Limbaugh, Santorum, and that Palin Woman

There is so much going on in the world that it is difficult to settle on one thing to write about. 

Some topics have already had more than enough attention. Rush Limbaugh for example--how many ways are there to say that he is reprehensible and shouldn't be allowed on the airwaves without a keeper?  Of course, Ms. Fluke isn't the only object of Limbaugh's derision. I see no evidence that he has learned anything from the unfavorable critiques of his sexist and vulgar attacks on Ms. Fluke. 

For the last three years Rush has delighted in referring to President Obama as a man-child, and on this past Thursday's show (03/08/12), Rush called the President a boy.  Limbaugh is 61-years-old, definitely old enough to have direct knowledge of Jim Crow laws. Boy is a racist term used in the Jim Crow era to belittle black men and Rush knows this. 

Limbaugh was up to his        usual shtick, mocking the  way he thinks that liberals regard Republicans, "You notice how everything Republicans do is venal? Everything is calculated for political advantage? Everything is done to try to harm our little boy  president, Barack Obama." Ironically, as Rush has lost a lot of his paying sponsors, he insulted the President in between playing PSAs for the United Negro College Fund. The entire text may be found at the Hinterland Gazette. For the full Limbaugh effect, listen to the clip from his show.

Presidential candidate Rick Santorum could also use someone to whisper,"Hush,"every time he attempts to share his views on anything to do with women, sex, or contraception. Unless Santorum has a revelation to make, I assume that he does not have a womb and I can think of no valid reason for him to attempt to regulate mine or any other woman's.

Santorum is not alone in his fixation on women's reproductive health and rights. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 19 states (number may have gone up, the Institute's report was released while 10 state legislatures were still in session) passed a total of 80 laws restricting abortions, more than double the number of restrictive abortion laws passed in 2005 the second highest year with 34 laws passed.  All total, in 2011, states enacted 162 new provisions related to reproductive health and rights. In addition to imposing new restrictions to limit access to legal abortions, the new laws also reduce or eliminate family planning funding to such organizations as planned parenthood,and attempt to prohibit private insurers from provide coverage for reproductive health issues such as contraceptives.

All of the candidates need to be forbidden from invoking the name of God or Jesus as a campaign strategy. No more talk of religious freedom and contraception or abortion in the same sentence. Religious freedom has nothing to do with imposing one set of religious beliefs on everyone. You believe what you want and I get to believe what I want and that may mean that I don't believe in anything. Freedom means that we all are free to make our own choices not that some people get to dictate which road that we must all follow. 

Then there's Sarah Palin who has announced that President Obama wants to return the days before the Civil War. Sarah, you need to use your brain for something other than occupying that space between your ears. Your ignorance is astounding and it is revealed every time that you open your mouth. No this is not libel. Libel consists of publishing untruthful statements defamatory to the character of another to a third party. Prove to me that her brain functions.

Warning: Birtherism On Steroids

Earlier this week, an Alaskan citizen filed a lawsuit challenging President Obama's legitimacy as a presidential candidate. Just read an article at Addicting Info about the lawsuit, Lawsuit Claims Obama Can't Be President Because He's Black. Seriously. 

Gordon Warren Epperly (bet you thought it was Sarah Palin) alleges in his complaint that Negroes and Mulattoes are not citizens, natural born or otherwise, and therefore Obama cannot legally be on the presidential ballot.

A little bit of knowledge leads to people making complete jackasses of themselves. The crux of this lawsuit is Epperly declares that the Negro race and the Mulatto race (and presumably anyone with any black ancestry) were not citizens and had no rights of citizenship until the adoption of the 14th amendment in 1868. 

That's accurate. In 1857, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Dred Scott v. Sanford that anyone with any African ancestry was not a citizen and had no rights of citizenship. However, the 14th amendment (ratified in 1868) essentially overturned Dred Scott (note that the civil war concluded in 1865). The 14th amendment was one of the Reconstruction amendments. Its Citizenship Clause provides a broad definition of citizenship that overruled the Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court  that held that blacks were not and could never be citizens of the United States.

Mr. Epperly notes in his complaint that as Barack Hussein Obama II is of the Mulatto race, his citizenship status is based on the 14th amendment. It's true that the 14th amendment conferred citizenship status on former slaves and their descendants. But then this nut job goes completely down the rabbit hole, declaring that the 14th amendment only grants "civil rights"and not "political rights." His brilliant conclusion is that President Obama has no political rights under the U.S. Constitution to hold any public office of the United States government.  (By the way, President Obama isn't a descendant of slaves. His mother is Caucasian and his father is African.)

