Is Your Cell Phone a False Idol?

I was sitting in church, reflecting on the sermon and how it applied to the week that had passed and the week to come when I noticed the teenager in front of me clutching her cell phone. At various times I noticed she flipped through messages and sent a couple of texts. Then it dawned on me-are our cell phones the “false idols” warned of in the Gospels? A false idol would lead a person to behaviors that were not good for the rest of the society in which they lived. A false idol would encourage these behaviors with rewards like power or fame or wealth. For ages we were led to believe that false idols included golden statues or even money and the things it can buy, but those things are not worshiped necessarily. Try taking a cell phone away from a teenager and be ready for a fight.

                It isn’t that I dislike technology. If my microwave did nothing else but make popcorn quickly and do a baked potato in under ten minutes it would be worth it. But I do not find myself staring at the microwave with adoration. I do not feel the need to upgrade my microwave unless it stops working entirely. I like my television and I even appreciate being able to get photos of my grandson via my computer or phone. For all the good that technology can do it is a good servant, but a bad master.  Some things are acceptable as long as you don’t let them take over your life. What concerns me, especially as cell phones become more common even in middle and elementary schools, is children who have become so entranced by their phones that they have trouble disengaging. This is especially true with  young tweens who have no basis for comparison. I have observed that some of the students with the most academic challenges have the most electronic gear in school. Coincidence?

                I admit that I am what would be called a late adopter in terms of cell phone use. I didn’t get a cell phone until my daughter was heading to college which was almost ten years ago. Now cell phones have become so familiar to me that the one day I headed off to work without it, I felt uneasy. In previous times I was quite capable of going to work, to the store or even out of town without the need to be constantly connected to a cell phone signal. It is as if cell phones have become our technological security blanket, like a lucky charm that will protect us from all evil. Many parents who get cell phones for very young children make the case that it’s for security or safety. Just like pagers back in the 1990’s, cell phones have become a virtual substitute for knowing what your kids are doing.

                Why do we need this constant validation of our worth? It’s similar to the number of friends one has on Facebook or any other social media. In a way it seems to be more like gaming the system to give the appearance of popularity over real popularity itself. While I carry my cell phone in my purse, most days it is turned off when I’m at work. Compare that to my students who are far more engaged in the latest Tweet than in what is going on in the classroom.  Even when asked to put away phones, students will surreptitiously text at will. Students have been known to stream videos, play games and do almost anything other than the work at hand.

That distraction gets down to an even more serious issue. The lure of popularity and the dissolution of civility have led to more access to outlets to bully and denigrate others. There are people who make it their business to relay every negative piece of gossip, who make up lies and who alter photos or take photos with the sole intent being to pick on peers or teachers in the school in 140 characters or less. Students have uploaded photos of tests and assignments. When is the last time you checked your child’s phone or Ipod?

Most parents avoid checking their teens’ phones under the assumption that as long as they don’t run up the bill everything is okay. Actually, there are some very serious adult things going on with teens and cell phones. With internet access students can gamble or even download inappropriate images, videos and games. Cyberbullying and Sexting have become a serious issues even in students as young as middle school. Finding salacious images of a peer or sending such images of one’s self or others could lead to some daunting consequences because if the other student is young enough it could be labeled as child pornography. Such images tend to live forever on the internet. This is also true of images of students partying or engaging in inappropriate behavior. Those kinds of images can haunt a person for life. It can result in loss of scholarships, jobs and relationships. Even when these facts are brought forth, many teens believe their identities are cloaked in secrecy. All it takes is having a friend ID you on Facebook to make everything crystal clear to anyone who wants to see the image. This doesn’t even touch on the far more common occurrence of rampant cheating.

