Proud of Them Kids, Are You?

Do you think we live in a civilized society?

How deep do you think that veneer of civility goes?

I suppose you have heard about what happened last night in Connecticut?

These are college students; the supposed next leaders of the free world. And they descended into anarchy because some people they probably don't know won a game.

Why is that? What about this game was so special it required drinking to excess, rioting, property damage and arrests? What about this game required these 'adults' to 'celebrate' by descending into mobs?

The worst part is that this is not an isolated incident. College and pro sports team seem to have a rabid group of followers who seem unable to celebrate a teams success without violence and destruction. I could prepare a list- a very long list- of all the incidents in the last 10 years where things like this have occurred. I'm sure you could too.

Yet we call ourselves civilized. What will the punishment be for these thugs and hooligans? How many will be expelled from school? How many will do jail time? How many will pay a fine large enough to dissuade future nights like this?

Yes; I know you will point out that this was a special occasion; that this was only a few students; that alcohol was involved.

So I suppose when I next receive a promotion at work I should get drunk and destroy my neighborhood? Why would that not be appropriate? After all, I have something to celebrate.

Walter Williams has said many times; support behavior you wish to encourage, and tax behavior you wish to discourage. By not punishing severely the 'children' for their crimes we are only encouraging them to behave this badly next time.

Why put up with this? What gives them the right to not only destroy property but also break the civilized veneer and create chaos in its place?

James Naismith developed basketball as a way to control a group of rowdies; to give them a controlled way to burn off energy.

I'm he would be pleased to see how well that plan worked out.

Education Does Not Always Pay

First; this is not scientific by any means. But, it is a good illustration of why I have always maintained that a college degree may be nice, but not always a requirement.

Can you believe there are degrees that will COST you money to try and earn a living with? They don't make mention in the article about whether or not the cost includes the cost of the education or not, but I'll guess it does.

The second chart is even more interesting; Arts, Humanities and Education; the three degrees that seem to give you the least return for your buck. They also seem to be the easiest to earn, or to get a PhD in with very little actual intelligence.

Spend 4 years somewhere partying and at the end they hand you a worthless piece of paper.

And then you take that worthless piece of paper and get a teaching job with it.

Do you see why this country is going to Hell in a handbasket?

Because Educator!

I am involved in an email group for a local community that is more our less urban. This community shares a school system- ranked as one of the worst in the state- with a rather more inner-city community. The email group is, for the most part, well educated and financially successful.

And incredibly divided on the local school system. All it takes is an email to the group that mentions the word 'school' and the acrimony flies like rice once did at a wedding.

 Today somebody made the mistake of asking for the name of a good school for dog training, or some such, and the 'debate' was on.

After one well reasoned email explaining why it was tantamount to child abuse to subject your children to this local school, when for a few dollars more you could send your kids to one of the finest systems in the state in a neighboring district, we have this response:

I would have to disagree with you and say that yes, I do and am sending my kids, who are from foster care, to the public school. After careful thought and consideration, my partner and I decided on this District for several reasons:
1) we want our children to be in a diverse school where they're not the minority;
2) the believe that we have the ability and the desire to help improve the school where we live and spend our money; and lastly,
3) we don't want our kids to be isolated and in school with kids whose parents are bigoted, classist, racist neanderthals, who believe that just because they have, they do.

As an educator, I believe we have a responsibility to help prepare out kids for the real world - a world that includes, like it or not, people of different cultures, experiences, and income levels.  Granted you can send your kids wherever you want, and if you have the means, do what you feel is best. We've chosen to help support our own and have even volunteered at the local school to help make it better.  This is not a slam against you or anything you choose to do, but it seems to me if instead of sending our kids away, we all worked to make it better, these conversations wouldn't be necessary.



Wow. All I can say is Wow. Shall we break this down a bit?



I would have to disagree with you and say that yes, I do and am sending my kids, who are from foster care, to the public school.
Right off the bat we have to note that these are not her kids, but some she is being paid to raise; let'em go to Hell.

After careful thought and consideration, my partner and I decided on this District for several reasons:
DING DING DING DING DING; "PARTNER". So an unmarried couple, who are being paid to raise somebody else s kids choose the cheap way out. What a surprise.