I'm assuming that this means that anyone of the Negro or Mulatto race (he uses such quaint terminology) is ineligible for public office. Oops! Darn, perhaps white women aren't eligible for public office either. They were citizens but without complete rights of citizenship until the 19th amendment was passed in 1920. Did it grant civil rights or political rights?

Epperly's lawsuit is absurd and it will likely be dismissed without a hearing. His legal theories have no merit. I have become immune to most racism; it's difficult to muster much concern over the ravings of idiots with the intelligence of a pair of shoes. 

What does intrigue me is the persistence of racism and the refusal of America to honestly confront that racism and bigotry are as American as baseball and apple pie. there is this desire to pretend that the only reason there is any racism today is because black people won't let it go and keep playing the race card.

A very nice woman on Facebook who is a friend of a friend declared that she thought that there was nothing wrong with displaying the Confederate battle flag. She reasoned that it was about pride in ancestry and that we needed to let the past lie and move on. I agree except for me that means stop flaunting a flag that represents the subjugation and torture of millions of your fellow Americans for more than 350 years. Slavery was hell but Jim Crow was no improvement,and Jim Crow is part of my lifetime. It is my past and the past of millions of black Americans.

The animosity and disrespect shown this president have been unprecedented, as have been the attacks on the First Lady, and even his children. This dimwitted, ignorant variation on birtherism is grounded in racism. I could only shake my head at Epperly's use of the terms Negro race and Mulatto race. 

Epperly is a fool and a racist, and he would be laughable if he didn't have so much company.

Happy Valentine's Day (Sort of)

(I'm tired of politics. It's a temporary fatigue; I can't stay out of the fray for long, but today I'm taking a break.)

It's Valentine's Day, the holiday that divides the haves from the have-nots--those with Valentines and those without.  The haves get chocolate and roses; I've heard rumor that some even get precious stones. The have-nots get a pint of Ben and Jerry's ice cream, which we buy for ourselves. However, there is an up side--we don't have to share it with anyone.

I've had a valentine or two but lately I've hit a dry spell; you might call it a drought.  However, I don't think that I'm alone.

I listen to a lot of music. Sarah, my dear friend of more than 30 years, just told me when we were on vacation a few years ago that I sang to myself a lot. I was totally unaware of this. She didn't say if it was annoying or not.  I'm digressing.

One thing that I've noticed is that there are far more sad love songs than happy love songs. Think about it, how many songs do you hear where man and woman meet, fall in love, and live happily ever after? My guess is that these sad love songs are written by and for the have-nots. Love gone wrong is far more interesting than happily ever after.

Of course, a lot of folks don't really listen to the lyrics of songs and don't realize that most love songs are about love gone wrong.  A perfect example is on of my favorite songs by The Police, Every Breath You Take. Released in 1983, it became a staple at weddings! Somehow people interpreted it as a love song in spite of its creepy lyrics. It's a song about a man so obsessed with a woman that he's stalking her. I watched an interview with Sting who expressed his dismay that so many fans still think it's a love song.  Don't believe it's really about a stalker? Watch this video that includes the lyrics. (You can turn off the auto player, just look to the right of the page, find the music player and click on the pause (ll) button.)


Recently heard a song on the radio, Grenade, by that adorable young man, Bruno Mars. It's an example of the most pathetic of love gone wrong songs--the begging song. Basically the message is "I'll do anything for you if only you will love me." I liked the melody from the start but when he got to the chorus, I was totally hooked as Bruno sings, "I'd catch a grenade for you." Is this love? No, but it's certainly madness and he's so adorably cute. I've been in love before but I would really have to give some thought as to whether I would catch a grenade for someone. I don't like things that blow up.


Stalking and unrequited love are big topics in love songs, but my personal favorites are the leaving songs. There's just nothing that gets to me like a "you don't love me any more song," especially when the former lover has found somebody new and the rejected party is bravely going on. There are so many of these songs that it's hard to pick just one, but I'm currently enamored of Adele's lovely voice and her song Someone Like You fits the bill.