If it seems I am picking on teenagers, it’s because they are the most accessible demographic for such activity. That doesn’t exonerate adults. I have heard cell phones go off in meetings, at weddings and even at funerals. It seems that the veil of civility has been ripped away by the need to be engaged at all times. I have been sitting at dinner at a social occasion and watched as one or another person at the table spent time flipping through texts and emails rather than engaging in actual person to person conversations. I have heard from twenty-somethings that phones have become so invasive that when they go out all phones are placed face down on the table and the first to pick up their phone before leaving has to pay for everyone. Last, but not least, there are the carpool Moms and Dads who swear they drive well while texting. Having been behind you as you swerve all over the road, driving alternately too fast or too slow, I can assure you that I’ve seen drunks on Dallas North Tollway that are driving better than you.

Probably the saddest thing I have seen is when I have taken my grandson to the playground and noticed young mothers gazing fixedly at their phones while their children take risks that could lead to serious harm.  Watching a toddler trying to get Mommy’s attention away from Angry Birds is simply pathetic. How many accidents involving young children could be avoided if the adult in charge would simply put down the phone or disengage from the computer? This points to a sobering reality that many of us are addicted to our phones and that addiction is leading to antisocial, unsavory and even dangerous behaviors. My theory is that unless you are a transplant surgeon or the patient on the transplant list, you probably are not so important that you can’t set down the phone for a real person to person conversation. So once again I ask, is your cell phone a false idol?

               

Change

Change, they say, is good for the soul.
But change just for the sake of change is nothing more than a type of bullying imposed by those who want to demonstrate their power. We've seen this on a national scale with the various issues crammed through Congress with little concern over the opposing views. We are now seeing this worldview unwinding as their more egregious and illegal actions come into sight. Way to ingratiate the press Obama by tapping their phones.  But I digress

In my own small corner of the world, this has been a year filled with change. New online gradebooks, new attendance programs, new protocols and now an entire new mandate. See our district is experimenting on children under the guise of advancement. Next year first graders will get IPads rather than books. Desks and tables have been replaced with couches and beanbag chairs. The new paradigm is that teachers are facilitators and children will magically learn on their own. This is what passes for New Age educational memes. This year we were treated, at no small cost, to a program that was essentially glorified Venn diagrams that we were supposed to use to train our children to think. I have no doubt that last summer top administrators attended a lovely catered open bar affair that promoted how this silly program would increase our "good data". Each binder probably cost upwards of $200 and when you multiply that by the total number of teachers in the district, the cost is ridiculous. Most of those binders have not been opened since last August and for good reason-those of us who use various graphic organizing systems have been doing so for years and don't need a silly binder to teach us how to do it.

Next year, despite the fact that my district has shunned Apple products for years, we will convert to all Apple products. The problem is that existing programs do not work with Apple. Our foreign language class programs and listening labs won't work. Flash doesn't work. And years and years of material that have been shaped and honed will not work with this program. This puts experienced teachers at the mercy of both learning a new system, new programs and having to continue to teach at a higher level. The irony is that three years ago I wrote a grant for Apple computers and printers only to be told that if I got the grant, they would not provide support. So I changed the grant request. I got the grant and now those PC computers, with Photoshop and other graphics programs I need in class will be replaced by Apple Airs which will not have these programs available. Add to that the removal of teacher's printers in our classrooms and it is forcing a situation where already overstressed teachers are now having to reinvent the wheel. My district has more electives teachers leaving than the entire region does in comparison. I have five years before I can retire. I'm hoping their overspending on hardware we don't need just for the sake of change will result in the need to buy out teachers at the upper end of the payroll so I can leave earlier.

Soft Targets

We have plenty of protection for politicians. They are well defended by layer upon layer of private and military and quasi-governmental strongarms. So bully for the politicians. But what about the rest of us? In a perfect world Sheriff Andy and Constable Phyfe would be right around the corner ready to talk down bad guys in thirty minutes. The real world isn't quite that cut and dried. People who live in rural areas, small towns and even in remote gated resort style retirement communities often have to rely on whatever muscle is available. If they can't afford to hire private security firms, they count on local constables and the sheriff. It's not that crime doesn't happen in small towns, it's just that with a smaller population, it's not as likely. Why have a fully staffed police force if you seldom need it?