 1) we want our children to be in a diverse school where they're not the minority;
Ooops; it seems the DIVERSITY Card has made an early appearance. Can some one explain to me why diversity makes an iota of difference in primary education? Why does your color, culture or social status affect the learning of 2+2=4?

2) the believe that we have the ability and the desire to help improve the school where we live and spend our money; and lastly, 
Admirable sentiment. And typical lefty tripe. Long on good feelings and very short on specifics. 

3) we don't want our kids to be isolated and in school with kids whose parents are bigoted, classist, racist neanderthals, who believe that just because they have, they do.
The Money Quote. The "You-don't-agree-with-me-so-you-are-every-evil-thing-I-can-think-of" response. Apparently having the ability to select a better education for your child, and having the ability to pay for that education makes you all sorts of nasty things. Go ahead; sacrifice your children on the alter of political correctness so this silly twit won't call you names anymore. Oh and you have more money than I do and I am bitter about it.


As an educator...
I rest my case; no further review is required. We MUST support the public schools, no matter how much damage they have done and will do, because EDUCATOR. That means whatever opinion you have on schools is wrong, because EDUCATOR. I spent $200,000 getting a degree that pays me $40,000 and that makes me smarter than you, because EDUCATOR.

Face it; we cannot force a child (or an adult) to learn anything we can present the information, and can ask them to learn, but they will only absorb what they want to learn. Books, computers, iPads, PowerPoints, movies or filmstrips; the presentation of the information is incidental to the child's desire to learn.

Abe Lincoln educated himself with borrowed books and the back o a shovel to practice on, because he WANTED to learn. He may have learned faster with an iPad, but the tools didn't effect the basic desire. Drug dealers who couldn't pass 5th Grade math can run a successful business because they learned what they wanted to and what they needed to along the way; the same way every past generation learned what it needed to survive and prosper.

We don't need to spend millions of dollars on schools; we don't need computers and iPads and tutors and hundreds of hours of testing.

We need to convince the child that the information we are giving them will be worthwhile retaining.

It is that simple.

And that hard.

And the Cap and Gown Go To...

Well, I hate to do this, but since I can't get a link to work to the original column I will have to paraphrase what I saw; trust me my paraphrasing will probably be more accurate and more entertaining than the real article was.

I was looking for something or the other yesterday on the internet and saw one of this sidebar ads "The Most Highly Educated Stars in Hollywood".  It was on a site called Celebrity Dirt, which I guess didn't bode well for quality of the info in any case, but, okay; this I gotta see. Especially since they illustrated the blurb with Rowan Atkinson. Yep; Mr. Bean.

Of course Jody Foster is on the list with a PhD, but of the 10/12 folks on the list, only about half actually had a degree; all but Ms. Foster's were Bachelors level. The rest were among the most highly educated because they had attended college.

You know me; I don't believe a college degree imparts any special talents; all it says to me is that you spent a lot of time and more money allowing somebody to try and teach you something; there is a big difference between being educated and having a degree. The last thing I would require from somebody prancing around in front of a camera would be a college degree.

It's not the lack of an education that causes my ire this morning, it is what they do OFF screen that causes my bile to rise.

For all of the attention paid to green energy and the environment by the folks in Hollyweird, you would think at least ONE of the chattering class would have a degree in at least say, Earth Sciences.

Or at least attended college for a degree in the Green arena.

But nope; the closest we come to a hard science in our Most Educated Celebrity category is.....


Mr. Bean!


Yes, Rowan Atkinson has a degree in Electrical Engineering from Oxford University. And given his age, I said it was awarded back when that degree meant something.

So the next time some Hollywood empty head scolds you for your carbon footprint, just before jetting off to Europe in his private jet for lunch on the Riviera, remember he is an actor; paid consistently to mouth words he may not even understand the meaning of.

Is It Education or Not?

I have been reading Walter Williams work for years. If he doesn't hit the bullseye it is a rare thing, and then he is usually in the 9 point ring.

This column is no different.

Why can't these children pass a standardized test? Particularly if hundreds of thousands of other children can?