The ultimate sad love song, the ones that really make me shed tears into my ice cream (French Vanilla) are those in which one partner with a martyr complex leaves the other, convinced that its the best thing to do for the sake of the other person. How stupid can you get? You don't toss put a perfectly good lover just because you may ruin his or her life someday, especially when it's Kevin Costner. The late Whitney Houston did the definitive cover of the best self-sacrificing song ever, I Will Always Love You (written by Dolly Parton).


I could go on and on, there are thousands upon thousands of songs about love gone wrong which means that although you may be among those who don't have a valentine, you are not alone.  We're actually in the popular group. I'll leave you with a poem that I wrote a few years ago when someone broke my heart. It was a big deal at the time but tonight I'm having trouble remembering his name.

There Is Nothing Original In Suffering For every poem about love fulfilled, there are written one hundred times one hundred of love forsaken. For every promise of love forever, Jove’s mirth fills the arch of heaven, for it is written that love’s perjuries conjure laughter. Abandoned lovers, swaddled in denial, believe aches of the heart to be a solitary pain, newly born to the betrayed. And so poets, knowing there is nothing original in the sufferings of the heart, write one hundred times one hundred of hearts mangled, blinding lovers to a knowledge much sharper than love broken-- that it has all been done and will be done again.    --Sheria Reid

Race, Gingrich, and South Carolina

I love living in the south--the mild winters, the summer heat, magnolia trees with those impossibly large white blooms nestled among glossy green leaves. I like iced tea, collard greens, and watermelon. I can make a sweet potato pie that will make you forget that there is such a thing as a pumpkin. I'm southern to the core and while I love my southern heritage, I also know that it includes a dark side, a little problem that has to do with race.

Please don't misunderstand, I know that race is not an issue only in the South. I've seen enough manifestations of racial prejudice in my lifetime to be certain that it is not limited by geography. The South just has a peculiar love/hate affair with its perceptions about race. The white guy with a confederate flag on his bumper and who would disown any child of his that dated outside of his race will stop to help a lone black woman standing by the road next to her broken down car.

This dichotomy of feelings about race is what fuels someone like Newt Gingrich, what allows him to make a statement such as the following with a sincere belief that it does not reflect racial stereotyping and should not be construed as offensive or racist.

I'm prepared, if the NAACP invites me, I'll go to their convention and talk about why the African American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps. (Gingrich Singles Out Blacks)

Gingrich conveniently ignores that  28% of American households receiving food stamps are black and 59% are white. About 78% of American households are white and about 13% are black. (U.S. Census Bureau)

NAACP President and CEO Ben Jealous points out, the majority of people receiving food stamps are not African-Americans and have jobs. (Gingrich Singles Out Blacks) Gingrich is fond of referring to Obama as the food stamp president. (Id.) More people are receiving food stamps under this administration. Of course more people are unemployed or under employed. The country is, after all, in a recession.

However, in spite of all my discussion of Newt and food stamps, my point isn't really about Gingrich's dissemination of misleading and down right false information. I'm more interested in Newt's win in South Carolina. 

This ability to hold on to racist ideology and simultaneously and sincerely believe that you are not acting in a racist manner is at the core of South Carolina's enthusiasm for Newt Gingrich. Gingrich responded with indignation when moderator Juan Williams dared inquire at the GOP presidential candidates debate in South Carolina:

Speaker Gingrich, you recently said black Americans should demand jobs, not food stamps. You also said poor kids lack a strong work ethic and proposed having them work as janitors in their schools. Can't you see that this is viewed, at a minimum, as insulting to all Americans, but particularly to black Americans?

Gingrich's response was swift and direct, "No. I don't see that." The audience in the debate hall also responded, standing and applauding Gingrich's snippy response.

Huffington Post reporter Jon Ward sums it up succinctly: 

From the moment that Gingrich slapped down Williams' questions about his attitude toward low-income blacks and thousands in the debate hall stood and roared their approval--several voters this week told The Huffington Post that Gingrich "put him in his place"--Gingrich was on fire. (Gingrich Wins Big in SC)

Newt Gingrich speaks southern, and he is particularly fluent in the dialect of white southerners. It sounds the same as regular southern on the surface but it includes all sorts of code words and phrases. Neighborhood schools is a euphemism for maintaining segregation. Putting paychecks in the hands of black people is code for, those people don't want to work and live to receive government handouts. Put him in his place is used to speak of putting down an uppity Negro who has forgotten his place. Juan Williams at the debate and President Obama in general, as he is the most uppity Negro of all time. Angry black woman refers to any black female who articulates her opinions and doesn't shy away from controversy. Example: First Lady Michelle Obama. (I'm proud to say that I have also been designated on more than one occasion as an angry black woman.)

