Did you go to the polls?

Tuesday was election day. Sure, you've heard a lot about Zohran Mamdani and NYC. He wasn't on your ballot, although Communism was--subtle, but it was there. There were many local issues and candidates in Columbus, and it was our first time to vote here--we'd been living in the suburbs about 1/2 mile from here. But the critical issue on our ballot and yours was the school board. It was not the zoo, although I did vote for that renewal; it was not the roads, which are awful. I don't know anything about the Columbus school system (shame on me for thinking it didn't matter) but I had seen what was happening in our suburb--moving to the left and costing us more for the slippery slope to progressivism. This is not an accident; there is a plan and it is very well-funded by people, non-profits and foreign actors--specifically China. The candidates may not even know they've been ensnared in a plan to collapse the USA. You start with the children.

Mamdani is an immigrant with inherited wealth from his Indian parents (one Hindu one Muslim) who was born in Uganda and grew up in Cape Town, South Africa. He's had no employment experience but did begin his career just a few years ago as a volunteer in a senate campaign. Not a school board, but small. Someone knows the funding source, but not me.

Why did so many women vote for Trump?

Although I haven't read it yet, First Things has an article "How Trump won over women voters."  How Trump Won Over Women Voters | Rachel Bovard | First Things I'll give my own opinion and read it later--usually you can read that excellent religion and culture journal free for one or two times.

 
My take. Although highly paid and over-educated women as a group do lean to the left and are easily led because they are too busy with career and kids to carefully research the issues of the day, most women care about their budget, their children's education, their neighborhood, the safety of their families and community, and they love being women. They may love men, but don't want to compete with them for restroom facilities or athletic scholarships. Also, they don't like wimpy, childish men. Really.

 
That would sum up a Trump voter, or at least a voter who realized Harris didn't align with their values no matter who was running against her. Women voters knew, because Harris said so, that she was the last person in the room when Joe signed off on the Afghanistan bug out, when he showed the world how weak and feckless he was throwing us into 2 wars with no vote from Congress, and how she went along with the country lock down mandates, how the churches closed without a whimper from fear, and how children were unnecessarily forced to get the jab or be locked out of their schools and athletic events. Women voters saw other women being cancelled for speaking out or deciding not to run for school board or city council out of fear of retaliation. Women voters saw their own grocery bills and housing costs soar while illegals were being housed and fed in hotels. https://nypost.com/.../nyc-now-using-14-hotels-to-house.../

"In the real world, where the vast majority of American women actually live, this shift was inevitable. Most American women are turning to the right because the elite left has turned against most American women.

According to exit polls, women voters’ top concerns in 2024 were the economy and “threats to our democracy.” By contrast, Democrats’ top campaign messages were “abortion-on-demand” and “Orange Man Bad.” 

Maybe their marching song instead of "I am woman hear me roar" (1972) became "I am woman respect my body and my vote" (2024).

DeVos, Du Bois and Biden da boss

Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote about W.E.B. Du Bois, “One idea he insistently taught was that black people have been kept in oppression and deprivation by a poisonous fog of lies… " And so the Democrat party media continue the racist tradition with Wokeism. 

Remember when Betsy DeVos, the Secretary of Education under Trump, tried to honor W.E.B. Du Bois as an educator? His name appeared as DeBois in the text, and the media (beginning probably with Twitter) went crazy. Two people with a European De Du D in their surname indicating a connection to nobility or the land in the same sentence. The media were already calling her racist because she wanted parents to have a choice in schools, something I think Du Bois would have approved of. But oh horror! De instead of a Du!!! It's a horrible microaggression in the Trump administration. At least she didn't pronounce his name the French way (Bwa meaning wood) using the English Bois (like in Boise without the e). And I think her name Vos is pronounced Vahs, so I usually get that wrong. Not sure who I'm offending. The point being, the media had to go woke, if it was a Trump cabinet member. Put the worst possible slant on names not commonly found in American English. 

And shouldn't we all speak clearly like Joe Biden who said " Well, I tell you what, if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black," to a black radio host during the 2020 campaign.

Fairfax County schools aren't Fair, they are woke

Thomas Jefferson High School in Fairfax, VA is an outstanding school with competition to enroll. Now its reputation is besmirched by some equity administrators who decided they could help black students by hurting Asian students. Why are there no calls for equity in sports? What if only 13% of all football scholarships could go to blacks and 7% had to be Asians? Now they are finding out it might be "systemic," with more than TJ administrators in on the game. https://wjla.com/news/local/thomas-jefferson-high-school-miyares-fairfax-county-schools-investigation-fcps-tj-controversy-award-national-merit-scholarship-delay-governor-glenn-youngkin-launch-attorney-general-ann-bonitatibus-parents-students-virginia-education

Racism is ugly. It's ugly when it's used against blacks and Mexicans and it's ugly when it's used against Whites and Asians. When we allow these D.I.E. mission and goals to infect our schools, businesses, military, award shows, investments, and churches it's just Jim Crow 2.0 in black face. And Jim Crow laws from the 1880s to the 1960s were a Democrat party method to choose winners and losers on the basis of race. Now the anti-white, anti-Asian push is being used to divide our nation and to make others sit in the back of the bus.