This is the "why" behind the gun issue. Most folks who have guns know how to use them. They are every bit as much of a tool as a tractor, a truck or a harvester. Farmers and ranchers living in remote areas know that some fools try to eak out a living making meth or stealing equipment and they know that the law isn't going to get there in time. Most folks who own weapons respect them enough to care for them and not wave them around like idiots.

 If you want to know who is in the most danger of having a gun tragedy not directly related to crime, look no further than the very same cities that have the strongest gun laws. These cities often have the largest amount of crime, largely because an unarmed population gives criminals power over people. Single women, living in places that due to their low income are not as safe often feel that to protect themselves and their kids that they buy guns, sometimes unlicensed, stolen guns, just to have peace of mind. These women often work two jobs, leaving young kids alone at home. One of them finds a gun and tragedy strikes. But it isn't the gun that causes the problem-it's the crime and the unwillingness by politicians to admit that we have a real problem when it comes to gangs, and the mentally ill, and in keeping bad people locked up.

There are those who honestly believe that taking away guns will make us all safer. Just the actions of the last week have refuted those claims. A crazy man wielding a craft knife attacks 14 in a Houston community college, a pressure cooker laden with bearings placed by persons unknowns kills three and injures many in Boston. Neither incident featured a gun. Both incidents were the product of people actively seeking soft targets-places where they can attack unimpeded by police or other officials. We've seen this happen over and over-every school shooting from Columbine to Newtown-every mall shooting. Aurora features Holmes as a known crazy who was supposed to get "counseling" but who instead was allowed to be free long enough to amass a startling amount of weaponry. Lanza had a mother who, bless her heart, was blind to the monster her son had become until it was far too late. Every time, it's another seriously deranged person, allowed to roam free because we the PC public are not to judge, ever.

Political correctness will kill us yet. The imposition of attitude that insist we can't call people out for obvious features, attitudes or behaviors is allowing all kinds of criminals and crazies have free rein to act out in dangerous and sick ways. Just this past week's unwillingness by the media to say that the guys who probably placed the explosives was more likely than not Middle Eastern continues to play into this "oh we're not biased" game. Like it or not, for all of Napolitano's tapdancing, profiling grandmothers and seven year olds is not going to stop these problems.

Soft targets will continue to be hit by a variety of actors because the artificially imposed sensibilities of the Left won't allow them to recognize a perpetrator when they see them. The Leftists are the ones who rail about single women who lock their car doors when they see a group of young minority males-but they ignore the stories when a single woman is attacked by a similar group. These same Left leaning groups support every manner of "freedom" by any number of groups in escalating order of radicalism, but never seem to see the impact made when members of those groups victimize others economical, physically or emotionally. As a nation we used to have a fairly clear view of who our friends were and who our enemies were. I guess the old Pogo cartoon was right "I have met the enemy and he is us."

The Stark Economic Reality of the "Affordable" Healthcare Act

Teachers' health insurance usually runs from September 1 to August 31 of the following year. Such is the nature of our contracts that we straddle the years economically. Teachers were the first to feel the surge of rising premiums back in 2011. I told the tale often, how the premiums were going up 15%, how the deductibles were rising, how the care was more limited. I was laughed at metaphorically. Online by the bloggers and tweeters and in real life by friends and families. "Oh you're just a teacher. You don't understand" was their dismissive comment.

Last Fall I issued another warning. Rates were rising again, another 15%. Deductibles rose from $2500 to $5000. And copays were eliminated forcing me to pay $135 out of pocket for even the briefest of office visits. There were simply times I was sick and could not afford to go to the doctor. Yet...I was insured! On top of that, strange pricing came into play. A prescription would be $35 one time, $5 the next. Generics and name brands played tagteam as the insurance formulary changed often day by day. A mammogram using my insurance would be $379 out of pocket, but without insurance would be $179. I couldn't even afford to schedule a long overdue colonoscopy.