Newt knows how to make southern whites who refuse to confront their own issues with race feel good about themselves. A discussion about race and racism is immediately ended when the focus becomes on declaring that one is not a racist, although no one has declared anyone to be a racist. Talking about racism is not the same as calling someone a racist. The discussion that needs to be done about lingering racist beliefs, attitudes,and practices rarely takes place in this country which is why Newt really doesn't get why there is anything wrong with declaring that black people need to seek paychecks instead of food stamps. The key word is seek,which assumes that black people are more likely to be low-wealth in America because we choose to be so.

Gingrich believes that he has the vision to lead low-wealth black folks to the promised land. All he has to do is show us the light so that we understand that we need to work and not just sit around waiting for government handouts. Newt, and his eager supporters in South Carolina function on the presumption that it is lack of effort and inherent laziness on the part of black people that makes for a disproportional number of African-Americans living at or below the poverty level in the U.S.  Lack of opportunities, systemic and institutional racial exclusion, and a continued fostering of racial stereotypes have nothing to do with it. 

The reality is that the concept of racial equality is relatively new. Following emancipation in 1865 was a hundred years of Jim Crow, discrimination,restriction, and persecution based on the color of your skin. I grew up in a society in which where I could go and what I could do was determined by my skin color. I had to learn as a child not to display anything that could be construed as attitude or impudence to any white person regardless as to what that white person may have done or said to me.  I was denied access to schools, restaurants, hospitals, swimming pools, wherever there was a sign that designated "white only." Although there are days when I feel ancient, I'm only 56.

It remains to be seen if Newt Gingrich's bilingual abilities will make him the GOP presidential nominee. His substantial victory in South Carolina, 40.4% to Romney's 27.9%, may not translate well to other parts of the nation which are not as adept at self deception when it comes to matters of race. 

There are those who insist that the intense anti-Obama sentiment expressed by some has nothing to do with his being a black man. He is, by every definition that this country proposes about determining one's race a black man.  So when someone says to me, what's race got to do with it, my answer is "everything."

Remembering Dr. King, the Bearer of Dreams

A Black Child Remembers Dr. King
by Sheria Reid

He came bearing dreams,
a drum major for truth,
peeling back layers to reveal
the beauty of our blackness.

Mama says I can't go to Selma,
so I find it on a map,
a small dot that may as well be in Timbuktu.
Montgomery is out of the question. 

I march around the back yard
singing "We Shall Overcome,"
imagining that I feel the heat rising 
from black pavement
and the hoses washing me down.
      We shall overcome someday...

Let's play freedom march!
Slyly I entice my younger brother and sister.
You can lead the march!
But my legs are longer.

I follow him
marching ever onward,
a dark skin black child
reaching for the dream,
believing deep in my heart
     we shall overcome
     we shall overcome
     we shall overcome someday...

Religious Fascism: The Faith Masquerade

"When Fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross." (generally attributed to Sinclair Lewis)

I grew up in eastern North Carolina. My immediate family converted to Catholicism when I was seven. Some of our relatives were convinced that we were going to hell for worshiping statues, praying to the Virgin Mary, and not being baptized in the name of Jesus only. In other words, I grew up with crazy fundamentalists in my family. However, I never feared their beliefs. They talked a lot but didn't appear to pose a threat to others who did not believe as they did.

But today I came across an organization known as the  The Liberty Counsel and their stated goal is Restoring the Culture by Advancing Religious Freedom, the Sanctity of Human Life and the Family.

Doesn't sound so scary in and of itself, but the Liberty Counsel doesn't literally mean freedom to believe or not believe as you wish. The Counsel believes that it is its mission to advance our freedom to believe in a Christian God. The anchor of the Counsel is its fully accredited law school, Liberty University School of Law, located in Lynchburg, Virginia. Its web site touts its "40 years of training champions for Christ." From its mission statement: "The proficient use of reason informed and animated by faith and a comprehensive Christian worldview is the means to revitalizing what is central to the American legal system--the rule of law." (There are 202 attorneys in the 112th US Congress out of a total of 535 members of Congress. Washington Wire, 1/5/2011).

The web site also features a video with a special message from Newt Gingrich. Presumably Gingrich is comfortable with the law school's blend of law and religion, and its goal of injecting that blend into the rule of law.

