another letter coming out

I've become really popular and unpopular at the same time. It
s am honor both ways....


Most of those who complain about teachers aren’t in the education field and know little about learning or child development and behavior, particularly in group settings.  Even parents of large families will not have a firm grasp. No. Most of the children they deal with at home will be their own blood. Dealing with 25-30 of someone else’s children is a whole ‘nother thing.

Teachers taking part in the recent “All out for Education” event last May 1 have been called :”union thugs,” ungrateful, anti-child, socialists.  Critics could not be more wrong. North Carolina teachers have no unions, devote up to 12-14 hours daily to the benefit of their students and if they seem ungrateful, it is because they ARE unappreciated. Furthermore, public education IS socialist, as are the post office and the military.  They exist for the benefit of ALL, not merely a small, affluent minority.

  Teaching takes a special kind of a person, one who knows they will be valued less (“those who can’t do, teach!”) , have impossible things demanded of them and know they will never be compensated well enough.

Critics need to walk a mile in teachers’ shoes rather than judging them.

the "Imbuicles" are gonna eat this one up...

I showed this movie to the group I subbed for all week today. I'd seen it before and believed it taught a vital lesson.

I've told students before that you one does not have to like someone to treat them decently. This movie is a grand example of what happens when people stop doing this.

The German people were convinced that "the jew" was their enemy, the cause of betrayal and the defeat of Germany in world war 1.  In the motion picture one of the main characters tells his young son that jews aren't really people, and insinuates that, in order to make a better world, they need to be eliminated.  And being the commandant of a concentration camp, he makes it his business to make sure this happens.

The young son meets a young jewish boys resident of the camp and strikes up an unlikely friendship. Neither he nor has mother particularly buy into the "final solution."  Neither does the paternal grandmother who, they say, is mysteriously killed in a "bombing raid."  They didn't say, but I am left with the notion that her demise was due to other causes and to her politics.

Not all Germans approved of Hitler or the Nazis.

The words and attitudes displayed throughout were chilling and I sense a similar outlook on the loose now in this country.

Westboro Baptist would execute homosexuals in a moment, if they could.  Some preachers have openly advocated it in other places.

I will readily admit that I am not always comfortable with either Jews or homosexuals, but no way would I ever advocate harming or sanctioning them. Nor do I have the right or the inclination to judge them.

Truth.

LOL!!!

I got blasted on the News and Record Blog, as I knew I would be.  I am still the reigning "drama queen " and delusional "leftist," the one who imagines that so many of these white supremacists have been "inspired" by Trump's words and actions.  Some have so stated in their "manifesto," including some who reside in other countries.

Those are facts, but then such things are totally wasted on Trumpkins.

I've come to measure the quality of my letters by the amount of vitriol my opponents spew. One of them even referred to Bernie as a "cocksucker" this time around, the act of a hormonal adolescent.
I will not relent.  Some would advocate that I stop trying to reason with fools.  I'm not. I'm way past that.  Now I am just providing them with the opportunity to show other voters how twisted and delusional they really are...


They say that sometimes, as one gets older, they come to view certain things in a different way. That has certainly happened in my own case.

I now see how my prolonged association with Mary J cost me dearly.

I also see how some of my words and actions with difficult people, particularly during my time in the Catholic Schools, made situations worse than they were.

I've even come to question a lot of our military actions, including  even our involvement in Kuwait. I volunteered, was not drafted and was gun ho for the longest time.  Was I lured into going along with some things I should not have?

As a "transplanted" southerner, I went along, also, with the notion that southern secession was about...I guess the term might be southern "nationalism" and not merely slavery. Converts can be deluded and overly zealous in a lot of ways.

I believe I see things more clearly now. Agreed, it was not merely about slavery alone but part of a grand scheme to perpetuate a system of servitude that involved both black and white.  Less than 6% of southerners owned slaves, yet many of the remaining 94% were lured into defending that "system," facing for the notion that the "meddling yankees" were attacking our "way of life."  Few of those slave owners shared in the danger.  Many were exempt due to owning slaves.

"Rich man's war; poor man's fight."

Hundreds of thousands died in the effort to maintain the system of servitude. Perhaps the reason I know that so well, now, is because the same kind of things is and has been happening in current times.

Since WW 2, we have involved our military in conflicts with countries who, with the possible exception of Afghanistan, who harbored those who attacked us on 911, had been no direct threat to the United States.  Many of the actions, both overt and covert, have resulted from our wishing to seize resources we believe we needed or in an effort to overturn established governments we disagreed with and NOT as self defense.

Who are the overwhelming majority of those who enter the military?  The poor, the disadvantaged; that has been true for decades.

"Oil wars."

"Wars for profit."

President Eisenhower warned us about the "military -industrial complex."  War is very good for certain industries and individuals. Flag draped coffins coming home don't seem to matter anymore. Nor is it a new thing, either.

Recall the dark ages?  Yes, the one with serfs and lords and ladies, a very tiered society when the few prospered and all others paid and slaved.  Are we really that far away from that now?