Today I was in a meeting with the head of our HR department. The topic was next year's premiums. My district subsidizes $350 a month toward the cost. Even at that, this year my insurance premium was $491 a month. Starting in September, it will be $691 with a $10000 deductible. So unless I need to go to the hospital, why bother having insurance at all? My policy will never pay. On top of that Flexible Spending Accounts are limited by the Federal government to $2500, so I can't even shelter enough to cover my deductible. Health Savings Accounts are limited as well and come with all kinds of IRS warnings that would make it possible that just being prudent would mean an IRS audit.

Obama assured us he would "bend the cost curve". Pelosi told us we had to vote on the bill to see what was in it. It seems that three years later, the truth is coming out and it is not pretty. Costs are going up-and they're going up a great deal. I think the euphemism used by our HR department was "substantial". I know young teachers with kids who were literally in tears at the cost. Even with a pay step, I will make less take home pay next year than I did five years ago. We are teachers, we are middle class, we are supposedly the people Obama claimed to care about. But with rising costs to everything thanks to his energy policy and the higher cost of business overall both cost of living and employment are in peril. For all you folks that voted for this type of government, what the hell were you thinking? There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. There never was.

Why Do Children Increasingly Seem to Hate Reading?

When I was a child, we didn't have cable. That meant on hot summer afternoons when it was too hot to go outside, I would read. My earliest memories are of checking out stacks of books from the weekly Bookmobile that subbed for a library back when north Dallas was the edge of Dallas proper. I was so excited when the Fretz Park Library opened that I went the first day and was one of the first kids to check out a book. I was such a voracious reader that when bored I would read volumes from our set of World Book Encyclopedias or back issues National Geographic that my parents kept. So I read through the wonders of the world, the obscure aspects of our society. I particularly liked the I-J volume for oddities. In junior high I was shy and would check out a book every morning before school, read it during free time at the end of class, at lunch, after school and late at night to finish and begin the cycle over again the next day.

I don't understand it when someone says they hate to read. That's like saying you hate to eat or hate to breathe to me. I get it that some people have reading problems, but what I am seeing is an increasing number of students who seem inordinately proud of their illiteracy. I have heard high school seniors brag that they've never been in our school's media center, which is ironic since it not only has books, but high speed computers AND A COFFEE BAR....but I digress.

Why do our kids grow up hating to read almost from day one? Let's take the very few kids who are truly dyslexic out of the mix-their case is more involved with the way their brains work and the tracking of information. But more and more average kids who should be able to read cannot or will not. I don't say that lightly.

Let's go back a few years to the 1950's. My mother was teaching in a low income district in west Texas in what was known as the Bracero Program. Her second graders ranged in age from seven to eleven. She taught them basic phonics and reading using low tech methods such as flashcards and drills. Being bilingual, she was able to help the Spanish speaking student acquire English reading and writing skills without the imposition of Federal programs or even Federal aid.

Move forward to the late 1980's and kids are being still being taught using basic phonics and drill. My two oldest learned to read under this system and both read and write well. But in the late 80's-90's a new concept came out. Rather than teaching using low tech methods, suddenly high tech computer programs that mimicked the same procedure as low tech flashcards. So the information wasn't different, just the delivery. As time progressed, suddenly education entities felt there was a need to make learning "entertaining." So instead of dry flashcards, gimmicky games were employed which helped somewhat with imparting knowledge, but kids continued to struggle with reading and writing. During this same time, cursive writing was removed from many school curricula. While some may think this is a picky observation, cursive writing provides a crucial link for eye hand coordination that also creates neural pathways that provide control. Because by this point so many of students were struggling just to decipher written words, rather than teach better, programs were simply eliminated.

Something had to fill the gap.So suddenly all the education publishing houses began cranking out educational computer programs. They would sell districts, to the tune of millions of dollars, on these programs based on little more than the piecrust promises of improved test scores. We were in the era of high stakes testing. Scores meant more than actual learning and data trumped all. So little kids were placed in front of computers as a replacement for print on paper learning.

Do you know when most parents of young children find out their children need glasses? It's usually somewhere in the first or second grade. Boys generally don't have tracking abilities until they are nearly seven. That's why it was illegal in the bad old days of the USSR to teach any child to read until they were seven, but I digress. That being the case, many children right now go through years of eye strain which is exacerbated by the flickering light of a computer image. Kids do not know what eyestrain might be. All they know is that when they read on the computer, their heads hurt. Reading hurts. It's a classic case of conditioning in the best Pavlov tradition.

