What year is this, anyway?

I can't decide if I'm living in the USSR, Czarist Russia, North Korea, Medieval Europe, or some combination thereof.  Or at least in a developing something the designers can't make up their minds where they're going with it all.

It's bad enough that Dominionists have been trying to remake American History to show the US as a Christian country.  But now, Oklahoma's legislature is trying to ban AP American History and replace it with some crackpot version of a perfect Christian America.

It seems they object to the technique of learning from the past by pointing out where we went wrong so future generations won't make the same mistakes.

I can understand how seeing your most cherished values being pointed out in school as mistakes and wrong might be upsetting.  But as a past (but reformed) Republican, I can testify from personal experience that one can learn from one's past and one can move on to a better way of thinking.

It really doesn't hurt at all.  It's kind of liberating, in fact.  Oh, sure, one does get the odd pang of regret if current events smack you in the face with something you used to think was cool but was really harmful.  But I see those as reinforcing the initial lesson.  Kind of like reminders:  "See?  Weren't you stupid then?  But you're smarter now!"  In the end, they remind you that you've come a long way, baby!

But I guess some folks just can't get past it.

I can understand that, really I can.

What I can't understand is why you'd want to paint over those past mistakes by turning our lovely country into a totalitarian nightmare.  Remaking the past is something we accused the Soviets and the Maoists of doing.  You know, those dirty commies who painted out the totalitarian rulers of their countries' past and replaced them with monsters to contrast with their own "perfect" replacement?

In our case, the Dominionists want to replace the very real monsters on our own past with visions of lollypops, candy canes and unicorns farting rainbows so their kids will never question Jesus.

Probably because they want to keep making the same mistakes and call them "family values".  Or whatever.

But in so doing, they are destroying what they claim to love about our country.  Its liberty.  Its freedom.  Whatever happened to "Truth, Justice, and the American way"?  Somewhere, on the way to the forum, it got lost.  Or waylaid, or mugged or something.  Probably something, because it sure ain't what I was taught it was supposed to be when I went to school.

Nobody taught me that it was Ok to lie, cheat, and steal your way into office, and when we learned about politicians who did, it was never presented as an honorable way to act.

The one thing Conservatives always forget in their zeal to protect their way of life is that all things come to an end.  People change.  Countries change.  Societies change, often rapidly.  The one thing about American Destiny that Conservatives always are proud of (and justifiably so) is the huge number of technological changes America was responsible for in the 19th century.  We were instrumental in an extremely rapid advancement of humanity out of the horse and buggy days and the days of direct fire based energy into the 20th century where our transportation methods were advanced by hundreds of years in just a few decades, and we marched into the age of electricity almost overnight.

The problem for Conservatives is that such technological changes always - always - bring social changes as well.  Old technologies die.  Remember the old buggy whipmaker example?  As I typed that, Autocorrect wanted to change it to "chipmaker".  So old professions die, too.

A few hundred years ago, the very best swords you could ask for were made with Damascus steel.  A decade or so ago, some guys trying to relearn the old ways of the blacksmiths realized that the techniques for making Damascus steel had been lost.  Nobody knows today how those swords were made.  We have made guesses, but we don't know.  Not for sure.  We may never know for sure.

That's because we can kill people faster, better and from farther away with weapons using gunpowder.  You don't win a war by showing up with Damascus steel swords.  That's how you die.

These changes are not made in a vacuum.  The social changes that come from dying professions, new classifications of devices, better and faster ways of doing things are and have been immense and have caused the old comfortable Patriarchy to be shaken to its foundations.

Young people in America today are overwhelmingly progressive.  They accept and think little about the homosexual issues of the day and are accepting a more equal role for women in jobs, marriage, and politics.  Demographically, the old Conservative way of thinking is dying, and probably won't survive more than another decade or two.

Dominionists and Conservatives (especially the ones who are both) know this, and are doing all they can to stretch out the days before they lose power.  Education of one of their best efforts.

Unfortunately, their efforts are unAmerican and damaging to our democracy to an extreme degree.

We shouldn't really let them get away with it.

Customer Service Par Excellence!

I have a fantastic story of customer service, folks.

Every year about this time, we order gifts for our grandkids (as do millions of other grandparents). What we have chosen to do is give gifts from online companies offering toys and such for kids with a scientific or educational theme. Brain teasers, science kits, puzzles, etc., all age specific.

The company we have settled on is one called Mindware.

This year, we ordered as usual, and one of the items we ordered had two separate boxes, one for patterns, and one for pictures. A magnetic mosaic kind of thing. The online catalog had three different order numbers, with one being for both boxes. We got that one.

