"At Risk" Society

We, as a country, are not really prepared to eradicate poverty. We accept without question the millions of low wage jobs with few benefits and real chance of real advancement. The children of these low wage workers pay the price.

For millions of "at risk" American students this is the hand they are dealt. We talk about the achievement gap and the racial gap but neglect to face the gap of wealth, income, and power, which, of course, infects the lives of our school age children.

These students have original, blessed, and  wonderful spirits and minds. But they come from homes with little disposable income and low literacy rates. There is no money for books, computers, extracurricular activities.

Many live in housing that is inadequate, poorly constructed, overcrowded, lacking green space, and dangerous. They cannot afford the cost of college. They will work in retail, restaurants, and factories, or in construction.

Many are already doing this during their high school years. They are smart enough to know their work is undervalued and underpaid. They have seen their parents toil for low wages for years. Their situation, experience, motivation, and available choices are not the same as children from middle or upper income families.

We are all victims of an  economic  system which relegates millions to low wage jobs, low income, low living standards, poverty, exclusion. We must fix this.

by Tx Trumbo

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Sports Reform

The Truthless Reconciler has not often ventured into the world of sports, but since social commentary and analysis is the prime function of this site, such venture seems warranted.

We should consider changing the culture of our favorite sport, football. Once upon a time football involved blocking and tackling. Now, it involves hitting. Violence for its own sake, in a violence for its own sake culture.

Division One collegiate athletics is out of contol, because it makes huge money, and the universities are all willing to do whatever it takes, moral  or no, legal or no, to ensure the continued income of big money. Meanwhile, the athletes are ruthlessly expolited, instead of educated.

Major league baseball is a travesty, with every player waering his uniform however he wants to, and nobody with enough backbone or power to make them wear the uniform properly. Nothing wrong with necklaces and earrings. But if one player on the team wears a gold necklace, so should everybody on the team wear a gold necklace. Socks up, or socks down, everybody the same, none of this individual preference crap.

And of course, professional athletes are paid a million times more than first grade teachers, which is a reflection of a corrupt society with corrupt values, reflected in its corrupt economic system.

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Moneychanger Madness

Too long we've been political rubes. Teachers just got a $100 raise at my school, with a note that said we have no right to question anything about it because less than half of us belong to the union.

My colleagues work so hard, are so committed to their kids and profession and content area. But, like most Americans, we're politically inert, feeling like someone else is looking out for our best interests.

Wrong! We'll have to learn how to fight here, because the wealthiest have gained great power and leverage and know exactly how to fight. We're behind the curve. We've let democracy down, by not  being committed to each other and being a  more out for ourselves nation.

Time to return to compassion and giving and loving and equality. World billionaires, 2011, break two records, total number (1210), anc combined wealth (4.5 trillion),
the botton 90% have hardly incresed wealth at all since 1980, while the wealthiest few have seen drastic increase in their wealth.

Our economic/financial/fiscal sickness is the result of allowing the evil political machine to run a game on us, and our spiritual recklessness is apparent. We must change.

by Tx Trumbo

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Blame pt. II

So now, some high faluten hot shot from Penn State University, a member of the Board of Regents, or some such, is good enough to explain to us that the problem with Joe Paterno, and the reason he was fired, was his "lack of leadership". 

 You many recall Paterno's lack of leadership consisted of reporting to his immediate superior, the athletic director, rather than to the police, when an assistant coach reported to Paterno that he had witnessed Jerry Sandusky sexually abusing a child.

Peterno reported to his immediate superior, not the police.  Follow the chain of command, they always tell you.

Then, to save their high paid collective butts, the AD. University President, and the Board of Regents made Paterno the scape goat.

The Board of Regents ended up making everybody  except themselves the scapegoat, including the A.D. and the president.. Maybe they got it backwards. After all, they, the Board of Regents, is the body ultimately in charge of the University, or any Universiry.

I'm surprised that the high paid people didn't make the custodians responsible.

While we're at it, let's make all of us responsible.