Unpopular truths about education by Michael Smith, Utah

Here are some truths unpopular with the Democrats, the media and all their left-wing allies:
Preventing a third grader from reading pornography at school under the watch of a radical teacher is not “banning books”. If parents want their children to read such “literature”, they can check Amazon or a local bookstore and buy the book to read at home, under parental supervision - just as if they want their kids to see drag shows, there is nothing preventing parents from taking their tender age children to them. No law prevents it.

Teaching “Black History” is not banned from school curricula. What is banned is a radical, pseudo-historical agenda that teaches whites are evil and responsible for every bad thing that has ever happened, thereby advancing a leftist, anti-religion, anti-capitalist agenda.

J6 was not an “insurrection”. It was thousands of Americans upset by a government unresponsive to their concerns about the 2020 election. Democrats love to say that there was no evidence of fraud or corruption, which is easy to say after the agencies duty-bound to look decided not to look – the Supreme Court, the DOJ and even Congress refused to even consider how laws passed and executive actions taken at the state level, some in direct violation of their own state constitutions, could change the outcomes. So, this was a constitutionally protected “redress of grievances” that, based on information we now have about FBI informants imbedded long before the crowd formed, the fact Capitol Police were at least tangentially involved and President Trump’s requests for additional security was ignored, was ALLOWED to become a riot.

Overturning Roe and Dobbs did NOT ban abortion. It returned the issue to the states because the Supreme Court does not have the power to decide state issues. Some states will legalize abortion up to birth, some will ban it entirely – as is the right of the people of those states.

There is no “white supremacy”. Democrats have redefined “white supremacy” as anything that arose from the same Western civilization and culture that produced the ideas, ideals, principles, and philosophy that created America by declaring that all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among them are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

There is no white supremacist pogrom against Asian, LGBQ, or transgender people. Almost all violent attacks on these classes are by members of non-white groups.

LGBTQ, transgender and minority characters are overrepresented in the entertainment and advertising industries. Studies have shown that the characters presented in advertisements and in entertainment programming are represented in excess of their percentage of the population. In fact, most minorities promoted as spokespeople were selected and promoted by white liberals in the media/entertainment management structure (MSNBC, the View, CNN, etc.) for political effect. No straight, cis-gendered, successful black conservatives are allowed.

The border is NOT secure (or even a concern for the Biden administration). An influx of over 5.6 million illegal aliens in the past two years, plus another estimated 1 million “getaways”, is simply a matter of government reporting. It is happening every day because this Administration wants it and has turned the Border Patrol into tour guides and paper processors.

The Great Replacement is not a conspiracy. Here it is Chuck Schumer’s own words from yesterday (note that Schumer unequivocally supports abortion of American citizens):

“Now more than ever, we’re short of workers. We have a population that is not reproducing on its own with the same level that it used to. The only way we’re going to have a great future in America is if we welcome and embrace immigrants - the DREAMers and all of them — cause our ultimate goal is to help the DREAMers but get a path to citizenship for all 11 million, or however many undocumented there are here.”

Crime is rising. Specially, but not limited to, minority dominated inner city areas, criminals are being returned to the streets with incredible velocity. That’s not an opinion, that is merely a statistical fact, state and federal statistics prove it.

The economy is not “strong as hell”. The unemployment statistics touted by the Biden Administration fail to note that there are still over a million fewer people in the active workforce than in March of 2020, that many of those people who are employed are working two lesser paying jobs, median family income has fallen drastically and what savings or retirement funds people have been able to squirrel away are being eaten by inflation created by the massive debt-based spending of the Biden Administration and the Democrat controlled Congress.

Inflation is real. It is not transitory, it is not a figment of our imagination, it simply costs more just to live today than it did two years ago, and the rise in inflation is directly correlated with the Democrats taking control of government.

Biden did not “cut the deficit”, nor did he create a historical economic turnaround. This bunch of prevaricators based their claims on the economic disaster created by the pandemic lockdowns that ran for almost a year after March 2020. These actions were mostly enacted by Democrat governors, and many of the “temporary” restrictions continue today, so they are claiming record success in recovering from disasters they caused. It may be mathematically true, but it is most certainly a lie of omission.
“Green” is a scam. “Green” energy simply cannot replace fossil fuels in the global economy, at least for the foreseeable future. We have decades of data to prove its ineffectiveness. Germany is a case in point. Perhaps more than any other country, Germany went all in on “green” energy only to face a cold winter now that its natural gas supply from Russia has been cut off. Sri Lanka is another. Government mandated “organic” farming was a disaster and Sri Lanka is now forced to import food to feed its people.