The document that lead me to the Counsel was a piece entitled Declaration of American Values, with excerpts posted to Facebook by author Pam Spaulding. (I count on Pam to lead me to interesting material and she never fails to do so.) The Declaration appears to be the Counsel's proposal for a new Declaration of Independence and contains such gems as the following:

• To secure our national interest in the institution of marriage and family by embracing the union of one man and one woman as the sole form of legitimate marriage and the proper basis of family.
• To secure the free exercise of religion for all people, including the freedom to acknowledge God through our public institutions and other modes of public expression and the freedom of religious conscience without coercion by penalty or force of law.
• To secure the moral dignity of each person, acknowledging that obscenity, pornography, and indecency debase our communities, harm our families, and undermine morality and respect. Therefore, we promote enactment and enforcement of laws to protect decency and traditional morality.
• To secure the individual right to own, possess, and use firearms as central to the preservation of peace and liberty.

There are ten declarations in all, plus a preamble and a closing vow asserting that an unidentified "we" pledge their names, their lives, and their honor to upholding this declaration of American values. 

The Christian fundamentalists of my childhood were goodhearted people for the most part who sincerely believed that it was their duty to try and save the souls of sinners. They were not interested in controlling the government; they sought their guidance from their churches and did their proselytizing via their churches. Today's Christian Right is a different breed. They are not not necessarily fundamentalists; they adhere to a literal reading of the Bible only when it suits their purposes.  As a whole, they are better educated than their fundamentalists predecessors, churned out by private religious colleges and universities.  They encompass middle and upper class demographics. They seek power and control, and view religion as a tool to achieve both. They are dangerous. 

It is not enough that they share their beliefs with those who embrace the same values. What they want is to impose their beliefs, their will, on the rest of us. Fanaticism begets a rabid vigilance to convert or destroy all who would dare walk to a different drummer. There is no group more dangerous than those who believe or profess to believe in some mythological anointment of their cause by a supreme being. History is littered with atrocities perpetrated in the name of someone's God.

Please understand that it is not genuinely held personal faith or spiritual belief that I'm speaking of, but a rigid fanaticism in which one group insists upon imposing its views, its beliefs, its will upon others. I'm speaking of groups such as this Liberty Counsel, which adorns itself with the trappings of law, wraps itself in the American flag, and with its Bible clasped in one hand is as dangerous and frightening as any fascist.

Such groups must be revealed, dragged into the light if necessary. Their power lies in their chameleon like ability to blend in, to appear to be simply promoting sensible values that will benefit all of us. We must be vigilant and unafraid in shouting to the rafters that not only does the emperor have no clothes on, the emperor is also a liar and a fraud.


Definition of FASCISM

1

often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition

2

: a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control 

Necessary Evil

In a comment to a recent post by a friend of a video interview of journalist and author Chris Hedges, I offered my observation that "Entities and systems are rarely good or evil."

Hedges, who identifies himself as a socialist, is a harsh critic of what he perceives to be the betrayal of America by the liberal Left. Hedges chastises the Left for failing to adhere to its own ethical beliefs and work towards achieving meaningful and radical change to restructure the social and economic infrastructure of America so as to perpetrate true equality and access to resources for all Americans.

I agree with Hedges that liberalism hasn't exactly made radical changes in America but I don't view the Left as a sellout, in cahoots with corporate America to trample on the heads of the little people. Hedges believes in absolutes; he is quick to classify institutions, businesses, and economic systems as evil.

I found that to be an oversimplification; hence my observation that entities and systems are rarely good or evil.  My statement wasn't readily understood by other readers and I feel compelled to further explain my line of thinking.

The terms good and evil denote some type of intentional and chosen path of behavior. I reserve those terms for descriptors of human behavior. A lion kills a gazelle.The act is neither good nor evil but an instinctive desire to feed.

I think that it allows humans to absolve ourselves of responsibility for our actions when we attribute intent and desire to non-human creatures or things.

For example, variations of the declaration that "War is a necessary evil" have been repeated throughout recorded history. It allows us to declare that some wars are good wars. The Roman Catholic Church went so far as to declare that some wars had God's blessing and were indeed, holy wars. It has also allowed us to regard war as inevitable and devote very little energy to the avoidance or prevention of war. After all it's a necessity, can't be helped. We totally avoid tackling head on that we create wars and what we create, we can choose not to create. We continue blissfully fighting these "necessary" wars as if there really were an Ares who decides when humans shall engage in wars.