Now what I've just written is all conjecture. If I had a billion dollars, I would want to research this. For school districts I can see the attraction of higher scores and not having to warehouse and inventory and purchase textbooks. But as we go bravely into this new world of education where student pay more attention to their cell phones and Ipads than what is going on in the classroom, I have to wonder if this is wise. Or maybe even if it is deliberate.

The Existential Pain of Being Young, White, and Affluent - The Atlantic

IThe Existential Pain of Being Young, White, and Affluent - The Atlantic
I've been deeply concerned by trends I am seeing my classes. I've had to drop entire units because they are increasingly distracted by their cell phones, but worse seem disinclined to do anything beyond bare minimums in the classroom. Maybe that's somewhat understandable, but not acceptable in a basic level art class. But what do you say when the kids who want to get into elite design schools just cannot be bothered to produce? For a long time I thought this was simply an art department phenomenon, but in talking to other teachers in every department, it's not. We are raising children who come up overscheduled. Their lives are filled with enrichment and most decisions made for them. This leaves them emotionally and intellectually unprepared to make basic life decisions. And from the way they behave, they like it that way. Why should anyone want to leave a cocoon where every need is met?

On a larger scale, consider how this plays out politically. Those who voted for an administration which seems to epitomize the concept of cradle to grave control were the first products of this kind of smothering mothering. It is destructive. If you don't let your first grader pick out their clothes and suffer the consequences for bad choices, how is your kid going to decide whether or not to steal a bottle of pain pills from Granny's medicine cabinet? It comes down to basic moral education. And the parents of today's teens are largely unwilling to enforce any sort of judgement call until it's too late. This is just an extension to the "everyone gets a trophy" mentality. In life, everyone does not get a trophy. The sooner we stop this nonsense by allowing special education teacher to promote that their challenged charges will all go to college, by insisting that all kids are qualified to take AP courses, by refusing to reveal that sometimes people fail, the sooner our nation and our children will heal.

A Slice of Reality

This figurehead that claims the Oval Office is in serious denial over the impact of his actions. He has divided our nation in ways we never envisioned. He has turned Americans against each other. He is agenda drive and has placed the legacy of the "Agenda" over our future. I didn't vote for Obama, but I didn't want him to fail. I worried about his lack of experience, his fuzzy senatorial experience, his vague personal history. Oh sure, he was slick and young and verbally cleaver-but I've never trusted a celebrity nor have I been in awe of them. At every turn Obama misled. He lied about transparency. His office cooked data on ACA given to the CBO to make it appear deficit neutral. He allowed surrogates to attack people simply for daring to have different ideas. It got ugly. Too many people were afraid to ask questions. They were fearful of being labeled as racist or biased or unfair. So they voted blindly, hoping that maybe it would be good enough to make the racebaiters and those who trade in bullying to go away. But bullies don't stop just because you give them what they want, they begin to demand more.

As a teacher, I talk to collegues over lunch. This has been a rough year. We've had too many Federal mandates pushed on us. Lower property taxes and fewer business means little relief in the form of smaller classes or help in the classroom with aides for what seems to be an increasing number of special needs students. Lunch is our time to vent. Just in the past week I have heard these stories. Obama wants to pretend to champion the middle class. If this is a sampling, Obama's policies are inflicting serious damage.

My story. I'm 56, married for over 30 years to a man who hasn't had a job since 2009. At 56 we can not afford to "return to school for retraining" nor have the time to do so. My health insurance is $500 a month. When I go to the doctor now there's no copay-I have to pay $135 just for the office visit. That doesn't include lab work. My doctor wants me to go get a mammogram but I can't afford it. He wants me to get a long overdue colonoscopy but we can't afford that either. Can't afford dental work. Can't afford dermatology to look at scary moles. Can't afford to even repair water lines leaking into our walls. And after yesterday, it's clear this president means to grind us into the ground with his heel. See in 2011 my husband did some contract work for around $3000. That was all he earned the entire year. Today we got a bill from the IRS for $1088. They want a third of it. Even though our income has dropped every year since Obama was elected.