The GOP is not fascist or authoritarian, but the Democrat Party is. In almost every case, the real fascists are Democrats who, as in the case of abortion, want to take the decisions out of the people of the states as mandated by the Tenth Amendment, and “nationalize” them, forcing people in Texas, Florida, or Mississippi to accept the same limits as people in New York, California, or Pennsylvania, when the those are markedly different from cultural perspectives. The same in schools when they attempt to mandate the mainstreaming of subjects to which parents object. The Democrats are, and are doing, exactly what the accuse the GOP of doing and being.

This is the reality.

And this is what Republicans should be shouting to the heavens.

Laying siege to the Institutions--Christopher Rufo

Christopher Rufo is the new "hate on him" guy that the Left loves to ridicule and demean. Why? Because he exposes Wokeism, CRT, trans-agenda, queer theory, intersectionality, etc. with the Sword of Truth, and a clear explanation of their own Leftist/Marxist history and direction. What looks like chaos to you, is well planned."The leftist dream of a working-class rebellion in America fizzled after the ’60s. By the mid-1970s, radical groups like the Black Liberation Army and the Weather Underground had faded from prominence. But the leftist dreamers didn’t give up. Abandoning hope of a Russian-style revolution, they settled on a more sophisticated strategy—waging a revolution not of the proletariat, but of the elites, and specifically of the knowledge elites. It would proceed not by taking over the means of production, but by taking control of education and culture—a strategy that German Marxist Rudi Dutschke, a student activist in the 1960s, called “the long march through the institutions.”

This idea is traceable to Italian communist Antonio Gramsci, who wrote in the 1930s of “capturing the culture via infiltration of schools, universities, churches, and the media by transforming the consciousness of society.”

This march through our institutions, begun a half-century ago, has now proved largely successful. Over the past two years, I’ve looked at the federal bureaucracy, the universities, K-12 schools, and big corporations. And what I’ve found is that the revolutionary ideas of the ’60s have been repackaged, repurposed, and injected into American life at the institutional level." https://christopherrufo.com/laying-siege-to-the-institutions/

Controlling K-12 of public and private education is essential. Why else have the DoJ attack parents? The younger the better. Perhaps the only Biblical principal the Left has learned well, is Proverbs 22:6--"Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it." In my opinion, the Leftists are the losers with old, tired ideas in contrast to our U.S. Constitution (which they hate) has the fresh, recent and revolutionary ideas. The only similarity might be that the 60s Weather Underground and the 2011 Occupy Movement were the white, young, wealthy and best educated; our Founders were also white, young, wealthy and well educated. The difference is the radicals of the 1960s and 21st century were spoiled brats and guilt ridden by their own abundance. Their only desire was/is to create chaos--and the plan now begins in the schools--even pre-K. To create confusion about family, marriage, sex, religion, purpose, meaning, ambition, merit, etc.

Do as I say, not as I do--how progressive are Democrats

https://youtu.be/hNDgcjVGHIw

When Democrats have the power, just how progressive are they?

Start with housing.  The vote down low income housing--but they say they want it.

Then tax codes.  The wealthiest pay the lowest tax rate--but they are Democrats.  Texas is more liberal than Washington state on taxes.

What about education?  World class in every zip code? 140 districts in one county--Cook in Illinois. So there is great inequity in funding schools.  Same in wealthy Connecticut.  Liberals don't want to share. Than blame Republicans for the crises in blue states.

This video had about 6 million view when I watched it.

Reasons for the latest hate crime fake memes

There are at least 8 reasons I can come up with causing the media and the Biden Administration to be focusing on "hate crimes against Asians" this past week. It even got Biden out of the house for a trip. Take your pick. All are true--the links aren't hard to find. You can add your on opinion. Let's see if they can squeeze as much angst and money out of this as they did the garage pull rope.

1. The media and co-conspirators in academe need to continue the white supremacy/white racism charges to demean all whites, even though in rate and number, most "hate crimes" against Asian Americans the aggressors are black.

2. President Trump called the SARS Cov 2 virus by the country, China and city of origin Wuhan. Although the media did also last Spring, it has become verboten now. The National media and Big Tech have to continue hateful attacks against him to please their base and earn back the money they lost when he left office. They truly need to call him xenophobic and racist, although the variants of Covid19 are being called the UK variant, the Brazilian variant, the Australian variant, and the media aren't calling themselves xenophobic. In fact, if you look up UK Variant, CNN is really whipping that fear pony.