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Blame

It somehow seems safe to assume that the American soldier who calmly left his base, killed 16 Afghani people, then calmly returned to his base is mentally ill. He might not be, but it still seems safe to assume that he is. Which, of course, is certainly no excuse for anything, but it may be a reason.

And so now the Taliban swears revenge against...what?.. Who?

The entire United States? Why of course. And doubtless the overall attitude towards the United States on the part of the Afghani people is now extremely negative, as it apparanely is in the case of Afghanistan President Karzai.

World opinion is not likely to be too great either.

Well then so be it. Maybe its what America deserves, for all the war its made.

America deserves to be judged on it foreign policy, but do the actions of a single idiot merit condemning all 305 million American people? Surely not.

You probably couldn't find more than a handful of Americans, if that many, who find this occurance anything other than utterly vile and reprehensible, and tragic.

The world might do well to remember that. Yes, judge the United States on her behavior, of which there is plenty available. But not on th actions of a single sick person.

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Pecking Orders

Sometimes you just don't want to accept the truth, which can be defined as "verifiable reality".The truth often seems to contradict what we already believe, or would like to believe, about the world, or our place in it.

It is verifiable that some people are "better looking" than others, in the sense that, some people are more sexually, physically attractive than others. The criteria for determining this appears to be partly subjective, and partly objective.

Although beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder, scientific research has demonstrated that there are indeed certain identifiable universal, objective standards of beauty. Youth or age is an objective measurement, but people respond to it subjectively, though in general youth seems to have the edge for attractiveness.

A ratio os 5 to 1, or 10 to 1; these things are purely objective, and all humans seem to respond to them is the same way. It is fascinating that a person with nose to eyes distance apart ratio with a certain mathematical relationship everyone considers beautiful, while a ration just a bit larger, or smaller, evokes universal repulsion. No one is sure why this is so, only that it is so.

It is tempting, quite tempting, to allege that attractive women are less friendly than their unattractive counterparts. There is empirical research which seems to indicate this. As if less attractive women cannot afford the luxury of aloofness, of being hard to get, high priced.

How we rank in the great pecking order of society impacts every aspect of our lives, doubtless yet another clever natural device of some sort. Pecking orders. Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em.

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MALE CONTRACEPTION

Over the years of my adulthood I have followed the development and implications of male contraception and today I would like to share with you the most technically informative web site I have found on the subject to date,  

The Male Contraception Information Project..  

 http://www.newmalecontraception.org/index.htm . 

There are many diverse moral, cultural, economic and legal implications of male contraception but changes are coming soon, with or without expressed individual positions on the subject. The huge potential profits for international pharmaceutical companies are driving the research and development of male contraception supported by the governments of China, India and the United States of America.

by Jim Hosp

Male contraception is an important, indeed vital issue to humanity at the present time, because global population, and issues related to it, are the most pressing questions facing us. How many people do we want to live on this planet at any given time? We will soon be required to provide an answer to this question, or nature will...B B

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Imagine

WE talk about reforming our schools, reforming our economic system, our society as a whole, because we realize that reform, change, is absolutely necessary. Its necessary because there are too many people living in poverty, too many people living in obscene levels of materialism, too many wars, too much violence.

And this is worldwide, for all time, yesterday, and today. And, seemingly, alarmingly, tomorrow, in all probability.


And at times it seems that we humans make progress, but that there is always much more progress desperately needing implementation. As writer Arthur C. Clarke said:


......"Imagine that you're an intelligent extraterrestrial, concerned only with verifiable truths. You discover a species that has divided itself into thousands - or millions - of tribal groups holding an incredible variety of beliefs about the origin of the universe and the way to behave in it.

Although many of them have ideas in common, even when there's a ninety-nine percent overlap, the remaining one percent's enough to set them killing and torturing each other, over trivial points of doctrine, utterly meaningless to outsiders.

How to account for such irrational behavior? Lucretius hit it on the nail when he said that religion was the by product of fear - a reaction to a mysterious and often hostile universe.

For much of human prehistory, it may have been a necessary evil,, - but why was it so much more evil than necessary - and why did it survive when it was no longer necessary?".......