Lets take a look at the variables. There are basically 3 people involved; the teacher; the pupil and the parents. Yes; I am counting parents as one individual; it will be rare instances when they don't think as one mind when it comes to educating their young.

First stop is the teacher. How many of their pupils passed and how many failed? If the ratio is 10 passes to one fail, or even 7 passes to 3 fails, I doubt this is an issue with the teacher; she or he has been able to connect with a majority of the students and the failure is the aberration.

But what if the ration is 1 pass to 10 fails, or even 3 passes to 7 fails? This is beginning to look like a failure to connect; to instill the needed information in the children. But; there were still children able to pass. Why?

Next we need to look at the student. Some kids want to learn, and will learn anything they are taught. They don't look to see if any of the information is relevant or useful; they soak it up and spit it out as required. Some kids can learn, but choose what they want to learn. They pick up what has been shown to be relevant and useful to them, and reject everything else. Then there are the children who need special attention; they need to be introduced to information on an individual basis, usually, but not always, because of a special need in either mental or physical development.

Then there is the final variable; the parents, or all to often parent. Is school a needed component; do they feel the need for education, or is school just a place that will babysit the little bastards for free for 6-8 hours a day? These attitudes are passed on to the children and will influence their attitudes toward education.

Is the parent willing and able to help the child in the evenings? Parental reinforcement is important for the child to retain what they have learned. If a single parent is overwhelmed it doesn't help the child's ability to learn or study.

Or is the parent involved in the education process? Helping with homework, checking papers when they come home, attending parent teacher conferences? Paying tuition?

Educating a child is a three legged stool; if any of those legs fails, the education fails.

That being said, why were the teachers cheating?

Obviously because the goals couldn't be met by normal methods. Which leg failed?

Unfortunately, there probably isn't a blanket answer, but dozens of individual ones.

Which is another problem with the modern education system; they throw blanket solutions onto individual problems.

The individual answers are as individual as the pupil; the pupil teacher relationship; the community and the community's relationship with the school. We gauge the effectiveness of a school based on a test that has been determined to fit all fifty states; all 3090 Counties, Parishes and Boroughs and the thousands of school districts and hundreds of thousands of schools, teachers and millions of students.

What passes for being educated as a 19 year-old college freshman and a 19 year-old plumber's apprentice are completely different; what type of education is needed for various positions in the labor force or even for various disciplines in education are different as well.

But instead of giving kids a basic education they can take anywhere, we insist on believing that every child should have a liberal arts education; one that requires the study of information that will not have any benefit to the child's abilities as a productive element of society.

Teach a child not just to read, but to comprehend; Teach him to add, subtract, multiply and divide. Teach him the basics of his county's history, and his part in keeping that county strong. Everything else he needs to know he can learn; he now has the tools.

Sounds simple doesn't it? Yet there will be arguments; What constitutes history? Is the history? One of our great conquest or one of our domination and destruction of what was already here? What of science? do we teach evolution of creation?

And again the broad blanket of a one solution gets thrown; but no one-size-fits-all is true. It has always been my experience that one-size-fits-all fits nobody well, and everybody poorly.

Why can't the parent's decide what the education will consist of?  It is there children being educated, and it is their money paying for it.

Besides, what it takes to be educated and employable in the woods of Kentucky is completely different than it is in the jungles of New York.

And you may be able to cheat on a written test; the final exam life gives is usually requires a bit more study.

And is completely different, depending on where your feet are.

Whats worse?

I don't know what is the worst thing about this post; that there are people in college with a third grade education; that these people have sports scholarships; that people are actually surprised that you can get a sports scholarship with a third grade education, or that I have actually linked to something that inhabits the dregs of internet society, Huffington Post.

I saw and read this the other day, but didn't do anything with it. But them this morning I saw it linked on Instapundit, and thought, Well; If Glenn thinks its post worthy, who am I to argue?

Here is the problem, one I have been making an issue of for years: college teams in Football and Basketball are nothing more than farm teams for the NFL and NBA, with one exception. If you're playing AAA ball for a MLB farm team, your career is over when you want to retire, and YOU GET PAID. NFL and NBA: you get paid with an "education", and after 4 or maybe 5 years you are out on the street.