3. Women from S.E. Asia are victims of human trafficking and frequently work in massage parlors and hair and manicure establishments. The media are not focusing on THAT real hate crime. They'll need to do more investigation or be called soft on slavery. Someone in government would appreciate less attention on illegal prostitution and trafficking. Much of it comes in through the porous border. An investigation could get a reporter in big trouble. The world wide slave trade is bigger than the 18th century trans-Atlantic slave trade. The source is still Africa, and to a lesser degree Asia. If Leftists were to concentrate on that tragedy, how would they have enough time to reinvent microaggressions in the U.S. by whites?

4. Lumped together in the artificial category of the U.S. census, Asian Americans are the most successful, most educated, and wealthiest demographic. They really reflect American values of family, education and hard work. Asian Americans (40 different ethnicities) do better than any other group, all the way from Indians ($101,591) to Chinese ($69,586) to Pakistani ($62,848) to Bangladeshi ($44,512). (Nielsen report on Asian Americans, 2017)

5. Asian Americans vote heavily Democrat, support liberal causes, but are small in number and generally not activists. Separated out, there are many new arrivals, particularly from southeast Asia who do not come close to the top earners--Indian, Chinese, Japanese and Filipino. So this group is ripe for pickin' by the Democrats. How better to achieve this than making them victims?

6. Indian-Americans and Chinese-Americans are increasingly being discriminated against by major, elite (Democrat run) universities. One of the top high schools in Fairfax, VA has a 73% enrollment by Asians (particularly Chinese-Americans). This is causing unhappiness, and law suits. So it's time for the Democrats to use yet another crisis and misfortune to shore up their soft side.

7. Until very recently, the U.S. Census considered people of South Asia and the Middle East--Indians, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Egyptians, Persians, etc.--white. With the waving of the Civil Rights flag and the government money by becoming a pan-Asia group they are now POC, People of Color. They became a "socially disadvantaged minority group," eligible for all sorts of government goodies, despite the facts and data like marriage rates, college enrollment, longevity, achievement in business, health statistics made that a lie.

8. Because Asian Americans are the wealthiest group, they pay a larger percentage of their income in taxes than whites, blacks, and Hispanics, and thus are more disadvantaged by our wealth transfer system. Asian Americans are more likely to be paying for non-tax payers to receive money from the government. Maybe the Democrats need to take the focus off their tax increases by creating a crisis?

Biden’s illegal immigration plan

https://youtu.be/dZ-w86r12Uw No social distancing, no masks, no quarantines. No isolation of sex criminals. Releasing drug cartel members. It's Biden's plan to control the virus and the opioid crisis.

The lockdowns of schools, churches, libraries and social activities have hurt the children in low income families the most. Democrats and their allies in the unions are once again using government control to hurt minorities. Systemic racism? How about just systemically Democrat party with business as usual? And equal opportunity plan to hurt all children, but hurts minorities more. We don't really need statistical models to tell us what we already know.

Achievement gap and coronavirus | McKinsey

How much learning students lose during school closures varies significantly by access to remote learning, the quality of remote instruction, home support, and the degree of engagement. For simplicity’s sake, we have grouped high-school students into three archetypes. First, there are students who experience average-quality remote learning; this group continues to progress, but at a slower pace than if they had remained in school.⁴ Second, some students are getting lower-quality remote learning; they are generally stagnating at their current grade levels. Then there are students who are not getting any instruction at all; they are probably losing significant ground. Finally, some students drop out of high school altogether.

The old Democrat line again

At a Townhall yesterday, Biden said, "No one should work 40 hours a week and live in poverty." According to government statistics, no one does. Even during the Clinton administration decades ago, it was shown that to avoid poverty 3 things are required.

1) Finish high school,

2) be over 21 and married before having children, and

3) have a full time job.

Just those three can lift most children from poverty and break the cycle. If both parents are working 40 hours a week even at minimum wage (the old one) the family won't qualify for poverty programs because their income would be too high. It's not that there aren't exceptions like mental illness or intellectual deficiencies, alcoholism, drug abuse and illness which might prevent full time work, but overall, Joe is lying to us.

This speech was the old Democrat chant and whine for more money to redistribute among their faithful, and that ours is not a land of opportunity. You can never make America great again under Joe because legislation will prevent it.

Democrats continue to make these 3 simple rules, articulated in the 1990s by Ron Haskins in a Brookings report, difficult for the low income.

1) They denigrate and ridicule the value of marriage/children in all the cultural areas they control,

2) they weaken the necessary moral principals to sustain the education system by focusing on intersectional, racial and social issues leaving millions of children uneducated in the basics for employment, and

3) they make it difficult for young people to get good employment through programs that punish the employers, like raising the minimum to job killing levels.

Prepping for the election debate

USAFacts.org is an excellent source of what local, state, federal entities spend using all the statistical sources that are published such as crime, health, and education.  But because most of these organizations lean left even with interpreting dry statistics, one can still see a bias in how the “facts” are presented.  Today it is outlining which topics might come up in the debate between Biden and Trump, such as “defund” the police.” US Census Bureau’s 2017 State & Local Government Finance Historical Datasets is the source of the data.

