass public outcry, San Jose's Department of Cultural Affairs continues to fund and promote dubious political art as part of its ongoing Holding the Moment art show (see interview nearby). The propaganda continues in the show's latest installation at the airport, as revealed in an artist comment about his (in our opinion technically strong) Black Lives Matter in San Jose photo. Those comments unmask how unproven, divisive, race-based concepts are central to the artwork's creative intent.
Read MoreJohn Woolfolk at the San Jose Mercury parses data from Burbio and finds that California is at the bottom of U.S. states in terms of school reopening. Concurrently, as sfgate.com points out nearby, more than 95% of local county public schools remain shuttered.
Read MoreDespite the fact that the C.D.C., Dr. Fauci, and a broad consensus of doctors and scientists say it can be safe to return to on campus learning, local teachers' unions and school districts are keeping students and parents in an unproductive netherworld of stay-at-home virtual learning. Only Los Gatos Unified and Palo Alto Unified are bucking the trend (elementary schools are open with a hybrid approach). A list of school districts and their reopening status follows, courtesy of SFGate.
Read MoreEven the left-wing editorial board of the Southland's biggest newspaper has had enough. They call on teachers' unions to quit holding kids, parents, and school districts hostage, follow the science, and let the schools reopen.
Read MoreEver wonder where all those middle class, mid-manager jobs went? Daniel Markovits in the indispensable book, The Meritocracy Trap, explains how technological improvements and increasing domination of a highly-educated, wealthy management class has made a bedrock of postwar employment redundant.
Read MoreAnyone who sat through the recent online public meeting regarding political public art in San Jose can be forgiven for wondering where the guiding principles were for our public art curators in the department of Cultural Affairs. People who opposed the Fallon statue spoke from the (often convincing) talking points about biases implicit in the Fallon statue, but then went strangely silent when confronted with the explicit biases of the Americana painting. The Remodern Review provides the sort of context the city's meeting managers whiffed on, and may provide thoughtful viewers of this issue with some food for thought.
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