COMMON KNOWLEDGE

Things They Didn't Teach in Kindergarten

© 2006 Chuck Klein

NUMBERS:
In most American locations all even street numbers are on the North and East sides of the street - Odd numbers South and West side.

North/South bound U.S. and Interstate highway route numbers are Odd numbers - East/West bound are Even numbers. Three digit Interstate numbers beginning with a Even number are circular routes around a city and three digit numbers beginning with an Odd number are spur routes (or should be).

Mile markers run from state line to state line. North bound and East bound Interstate mile marker numbers increase while South and West bound decrease. Exit numbers correspond to mile markers, i.e., exit 56 is close to mile marker 56. When there are more than one exit within the same mile, numbers and letters are used, i.e., exit 6a comes before exit 6b at mile 6.

Major rivers also have mile markers - though only marked every so often. Mile one on the Ohio is Pittsburgh, thus Cincinnati is at mile 492.

SMOKE & MIRRORS:
When proponents of gambling, bond or tax issues say that the money raised will go directly to schools/parks/what-ever, it will. What they don't tell you is that for every new dollar raised, usually an equal amount will be withheld from previous funding. For example: In order to sell the state lottery, Ohio promised all lottery profits would go to the schools. It did. However, the dollars raised were in direct proportion to the amount of money NOT used to finance the schools from the General Fund. In other words, the schools did not get additional money - the General Fund did - which was then used for things other than schools.

POWER:
In most American jurisdictions, the Sheriff is the top cop in each county. If the Sheriff needs to be arrested, only the Coroner has that power. If martial law is declared, the military has total control - even over the Sheriff, Mayor or any legislative body in the area under martial law.

POLICE QUANTITY:
The cry of politicians to "clean up a neighborhood" and/or "put more cops on the street," in reality, means:

1) Cracking down on criminals by neighborhood is generally effective - for that neighborhood. What happens is the criminals move to another neighborhood. Now the politicians can claim they "cleaned up the neighborhood" while being able to tell the voters in the new crime infested areas they will clean up their space - as soon as they are re-elected.

2) More police on the street means more arrests which requires more prosecutors, probation officers, judges, jails/jailers, bailiffs, etc., etc. Of course, those with the purse strings always seem to run out of money when it comes to the "support personnel" and the jails and court docket become so crowded that justice is nothing more than a revolving door. Thus the number of police officers are directly proportional to the number of persons arrested and inversely proportional to the time of incarceration.

This Column is syndicated to: THE BLUE REVIEW