It begins with a graph you should be familiar with—the drastic drop in crime since its peak in the early 90s. Then it goes on to break out how much counties and states spend locally on their responsibilities like education, law enforcement, public health, etc.  Education, of course is the biggie—almost 50% of local budgets go for that (very little comes from the federal government). The second highest expense at the local level is law enforcement, but it’s only 9.2%.

So the way this is framed is that it law enforcement is the second highest expense, even though it pales in comparison with education. However, adding together what is traditionally called “social safety net” –public health, aid to disadvantaged, and children’s services—which total 10.4%, law enforcement is actually third.  In per capita spending that is $2,106 for education, $451 for social safety net, and $397 for police protection. 

And I’m sure its no shock to any of us to find out that large counties and metropolitan areas spend more on law enforcement than smaller counties. Yet, NYC actually spends a lower percentage of its budget on policing than the average—7.3%.

“In the 25 most populous counties—counting New York City’s five boroughs as a single county—local governments spent $573 per resident on law enforcement – which includes both police services and corrections. In the next 303 most populous counties, all with at least 200,000 residents, law enforcement spending stood at $388 per person. . .

Among the largest 25 counties, Broward County, Fla. spends the highest share of its local government budgets (18.2% or $723 per person) on law enforcement. The county spent less than average on education (37.4% of the total budget) but higher than average spending on child and social services (4.4%).

New York City, where the city government oversees all five of its boroughs, spends 7.3% of its budget on law enforcement. The city government spends 30.6% of its money on education and 12.4% on social services and aid to the disadvantaged combined. “

Some large metropolitan areas don’t follow the trends in police funding.

“Bexar County, Texas, home to San Antonio and nearly 2 million residents, spent $298 per person on law enforcement and $3,906 per person in total. The city of St. Louis, which as an independent city functions as its own county, spent $795 per person on law enforcement and $6,764 per person in total. St. Louis has a population of just 308,000.”

Is it different policing or different people committing the crimes? Would the people of St. Louis be safer if the law enforcement budget was cut or “defunded?”

Read the article here: https://usafacts.org/articles/police-funding-local-governments/?

Remembering our “golden” past of the 1950s

It’s interesting that even liberals who see everything in the 21^st century as dark, racist and the fault of the GOP, can think of the 50s-60s in Mt Morris, Illinois (or Oregon, or Polo, or Columbus, Ohio) as a time of a golden era. I read a lot of blogs, and that misty, foggy view is common among 70-80 year olds. My husband whose high school was larger in acres and people than Mt. Morris, thinks the same thing. Of course, it’s not true; go through your high school annuals and you’ll see people who were white, but were marginalized because they were fat, or ugly, or low intelligence or unathletic or who never got the help they needed or who dropped out of school after 7^th or 8^th grade at age 16 or 17.

(I think this is 1954, confirmation class Trinity Lutheran for 1957 graduates) 

The U.S. in 2020 is so much less racist, less unfair, with more opportunity and ladders to success for the poor than we enlightened folk of the 50s could have ever imagined. We had devoted, but poorly paid teachers, and today the average hourly wage for a public school teacher is over $67/hour—far more than accountants, architects, librarians, farmers, and muffler repairmen. And statistically, there are far fewer poor and marginalized all over the world. Unfortunately, there’s something about being human – enough is never enough. We’re greedy and ungrateful to God for all he supplies. Slavery is also a bigger trade in the 21^st century than it was in the 18^th yet, U.S. and Europe are expected to take the blame for what happened 300 years ago. Life will never be fair. Some things at the micro-level are better, but the macro tells a more ominous story. And people still use the specter of slavery to grab power as well as to build your smart phone.

The U.S. federal social statistics are difficult to read because they always move the goal, but in 1959, families in poverty in the U.S. were 20.8%, and families headed by women were 49.4% (that was a much smaller numerical figure then). In 2018, the last year for compiled stats, poverty for families was 9.7% and for families head by women 26.8%. https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-poverty/historical-poverty-people.html The federal government aid has done a lot to dismantle the economic model of the family, but a lot of economic aid is poured into that mistake, and the female headed households are not the victims they used to be, despite the gap. And as I’ve noted before, I still remember the first time I saw a black man in a TV series (Bill Cosby, I Spy) and the first time I saw a black man as a retail clerk in a major chain (Penney’s, Champaign, IL, early 1960s).

So let’s keep some perspective. And watch for the power grabs of today, much of it happening very quickly in the fog of the pandemic.