And since you went into college reading on a 3rd grade level, your 'education' consisted of the few remedial classes you actually showed up for when you were a freshman, before you realized as long as you could hold the line or drop a ball in a basket, nobody cared if you showed up or not.

Well, except for the guy the college was paying to tutor you. And he was happy when you quit showing up; he was tired of trying to educate a brick that knew a little ball handling. And now he gets paid to show up and do his own homework.

Is there anybody out there who doesn't know about the 'we pretend to educate them' payment clause? Yes there are exceptions; it is the exceptions that prove the rule.

Is there a list somewhere of inner-city kids who went to college on a sports scholarship and then was successful, outside of the NBA or NFL?  If there is, I'll bet its a shorter list than of the ones who wound up dying from a gunshot wound on a street corner. And that is a BIG IF; the NCAA does not want you to know what the real purpose behind these 'scholarships' is.

To make the colleges money.

Which is probably where the death threats are coming from. Not the kids who got ripped off playing for these schools for nothing- the ones who SHOULD be angry- but the NFL/NBA/NCAA officials who don't want anybody to upset the free labor applecart.

So; my modest proposal: colleges should have two levels of sports teams; the farm team level and the amateur level. Let Ohio State keep its football program that had millions of fans world wide. But also let them have a team of real students; students who are in college for an education, and happen to be good at a sport. These students may get a partial scholarship, or may not.

But then we come to the farm team; what is the cost of a years tuition at Ohio State, for an out of state student?

Hmmmm. Apparently it is a little over $25k; plus another $10k for room and board. How about we pay the farm team players that amount in either cash or trade, which ever they prefer? If the player wants to live in a dorm and get an education, he can. If he would prefer to live off campus and ignore the whole college thing while he prepares for an NBA career, give him the cash.

The point is transparency and honesty. Show of hands; who doesn't think this wouldn't be a better system? Anybody really believe that 95% of the sports scholarship students, in Football or Basketball, really leave college with an education?

It's time to do what is right by the athletes, the real students and the public; end the charade of the major sport student athlete. Stop the charade of the 'no-pay-for-play'.

Lets bring some honesty back into college sports.

I'll Take the Ferrari, Thanks

I was perusing Instapundit this morning and saw this headline: "When Going to College is Like Buying a Ferrari on Credit.". Yeah, that caught my eye. It linked to this article on The Blaze, which references an article by Glenn Reynolds, aka Instapundit. If it wasn't such a good article I'd make some comment about shameless self promotion.

It is especially timely because I was talking to my nephew last weekend, and he mentioned some schools he was interested in, and at one of them a four year degree costs $200,000.00.

I checked. You can't get a Ferrari for $200k. At least you can't get a NEW Ferrari for $200k. That amount of cash will get a very nice 2 year old Ferrari however.

The thing is, the government will lend an 18 year-old kid that $200,000.00 IF he spends it at a college of their choice.

They will not lend an 18 year old kid that amount for a used Ferrari.

I think that's a shame. How about a little analysis?

Lets say I buy an indocrina... I mean 'Education' with that money. What will that education be worth in 10 years? How about a show of hands? How much of what you learned during your four years of undergrad do you still remember and/or still use? And I mean what you learned in THE CLASSROOM! How many of you are earning a living based on the field your degree was in? How many of you are using your Geology Degree as a basis for your management position in the growing field of fast food?

Now lets buy that used Ferrari!

First; having a car like that will open lots of doors. Not a member of the Hill 'n Dale Country Club? Roll up in a Ferrari; I'll bet they let you in. Roll up in your 10 year old beater Taurus and flash you degree from the University of Beer and Broads; my guess is they will hand you an employment application. For kitchen help.

Roll up to ANY hot spot in the city: Ferrari- you have a girl. Degree- you may get a free beer and some commiseration from the bartender, using his $200,000.00 Humanities Degree to mix drinks and change out empty beer kegs.

I could go on (And on. And on. And on...) but you get the picture. Plus; most, if not all Ferraris appreciate in value. Historically, the older a Ferrari gets the more it is worth. So your $200k investment today will net you double that in 15 years. Give or take.

