Famous dates in American history:

1. The Murray v. Curlett lawsuit, which led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling ending official Bible-reading in American public schools in 1963. This came just one year after the Supreme Court prohibited officially sponsored prayer in schools in Engel v. Vitale.

2. Coup d'etat of Nov 22, 1963 removing a man of democratic ideals and peace, and replacing him with a man, and a system basing our economy on the military industrial complex. We have never looked back.

3. San Franciso, June 26, 2002— A federal appeals court here declared today that the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional because the phrase ''one nation under God'' violates the separation of church and state.

4. Feb-Apr 1979: After the Shah of Iran's admittance to America for medical treatment for terminal cancer, the Ayatolla Khomeini returns from 14 years' exile to Iran, and begins the foment of Islamic Fundamentalist revolt now stirring and affecting the entire world.

5. And whatever the hell date that Politically Correct robotic thinking became the norm. I remember in the mid-70s in the Air Force, being told I had to re-name items, such as manhole to street hole cover, and all the rest.

We have traveled a dangerous downhill road from a time when we looked at each other, smiled, waved, held doors, were polite drivers, and voted and took care of our neighbors, to a society in which waving consists of just one finger, absolutely no driver shall be allowed to cut in front of us, children and pets are left in hot cars routinely, guns are everywhere, arguments are settled with guns before the argument even gets started, our school system has fractured wide open where everyone has the answer although no one knows the questions, teacher's opinions carry zero weight, and we continue as a nation to interfere in the internal affairs of other nations, wholly neglecting our own infrastructure, veterans, mentally ill, elderly, poor, and homeless.

How in the hell did we let this all happen? How do we fix it? Because half the nation's population is made up of older patriots. The other half is made up of Millennials who will follow whatever is trending, and thinks that govt freebies are good. 

Damn.

Response to Huffington Post story on Donald Trump education remarks at convention:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

He and you are both right. I don't believe he was necessarily questioning professional dedication. He was calling out principal and school board and supt. policies that create exactly what he is talking about.

Despite educators' best efforts at all levels, our students are failing. Failing to learn, failing to critically think, failing to succeed later in life. Why?

Our international standing based upon a standard test given every three years, show us in the high 20s and 30s in Science, Math, Reading, Writing. Ridiculous.

Our national h.s. graduation rate is running roughly mid-70 percentile. Or, almost three of every ten are failing to graduate. He's got a point. Those numbers are far worse for some minority groups.

Budget cuts have seriously impacted education in all 50 states and most districts, save the ultra-rich white-suburban dominated ones, with their extravagant homes and high property taxes. These places have pools and planetariums and practice fields. Most districts, including too many inner-city schools, don't even have heat or a/c, sufficent staff parking, computers, glass for the windows, or green grass anywhere. The differences, are stark, and are a contributing factor to black unrest, blacks failing to learn, blacks failing to progress. Note I said a contributing factor, not the only factor. Corporations do not help when they invert themselves and bank and incorporate overseas, taking millions in tax dollars out of the very communities and states they are located in. Our failed leadership in Washington has responded to this by requiring more testing and the failed, ridiculous Common Core Standards. Kids aren't robots.

Schools must change.

The entire format is basically wrong, after about 4th grade. Up until that point, reading and social skills are to be emphasized: read, read, read; cover your mouth when you cough, wait your turn, cops are good, look both ways, and all the rest.

After that, schools, especially high schools, need to go vo-tech on the same campus. We're so afraid of publicly marking any student as "different", we ignore their needs. Not all want to go to college nor should. Many are excellent with their hands and can make quite a good living if shown how, and encouraged. Budget cuts removed vo-tech shop classes, cooking, home ec.

Tracking needs to be brought back. Many children can fly through the lower grades, and should. Group the students by ability, as we once did, and press on. The goal of education, I believe, is to educate individuals, to differentiate instructional methods tailored to how each learns best. This is not new nor rocket science, but schools much prefer the Control Method. 35-40 students of umpteen different skill levels and learning styles lumped together and handed to one teacher who is supposed to then work miracles. This, is the definition of nuts.

We want responsible young adults to come out of high school. So, our method is to demand they have a hall pass at all times, because we don't trust them from Point A to Point B.

Our federal government, far too all-encompassing (they have taken over student loan program from private industry, for example) needs to get out of the education business entirely. States know best, in fact local districts know better, what their students need. A blanket approach to education will not work, does not work, never has worked. We remain stuck with an agrarian school calendar, and it is rare to find a state requiring its children to attend over 180 days. Think about that. Generation after generation spending just six months yearly, learning. There should be no surprise about our international standing, about college professors complaining their incoming freshmen appear uneducated.

It's because they are.

I understand teacher dedication, caring for one's students, intruding into their home lives when necessary. Been there, done that. It is past time the teaching profession told everyone, and I mean everyone, to back off and stand down; to stop adopting every new idea that comes down the pike; to stand up to school boards, supts,. and state ed. officials and let teachers teach.

Let's keep our eyes on the enemy. 