My daughter's story. She's 28 newly married. She has had a private insurance policy via BCBS for five years. It runs about $140 a month. Her husband has his which runs about the same through his work. They tried to consolidate policies but it raised the premiums to nearly $500 a month. They have student loans and can't afford it. So she's stuck with her current policy. The thing is, private insurance policies aren't written for married women. Sure you can have birth control, even an abortion BUT YOU CAN'T HAVE A BABY. So there's your real War on Women Fluke. Whatever happened to real "reproductive freedom?" Yet if she was an unmarried 15 year old Hispanic, my daughter could go down to Parkland in Dallas and pop out a kid every year for free! This is not a joke, it is a tragedy. My daughter and son in law are teachers and work with special needs kids. They would be terrific parents. But our government is effectively limiting the ability of people like my kids from having kids while simultaneously subsidizing the rise of illegitimate births to low income populations. What is worse, in talking about this at lunch our French teacher started crying. She's 38 and has been teaching for 15 years. She and her husband want kids, but as teachers stuck with insurance that is limited at best, they can't afford it. This is the "Obama Miracle"-he's made us all the same. Now we are all needy and poor.

The German teacher is talking about moving to Switzerland. Her husband is an assistant DA in Dallas. They can't afford to retire here. The head of Foreign Languages is thinking of moving with his partner to Peru. The math teachers are moving to Utah. Morale is horrible and people are very depressed. This is being acted out by the behavior of the kids who zoom in on their parents' and teachers' despair. Make no mistake, this is bad. And I don't think sequester will really make it worse. Only one thing will make it better-a new Congress with new leadership. Sadly, that's not going to happen anytime soon.

...On Math

The evolution in teaching math since the 1950s:

1. Teaching Math In 1950s
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit ?
2. Teaching Math In 1960s
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price, or $80. What is his profit?
3. Teaching Math In1970s
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80. Did he make a profit?
4. Teaching Math In 1980s
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is
$80 and his profit is $20. Your assignment: Underline the number 20.
5. Teaching Math In 1990s
A logger cuts down a beautiful forest because he is selfish and
 inconsiderate and cares nothing for the habitat of animals or the
preservation of our woodlands.  He does this so he can make a profit of $20.. What do you think of this way of making aliving? Topicfor class participation after answering the question: How did the birds
and squirrels feel as the logger cut down their homes? (There are no wrong answers, and if you feel like crying, it's ok. )
6. Teaching Math In 2009
Un hachero vende una carretada de maderapara $100. El costo de la producciones es $80. Cuantodinero ha hecho?
 7. Teaching Math In 2013
Whocares, just steal the lumber from your rich neighbor's property. He
won't have a gun to stop you, and the President says it's OK anyway cuz
it's redistributing the wealth.

Down This Road

Today it was announced that new Federal mandates will require public schools to open all athletic programs to students with disabilities. On the surface this is an equality issue. In action what will happen is that parents and lawyers will use this new bully stick to intimidate schools into allowing their kids on teams even if they do not qualify for a position.For example, ADHD is technically a disability. So by that rule a student with this condition must be given inordinate access to programs even when their condition is detrimental to other students and to the program at large. Would any coach under the threat of lawsuit dare not allow a student to play? Not in this day and age.

 I have no quarrel with the various surrogates trotted out to present this action. A wrestler can certainly compete though blind and deafness is certainly not a hurdle to most sports. But when the Feds start requiring action, parents and lawyers begin to angle for more for their children.Can a lawsuit claiming discrimination for failing to allow someone on a varsity team for reasons as innocuous as mild reading challenges be far behind?  For those who doubt this will happen consider what happened with Title IX. Schools, including universities like SMU, had to rid themselves of successful programs in order to balance the books. With even more demand for athletics for men than women, women get the same amount. That's antithetical to supply and demand, but the Law doesn't care. With even more limited funding, the pie is smaller now. Dividing that up more to make it safe and feasible for a seriously disabled student to be on a team is opening up the door for the dissolution of many programs. All it will take is one serious accident involving a disabled student, and athletics will be removed from the schools.