When we attribute anthropomorphic qualities to systems and events, declare them to be good or evil, we abdicate human responsibility for control of those systems and entities. They are neither good nor evil, they are simply what we permit them to be and if we want them changed,we first have to accept our collective responsibility for allowing those systems and entities to get out of control in the first place.

We have met the enemy and he is us.--Walt Kelly

War and Efficiency: Unintended Consequences?

A Facebook friend posted a link to a news story about the use of drones (unmanned aircraft) in warfare, War By Remote Control: Drones Make It Easy.

Warfare used to be a bloody, up close affair. Men killed other men. Death was instantaneous for many and serious wounds eventually resulted in death for most others. 

Now, war is too much like a video game. We have improved our methods of killing; invented weapons that can do maximum damage to other human beings from a great physical distance and left us able to distance ourselves emotionally from an enemy that is a blip on a screen. We can kill people whose faces we never see; we no longer have to wait until we see the whites of their eyes to fire on them. There is no sense of connection that the enemy breathes, loves, and lives just as we do, nothing to make us question war itself.  We've made it so much easier to kill and so much easier to wash our hands of that killing. Ironic that in a nation that prides itself on being Christian, we've collectively become Pontius Pilate.

For today's Americans, who haven't had a modern war on American soil, war is a distant entity, brought home only when the wounded men and women, now saved due to advances in modern medicine, return to their families. The rest of us feel momentary sympathy for the wounded vets who return missing body parts and who are emotionally battered and damaged, but we forget them pretty soon. When we lie down in our beds, there are no drones flying  in the dark over our heads.

Vietnam was the last war (technically a police action) that we had to fully feel and experience. The media was filled with Vietnam. We knew that the average age of the soldiers in Vietnam was 19. We knew how many died each day. We saw their flag draped coffins on the evening news. A lot of us didn't like war and we protested against it. We flashed peace symbols, sang protest songs, and marched in solidarity against  not just the Vietnam War, but any war.

We have lost the urgency to prevent war or to put an end to existing wars. Our collective conscience has become as removed from the horrors of war as the remote mechanisms that we use to fight wars. War should be messy and painful. It should make us lose sleep at night. War must be atrocious enough to repulse us, to make us be willing to go to any means necessary to put an end to warfare. The automation of efficient killing makes it far easier to engage in warfare and that's the problem.

Providing a Quality Public Education Isn't Optional

A friend on Facebook, let's call him Mr. Smith, stated that he doesn't "...support paying for other kids schooling..." as he has no kids.

I like Mr. Smith, but he is so wrong. Naturally, I decided to persuade him of his error in thought. It didn't work, but I put up a hell of a persuasive argument.

An educated populace benefits the growth of the society. We pay taxes to maintain the whole of society. No taxes, then no roads, law enforcement, traffic signals, public buildings, fire departments--the list is lengthy. We don't get to choose where our taxes are spent. I've never been arrested nor a victim of a crime, if I follow Mr. Smith's line of thought, I should not have to support law enforcement. If one lives in society then one must support the functioning of that society. Not wanting your taxes to support education because you don't have any children is a libertarian notion whether one likes that label or not. Btw, I don't have any children either.

We pay for educating all children so that there will be a competent workforce to maintain the infrastructure that promotes the functioning of society. We pay for educating all children because poverty and marginalization are engendered by the lack of an education. We pay for educating all children because the mind needs nurturing as much as does the body.

Mr. Smith argues that if your child attends a private school, you also should be spared from paying taxes to support public education. However, no one has to pay taxes and private school education. It's a choice you make and it doesn't mean that you get to abdicate your responsibility to pay local taxes.

Generally, property and some sales taxes go to paying for public education, which is financed primarily by the individual states. Federal funding goes to Title 1 programs for children from low-wealth families, the free and reduced price lunch program, and to support some of the programs for children with disabilities who are identified as such under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act or IDEA.

The voucher movement bases its premise on the notion that they should receive vouchers equivalent to the Per Pupil Expenditure (PPE) that a state spends to educate students. The theory behind it is that the parents pay taxes but their children don't attend public school so they should get their money back in the form of vouchers. The amount of the vouchers would actually exceed the amount paid in taxes as education funding is provided not only from the money collected from property taxes and sales tax. Corporate taxes, fines collected in court cases, parking fines, and revenues from other sources all go into the state general fund, which in turn funds public education in that state.