Economists talk about something called 'Opportunity Cost of Money'; spending your cash one way means, as money is individually finite, you cannot spend it another way. Meaning every dollar you spend on rent is one less dollar you have for beer. Or vise versa. Every dollar you spend repaying that $200,000.00 in student loans is one dollar less you have for a house payment, car payment, 401k funding. Or beer.

I'm not against a college education. In fact, for certain positions I am positively for it. What I'm against is the ubiquitous nature of the college degree. One purchased at fantastic cost, on credit, and never used.

What are you buying for your Two Hundred Thousand Dollars and no sense (pun intended)? The piece of heavy stock paper with you name on it (which cost the college $1.45- it pays to buy in bulk) or the education that you allegedly obtained in your chosen field of study?

So; just how often will a discussion of the finer points of Women's Studies come up in the slack times between asking "do you want fries with that?"

I know some folks in the Payday Lending field. Before you can borrow $200 they must fully disclose the terms, interest rate and how much you will be paying back.

When you borrow $200,000.00 in student loans, some student- working at the school to avoid student loan debt- will advise you to "sign here to pay for next semester".

How many 18 year-olds would hesitate to sign if they knew the money they were borrowing today would still be coming out of their paycheck when they they are 40?

And that this debt will cost them that used Ferrari?

A Change in Attitude is Required

Friday was a horrific day. I find it impossible to believe that any parent who did not have their child close enough to touch when the heard the news from Newton didn't experience feel a sudden pang of unease; a sharp fear for the safety of their child. I know I did.

The news media has really covered themselves in glory in this tragedy as well haven't they? About the only thing they had right in the initial reports were the name of the town and it's distance from New York City; like anyone out side of New York City would really care about how far away it was.

Some of that can be attributed to the 'fog of war' (which is a really bad analogy to use, I know), but most can be attributed to newsreader's requirement to be first. There is no requirement to be second, and accurate. They didn't even bother to get the shooter's name correct before rushing to make sure the whole world knew who this individual was.

And that is the first point I want to make. Why do we care who committed this atrocity? Lets look at it this way: let's say I have some mental problems, and I want to end my life. When was the last time a suicide got more than a couple of lines in a local paper?

But; if I take some others out with me, I will get National News Coverage. The more innocent the victims, the more famous I'll be. And the more of them there are, the wider and longer the coverage. I might even make it into a trivia game as the answer to the question; "Who is the worlds biggest mass murder?".

After all; more people know the name Hitler than know the names of the millions who fought against him.

There was an episode of NCIS a few years ago where the heros were chasing a serial killer, and at the end, when he is captured he taunts them with the idea that everyone will know and remember his name for its infamy, while they will all die in anonymity. The leader of the team that captured the killer tells him; "Wanna bet?", and then has him declared a terrorist, and his name cannot be released for national security reasons. His notoriety is now locked away; his name will die with him.

As humans we can't help it I suppose. We are drawn to the dark and ugly by our natures. We cannot look away from the accident on the other side of the highway, or from the house fire, the flood or the ambulance outside the house up the block. The news media has a phrase- If It Bleeds, It Leads. That is our fault, not theirs. We see a possible danger to ourselves in what happened to those we see, and our hunter/gather brains want to learn from the incident. It will probably take another 10,000 years of evolution before we can look away from someone else's tragedy.

Step One to stopping these tragedy's is to stop naming the shooter. They aren't normal, functioning individuals. They don't see the pain and hurt they are causing the people they are directly or the ripple effect into the wider world. Their focus is on themselves and the attention their death will draw; whether self inflicted, or through suicide by cop.

Step Two is to eliminate 'Gun Free Zones'. The old adage that 'When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns' is not just an NRA bumper sticker; its a truth. Eliminating a technology through law, properly called a PROHIBITION never works. For examples, see any any prohibition ever passed. Our ones on alcohol and drugs have been complete successes, haven't they? The ban on Guns in England has meant an end to gun violence there, right? Oh; well maybe not.