Our politicians can cause  us grief from time to time, and the quality of current 

presidential candidates is not high. They are NOT the enemy. 

The enemy is the spread of Islam across the world, attempting to replace democracy in all its forms, as the answer to world affairs. 

The late Ayatollah Khomeini, after 14 years exiled from his own country, which should be a terrific hint, returned to foment world revolution. He turned the Iran clock back 13th centuries, think about that for a moment, and has done so not with reason and love, but with hatred, death, and violence the world over. His followers are legion and in every single country. 

Every terrorist attack without exception since April 1979 has been in support of the Islamic Fundamentalist Revolution and cause. They make no bones about their goal: world domination. 

Gengis Kahn, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler have all tried, and failed. Why? Because good people would not let them. It probably in the long run makes little difference who wins in Nov. That person will have to have the stones to deal with world domination efforts by the Islam Nation. They have sleeper cells in America, known, identified, biding their time. We know about them, allegedly are monitoring them, yet do nothing to eradicate them. 

Our Achilles Heel as a nation is the plaque on the statue of the Lady in the Harbor. We see no opportunity for evil to take advantage of her welcome. We are naive. And, we are in danger.

Tue July 19 2016

In response to a news article re the Baton Rouge cop killer's lifestyle choice to be a "sovereign citizen", the following is offered in response:

Public services provided in all our communities have public taxes paid, as their funding source.

If one wishes to become a "sovereign citizen" I have no problem with that choice.

Here is what the response will be. 

Since you no longer consider yourself a citizen of this great country, we will now charge you for walking down our sidewalks, which must be maintained.

We will now charge you for driving down our streets, which must be maintained. 

We will now charge you for polluting our air with your vehicle.

We will now charge you triple the citizen rate for all utilities: water, sewer, heating, a/c, trash pick up.

Should you choose to use our libraries, there will be a $100 admittance fee, as the libraries have to be maintained.

Should your residence catch fire, there will be a fire department response, and the bill will be tripled for you. Fire departments must be maintained.

Should you need a police officer, don't bother calling. They're busy serving and protecting citizens.

We will now consider you to be in our country without the required permits, and will confine you until we can deport you.

Questions?  Because freedom isn't free.

Tue July 19, 2016

That idiotic moron AG Lynch is urging us to "come together." Didn't the Beatles encourage us to do that???

My response:

"We the People are working together, in so many ways, in so many communities.

We have come together to mourn the fact that there are now over 200m guns out there in our society.

We have come together to mourn every mass shooting. Our fearless non-leader Mr. Otero has now addressed us TWENTY-FIVE times after such events. 

We have come together to mourn every time an officer is killed. In the last eight days, that would be a total of 8 officers dead, and 12 shot.

We have come together on social media, crying out over your decision not to prosecute a known liar candidate for the country's highest office, whose husband first hired you, and with whom your stupidly and openly met not-so-secretly in a Phx hangar. Next day: no charges. Surprise. Not.

We have come together to protest our military's half-@!$%# involvement and engagement in a country that does not want us, whose own soldiers, our supposed allies, have killed some of us.

We have come together to decry Mr. Otero's invitations to the WH of family members of known convicts with lengthy records of social misbehavior, because their relative was too stupid to know how to react to a police officer's requests, or was breaking the law at the time they were shot. The latest invitee is the son of the Louisiana man a lifetime lawbreaker, whose mom is just shocked that her son is gone.

We have come together on interstates, at traffic backed up by protesters, some who don't even live in the city, using the opportunity to let off steam and act the fool, yelling, screaming, inciting, burning, destroying, stealing, usually from their own neighbors.
 
We have come together to bemoan the dearth of viable, quality candidates for our nation's highest office, someone that has actually read the Constitution and hopefully grasps its basics if not its nuances, that understands that we have THREE govt. branches that will balance each other if given the opportunity.

We have come together to loath our current leaders, at every govt. level, elected, and appointed, whose lack of vision, rationalized greed, and personal interests have led our country down a ruinous path.

Come Nov., let us come together one more time, turn out the rabble, completely overhaul those who would deign to lead us, and keep the informed pressure on the new leaders to get our country back on track.

Tue July 19, 2016

Former St. Louis Cardinal baseball team scouting chief Chris Correa was sentenced to 46 months for guessing the password of another team's front office member and "hacking" into that team's database. This has put the lives of U.S. soldiers and diplomats in extreme harm's way and is detrimental to the success of U.S. foreign policy and military operations.
Well, not really.
That was Slithery, who remains above the law, pontificating her way through her sleazy life with disengenuous statements and less than sincere apologies. Not even a fine, not even an arrest, arraignment, not even a court appearance: not for four years as Sec. of State; not for stealing $200k worth of WH items she was forced to return; not for the death of four Americans in Benghazi; not for her involvement in Whitewater land deals; not for hundreds of millions of dollars accepted from foreign govts. to her Clinton foundation, a barely legal way around campaign contribution limits set by federal law.

Yeah, everything's just fine this morning. Nothing unusual. The past 30 years or so pattern of greed and fraud continues.