Education Hurdles

I have learned a lot this year, I have to sit in on a 4th grade social studies class every week and I have learned about the great state of Colorado, the exploring travels of Lewis and Clarke and a lot about the Native Americans that lived here before the white man came and took over.

In our school, an elementary public school in south central Colorado we have one hour of social studies per week and one hour of science per week. The rest of the time is vastly spent on creative writing, reading and math.
I know we as Americans are steadily creeping toward the bottom of the education scale in the western world, and when it comes to the subjects of history, geography and civics we’re so far behind to that we are about to fall off the chart all together.

When it comes to science I think it all has to do with the religious agenda, there is really no need for science, right? If we "know" that the bible is true to the very last letter, God created earth in 6 days about 12,300 years ago. Science tells us different, teh dinosaurs were here millions of years ago, for example, then why teach and try to understand science at all since it's obviously false?

When we lived in Arkansas and I was researching homeschooling for my then 5 year old son, I got in contact with a homeschool group that strongly opposed any kind of teaching that went against what the bible said.
One lady told me with great disgust in her voice that her 7 year old had been facing evolution in class in 1st grade and because of that the parents had immidiatly taken their little girl out of that god forsaken public school and she warned me of all horrible things my son could be facing. That’s about the same time I said thanks but no thanks and left that meeting.

When it comes to social studies the reason for not teaching it is not as obvious or clear, but I think it’s considered better for the next generation not knowing what ass holes we're recoviering from beeing. The history is not pretty, we don’t look good…. at all.
As we demand people around the world to do what we tell them to do it might be better if we as a nation stay unaware of our own trespasses.

While the Union fought the Confederates to get rid of slavery during the civil war, the rest of soldiers not fighting that war, were busy breaking treaties, and killing the Native Americans out west in hunger for land and gold.

While we were busy saving the Jews from the horrible concentrations camps in Europe during WWII, the south had laws prohibiting African Americans the same rights the white population had, and lynchings and KKK was a fear facing blacks living in the south.

While the human right’s organizations condemn torture interogation methods used(I truly believe it’s a war crime that should be prosecuted and the responsible officials be put away), the drone attacks against innocent Pakistani civilians happens every day without a peep of complaints from the human rights organizations.

There are 100,000’s of people around the world suffering from our policies , our protection and support of evil dictators and our never ending hunger for cheap goods and oil, and by not knowing anything about the rest of the world, the rest of the world stay anonomous and less worthy of our concern.

Your Republican Senator Loves You!!

Well that is if you're a millionaire and not one of those filthy unemployed bastards of course...

Congratulations to all people making over a million a year (all 353,000 of you)!!! You're so much more important than all them lazy, unemployed people. Their unemployment insurance extension was blocked of course ( cost around 15 Billion), who wants to help people in despair any way, I mean, really?

But Your tax cut (cost 700 Billion) can be put on the deficit pile, that's OK, we understand the importance of having a happy upper class!!!

4 bad things about being a dick

1-You have a hole in your head
2-You spend all your time with two nuts
3-Your neighbor is an asshole
4-When you feel your very best you always throw up

A Million a Year vs Unemployed? What will you choose?

I want you to close your eyes and think for a moment….

In this time and age, where do you think you have the most chance to end up, earning over $1,000,000 / year or losing your job?

The reason for my question?

Simply this, Washington is debating your future right now.

The Republicans say we can’t raise taxes on anybody right now, which means they will fight for the richest of the rich to keep the Bush’ tax cuts which were meant to expire in a month from now. The tax cuts, never paid for and costing the country about $ 700 billion!!
The Republicans still have no funding for their highly sought for tax cuts but that don’t seem to bother them much. The party who runs on fiscal responsibility admits by their actions that the responsibility doesn’t apply to the people that already have but just to the ones that don’t have.

At the same time they argue for the tax cuts even though they are not paid for, they argue strongly for and will block any vote for extending the unemployment benefits for the 2 million people in desperate need for some money with the argument that
it’s not paid for and the government has to cut spending.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) an independent group whose job is to find out what makes more sense, what creates more jobs, what cuts the deficit and stuff like that came out with a report the other day.

Their report graded the 11 policy propositions that are on the table right now in congress of things that can cut deficit and create jobs.

The number one thing that can help our economy and create new jobs?
To extend the unemployment benefits!! Why?

Because the unemployed are broke and the money they get will be spent immediately.
If the government gives the unemployed money, they will turn around and spend it right away on food, clothes and other necessities. And spending that money is good for companies and small businesses and maybe will even make them hire an employee or two.

The single least effective job creation proposition the CBO looked into?
To extend the tax cuts to the wealthy! Why?
Just becuause the owner of a company have a lot of money, does not make him hire more people, what makes him hire is higher demand.

But as we already said, the Republicans who ran on fiscal responsibility and the need to create new jobs will NOT vote for extending those benefits, but instead scream for tax cuts for the wealthiest among us.

I want you to think hard what is most likely.

Is the risk of you losing your job in the future smaller than the chance of you landing a job paying you over a million a year?
Then I want you to look at the Washington people and see who look out for you, and the where you might be in the future…

Now, we have a democratic majority in the house and the senate for another month or so, will they do what’s good for the vast majority, the shrinking middle class, or do what they do the best, cave in to the screaming right?