Banning a technology is a Pollyanna approach. An If-I-Close-My-Eyes-It-Won't-Exist theory. I don't think it springs from a belief in the innate goodness in mankind, but more from the attitude that 'I don't know what to do about this issue; lets ban it' state of mind. No thought is given to the facts; fact: a gun can be made very easily by a competent person; fact: there are guns in existence every where outside your Pollyanna world, and we can't keep hordes of people or tons of drugs from being smuggled into the country; a few crates of guns wouldn't be hard.

Laws for gun free zones are stupid. They are an advertisement that no one but the shooter will be armed. I don't think it is a coincidence that all of the mass shootings in this country have been in gun free zones. The shooters are in search of a public suicide, notoriety and a control they feel they lack over their lives. Carrying a gun into a school gives them that control. You will notice that none of these shootings have taken place in a police station or FOP Lodge; a gun shop or show or at an NRA convention. I wonder why?

There is a report out recently that there was a concealed carry permit holder in the Clackamas Town Center who may have stopped the shooting.  This man had to have been interviewed by the police; his story had to have become a part of the official report. Yet he has not become a part of the news. The shootings at Pearl High School in Pearl Mississippi were stopped by a vice principle with a handgun; one he had to retrieve from his car, parked outside the 'gun free zone'. The Appalachian College of Law shootings are another example of of a 'good' weapon controlling a 'bad' one.

It has been said many times before, and will probably be repeated many more times in the future. Guns don't kill people; people do. A gun is a tool; a tool for killing. Which makes it a very effective tool for protection and defense. It also makes it the tool of choice for those who wish to make a name for themselves.

The solution to stopping shootings like the one Friday are not to ban more guns, but to ban gun free zones. We can't afford the ideology that banning weapons from a particular place will make them safe. We need to recognize that the possession of a firearm in the hands of a competent owner does more to protect a school than an eight by twelve sign in the front yard declaring it a 'GUN FREE ZONE'.

Sandy Hook is just another example of when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.

I found this post through Instapundit this morning. And although he is condemning the strategy that HR administrators use a degree from certain schools as a short cut to hiring, I have been making that same argument against a college degree for years.

20 years ago or so, when one of my brothers graduated from college, he was offered a job as a freight broker. The job consisted of planning load pickups and drop offs for truckers. He wasn't interested, but I was looking for job that wasn't physical (and was 9-5) and sent them a resume.

Although I had approximately 6 years experience in shipping/receiving and inventory control, they weren't interested. No college degree. Can anybody explain why I need a college degree to figure out how to load a truck?

I'll tell you why; a BA was a shortcut for HR. instead of checking references and job history, they just asked for a diploma.

Now it has apparently gotten worse. I guess since college degrees have gotten as common as high school diplomas used to be, now HR has fallen back to selecting a few schools to accept your degree from.

So the Harvard, Yale and Princeton crowd is now running the country.

And that is just working out SO well, ain't it?

NOTE: I had this post ready to go yesterday morning, and blogger ate half of it, so I had to finish it up and post it on Saturday. Friday got busy.

Precedent Folks, Precedent

I found this through Instapundit this afternoon.

I hear the Democrats are really ticked off at this episode too.

Each student only got to vote once.

Spies in the State Department is Not News

I found this, as usual, thorugh Instapundit.

I haven't been following this episode very closely. Aren't Russian spies, like, so Eighties?

Even finding them in the State Department is as old as McCarthy fer cryin' out loud.

But what caught my eye in this article is that under his assumed name one of these spies earned a Master’s in Public Administration from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government in 2000. And Harvard is debating whether or not to revoke the degree.

My question:

Was it difficult for an avowed Communist to earn this degree?

If there is any accademic rigor in this place at all, then this degree requird hours of classwork, tests, papers and most likely classroom discussion.

I have no idea if he did well; Hell, we can't even get Obama's grades out of Harvard. State secrets? No problem; delivered in the morning mail. But unlike our latest technology and war plans, Harvard Grades are important. But; I digress.

This Spy did well enough to graduate.

When an avowed Communist can graduate from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, what does THAT say about Harvard?

Watch the Video; Be Impressed

I ran into a post over at Althouse that seemed to get a lot of attention; including mine.

The premise was folks who are college educated are (gasp and horrors!!!!) actually going back to working with their hands instead of their heads. And becoming happier.

