Category Archives: Politics

The Audacity of the Tea Party and Affiliated Groups

The audacity of the Tea Party is amazing. I cannot believe they, along with the NRA, can stoop as low as they have in the past 5 years. Last week, while traveling in Michigan, I happened across a couple who set up a table alongside the road in front of a post office. They had a picture of President Obama with a square moustache in the form of the one worn by Hitler. Their sole purpose of being there was to advocate the removal of our president and state that he is like Hitler as well as cover the standard NRA rhetoric about the government wanting to take away guns; that the government knew about the Boston tragedy, and other typical propaganda spewed forth by the politically far right. I chose not to stop, as I needed to get my errands taken care of and back home. However, I should have stopped, as it is bothersome to me and likely to many others who passed.
For one reason, it is comparing our president to one of the worst dictator/genocidal maniacs ever to live. President Obama is not a dictator. He is the president. He has not illegally invaded a sovereign nation. He has not established martial law. He has not banned trade unions. He has not forced people into concentration camps. He has not established a gang of henchmen to do his bidding. He was legally elected and did not come to power in a coup or court-ordered fashion. Besides, if he were a dictator, then the people spewing forth this nonsense would be either dead or jailed.
Next is the rhetoric that the government knew about the Boston tragedy before it happened or somehow allowed someone involved in it to escape. Why in the heck would they do that? While another president allowed the family of a known terrorist to travel back to their native country during the air stoppage after 9-11, President Obama was as much shocked by the tragedy as everyone in the United States. Possibly more as he is the leader of our nation. The President reacted as a leader and allowed the law enforcement agencies to do their job and go after the perpetrators. He added the services of the F.B.I. as well to assist.
Finally, the government does not want to take away all the guns. They want to make certain that when guns are purchased that those buying them are trained in both how to use them as well as how to keep them safe. They want to make certain that those buying guns are not mentally unstable. They want owners to register their guns so that if the guns are stolen, then reported as such that the owner is not blamed if a criminal uses their gun to kill or hurt someone else. This is common sense. It makes so much sense that one cannot understand how someone translates this into taking the guns away from law- abiding citizens. Yes, in history, there likely were dictators who required registration of weapons so that they could then use it against gun owners in a negative fashion. This is highly unlikely here in the United States as a dictatorship is almost impossible to imagine given our governing system as well as the fact that Americans cannot band together in that large of numbers to agree on anything in the first place.

