Walking the dog...

I live in suburbia. I have a great view of all the people walking past with their dogs. When we go for a walk we see many people with their dogs. They are walking the same time of day that we are. We get used to them. We give them names. We talk about them. They are our walking buddies. Every day we saw sarg with his long legged Boston terror. They marched proudly, they had purpose and they were a team. We stop walking in the winter. We are fair weather walkers. When we started walking again in the spring we saw sarg, but he was alone. On a walk by himself, with his head hung down and no longer marching. We hoped it was a custody separation...

Surprised

Don't act so surprised
when it snows in December
and bakes in July

Christmas

It's snowing outside
All the presents are opened
Christmas is over

Mustachio

My mustachio
a sleepy caterpillar
clinging to my lip

Education in Crisis

We keep hearing that the American educational system is in crisis.  Everywhere you look the cost of education is increasing and the quality of education is decreasing.  Politicians say we can solve the problem by increasing our investment in education.  That sounds good but it doesn't seem to have worked in the past.  We keep spending more and the return on that investment is going nowhere but down.  Now, I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed but it seems to me we are doing something wrong.  You don't increase your investment and accept an inferior product.  As Einstein defined Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.  Wouldn't we be smarter to try something different?

How about we go back to the basics?  How about we teach children to Read, Write, do basic Arithmetic, Science, Geography and History.  That's it.  No Band, Health, Physical Education, Sports, Art, Theater, ESL, Shop, School Nurse, Counseling, School Assemblies.  It's not that these activities wouldn't be nice but we just can't afford them anymore.  We can't afford them financially and we also can't afford them because they distract from the learning the basics.  It will be necessary to keep the focus sharp.  Remember these are schools and the focus is to teach.  If the kid needs a doctor call the parents or 911.

It is also important for us to refocus on success.  The children who are improving and achieving need to be recognized and encouraged to make further progress and to set new goals. For too long the emphases has been on the low achievers and problem children.  All children who are trying need to be encouraged but not to the extent of holding other children back.  And it is clear that if children are not trying to learn they must to be sent home with a letter of suspension stating that readmission to school for one final chance will occur only with parental signature accepting responsibility to help with the child's behavior problems. Any additional problems will result in permanent expulsion.

Let's talk about teachers and administration.  Teachers don't get much respect.   This has been going on for years. The kids don't respect the teachers, nor do the parents and most devastating of all the teachers have lost respect for themselves. There was a time when teaching was an admired profession but that was a long time ago.  Now there is the occasional award or honorific but mostly it is lip service and sad. So, what has replaced the respect that used to be shown to teachers? The teacher's union is the replacement.  Now the teacher is not respected but the union is feared.  When you talk about school administration, from the principle to the school superintendent you are talking political animals.  It is not their fault, it is just the way it is.  Any changes they try to make have many constituents that immediately will block the attempt.

I believe we have become somewhat delusional. We want the educational system to improve so badly that we are now just WISHING that it would improve.  It seems like we have tried everything and yet we make no progress.  The truth is that we have not really tried much at all.  So here is my plan:

• Eliminate the Department of Education
• Make sure you have a "Right to work State"
• Establish a voucher system
• Elect me as your new Mayor
• Eliminate the position of Educational Superintendent and 90% of administrative staff
• Hire non union teachers at above average salaries
• Empower teachers to achieve results
• Expel any student who is not progressing or is disruptive

Okay, so that wasn't so difficult was it?  What do you have to lose?  Things are a mess now and have been for many years.  It is insanity to stay on the same losing course.

Blame it on the Sixties

I am a child of the sixties. Pure and simply that means; I am now old. I am so old that I just received my Medicare card. I am so old that I was 13 when the sixties began. I am so old that I am what is known as a "Baby Boomer". Being this old, however, allows me to have a comparative perspective between those days of yore and the present.

I remember the British invasion. I remember the summer of Love. I remember burning draft cards. I remember bras being burned. I remember when cigarettes were good. I remember when gas was below 30 cents a gallon. I remember when you could buy a loaf of bread for a quarter. I remember when America made the best automobiles in the world. I remember when there was no security needed in airports. I remember when you could smoke cigarettes on airplanes. I remember pay phones. I remember drive-in movies. I remember black and white TV. I remember cruising.

I remember when it was expected that you would graduate high school. I remember when it was expected that you would get married before you had children. I remember when it was expected that you would get married before you would live together. I remember when it was expected that you would obey authority. I remember "My country right or wrong". I remember the anti Vietnam war movement. I remember Kent State. I remember a Republican president who ended the Vietnam war. I remember the draft. I remember when a girl would be "in trouble" if she got pregnant before she was married. I remember when abortion was illegal. I remember shame. There were rules, and a lot of the rules seemed unfair. But fairness wasn't the issue. The rules kept it all going in an inexorable boring march to sameness and conformity.

The injustices and hypocrisy of the time were unbearable, especially to the baby boomers. In the background the drumbeat of "we want the world and we want it now", hypnotically propelled the passion for change. And that passion coupled with the overwhelming numbers of the boomers and their exponentially increasing economic power set the stage for the tsunami that over the next generations changed everything.