I blame the schools. How can some idiot who has had what little common sense they were born with educated out of them see any good in a path BUT education?

Steer those kids away from plumbing and carpentry; let them spend a fortune on college and THEN work on a career skill.

Hogwash.

So now we have generations of people how have a degree in a useless (damn; I almost said discipline) field, and absolutely no idea how to earn a living.

And they can’t work with their hands; they have an EDUCATION don’t ya know.

Ever wonder why a good plumber is $100 bucks an hour? Because he was the one with enough sense to tell his guidance counselor to pound sand when she suggested that someone with his brains should go to college, instead of wasting his mind playing with water.

It used to be the useless people went to college, because stuffing them full of book learning was the only way to get any use out of them.

Now it’s the worthless fools that mostly get shuffled off to vocational school, to get them out of the ‘real’ classroom.

Educators don’t seem to realize that the real classroom is outside of the school building.

But, I digress.

The point is working with your mind or your back.

My 22 year old son- never known as a philosopher- said to me the other day that there are two kinds of jobs in this world; those you shower for and those you shower after.

The ones you shower for tend to have higher salaries; I guess because the ones you shower after tend to have a little more satisfaction.

You have something concrete to point to.

At one point I worked for a cousin who hung and finished drywall. I can still go down the road and point buildings I worked in. I have left my mark. I used to work in a place that made parts for diesel truck engines. Whenever I see a truck with one of those engines I have to wonder if it is running some of the parts I made.

Oh; the video?

Is the guy who operates this machine working with his head or his hands?

Spotted On The Highway

I took a bit of a road trip on Friday- more details later- and on the way back I saw a car with this plate.

I know the reasoning behind the logo statement, but I still find the idea that a plate from the Capital of Taxation has this statement.

I took a picture of the car- it was a Prius of all things- and its plate with both my iPhone and my real camera. The one from the iPhone I couldn't blow up and I cannot find my camera cable, which will be a whole 'nuther post, so I had to see if I could find an image on line. Which I did; here. Amazing what is out on the Internet, ain't it?

More School Insanity

Here is another reason the country is going to Hell n a handbasket.

I had a knife like this when I was a Cub Scout a couple of decades ago, and took it to school many times, just like this young lad.

I never got expelled though.

The public education system in the country has some serious issues, mainly because of the idiots in charge of it.

How much of this can we put up with?

A Modern Fairy Tale

Once upon a time there was a kingdom ruled by a very wicked King. King Obambi (any similarity between real life and this fairy tale is purely coincidental. Or, maybe not) believed that the king should be in charge of everything. But some of his subjects disagreed. Well, actually most of his subjects disagreed.

King Obambi consulted his Royal Vizier, Ramdam A’Dingdong, and the Vizier suggested that because the adults were already infected with the idea that they actually had Freedom, maybe King Obambi should start working with the children, who didn’t know they had this thing called freedom, and maybe the children would start believing whatever King Obambi said, and when they were adults they wouldn’t miss that pesky Freedom thing.

King Obambi thought that was a fine idea. So did the leader of the House of Minions, Princess Pelosomuch, and the leader of the Chamber of Grovelers, Duke Readsalittle. The only one in the Kings inner circle who disagreed was the Court Jester, Bidenhistime, but he never really understood anything anyway.

So King Obambi put his plan into action. Fist he sent all of the teachers in the Kingdom who belonged to a special group of supporters called the NEA (which stands for Never Endorse A republican) a book to help them guide the children though the King’s speech, and having the children describe ways they could help King Obambi convince their parents that King Obambi was not an evil ruler, but a nice man who wanted to help everybody get over their infatuation with that evil Freedom thing.

But the subjects revolted. Despite Vizier Ramdam’s best efforts, word leaked out about the King’s book. And the plans were changed. But the people were still angry about the King’s speech, so he promised to tell the parents what he was going to say before he said it. Which as long as King Obambi relied on his chief advisor, the Royal Prompter, was fine. But when the King stopped relying on the Royal Prompter, not even the King knew what was going to come out of his mouth.

I’d love to say this fairy tale ends with ‘and they all lived happily ever after’. But I can’t. We have to wait 1233 more days for that.

And counting!

The End.