But when the order came today, someone had mistakenly put two of the same type into the shipping box, meaning we didn't have the second one, for patterns.

So, we called their customer service to correct the error, expecting to get a return authorization and shipping label to return the wrong box.

Nope, didn't happen. Instead, as she set up the order to have the correct item shipped to us in just three days, she told us to DONATE the mis-shipped item!

Yes, you got that right, they are allowing us to keep the item that was sent by mistake, on the proviso that we donate it to a charity that will give it to a needy child for Christmas!

We have decided to donate it to Toys for Tots, run by the US Marines, which is being collected at my office this year.  (Every year, in fact)

THANK YOU, MINDWARE!!!

I am SO impressed by this company, I want all of you to share this story, because for a company to actually push donation as a solution to this kind of error is unheard of, and I think a wonderful solution it is!

Educational toys, learning toys for kids & children | MindWare Toys

www.mindware.com

MindWare is proud to be the best resource for educational toys, toys for education and learning toys for kids and children that engage and entertain. Your children will learn 

Education is critical! Fight back against the right wing attack!

The "National School Choice Week" is January 16 to February 1, 2014.  

Sounds good, right?  I mean, "choice" is always good, and is at the basis of our personal freedoms as guaranteed by the Constitution, right?

Right?

Well, that's the right wing's theme when it comes to education, anyway.  (Don't even think that word when talking about abortion, or women's health care, though, just sayin’!)  That’s what they want you to think - that the most important thing about education is your right to choose the school your kids go to.

The problem is, too many of even the most evangelical folks choose public education.  Why?  Cost.  Public education is free, supported by our taxes.  Why is that a problem for the right wing?  Because for every child who goes to public school, that represents thousands of dollars that does NOT get spent at sectarian, religious institutions!  (Not to mention the real science based education they often get instead of bible based mythology.)

That is why Republicans support school vouchers, under the rubric of “school choice”.  It is a way of taking public education dollars and funneling them into those sectarian, religious schools that most evangelicals cannot afford.

Enter "National School Choice Week”.  Their website is quite neutral sounding, and seems very benign.  They claim to be nonpartisan and politically neutral.  But in their handbook, listen to this:

 Open enrollment policies provide increased education options within traditional public schooling. Open enrollment allows parents to select the best public schools for their children, regardless of where those schools are located. Depending on the state or local open enrollment policy, this means that parents can choose any public school within a district (intra-district school choice), or, in some cases, outside of their home district (inter-district school choice).

Notice the language used here.  “…regardless of where those schools are located.”  This is traditional language used by parents who want to take their kids away from a local school filled with minorities and send them to a school across town where the percentages of white kids is higher.

School vouchers, also touted by these folks, takes the concept of choice one step further.  The idea is that parents should have the freedom to not only choose an alternative school for their kids, but take that public education money with them.  A voucher takes that money away from the local school their kids would have attended and gives it to the private institution they end up sending their kids to.

Which defunds that public school.  This is another tactic used by the right wing - defund public education as much as possible, under the excuse that the State is spending too much on schools and cannot afford the expense.   When the schools then begin to fail, criticize them, attack them and claim that public education is inefficient, ineffective and that private schools are better, cheaper and affords parents the choice public schools do not.

Obviously, this completely ignores the fact that a majority of parents, of whatever racial background, cannot afford private schools.  Enter the voucher program, which fortunately, is even more underfunded than the schools are, effectively limiting the vouchers to mostly white middle class parents sending their kids to religious evangelical schools!

Enter Sarah Jones, at Americans United for Separation of Church and State.  She has written an excellent critique of the “National School Choice Week” in the form of an open letter, written by Steve Nelson of Manhattan’s prestigious Calhoun School.

She quotes him at one point:

“You say you hope ‘schools that participate find the Week to be an enjoyable, rewarding and celebratory time.’ Is that really what you hope?” he wrote.

“Or do you hope that your work, funded by the most conservative, anti-union, anti-progressive and anti-teacher forces in America, will accelerate the demise of public education in America?”

She goes on to say:

As Nelson notes in his letter, National School Choice Week is funded by an array of conservative groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the Koch brothers and FreedomWorks, a Tea Party outfit that enjoys the support of former Fox News bloviator Glenn Beck.

Not exactly “non-partisan”, is it?

Education is the most important way we can ensure that the United States remains a First World country.  Without a good, effective educational system, our traditionally high standard of living will not be possible moving into the future.

Steve Jobs once famously told President Obama that one of the reasons companies are moving jobs overseas is that the science-educated workers companies need for high tech manufacturing are not as available in the US as they are in other countries.

Let’s fight the right wing attack on US public education, shall we?