American Phallic Envy Needs Stopped

I never thought I would find myself agreeing with Sigmund Freud, but I think I know what the problem is for some Americans when it comes to firearms. The reason why the National Rifle Association exists and why some Americans cling to their need for bigger guns, larger ammunition clips, and are so adamant in their wanting enough firepower to handle a small war comes down to what Freud would call penis envy. Those gun fanatics have penis envy. They want it a larger gun than anyone else. They want to be able to fire more rounds than anyone else. They want to have more and more weapons than anyone else. This is like some teenager standing in a locker room shower wondering if his is substantial enough to please a woman.
Much like little boys, according to Freud, want to take their father’s place, but fear him cutting off their manhood; the gun fanatics are so afraid that they will lose their high-caliber phallic symbols to another male, in this case Uncle Sam. It does not matter to them that those same weapons are meant for nothing but to kill other people. It does not matter to them that the research is there that says firearms are more dangerous than any other weapon aside from nuclear weapons. It does not matter to them that their guns could be stolen and either used against them or against someone else. They feel that the Second Amendment gives them the right to own any weapon made to the point that some even feel it is a God-given right to own as many weapons as possible. There is no place in any Bible or other holy book that says people have the right given to them by the Creator to harm anyone else, except for in time of war and even that is to be avoided if someone is able to do so. That being the case, there is also no commandment saying that ‘Thou Shalt Own an Assault Rifle.’
I digress. What needs to happen is some serious therapy for these phallic envying people. They need to be educated that it is okay to have a smaller or fewer guns. They need to be educated that it is okay to have less number of bullets in the magazine. They need to be educated that it is okay to register their weapons as that is a safety measure that will protect them if their weapon is stolen and used by the criminal.
That brings me to another point with this. The NRA has long used the phrase that “Guns do not kill people. People do.”They fail to mention that it is far easier for people to kill other people when they have a gun. It is impersonal. It is not like a knife or a sword where you have to get up close and possibly use it multiple times to kill. It is not like using bare hands where you also have to get close to your victim. It is not like even a bow and arrow where you have to actually pull back to release it. You load a gun and it stays loaded until emptied or shot. There are no accidental shootings, only weapons improperly used, handled, or kept out loaded and accessible when they should be empty and locked away.
What should be done? We, as citizens of the United States, need to press our Congressmen and Congresswomen for meaningful gun laws. We need to stop allowing the NRA to dictate policy. Will criminals still be able to get weapons illegally? Probably, you cannot stop every one. However, will access to weapons be easy? No, but it should not be easy to have access to as many weapons as one may want nor to the number of bullets they may want. With gun ownership, should come responsibility. It is a huge responsibility to allow anyone to have anything that can kill with such accuracy or in such numbers as firearms can. None of us should need reminded of Columbine, the theater in Colorado, or Sandy Hook to understand that. Nor should we need reminded of the countless people killed every year through the irresponsible use of firearms. However, our elected officials need reminded of all of this as graphically as possible. Gabby Giffords is talking more and more about the need for it, especially after her near fatal attack by a gunman. The parents of the slain children at Sandy Hook are speaking more about it through their pain of loss. It is time for meaningful gun reform and an end to the worship of the phallic symbol—the gun.

Equality for All

Before I begin this post, I want to set the record straight and explain that I am a straight male. I find the feminine figure in all its many shapes and sizes quite alluring. I state this as I have often been labelled as something else when I speak out on the issue I am about to address today. With that said, I will proceed.

There is a serious Civil Rights struggle going on in our country, that in some ways, mirrors the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s. This time, however, it is not a matter of the color of a person’s skin that is the issue. Rather, it is their sexual orientation. There is a need to point out the covert and sometimes overt discrimination taking place in our country toward our homosexual brothers and sisters. They are being denied the right to marry. They are being denied the right to visit their partner if they are hospitalized. They are being denied access to the same services in some companies as their heterosexual counterparts can receive. These are examples of discrimination that needs to be stopped.

I recently read a news article about a couple in Washington State who wanted their favorite florist to provide flowers for their wedding. The proprietor, whom the couple had known for a while, politely told them she would not provide flowers for them due to her faith not condoning homosexuality. The article continues by trying to paint a positive picture of the proprietor as having hired gay employees and having gay customers in an attempt by her and her lawyers to show she is not a discriminatory person. The term they used in the article for her reasoning not to provide flowers was that she was a conscientious objector. Conscientious objector?!? This is not her being called to fight in a war. She runs a business that is open to the public. As such, she needs to provide service to whomever has the monetary means for them. It sounds a little like the time when Blacks in our country would have to wait in separate areas or go to the back door of a restaurant to be served.

This is not an isolated incident. National headlines have shown major corporations, restaurants, and civic groups taking an anti-homosexual stance either in open practice or in the causes to which they contribute. They are temporarily boycotted, picketed, or subject to a ‘kiss-in’; however, the media’s thrill for the story dies down and the status quo kicks in again.

Those who advocate for Gay Rights need to think about taking some pages out of the Civil Rights Movement’s playbook. They need to organize marches, sit-ins, speeches, letter writing campaigns to politicians, media advertising, and other non-violent methods to get the public’s attention to the violations of civil rights that they face on a daily basis. One way to do this would be to combat one of the oldest stereotypes about homosexuals, particularly males. That is the myth that gay men are pedophiles. They are not. A pedophile is a social deviant who preys on children. A homosexual is simply someone who is attracted to their own sex (and age range). They do not want to rape children or even each other. The majority of homosexuals, male and female alike, simply want to fins someone special to spend their lives with like so many heterosexuals do freely.