Eisenhower would never fit in the GOP

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. "

I ran in to this quote today and was first thinking it came from Desmond Tutu or some other non-violence philanthropist before I learned it came from Dwight D. Eisenhower (R), a five-star Army general and the 34th president of the U.S from 1953-1961.

Just thinking... the GOP has gone so far right as I said in yesterday's blog. You would never in a million years hear a quote like that from today's republicans.

Yesterday I had a discussion with someone about bringing extra snacks with the kids to school to the kids that don't bring any and that person said that it was not our responsibility but the parents of that child.
I agreed, but what if the kid don't have good caring parents?

Now that person might not be one of the people out there with pro-life bumper stickers on her car, I don't know, but I know the person is a "value voter".

And what seemed so absolute, so fundamental, to be pro-life, all of a sudden disappeared as soon as that fertilized egg became a real baby, or later a child. A woman that becomes pregnant and not want a baby, or don't feel capable of taking care of a child, is called a murderer for not wanting to go forward with the pregnancy.

Don't take me wrong, I hate abortions, and want to fight to reduce the numbers to the absolute minimum, but maybe one of those women is the mom of the kid that never bring a warm coat to school, that never have money for popcorn on Fridays, that don't bring snacks to school.
And now the responsibility isn't that person's or mine, but the mom's?

Most pro-life people tend to be republican, most tend to support the war (seem impossible to be pro-life and pro-war at the same time, but somehow they make it work), some tend to be NRA members (do pro-life people think it's OK to blow the head off of someone steeling their car?), and most tend to go to church. And even though they sit in the pew every Sunday some seem to have become totally immune to the Sermon on the Mount

What I'm trying to teach my kids by letting them bring extra snacks to school and give out to their friends if they forgot to bring, or just didn't have any, is that it's a good feeling to give, it is the right thing to do, and guess what? It doesn't involve any religious doctrines.

today, tomorrow, yesterday?

I follow a Swedish blog about the GLBT people and their struggles in Sweden. It's a really good written blog and the girl writing it is very articulate, smart and also, maybe my favorite part, has a quick and sometimes quite sarcastic mouth.(http://libreb.blogspot.com/)

Here in the U.S. the people setting the standards are the "Christians" who have the "God given right" to tell the rest of us how we're supposed to live, love, vote, and behave. Here it seem impossible to get rid of the " Don't ask, Don't tell". Here teens commit suicide because they can't find acceptance for who they are. With all that said, well, it's easy to see that Sweden is paradise compared to here for all GLBT friends!

Of course I'm not saying that Sweden is a perfect paradise when it comes to gay rights, they need to work on a lot of things, but compared to us in the U.S. they are on a totally different level and 100's of years ahead of us.

We just finished off an election season, where the tea party had a huge success in both the house and in local races all across the nation. They claim they want to take our country back, and I'm wondering how far back exactly? To before the civil rights movement? To before blacks and women got the rights to vote? To before we found out the world wasn't flat?
The further to the right people are politically the more back striving they seem to be.
It amazes me, views I think should be put in a museum showing off how weird it used to be, how uninformed people used to be back in the days of when we started standing on two feet instead of four, those views are the same views the tea party ran on and gained huge success on.

The really pity here is that the progressive and left are caving in. While the right is moving further and further to the right the rest of the field is moving with them.

What used to be moderate republican views are now left wing views. Ronald Reagan that was such a "righty", would in today's republican party probably find himself out on the very edge toward the left.

Can't remember his name, but the last judge leaving the supreme court had been on the bench for many, many years and when he was sworn in he was a republican, and without changing his views during the years he was now considered a left wing guy.

Keeping up with the right going further and further right and frankly also striving further and further backwards makes me fear that maybe today was as far as we will get and maybe from here on we might just be going towards the past instead of facing the future.

Scary, but quite possible...

Till alla invalda SD i Riksdag, Landsting och Kommuner

Läser med förfäran och en känsla av overklighet Aftonbladets artikel "De tvingas sitta bredvid SD: Det var min mardröm" (http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/valet2010/article7892756.ab?sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4ca998e3993ec068%2C0) och finner inte ord.

Ett ögonblick tänker jag, varför ens besvära sig?, låt sandlåderegimen ha sin gång och låt Sverige rivas, kanske vi kan bygga ett nytt "hus" i ruinerna om några årtionden.

Men jag vet genom min älskilingsförfattare Astrid Lindgren,att om man inte gör det man måste är man bara en liten lort, och det vill jag inte vara. Dessutom är jag alldeles för kär i, och stolt över mitt hemland för att låta henne gå i stöpet.

Så jag lyfter på hatten och önskar kraft, ork, mod och en stor skopa jävlaranamma för dig och dina partikamrater att stå rakryggade i denna media- och ettablissemangstyrda rasism mot "oliktänkande". Förhoppningsvis kommer jag hem till Sverige om ett år eller så, och kan då snabbt inställa mig i ledet och hjälpa till, att skuldra mot skuldra med dig och alla andra med furnuftet fortfarade i behåll, hålla upp det fallfärdiga ruckel Sverige tillåtits förfalla till.