When you compare high school graduation pictures from the late fifties and early sixties to those of the mid to later sixties the difference is stark and says it all. The former showed young people who were old before they got started whereas the latter showed young people who were resisting maturity and would continue to do so at any cost for as long a they could.

So, here sits the old boomer, who fortunately has been able to navigate the changes that have occurred over the decades. To a great extent this is because I have followed many of the values that were imprinted deep in my psyche before the turbulent sixties. And, as is always the case, you need some luck. But I do see a lot of human wreckage who have not been able benefit by the promise of the sixties. As you know, the promises made were many and the promises kept were few. While the freedom to act without penalty increased, many unintended consequences arose to fill the void.

The biggest casualty of the sixties is the Family unit. While we were all bolstered by the empowerment of the individual to "do our own thing", "to let our freak flag fly", the implication was that the family was unnecessary. This new paradigm has lead to a weakening of society by normalizing the single parent unit. In some demographics this is now actually the norm. As the old African proverb famously and wrongly states; "It takes a village to raise a child". This kind of thinking has caused an abdication of responsibility from the single parent with an expectation that society (the village) will step in and provide the missing ingredient of the absent parent. It is the child who ultimately shoulders the burden of poor decisions made by the parents.

There are norms that have served society well for thousands of years and just because you wish you lived in a world where these norms didn't apply, that just don't make it so.

War or not

Should this country enter into war or not? I ask this question because it seems to me that there is a fundamental problem in arriving at the correct answer. It is not that we are unable to decide, it is rather an issue of making the CORRECT decision and also understanding and agreeing on the meaning of the word WAR.

The U.S.A. has engaged in many Wars. In fact, I am an old man, and I can't remember a time when we were not in a war. Some were hot and some were cold but it has been constant war. We are not afraid to get into war unfortunately, our problem is that we are afraid to win the war.

The painful truth is that we have not won a military conflict since World War II. It's not that we can't win it's just that we don't want to win. We don't have the will to win. The most powerful military in the world and we are afraid to use it. Or more precisely we will only use it sparingly, within limits, in a socially responsible manner, making sure not to damage the environment and for sure we will never hurt any little cuddly animals.

The American people generally are a good and kind people. We feel compassion and empathy. We tend to look at those who hate us in other parts of the world as our equals and we would rather help them then hurt them. These people only hate us because of their evil leaders and the people can't really be blamed. This is a bad mind set if you are going to engage in war. At root we want others to like us. Again this is a weakness. When engaged in war it is much more to your advantage to be feared. We believe that God is on our side and thus we will win our wars by being good as God would want us to be.

Some of our wars come about because we look for the unfairness in the world and intervene to correct the problems. We want to protect and defend the downtrodden. We want to defend those who cannot defend themselves. We have become the policeman of the world. Again, it is one of those things that we innately feel is the "right" thing to do. God would want us to help.

So, let me tell you of my solution to this problem. We need to redefine what war is and have a simple rule that defines our behavior when we enter a military conflict. The rule is simply that if we go to war we are committed to win the war. WIN!!! No worrying about collateral damage. No worrying about innocent civilians. No nation building or reconstruction of damaged infrastructure that results from our victory. WIN!!! No political correctness. No compassion. No fair fight. No winning of hearts and minds. No Geneva convention. No United Nations. No peace treaty. WIN!!!

Bomb 'em into the stone age, wipe 'em off the face of the earth, kill every one of 'em. No mercy! Sound a little harsh? Well you're right it is harsh. In fact it is terrible. War is HELL!!! That is why we should never, never enter into war without the will to do all the horrible things that are needed in order to win.

So I recommend that we stay out of war. Only go to war for our own selfish needs. But let the word go forth, that if we do go to war, when the smoke clears our enemy will be gone and so will their grandmother and their little dog too.

It don't come easy

Yesterday my wife told me about a story she had read in the newspaper. It was about a kid "withdrawing" from high school. Withdrawing? Is that the same thing as Dropping out? How sophisticated and nonjudgmental that sounds. It doesn't sound like a quitter or a loser. No, this guy sounds like he is making a transaction at a bank. It sounds like this is a perfectly legitimate decision and of mild consequence.

When I was in high school, I would have loved to "withdraw" because I hated the whole high school experience. But it wasn't "withdrawing" it was dropping out. No matter how big of a loser I was, I was reluctant to "Withdraw" and prove it to everyone. So I toughed it out and graduated, leaving that pitiful chapter of my life behind me and by default I was a winner.

When a loser becomes a winner it is a powerful experience. You see the possibilities that exist all around you. You begin to think, "Maybe I can succeed". You begin to think that you will give it a try. You begin to understand that showing up is a big part of the battle. By losing some of the time it doesn't make you a loser, it makes you a player. You're in the game. You will win some and you will lose some. But now you are playing and not on the sideline.

So by taking the stigma out of dropping out and calling it "withdrawing" you make it easier for someone to give up and become a loser in society. Kids need to struggle through the adversity of life. When you get to the other side the possibilities open up.