Our gay brothers and sisters should be free to live their lives and receive the same rights that heterosexuals have. They need to be free to live without being stigmatized, ostracized, or demonized. It is time for equality for all people.

Paths to the same Eternity

The idea that we are at war with any religion is ludicrous. We are at war with extremists. We are at war with those who believe that they have the right to harm others to further their cause. Religion plays no real part in the war in which we are now engaged. The only ones who believe so are the extremists on their side and on our side.
Recently, a so-called member of the media called for the extermination of those who are Islamic in faith in the event the perpetrators of the tragedy in Boston happened to be Islamic. In doing so, he placed himself at the level of those who call for the extermination of all Christians as well as those who once called for the extermination of the Jews. Hate is not the cornerstone of any of the main religions of the world. Jesus preached that Christians were to love everyone. Mohammed preached to care for others and that is a basic tenet of the Islamic faith. The Jewish faith calls for love as well. Buddhism calls for peace and love. There is no call for killing anyone based solely on faith. We are at war for a variety of reasons, but none of them is about religion.
Rather than listen to the idle ramblings of the extremists, we need more people to speak the truth that we are in this world together. We may not like one another, but we need to do our best to get along by finding the common ground we share as humans and focusing on it rather than one what divides us. We may even find out that our religious beliefs are not that different either. We are all on different paths to the same eternity. If we would just focus on the journey rather than the path, we might get along better.

The Tragedy in Boston

I will start off my saying that my thoughts and prayers, like many of those from thousands of people in the world, go out to the City of Boston, the runners, and all the spectators-both injured, killed, their families, and those who will forever live with the events of Monday on their minds. This senseless act serves as a reminder how fragile life is and how there are sick people in our world who seek nothing but to harm others. It is a shameful act of terrorism regardless if it is domestic or foreign.

It was heartening to hear the reports, though, of Bostonians who reached out to help. The runners who went to donate blood to help the victims. The people who were willing to house strangers who were left without housing due to the tragedy. This goes to show how wonderful people really are when faced with a crisis. We will go out to help one another. That gives one some hope in humanity in the face of inhumanity.

However, the posts from people who wish to place the tragic events of Monday 15 April 2013 as being some type of government plan to install martial law and even a dictatorship, are reprehensible. These people from the fringes of reality wish to court discord amid the acts of generosity and harmony witness in the selfless acts of those who volunteered to assist in any way they could. They should be ashamed of themselves.

Unfortunately, there are those who will listen to those deranged people as they spew out their anti-government diatribes. It is my hope that saner minds will prevail and speak out against these forces of darkness in our world.

It is also my hope that the law enforcement agencies investigating this tragedy will discover those who perpetrated this heinous crime against humanity and bring him, her, or them to justice. It does not matter whether those who committed this crime are domestic or foreign because, either way, they are sick mentally and spiritually for doing this to innocent people.

In the interim while the investigation continues, let us remain prayerful to the Creator that we trust in the goodness of humanity rather than succumb to the urges to pass blame without facts to back it up. The Creator will judge all people in time. Let us love in all times.

Standardized testing is NOT the answer

I have been thinking a great deal about education in our country lately. Much of this comes from my own experience teaching at both the middle school and high school levels, although even my experience teaching at the community college level lends itself to some of this as it is there that the results of the K-12 education comes to light. Simply put, high-stakes, standardized testing is not the answer to the problems facing education. I am not saying that standardized testing is not a valuable tool, just that it is being used in the inappropriate manner. It was never meant to be used to prevent students from graduating, nor was it meant to be used to evaluate the ability of the teacher to do their job. It was meant to be used with student grades from their classes to help teachers plan and meet the academic needs of their students for the coming year. For example, a second grade student would take a standardized test in the Spring of their second grade year. When the results arrived, their current teacher would evaluate it in conjunction with the grades the student was earning in the class to determine if the student was on track with the curriculum. That information would then be sent to the teacher the student would have for their third grade year for their use in planning the curriculum for the following year.