With this mentality, this mindset, the mindset of humanity which engenders what Clarke was talking about, how is real social progress ever going to be possible?

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Aristocracy of Inequality of Inequity in U.S.

We're all about the top tier here, at least since Reagan, and probably since George III. Eigth graders in New York have to go through a crazy complicated admissions process to see where they're accepted for high school.

Parents fighting like wolves (who wouldn't?) to get their kid in the best school. We're so unequal here, economically, that nobody really wants their kid going to the schools in the ghetto, with more poverty, crime, gangs, drugs, and less hope, chances, facilities, and safety.

America? Separate and unequal. And we want to rake the teachers over the coals? Over test scores? Fraudulent patriots and their ruse of caring for each and every child.

Really? Gosh, Where's the anger and committment to end poverty and economic disparities? Nowhere, man. We pick on the small fry, afraid of the master. Afraid of the real deal. Politically impotent, yet anger directing towards the small fry. You lie. We lie.

--by Tx Trumbo, from his book "Who's the Teacher now?"

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Real Reasons

Americans have been complaining about american public schools since...well, since I was in school, over forty years ago. Back then the charge against the young people was ignorance and apathy; we didn't know anything, and we didn't care about anything, except our own pleasure and happiness. 

Well, to a certain point, that was true, and still is. But it turns out that those in the baby boomer generation who protested the Viet Nam war and showed their disdain for the status quo society by refusing to conform to it; well, they were right. We know that now, in restrospect. 

Forty years later, the complaints about the young continue apace, most coming from those of us who were once the subject of such complaints.  Sweet revenge...

Whats refreshing about author and educator Tx Trumbo in his book "Who's the Teacher Now?", is that he doesn't try to lay all of society's  problems at the feet of the under eighteen crowd and their teachers inside the cloistered confines of america's public schools, as does everyone else.

Instead, he puts the blame squarely where it belongs; on mainstream american society. We don't need better teachers, and more standardized testing, and more accountability and oversight, what we need, says Trumbo, is a better, more child friendly culture, in which to nurture and raise healthy, well educated children. 

"We rank higher in education that we do in most economic indicators, worldwide. So, why all the hubbab about failing schools, bad teachers, and irresponsible parenting?

Well, because it is so much easier finding scapegoats than admitting our society is failing us a a whole. Our citizens have longer working hours, shorter vacations, and fewer benefits than most of the industrialized world; this negatively affects family structure, cohesion, and relations within the larger society.

Does this system value children?"

Trumbo asserts that an economic system, such as that in america, which rewards lavishly the few while exploiting the many cannot possibly value children, because children are the recipients of this widespread poverty and inequality. Something to think about...

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A Bombs & America

Evrybody knows how to build an atomic bomb. There are many books on the subject, easily available; any graduate student in physics can tell you how to build an atomic bomb.

The problem is getting the materials, equipment, and machinary necessary to actually assemble one, or more than one. It is actually rather hard to believe that any modern nation wanting to have atomic bombs hasn't already built them, including Iran.

It would not be surprising to discover that Iran indeed has bombs, and the launching systems capable of delivering them to, say, Israel.  If the Israelis strike Iran, Iran may strike back, harder than expected.

Wouldn't it be obvious to any neutral observer that the solution lies not in bullying Iran to remain non nuclear, but rather in eliminating all atomic bombs and hydrogen bombs from the face of the planet? Shouldn't those issues, Iran, and worldwide nuclear disarmament, be linked?

The United States behaves as if it has the God given right to maintain thousands of atomic bombs, and to simultaneously dictate which other nations may own them. And, of course, the U.S. does indeed have that right, because, truly, might makes right, and America has the  military might.

But not the moral right. The United States really has no moral right whatever to dictate anything to anybody concerning atomic bombs, considering it own destructive history. But, as long as america has the right of military might, it is good that America uses that might-right to urge non members of the nuclear club to not join, so far. 

One hopes that Amreica never starts arming the world with atomic bombs, like it has small arms, military aircraft, and artillary.

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Do Money and Fame Help Teachers?