Christians—please reject further lockdowns and closing—for the children’s sake

At the K-12 level, the risk of Covid to children is low. The Wall St.  Journal’s Andrew Duehren and Alex Leary report today: The Trump administration is pressing the nation’s school systems to educate children in-person this fall, preparing to offer safety guidelines for reopening, as lawmakers on Capitol Hill search for an agreement to provide schools the federal aid they say they need to do so. Team Trump is encouraged by a recent statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics which notes the negative impact of lockdowns as well as the relatively small Covid risks faced by children. The organization says it “strongly advocates that all policy considerations for the coming school year should start with a goal of having students physically present in school. The importance of in-person learning is well-documented, and there is already evidence of the negative impacts on children because of school closures in the spring of 2020.” The statement adds: Lengthy time away from school and associated interruption of supportive services often results in social isolation, making it difficult for schools to identify and address important learning deficits as well as child and adolescent physical or sexual abuse, substance use, depression, and suicidal ideation... Policy makers must also consider the mounting evidence regarding COVID-19 in children and adolescents...Although children and adolescents play a major role in amplifying influenza outbreaks, to date, this does not appear to be the case with SARS-CoV-2. Although many questions remain, the preponderance of evidence indicates that children and adolescents are less likely to be symptomatic and less likely to have severe disease resulting from SARS-CoV-2 infection. In addition, children may be less likely to become infected and to spread infection. Policies to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 within schools must be balanced with the known harms to children, adolescents, families, and the community by keeping children at home.

Did the candidates talk about Baltimore?

When Bernie reported on Baltimore's conditions, the media and politicians did nothing. Same with Obama. Same with Baltimore's mayors. Now Trump has brought attention to the bad housing and crime and has forced Democrats to defend the indefensible. We know it's not money--Baltimore gets billions of our money. It's not having no representation in Congress--it's got Cummings the guy who screams at border personnel in hearings, or no minority police, or no minority city government, or no minority school officials. So what will help Baltimore?

If Democrats in congress spent any time in their own districts inspecting the conditions children live in, they wouldn't have enough time to go to the border to pose for phony photos of faux concern calling border facilities Nazi concentration camps.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/49999/trump-called-racist-saying-baltimore-rat-infested-amanda-prestigiacomo
https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-cummings-pelosi-and-baltimore-11564433687?fbclid=IwAR2gsBz0gEKPNTaUovaH7c-bk7AeD8L3ERSu4hqpqX-LddE6VkkQxCJtC9o

Joan doesn’t agree with today’s philosophy of reading—guest blogger Joan Turrentine (former teacher)

“Recent educational philosophy has been that it doesn't matter WHAT children read as long as they DO read. I am glad I grew up and went to school in a day when schools believed that it matters WHAT students read. My mind and memory are full of quality literature, classic poetry, thought-provoking stories and poems. I became familiar with and developed a useful and precise vocabulary and a familiarity with proper English language syntax. I observed in countless realistic situations (in reading assignments) how real people act and how people interact with other people and build happy and successful lives. I read the thoughts of some of the greatest thinkers of the past and learned how they organize their thoughts, thereby learning HOW to think and reason. Because of this background, I often read FB posts, have conversations, or read other media and recognize cultural references, recognize faulty/logical reasoning strategies, understand some of human nature.

I feel bad for many of today's elementary school kids who only read about teachers who are aliens, students who are wizards, and other such imaginary life situations. What preparation for real life does that provide? What thought processes does that develop? How does that help them discover their own values in life? And then in post-elementary school they read such dystopian literature as the Hunger Games series, the Unwind series, or numerous other books with unrealistic settings which provide no opportunity for observing how people might handle real life situations and what consequences might be expected to result from actions. There's nothing wrong with any of this literature if students want to read them on their own; but I believe the schools owe them better than that. These students won't be culturally literate as adults - recognizing references to the classic literature, philosophy, or history of the ages. They won't have had the opportunity to develop their own sense of how to live successfully in this world. What they have read will not have helped them develop values to help them live successfully and happily. I so strongly believe that it DOES matter WHAT children read.”

I  agree with Joan’s concern and philosophy, I just don't think I had all that much "quality" reading material--at least my mother used to complain it wasn't as good as what she had in the 1920's.  All I cared about as a child was horse and dog stories. I enjoyed reading from encyclopedias and preferred to write and illustrate my own stories. My grandmother gave us subscriptions to Jack and Jill, hardly sophisticated or difficult information.  We had a lot of magazines and the local newspapers (and maybe one from Chicago). Mom belonged to the “Book of the Month” club, which was definitely considered “low brow,” but I enjoyed looking through her fiction.  I learned the names of the classics, by playing the card game "Authors" , and by high school, the literature text books were just excerpts grouped by era or genre. In college I was a foreign language major, so I had NO American or British literature. I was definitely a forerunner for today's poorly educated students!  Today I belong to a book club, and I’m grateful for my well educated reading friends—but I’m still not educated in the type of literature Joan recommends. And of course, not having grandchildren (she has many), I haven’t even heard of the series she writes about.