All of this sounds pretty logical, right?

However, certain groups started thinking that standardized tests measured the overall student achievement aside from grades. Those groups then convinced politicians that standardized tests could be used instead of teacher assessments and observations to determine if students were learning. This somehow snowballed into believing that all students could learn at the same level if certain pedagogical methods were used. What this fails to take into account is that students are not the same, that is to say that they are not clones of the ideal student. Like every other human being, our students are individuals and their differences in genetics, socioeconomic backgrounds, nutrition, and meeting of other basic needs will affect their ability and motivation to learn. While the threat of being retained in a grade if they fail to pass a standardized test may work to motivate some students to learn, it will not work for all students. Based on my observations in the classroom, many students who have failed a number of times on standardized tests simply give up trying to pass them at all. When faced with the threat of not graduating, they simply stop caring and are either aged out of the educational system or quit on their own. This is a travesty in our educational system. No student is incapable of learning. They just need the right approach to learning in order to learn.

The right approach to learning is complicated to explain. In essence, it is that each student needs to be taught in a way that fits their way of learning the material. In addition to this, students need to be challenged in their learning without being intimidated by what they are learning. An example of this comes from my own experience in the classroom. I want to preface this with the caveat that it is not intended to work in every classroom because every class, even of matched ability students, does not function the same. I even needed to change the approach of what was taught to fit the needs of the class as a whole as well as each student as an individual.

I taught Advanced Placement (AP) English Language and Composition as well as an Exceptional Student Education (ESE) English III class. What I did, though, was teach the same material to both classes. I can hear the gasps from the pedagogical gurus already. How dare I take college-level work and try to teach it to “special education” students? I counter with how dare I not challenge all of my students?!? What I did was present the material to the ESE class in such a way that never told them they were learning at the college-level. More simply put, I did not tell them they were working on material that was meant for those students who were supposedly smarter than they were. I also gave them the safety net of more time to grasp the material and spent more time, in some cases, explaining the material to them more than I did with the students in the AP class. A funny thing happened, the ESE students mastered the material faster than the AP students. In some cases, the ESE students exceeded the AP students in effort and mastery of the material. It was only at the end of the year that I told the ESE students that they learned the same thing that was taught in the AP class. The look of pride on their faces, some of whom had not been proud of what they accomplished in school for years, was priceless. For many of these students, it served as their motivation to work through their senior year and graduate. Many of them also went off to college after graduation, a feat that they never thought was possible when they started their junior year with me.

Now, I will admit there was another component that these students and I had that some teachers either refuse to do or do not have the ability to master. We had a rapport with one another. I set certain ground rules with them when the year started and they followed them. I shared my thoughts and feelings with them and they with me. If a student was having a bad day, they agreed to talk about it rather than act out in my class. If they acted out, we talked about it after class. I did not, or at least tried not, to take on the role of dictator in the classroom, but rather a mentor and teacher for my students. Did I connect with all of them? No. There will always be personality conflicts between people and there were just some students who did not care or wanted to do what they thought was cool rather than learn. They were not ready to learn for a myriad of reasons and were unwilling to confront those reasons in order to prepare themselves for learning.

This leads to a related key in the education of our students, especially at the middle and high school levels. They need to learn not just the material, but about who they are in this world. Students at these levels are trying to find out who they are outside of being their parent’s child. Teachers need to help them with that as well as teach them the subject material. If you can connect the two, then so much the better. Many of our students have parents who either over-direct their lives, try to be their child’s best friend, or are absent from their lives. As teachers, we have the ability to be the authority figure they need, but also the mentor they need to navigate life. It is an awesome responsibility for teachers and some just cannot meet it.

I am not saying we need to be parents to our students, but mentors. There is a difference. We cannot push our personal, moral, or political agendas on them. What we can do is give them the freedom to express their opinions in a safe environment and help them think through why they have those opinions while exposing them to opinions opposite theirs and helping them to understand and respect why others believe differently than they.

But more about that later, I have written enough for today. Peace to all.