PPE for the states ranges from a low of $6,000 in Utah to a high of $15,000 in Vermont in the most recent comparison of 50 states and the District of Columbia from the EPE Research Center's Education Counts Database. The national average for PPE is just under $10,000. Those who support vouchers are asking to be paid amounts equal to the PPE in their state because they don't believe that they should have to support public education as their darlings aren't in public school.

There are constant complaints on Facebook and in general about the lack of comprehension on the part of the American public when it comes to politics and government. Knowledge of core civics is so poor that there were folks on FB who questioned why President Obama didn't just pardon Troy Davis, who was convicted in a state court of committing murder in violation of state law. Such a pardon is not within the powers of the office of the President. Compared to other comparable countries and some that we consider far less developed than the U.S., our students show mediocre performance  in math and science, and notoriously score poorly on standardized tests in U.S. History. (Test your knowledge of U.S. History by answering questions from the tests administered to students in grades 4, 8, and 12.)

Our public education system needs to be improved and held accountable. Check the education levels of any state prison and you will find a disproportionate number of inmates who never graduated from high school. Federal prisons are a bit different as they are filled with white collar criminals who have degrees but lack ethics. We continue to allow massive numbers of students to crash land between the cracks at our own peril. I'd prefer to have my taxes go to support public education; in the long run it's less costly than continuing to pay to maintain prisons (which also are supported with our taxes). We pay to support public education because we know that a poorly educated populace will be a future drain on the society rather than functional contributors to the growth and well-being of society.  Providing a quality public education for every child benefits all members of society. (See, The Effect of Education on Crime, October 2003.)

We cannot afford to entertain the notion that some of us are less responsible than others for contributing financial support to public education. It's both shortsighted and selfish.

All I Wanted Was to Catch Up On The News

When It Starts Dripping From the Ceiling

My visit to the twilight zone started with a story in the Arts section of the Washington Post. A cleaning woman in Germany did a really good job scrubbing the discoloration off a rubber trough. However, there was a slight problem. The rubber trough was a part of a modern sculpture entitled "When It Starts Dripping From the Ceiling." The sculpture, by deceased artist Martin Kippenberger, was worth $1.1 million. A reasonable price, after all the artist is dead. The dirt that she worked so hard to remove was actually a patina that had been carefully applied by hand.

I admit that I'm not bowled over by a lot of contemporary art. I can see why the cleaning woman thought that perhaps the trough was just an item needing cleaning. I have an old rubber pan that I use to store gardening hand tools. I'm thinking that I should paint it, surround it with a wooden frame, and offer it to the Guggenheim.

I progressed further into the twilight zone while watching ABC's Nightline after the 11:00 pm news. There was a segment on a sport with which I had no familiarity. It seems that there are parts of our country where mutton bustin' is a beloved family-oriented activity. The Nightline link to the story isn't available yet but wonder of wonders, when I searched the term mutton bustin', Google found 214,000 results in 0.15 seconds.

Take one child under the age of six and weighing less than 60 pounds, strap him or her into a child sized protective vest, add a helmet, then place the child on the back of a 180 pound sheep. Guess what? Sheep aren't naturally fond of playing horsey so they begin to run really fast and try to throw off the rider. The average rider lasts 6 to 8 seconds. 

On Nightline, some of the riders were as young as three-years-old. You may ask yourself why would a parent put their little darling on the back of a sheep for a wild ride that ends with said child falling off and eating a pile of dirt? The mothers and fathers explained that they wanted their children to be tough and it's a great precursor to bull riding. Perhaps you know a toddler with whom you would like to share this bonding activity.


I left the twilight zone and landed in the outer limits while watching the Jimmy Kimmel Show following Nightline. Herman Cain needs to hire some reliable handlers; his current crew may not have his best interests at heart. I'm no fan of Cain, but even I wouldn't have suggested that he accept Kimmel's invitation to be a guest on his show. Yep, that's right, the same Herman Cain whose fourth accuser had come out of the woodwork to declare that he stuck his hand up her dress and tried to push her face into his crotch. Kimmel began the show with the interview clip showing the alleged victim and her lawyer, the ubiquitous Gloria Allred. The Cain interview consisted of double entendres, suggestive jokes, bawdy laughter, and Kimmel encouraging Cain to be ever more outrageous. I did learn one useful thing--Cain's wife is a registered Democrat. Explains why she has been mostly absent from his campaign trail.