...humans are money grubbers by nature, and some cultures magnify the trait, among them, modern american...we pay our entertainers grotesquely more than our teachers, removing all financial motivation for teaching, then, we think we can throw crumbs at teachers and produce better results.....as Tx Trumbo, a teacher, says in his seminal book "Whos' the Teacher Now?"....

"Merit pay? Thank goodness money is not our pimary motivation for teaching. Teaching is a collaborative and service profession. Merit pay rewards the individual, not the team, the acquisitive, not the selfless.

Do we really think a few thousand dollars will help teachers to inspire their students more than smaller classes or extra planning time will? Merit pay does not promote better education. As a teacher for the past ecade, I would say that using money as the motivator is silly, ineffective, and even counterproductive."

Trumbo is equally opposed to giving out awards to teachers:

"I don't even like the Teacher of the Year award because its the one time of the year some of us are elevated above the others, not because they are dramatically better teachers but because you have to pick a few candidates out of the whole.

You are separating the team. It is a negative impact on the common good of the team. We ae not singular employees acting without the help and cooperation of our peers. We are team."

Anybody who dosn't think money and awards are good motivating tools is in the minority in america, unfortunately.

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Limbaugh's Apology

The fact that Rush Limbaugh has apologized for insulting a young lady on radio is in a way surprising. After all, he insulted her several days in a row, even after people started complaining about it, then, after it turned into a national uproar, he apologized, in writing.

Did he yet apologize on his radio show? If not yet, will he? It seems obvious that Limbaugh's initial reaction to the uproar was to stubbornly stick with his insults, and only changed his approach when the advertisers started canceling in large numbers.

And it seems unlikely that he intended his remarks to be humorous, as he claimed in his apology. He probably thought that if he kept up the attack,  his supporters would come staunchly to his defense, and the  part of the public offended by his word choice would simply be shouted down.

But it didn't work out that way. This time, there was no support for Rush, and the offended public turned out to include everyone. If Rush learned a lesson from this, he now knows that he is not above reproach.

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The Lorax

There aren't very many motion pictures made in America which seriously question the status quo. Any that do deserve serious attention, even if they are cartoons.

"The Lorax" was written in 1971, in an era of social protest and questioning. It was not a particularly successful book for Dr. Seuss, but of course it had a lot of competition from other Suess books from the 1950s and 1960s.

Animation techniques in the computer age have become incredibly impressive visually; good artwork goes well with high technology.

We are a civilization which has decided that material prosperity  for the many and great wealth for the few is more important that preserving nature, and this is the point of the film.

Unless we change that priority, we are doomed. The change will have to start small, and grow. So far there have been innumerable false starts; what we need now is a genuine one.

The Lorax is a story about greed, environmental devastation because of greed, and the emergence of a widespread determination to reverse it, which begins as a tiny seed, and grows.

This is a movie worth seeing.

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The Fed Question

The Truthless Reconciler recently published an article suggesting that abolishing the federal reserve system might not be in the best interest of America, that so doing might bring about too much economic disruption; and took a lot of flak .

Which is fine. Oh that the people who disagree would just write for this blog! They are invited to, but thus far they reject the offer.

The people, lilke Ron Paul, who believe that the fed should be abolished are all fervant about it, give 'em credit for that. And if you don't agree, heaven help you. But that's OK. A little issue based passion is a good thing.  

I'm perfectly willing to believe that the  american federal reserve bank should be abolished, but I have not yet been convinced. You can't believe everything that you read, and simply reading that the fed is owned by an evil international consortium of criminals who steal from the american people doesn't make it so.

But it does  seem obvious that the american military-industrial, corporate complex rules the american people and has much power throughout the world. undoubtedly the federal reserve is their tool, like everything else is.

So, yes, we need a revolution. We the people need to overthrow the corporate mastery of our lives, and, to the extent that the fed supports this, overthrow it too. So that should appease the fed haters. Reform that which needs reforming, and do it in the interest of the teeming masses.

But let's be careful about what we decide should be done. Like Davy Crockett said: "Always be sure you are right, then go ahead."  Before we eliminate the federal reserve system, let's make sure that its the right thing to do, that's all.

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