Treasonous Tea

We the People of the United States…. Those words that form the beginning of our Constitution almost no longer seem relevant in the governing of our country. We have, as a whole, turned our backs on self-governing and become complacent in our duty to hold our elected officials accountable to us. Instead, we have allowed them to bastardize our rights and, rather than representing us the people, they represent special interest groups and those who hold the most wealth in our county. This is a travesty and an insult to our founders and their ideal of a country governed of the people, by the people, and for the people.
For all practical purposes, the opening words of the Constitution should read something like: We the Wealthy or We the mega-corporations, or even, we the special interest groups rather than We the People. We have allowed ourselves to follow blindly the rhetorical fecal matter propounded by special interests through their purchased politicians. We have bought into the idea that the wealthy and corporate leaders have our best interests in mind as they feed their purchased politicians and media outlets with rhetoric designed to play well with the less informed or simply apathetic minds within our society. The reality of it is that those same special interests and wealthy persons have only one thing in mind—their own self-preservation and the attainment of more wealth. They tell us the dare not pay their fair share of taxes because it will stunt the economy and job growth. If the wealthy, who pay less percentagewise in taxes than the average worker, truly were in the business of job creation, then there should be no unemployment. Instead, we hear and witness their taking in record profits while there are a record number of workers who are unemployed. This is not job creation; it is the creation of more wealth for the wealthy on the backs of the poor, working, and middle classes.
What is more is that those people who we have elected to represent us rake in billions of dollars from these corporations and wealthy individuals to support their campaigns for re-election while still drawing a salary that is paid out of taxpayer dollars. So, why do we continue to allow them to draw this salary if they are not representing the people who elected them? Apathy? Ignorance? Either way, it is not right.
We the People need to organize a new revolution against the tyranny of special interest driven politicians! If our elected officials are not representing our interests and only wish to further the agenda of corporate giants and the wealthy, then we need to recall them from their offices and replace them with those who will do the will of the people. Otherwise, we are a pathetic bunch of sheep simply following the wolves to our slaughter.
The dictionary defines the word treason in three principle ways:
1. The offense of acting to overthrow one’s government or harm or kill its sovereign.
2. A violation of allegiance to one’s sovereign or to one’s state.
3. The betrayal of a trust or confidence; breach of faith; treachery.
Given the current circumstances and these definitions, then there are plenty of officials who are kowtowing to special interests and they are guilty of treason against the American people who are the foundation of our representative government. They must be impeached and replaced by people who will represent ALL people rather than a select few. We have heard news reports of these same purchased politicians make threatening references toward our President and We the People with their goals of making certain that nothing good is accomplished within our government unless their demands—that is the demands of their special interests—are met. They are holding our country hostage!
Why have they not been removed from office? The simple answer to that is that We the People have not the courage to act further than to verbally complain about their treasonous actions.
The time for words is over!
It is time for We the People to take non-violent, constitutionally sound action to remove these treasonous politicians from office! I am not calling for armed revolt, but intend for us to truly take our government back to being of the People, by the People, and for the People rather than for only a select few or for the corporate greed monsters.
It is time for We the People to hold our elected officials accountable to us rather than their corporate handlers!
It is time for We the People to stand up and stand together in solidarity to force those elected to represent us rather than allow them to continue their haughty mistreatment of our right to fair and equitable representation!
It is time for We the People to demand action from our elected officials that is in line with the betterment of our country and citizenry as a whole!
The Time is now for We the People who love our country and its freedoms to take a stand or else continue to suffer the consequences of our apathy for our generations and the generations to come!