Recommended blog on education

Robin S. Eubanks, an experienced corporate attorney from Georgia  authors an insightful blog entitled “Invisible Serf’s Collar” (www.invisibleserfscollar.com) dealing with evolving events in the realm of education and social reform.

See her January 9 column, http://invisibleserfscollar.com/systematizing-human-nature-via-internalized-marxian-standards-of-truth-goodness-and-beauty/

“The idea that the Commission pitched “practices to help students develop a growth mindset” as a solution to school shootings when its creator, Carol Dweck, was originally a Vygotsky scholar seeking to implement his theories on using new classroom practices to create the transformed mindset needed for a new kind of Soviet Man, would be funny in an ironic way if it was not so ridiculously ignorant of these practices. Tragedies like Parkland and the rule of law get used to force poisonous collectivist ideas down this nation’s throats and into our children’s minds and hearts. https://www.learningandthebrain.com/blog/we-can-no-longer-ignore-evidence-about-human-development/ from November 29, 2018 from Professor Immordino-Yang involved in both the US and UNESCO’s neural redevelopment efforts via education is at least honest about the intentions to use new practices to”support the development of our full humanity.””

Ms. Eubanks writes about herself: “A background in Law is also excellent preparation for determining precisely what the terms commonly used actually mean. Especially in an industry that is consciously using language to hide the actual intended goals. My experience allowed me to recognize that education in the US and globally has been, for decades,  engaged in a massive Newspeak (as in George Orwell’s 1984) campaign that creates a public illusion on what is being promised and what is coming to the schools and classrooms that are this country’s future. I know what the words and terms really mean to an Ed insider and how it differs from the common public perception. I have documented what was really behind the reading wars and math wars. I have pulled together what the real intended Common Core implementation looks like. And it is wildly different from the PR sales job used to gain adoption in most of the states.”

Northwest Ordinance of 1787

Before we had a Constitution, Americans had the Articles of Confederation and the most important piece of legislation of that era was the Northwest Ordinance. In 1785 and 1787 that government sold land in "the west" claimed as spoils of the war to investors (to pay for the war) on condition that certain rights and responsibilities be observed. It's the core of our Bill of Rights, and also the concept of local education, and the humanity and freedom of slaves and native Americans. Not all townships or states followed the rules--particularly on education and religion--because there's always graft and greed in government especially in collusion with capitalism, but when you read it, you see how far ahead the thinking was for any other existing government. 

https://www.billofrightsinstitute.org/founding-documents/primary-source-documents/northwest-ordinance/

Critical theory

Let's not be naïve about the Black Lives Matter movement, the Snowflakes seeking safe places so they don't have to hear conservative ideas, the Occupiers of a few years ago, and the anthem protests by millionaires. This is not about ignorance, they don't need to be educated.  It's a form of mind control called "critical theory," and that's just dressing up the so-called educated for a party, Marxism. It's effective in societies that don't have a poor working class to riot like the late 1890s or early 20th century.

Your children's teachers were educated in the 80s or 90s when critical theory was usually just literature and history being "deconstructed," and those people had as their faculty a few years before, the radicals of the 1960s and 1970s who enjoyed the sexual revolution, awakening feminism along with the Viet Nam War protests.

Explaining that slavery existed since the dawn of time, or that free American blacks owned slaves, or that the founding fathers developed a truly revolutionary society unknown to the world controlled by church, kings and dictators, or that one can't change his biological sex, or that capitalism has set millions free from thousands of years of poverty, or that climate has been changing for millions of years is not going to work. (Although I will continue to blog about it.) Not even going to "work" after they leave campus is going to work, because their CEOs and managers have absorbed the same distorted view of history, literature, politics and biology.

The purpose of critical theory (aka Marxism) is to rip apart the fabric of our society--beginning with the family, moving on up through business and employment, and to the government at all levels--your school board, city council, state legislature, the House, Senate, Executive and Judiciary, and yes, the military. And once the movement has stripped everyone under 50 of all their values, beliefs, faith and honor, they stand naked before the firing squad.

Middle class Americans believe in education

We information junkies and professionals (primarily middle class) think if people have information on a better life, good food, climate change, domestic violence, nicotine and condoms then change happens. We believe information/education has the power to change minds, individuals, companies, politicians and eventually the world! But does it?  Public service announcements about mammograms are not the research that will reduce deaths and disfigurements. Reading a brochure on horse therapy for the mentally challenged will not buy and train a horse. Creating a network to reduce duplication is not providing a bed or chair or pots and pans.

I do think much of what is spent  for education and  information syphons off “action” funding.
Looking through the booklet for “Bucks for Charity 2017” which is OSU’s version of “community chest,” it’s evident that information/education is an integral part of many charities. I believe in education and knowledge—it’s been my life’s work—it’s why I blog and dump links and statistics on my Facebook Friends. PDHC where I volunteer provides mentoring and parenting classes, education for pregnant women and has many informational booklets, Bibles in English and Spanish,  and documents on parenting, health, pregnancy, material aid, adoption, chastity, diseases--anything needed to save the lives of babies and build stronger families.

