50th Anniversary of the Ash Grove.
On Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood there was a folk club called the Ash Grove. Most weekends during my high school years you could find me there. Unlike the time I sat in my classes at Fairfax High School, it was at the Ash Grove that I received my real education.
John Lee Hooker. Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Ponies (Linda always barefoot). Son House. Ry Cooder. The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. The Chambers Brothers. Taj Mahal. Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee. Josh White. Doc Watson and Earl Monroe, Barbara Dane. Odetta. And more.
Ed Pearl ran the place. You would buy a ticket (sometimes) and you could sit and listen for as many sets at there were. Sometimes two. Sometimes four.
In the front, by the guitar shop, Ry Cooder would be hanging out just playing. My friends, Danny Fefferman and Dave Elson, of the Pseudo-Mountain Boys would play along.
One rainy night in 1964, just sixteen, I pushed my way in for a fund-raiser for the students that had been arrested at Sproul Plaza in Berkeley during the Free Speech Movement. I don’t even remember who all was playing. I just remember it was history.
Next April, Ed Pearl is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Ash Grove at UCLA. I’m going.
Can’t the state just pay us what they owe us?
There’s no question that there is a real problem facing our Teacher Retirement System, or TRS. But if there is crisis looming it is because the state has not fulfilled their responsibility to fund it. Local boards of education have paid their share. Teachers have paid our share. I pay 9.5% every paycheck into TRS.
For the past two years the state has taken a “holiday” from making their contribution. But now, rather than having the state pay their bill, some want to change the system to a 401(k)-style retirement system. This would turn it from a defined benifit system into a defined contribution system. This would cost the state more and reduce benefits.
You would think those that are proposing this would be spending time thinking about a fair progressive revenue stream for funding our schools. But no.
According to the Illinois Retirement Security Initiative, working under the auspices of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, state lawmakers should instead focus on how to pay off the $40 billion debt run up by the five state-funded pension systems.
The Springfield Journal-Register reported:
“It was not our current (benefit) system that created Illinois’ unfunded pension liability, it was the state’s failure to fund the system,” said Jourlande Gabriel, author of the study. “Switching to a defined contribution system will not erase the debt. It will simply cost the state more money while depriving retirees of adequate benefits.”
The study warned that those with 401(k) style plans did significantly worse than those who are currently receiving defined benefits from TRS.
