Life Elevated..and Educated

In the small Colorado town where I grew up every two years the roads, both paved and dirt, would receive a new paint job..the yellow line down the center of the road. My mother would comment, “Must be election year, they are out to impress us once again.” (Full disclosure: This was a predominately Republican town in a county of Democrats; but the local county commissioner needed the town’s votes to stay in office.)
My mother was perhaps a little cynical in her comment, but it certainly comes back to me today, as the election nears and the same old platitudes and attitudes here in Utah surface from our politicians. It is frustrating, as a parent, grandparent and taxpayer, to hear “family values” and “shared values” mentioned from both sides of the spectrum, when the politicians have little or no interest in the family values of the voters, other than as a catch phrase to get elected. Were the politicians really interested in “family values” they would enforce existing laws and if needed legislate to allow our public schools to flourish, even to the drastic action of funding education first instead of last in the legislative sessions. School zone length would be increased to provide better protection for our children going and coming to schools. Bussing, K through12, would be increased, rather than decreased; this would keep our children safer and reduce traffic and air pollution at schools. Public schools would have the resources needed to attract and keep good teachers; and our class sizes would be legislated down to a workable number, perhaps in the low 20’s, with all students counted. Monies would be provided for aides in classrooms, and special needs students would have sufficient teachers and resources to provide the best education and future as possible. Our requirements for graduation would be raised to 22 or 24 core units, with an emphasis placed on the sciences, math, and reading. Advanced placement and college prep classes would be expanded to hold the number of students qualified and desiring to attend. Vending machines would be pulled from the school cafeterias, and a greater focus on physical education and proper diets would become evident. School clubs that promoted diversity, co-operation and understanding would be encouraged. Anti-bias and anti-bullying would be legislated, and enforced; before and after school programs to assist at-risk students would be enlarged to cover the effects of the current recession and high unemployment.
These are changes that Governors can promote, but it is the Legislature that must take the reins and drive this wagon-load of ideas into reality; which would require our legislators to take some hard, drastic measures. They would have to raise taxes, and or lower the dependant exemption, in order to pay for these programs. Unfortunately, in their short-sided view, getting elected or re-elected is more important to our legislators than our children’s future, more important than our states future and our economic growth. In the long view, however, the much-needed improvement in education as outlined above would make it easier for our existing employers to find qualified employees and make Utah a better place for employers to locate; these changes would elevate our life-style to make Utah a more desirable place to raise a family. This would result in a higher tax base for our state to operate with, and our legislators could then look back and say, “See, we took the hard steps and now we as a state are better off!” That would be something positive to lay before the voters come election time.

National Alzheimers?

I’m here today, away from my desk and easy chair, to visit my mother; better stated, to visit the person my mother was so many years ago. For Mom has Alzheimer’s, a crippling mental condition that takes you away from today and back into the past, a distant past; perhaps it is the Creator’s way of protecting us in our final years from the accumulated pain of life, for life can be painful.

While ruminating about this state of mind during the trip here, I wondered if perhaps our country suffers from a collective Alzheimer’s disease? Here we are, a brief decade into the 21st century, yet we hold up as a model for today the policies and practices of political leaders of the past: (post WWI isolationism vs border wars of today). The Glen Beck type popular personalities lead us in a collective, national “weeping for America;” as I will perhaps cry when I leave my Mother’s room today. Our nation’s Congress is reminiscent of children playing as if at a tea party, “If you don’t play my way, I’ll take my doll and teacup and go home.” The recent flap over the military appropriations bill comes to mind; good conservative gentlemen who would never vote against our men and women in arms lock-stepped into history as petulant children over “procedural differences.”
Only when these “children” return to adulthood will they learn to meet their life-partner halfway, to compromise and work together, so the will and plans of the collective whole becomes greater than the desires of one party to control the other.