Civil Rights Crisis being ignored

There is a civil rights crisis in America that remains unspoken. It has nothing to do with Blacks, Hispanics, or Asians. It concerns the indigenous people of America. The very people who settled here long before the first European landed on the shores of our land. The Native American people remain the most impoverished in our country and rarely do we ever hear about them. Rarely do we find campaigns waged on their behalf finding their way into mainstream media. It is almost as if they do not exist, except for old movies where they are depicted as savages or drunks. It is shameful that we allow these noble and great people to live in squalor that matches or rivals that of third world countries. They were here first. It was our ancestors who drove them from their lands, made treaties that we broke, and continue to keep them locked in a vicious cycle of poverty. They need and deserve to be heard. They need and deserve to be given the skills necessary to achieve a higher standard of living.
According to Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity, 25.3 percent of Native Americans live in poverty and 29.9 percent do not have health insurance. They further state that most tribes do not have casinos or even much tourism due to their remote locations. They give a stark example of how bad it is through a reference to the Blackfoot Reservation located in Montana. Here the unemployment rate is a staggering 69 percent. That is unacceptable for a people who once lived prosperously across our country.
Aside from the location of many of the reservations that the United States Government forced upon the Native Americans being remote from urban areas where employment might be found, the problem of low high school graduation rates hinders a better life for Native Americans. According to an article from Diverse-Issues in Higher Education from 2010, “fewer than 50 percent of Native American and Alaska Native students from the Pacific and Northwest regions of the U.S. graduate from high school.” Graduation rates for Native Americans as a whole “average 46.6 percent” across our country while the graduation rate for other ethnicities in the U.S. range from a high of 77.9 percent for Asians to 50.8 percent for Hispanics (Diverse). Among the reasons given for the high dropout rate for Native Americans, according to the article, are “lack of student engagement, perceived lack of empathy among teachers, passive teaching methods, and lack of parent involvement.” These are problems that can be solved in the educational realm provided the funding exists and teachers are well trained for the needs of Native American students. This is not unlike the widespread efforts that continue to assist students who are speakers of other languages that exist in our schools. The article points out a list of strategies needed to “reduce dropout rates. These strategies include avoiding policies that demean, embarrass, harass, or alienate native students; providing opportunities for students’ involvement in their language and culture; and better preparation for educators who work with American Indians.”
Again, this is much like what educators in areas having large Hispanic or other immigrant populations already must learn and practice in order to reach their non-native students. In those situations, we have dual language classrooms in some areas and mandatory workshops on strategies needed to teach English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL). In Florida where I taught, for example, all teachers need at least 60 hours of ESOL training and those teaching English/Language Arts need 300 hours in ESOL training or an ESOL endorsement on their teaching licenses. We also had many schools where the diversity of their students was celebrated through cultural activities highlighting all cultures.
Native American students should be encouraged to learn and share their native culture within their schools. There should be lessons where their cultural diversity should be integrated within the curriculum along with the diversity of the other cultures within their schools. For those Native Americans who are educated on schools located within reservations, they need teachers who are well trained in the culture of the tribe or tribes that are located within the reservation. Those teachers can then embrace that culture and utilize it to enhance the curriculum that will enhance student learning and understanding. Along with this, there needs to be more technology within Native American schools so that the students are able to master the skills necessary for them to bring jobs that are more prosperous to their communities. Native American parents need to be encouraged to get involved in their student’s education through volunteer opportunities. Native American schools need to encourage adults who lack job skills to gain them through classes geared toward their needs. The cycle of poverty that appears rampant on many reservations can be curtailed with education that is delivered in harmony with their cultural beliefs.
Along these lines, more needs to be done to address the severe poverty that grips many who live on the more remote reservations. While tribal laws can sometimes be complicated, surely there must be some way that tribal leaders and those outside the reservations can work together to come to some way to assist those living on reservations in gaining a better infrastructure both physically and technologically. In an ever-increasing global economy, being remote from urban areas should be a bridge that is easily crossed through better technology and technological skills.
Why are we as a country choosing to ignore the situation faced by many Native Americans? Part of their situation is due to our past practices in attempting to exterminate them from what were their lands in the first place; this includes forcing them onto reservation lands that were either far from their native lands or into portions of them that are distant from infrastructure that could assist them in bettering their situation. Therefore, it should fall in part onto us to help them change their circumstances for the better.
As with all of my posts to this blog, I know I do not have the all the answers to the problem. However, I do want to give some food for thought that will hopefully bring about a change for the better.