Once upon a time schools existed for the education of the majority of children. Now it appears that education is to be portioned out based on some formula that is based on the nebulous boundaries of "fairness" rather than appropriateness or even need. While all students, even the so called typical ones, should be allowed to progress to the level of their potential, when you artificially impose such rules on schools or teams or even businesses, you set up a situation where legal abuse will be rampant. If you doubt that, consider the amount of angst and intimidation that exists in regards to special education in the core classes right now. As a teacher, I feel like a hostage to a system in which I am expected to perform over and beyond my capabilities or face the very real threat of legal action.

On Guns, Society and Insanity

Guns have been around a long time. What has not been around long is a societal acceptance of bizarre, even psychotic, behavior as normal. We medicate seriously deranged individuals and release them back into society with little or no oversight. It is almost impossible to involuntarily commit even the most deranged person. And while guns have been the most recent weapon of choice, we have had mothers drown their entire young family, religious despots administer poison laced Koolaid to men, women and children and bombs set off by self appointed political groups in the name of peace. In one of the most horrific killings in Dallas history, a young African American man, high on drugs, killed a father of two young children. The young man had a history of mental illness and drug abuse,yet was foisted out on society because of the difficulty of getting him committed. The twist is that the shooter was the son of the current Dallas police chief. Do you not think this man every single night wishes he had had some means to save his son-who died due to being shot by the police-and the young father shielding his children? Our laws work against even the most loving and vigilant of families.

People who want to kill will find a means to do so. What we as a society must demand is that we stop the politically correct idea of "we can't judge" and start putting people who are dangerous into facilities where they cannot harm others or themselves. Even in classrooms now, courtesy of ADA special education laws of least restrictive environment, seriously mentally ill students, some of whom tower over their teachers, can rail and threaten on a daily basis with impunity. Our children deserve better. Teachers deserve better. Our society deserves better. The idea that we must tolerate insanity in public has to end. This attitude has contributed to the rise in homelessness, domestic violence and child abuse along with a list of other crimes. Like it or not, some people cannot live in the real world.

Some Observations

What Liberals Believe

Liberals think… That embracing a religious cult invented by a drunken science fiction writer that nevertheless supports shallow hedonism is okay

But….Embracing a religion that was created from a Christian base but whose adherents shun caffeine, immodesty and other worldly occupations as sinful is weird.

Liberals think…that guns should be banned everywhere

But….want their own kids and offices protected by armed security guards

Liberals think…all war is wrong

But….continue to support war waged with unmanned drones that cause far more collateral damage simply because Obama says it’s okay.

Liberals think…America is waging a “war on women” that can only be won by offering free birth control

But….ignore that many cultures support sex selection and that far more female children are aborted than male children by these cultures

Liberals think…global warming is real

But….ignore the increasing number of well known scientists that are refuting these claims with scientific fact.

Liberals think…the federal deficit doesn’t matter

But….they are the first to complain about not wanting their subsidies cut when the money for special programs runs out.

Liberals think…that people with disabilities should have no stone unturned in making every school, office, and facility accessible

But…. Ignore the increasing cost of such programs on school districts and businesses and the increasing danger of exposure to seriously mentally ill children and adults who act on their delusions in violent ways.

Liberals think… more taxes is the answer

But…. They try to find every way possible to avoid paying them themselves.

Liberals think…all “big box” stores are evil because they earn profits

But…the love IKEA, which pays their employees less than Walmart because it’s Scandinavian.

A Dark Day

Today is a dark day. It is a day when evil walked on two legs into a kindergarten classroom. It is a day when a madman mowed down a classroom of kindergartners. I can’t help but think that five year olds were clinging to their teacher, the shooter’s mother, as she died. I can’t help but think they were crying and scared wanting their mommies. What kind of animal does this?