But, isn’t that socialism, this desire to join together as one larger organism for the betterment of all? You could stretch the definition of socialism to make that statement, as the ballerina in “al seconde” stretches seemingly from one end of the stage to the next; the difference is that she then completes the move and stands tall and straight, toes to fingertips pointing heavenward. One could say marriage is socialism, for the two join together, join incomes and dreams to make a future only they can see, but a future that is as important to them as yours is to you. One could say that joining a church is socialism, for as a whole body, the churches reach out to the community around them, into the world as a whole, to make life better overall. We as a nation define these institutions as good, as promoting the American way of life; yet in definition they are very socialistic.
As members of a church may differ over the color of the Creator’s hair, or if the Creator has hair at all, they will not differ as to the goodness of the Creator. A couple may disagree for a period of time over the color of the new car, but in the end they will agree they need transportation. Our members of Congress may disagree as to the position of the period at the end of the bill; but they should agree to pay our soldiers and do the nations work.

Yes, I will weep when I leave my Mother today, for I want to remember her as the strong, willed, passionate adult person I remember; but I do not weep for America, for the Grand Lady will achieve maturity, as she is now retaking a positive place in the collective good of the world. Now is the time for our “gentlemen” in the House and Senate to return to doing the nations’ work, to making life better for all Americans, and put aside the partisan bickering of childhood.

"STD's and the US Government", or "The Dangers of Unprotected Sex"

You’re kidding me, right? Under President Harry Truman, the United States Government knowingly infected citizens of a foreign nation with STD’s? And we are just now getting around to apologizing for it? Oh, I can hardly wait; Limbaugh and Hannity will have a field day with this, after all, it was a Democratic President. They, however, miss the balance of the story; we also infected citizens of the United States; Negro males in Tuskegee, Alabama were the target group of a similar study from 1946 through 1972! One wonders if the right wing hate groups will remember that! It was started by Herbert Hoover’s administration, and backed by administrations of both parties until stopped by the Nixon administration. (I have a hard time putting that in print, but unlike Limbaugh and Co., I do believe in full disclosure.)

The larger point is again the great amount of arrogance shown by our government; both Republican and Democratic administrations have shown a complete lack of concern for the people that are affected by the “studies” undertaken in the name of science or National Defense. This particular study (U.S. Public Health Service Sexually Transmitted Disease Inoculation Study of 1946-1948) was cancelled by the Nixon administration. Sadly, this is just one of many projects that cast a great deal of shame on American government. The above-ground nuclear testing programs of the 1950’s subjected an unknown number of U.S. soldiers to the full effects of a nuclear blast. How close can they be to a nuclear bomb explosion and still be well enough to fight? Again, sadly, the vast majority of these “volunteers” were Negro. What about Project MKULTRA (1950-late 1970s), using both US and Canadian individuals; when a number of again “volunteers” from both the armed services and civilian life were injected with mind-altering drugs to examine the effects of drugs on mental telepathic abilities, again in the name of National Defense? When will it stop?

Some will claim the greater evil is the disclosure of these studies, they will claim it lays a groundwork for civil unrest and undermines the “right” of the government to use every means of defense against possible actions against our country.

I will take a side for the full disclosure of all of our nasty tricks and inhuman studies, past and current. The lives of people are more valuable than the rights of governments to conduct inhuman studies on unsuspecting persons, or persons who have little or no means of resisting participation. This type of behavior, while perhaps perfectly acceptable in some foreign countries, runs counter to the publicly-held belief in American values. Studies of this nature are perhaps “legal” but certainly violate moral values held by most American citizens. Would you vote for a president who said, well, we are going to infect some of our citizens with incurable diseases to see if new drugs can cure them? We are going to see how being up close and personable with a nuclear blast will affect a soldiers ability to fight? Think about it, this could be your son, daughter, sister or brother being affected, or being exposed to mortally high levels of radiation. Perhaps one of your parents was a “volunteer” for a government study? How would the long-term effects of the study affect your life, or your children’s lifes? Would you vote for this president or the members of Congress that endorse this behavior? I certainly would not, and I would hope you also would not.