Here are some examples from the community shares and health section of “Bucks for Charity 2017” (250 agencies) which receives 35.5% of total funding (United Way of the various communities receives 28.4%):

“health information” Community Health Charities
“conducts awareness and advocacy activities” ALS Association
“providing information” American Diabetes Association
“education, research, advocacy, outreach” American Heart Association
“educational programming, training, outreach” Down Syndrome Association
“broad based advocacy, education” Hospice Organization
“education programs” March of Dimes
“education and outreach”NAMI (mental illness)
“providing education and support” PDHC (pro-life)
“eye safety education, information” Prevent Blindness Ohio
“promotes greater understanding” American council of the blind
“offers community education” Breathing Association
“proven curriculum of 14 courses” Career Transition Institute
“promotes education” Central Ohio Green Education Fund
“educates about children’s needs” Children’s Defense Fund
“promoting decent, safe affordable housing” Coalition on Homelessness and Housing
“educates . . .insidious effects of homelessness” Columbus Coalition for the Homeless
“provides educational exhibitions, lectures, tours,” Columbus Historical Society
“provides . . . educational events” The Free Press
“educational opportunities, exchange information” Compassionate Communication
“educational programs. . . family learning, education in science, etc.” COSI
“educating and advocating fair treatment"  Equality Ohio (LGBTQ)
“promotes food production, nutrition, gardening” Four Seasons City Farm (east side)
“focused on education, employment and leadership development” Godman Guild
“safety trainings to varied populations” LifeCare Alliance (HIV/AIDS)
“provides education and inspiration” Local Matters (diet related diseases)
“disability awareness” Mid Ohio Board for an Independent Living Environment
“information about reproductive health [aka abortion]” NARAL
“preserving, revitalizing AI/AN values, rights, traditions,” Native Amer. Indian Center
“quality arts education. . . instruction” Ohio Alliance for Arts Education
“education, training, information, referral line” Ohio Domestic Violence Network
“education and advocacy” Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association
“classes on yoga and movement arts” Center for Wholeness
“research, education” Ohio NOW Education & Legal Fund
“Provides education, referral, advocacy” Ohio Veterans, Inc.
“promotes [abortion]” Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio
“providing services, knowledge, tools and equipment” Rebuilding Together Central Ohio
“provides service learning programs” See Kids Dream
“connects people to learning opportunities. . .educational outreach” Simply Living
“advocacy. . . education” Stonewall Columbus, Inc  (LGBTQ)
“information, education and referrals” Worthington Resource Pantry (healthy food)

Other organizations describe their goals/missions in these words—action goals.

“provides services,” “care and support,” “funds research,” “fighting xyz disease,” “mission is to cure xyz disease,” “cure, prevent, treat xys disease,” “boost social skills,” “promotes lung health” “helps, adopts, investigates,” “provides adoption services (cats), subsidizes poor,” “provides free breakfast and lunch, medical screenings,” “interpreting, C-print, ADA assistance, employment (deaf),” “provides therapeutic horse programming” “healthcare for LGBTQ, HIV,” “cooperative community gardening,” “provides free furniture,” “financial assistance for families of First Responders,” “provides glass for art,” “builds decent, affordable houses,” “direct services for homeless, HIV, addiction, incarceration,” “provides temporary subsidized housing,” “provides food, clothing, registering for government benefits,” “provides nutritious food,” “provides assistance to families with critically ill children,” “provides food, housing, transportation, employment opportunities,” “transports pets from rural shelters” and “bicycles for transportation.”

Evaluate your time. Check your wallet.  Measure your success.  Education takes a long, long time, and may or may not work. A hot meal and change of clothes is immediate, and gets that task taken care of so you and the recipient (the Bible says he's Jesus) can move on.

Marriage and wealth

Americans working in managerial or professional occupations boast an average net worth of $1.06 million and that's much more than roughly $269,000 net worth for people working in technical, sales, or services jobs. (Motley Fool, Jan. 2016) But also, that's household wealth--and managerial and professional people are more likely to be married (that's 2 incomes) than lower income people, to have graduated from college, and to save and invest. Marriage benefits for black couples are remarkable, but played down in government social studies (that said, black women benefit less than black men).

Marriage and education also provide health benefits, not only does education give them a boost, but even having children who go to college adds to their life span (Pew Research, July 2014). Professionals are less likely to be obese or smokers--maybe their kids nag them. Marriage provides other benefits like inheritance from 2 families even if it's a small amount like insurance or real estate. We have no control over our ethnicity, but Asian Americans are much better at checking all the boxes. 84% of Asian American children live in 2 parent homes.