But then again, while you will hear a loud drumbeat from the White House and the anti-gun lobby, what kind of delusional person shoots a movie full of viewers enjoying a new film or a playground of school kids? Let’s look at this further-what kind of person drowns her six young children or cuts the arms off her baby to make her an angel? These people share the same problem-they are what used to be called insane. Now that has been sanitized into an “illness” for which they cannot be held responsible. The woman who drowned her six young kids pled not guilty by reason of insanity when in reality it should be GUILTY by reason of insanity. Likewise the woman who killed her baby was committed for a short time and was in the past few months discovered to be working in a Walmart. The attitude of the medical community and the liberals is that you make these people show up to get meds and then send them on their way. No monitoring, no oversight, no protection for those they come in contact with. And if they stop taking their meds, what then?

But how does it get to this point. Let me give you an illustration. A colleague of mine has been victimized to the point of having nightmares by a six foot four male student who throws furniture and has as recently as last summer was in a mental health hospital. For six months she endured verbal threats and had to intervene as this student threatened others. One day he told her “I could hit you in the head with this hammer and you can’t stop me.” Indeed, until violence occurs there’s nothing a general ed classroom teacher can do. And there’s nothing we can do to protect other students either. Luckily this student was finally removed to a unit designed for emotionally disturbed students. He lasted two weeks in a facility designed for his needs and was kicked out. Now he’s in another school district where I have no doubt he’s cycling through the same delusional and menacing behavior. Everyone’s scared of the ADA and nobody wants to make the call that this individual is dangerous. I have little doubt that down the road, he’s another tragedy waiting to happen.

The problem is not with guns. Richard Speck murdered several nurses with a knife. Jim Jones murdered men, women and children with poison. The Weather Underground murdered people with bombs. Guns have been with us a long time. But what has not been with us is the prevailing societal drumbeat that we must not judge those who act out in dangerous and delusional ways. The ADA and various liberal feelgood policies have created a situation of political correctness where seeking to commit an insane individual to a facility where they cannot harm others is “unkind” or “meanspirited.” Indeed, many of the recent events of mass violence reveal a known history of outrageously insane behavior that was deliberately overlooked for the sake of avoiding being “judgmental.”

What will happen now is yet another outcry for gun control when what needs to happen is that we must, for the sake of our nation, take back the right to keep the criminally insane from victimizing the innocent. A friend of mine who just left a position as an aide at a facility designed for the retarded told me that the majority of the people there are mentally ill, not retarded. They are allowed to act out in ridiculous and provocative ways. She left because a man tried to gouge out her eye. Nothing was done. Nothing will ever be done as long as the current ADA laws are in effect. We have actually turned over the sylum to the inmates. The uptick in homelessness, the rise in domestic crime and the increase in drug abuse are all biproducts of a society that refuses to accept that some people are simply too sick and insane to be left on their own. I am not talking about the depressed, or the bipolar or even the nasty-but of those who are so obviously insane that they pose a threat to others. I shudder and can barely hold back tears when I think of that roomful of kindergartners murdered for the sake of sparing someone’s feelings. We must take back the safety of our society. We have to realize that by allowing such people to act out with impunity, we are not helping them, we are allowing them to overtake us.

Hard Christmas

I am trying very hard to be upbeat.
I have done projects that echo Christmas. I have allowed my students to decorate my classroom door. I have attended the faculty Christmas party and am participating in Secret Santa. I just wish it didn't feel so hollow. I haven't really bought one gift. And despite the late date, I don't feel like spending the money. Our financial situation is so desperate that we may end up eventually losing the house. And this doesn't really mean much anymore as the house has serious problems that we cannot afford to repair. The roof, windows and doors need replacing. One shower walls has completely caved in and the other is falling apart. I don't have the skill or strength to do these things myself although I would if I could. I just feel like everything is falling to pieces and there's nothing I can do to stop it.

The one bright light is that my son, three years after college graduation, now has a job beyond fast food. My husband, however, is still essentially unemployed with no compensation and no end in sight. This is the Obama legacy. He is killing us by degrees.