education in the USA

It is sad that leaders in the USA do not understand how important education to national security. Comparison scores declined for decades last century. Some improvement can be seen this century, but USA scores still fall shamefully behind other countries.

1995 results: "...tests showed U.S. fourth-graders performing poorly, middle school students worse. and high school students are unable to compete. By the same criteria used to say we were "average" in elementary school, "we appear to be "near the bottom" at the high school level. source

2003 comparison of more than 250,000 15-year old students from 41 countries. USA Ranks: Math: 27th, Reading: 18th, Science: 22nd. source

2010 Ranks show minor improvement, but when considering the wealth and resources available in the USA, these scores still show a sad disregard for education in the USA: Math: 25th, Reading: 14th, Science: 17th.
source

This does not address the unavailability of higher education for the majority of Americans who cannot afford $100,000+ for a basic college education and double that for an advanced degree. Government loans and long-term debt or bankruptcy is not the answer, but the only alternative for many young people.

Until Education is as high a priority as Defense, no amount of bombs/guns will protect us from the defenselessness of technological and intellectual inferiority.

sometimes it's personal

dozens of little complaints missed their chance to have their fifteen minutes of vent here over the past year simply cuz i have not had the time and don't keep track and let things go in the blink of an eye and don't take complaints seriously anyway, just like to vent the frustration rather than distract, when there is time... so today i have a vent about personal writing...

not so much personal life, cuz i have a roommate who takes care of me when i need help (and vice versa) and people around i can count on if i need something and i also have lots of social friends for sports and games and lots of activities, though a few (music, movies, shows, photography, all the expensive fun) i only get to do if i pay for whomever i go with), the missing piece is that i do not have anyone close personal and intimate to really show interest in me (like a best friend relationship or a relationship), but still and all, personal life is as busy as i want it to be...

here on the internet, however, in the written gardens, in the many blogs i update regularly, even on the social networks where i have many people on my friends list, there is a void, little or no actual interaction, no one has the time or interest to read and share the words...

there's a grumble, cuz i love sharing words... not just cuz i love attention and recognition and praise and even some critique (or there's something more than just critique cuz critique alone has suspect meaning for me, i mean, why critique if you don't care to find something positive to say as well... i am much more interested in focusing on the positive), but also cuz i love literary interaction, writing letters and sharing in words, especially when someone actually cares to read, understand, and share the meanings in the words...

nobody really wants to know me anymore...

maybe tomorrow :}

poor service sucks

went to giovanni's for dinner (yum, but the worst witress service we've ever had there as i had to ask for a refill for my drink several times {starting at the appetizer even though the empty glass was sitting right on the end of the table as a reminder} and the refill {one refill... i was considering going to the bar and asking for a drink} finally came at the end of dinner and she had to go find a straw cuz she forgot to bring one and she served another table and returned and forgot the straw... she didn't even acknowledge the poor service... very surprising to have such neglect of service at that place... waited so long for the drink there was no mood for dessert and the worst thing of all was no apology at all as she asked if we wanted dessert or anything else and wished us a good night... clueless waitresses are the bane of dining out and this was after 8pm, so the mad dinner rush was over and the place was 3/4 empty... so there's the first major strike against our favorite neighborhood place), which was a bummer but stopping for dessert elsewhere brought the sweet dining out on my favorite foods mood back...

free oil for everyone

free oil for everyone

The 'simple solutions' like hay and straw and other products look great in a small bowl or laboratory, but don't be naive, there's no strainer big enough to scoop millions of tons of soaked straw and hay out of the gulf and even if we somehow had that much hay and straw and a three hundred mile strainer, there's not enough ships in the navy to drag that much weight out of the water... the simple solution was to act swiftly and responsibly, but that was not in BP's interest... and don't look at the government, come on, did you forget katrina and new orleans already?...

government is condemned for over-regulating industry when they do anything before a disaster and then condemned for not cleaning up the mess industry makes after a disaster... responsibility is on the businessmen, their greed did this - and you and me - our dependency on luxuries, oil, and our lifestyles did this... we demand more oil, more energy, more consumer goods, and we don't want to see the costs to the planet nor the risks to ourselves in our blind attempt to have it all...

many people still do not want to see, as the flagging of videos on youtube demonstrates... but the only thing keeping our heads in the sand will do is get us covered in oil, or kicked in our up-in-the-air butts... great nations fall when the people stop caring enough to take responsibility and do the right thing... that's history, and we are living it... and we can only hope enough of us wake up in time to realize what we need to do to save ourselves...

infinite profits

katrina drowns new orleans, 2005

yeah, we all know the story... or do we?... did you know about hurricane pam?... pam that did the very same thing to new orleans in 2004 that hurricane katrina did in 2005... you can watch the video and learn a bit about hurricane pam... one year before hurricane katrina devastated, hurricane pam tore the city apart and flooded new orleans almost exactly as katrina did, in a computer simulation...

yes, scientists created a storm, hurricane pam, and entered all the facts they had about the lay of the land, the strength of the levees, where people lived, and all the known facts about the physical city of new orleans into a computer... and then they entered meteorological data for a storm and aimed it toward the city… levees failed and new orleans and surrounding lands ended up under water… the scientists told the government and army core of engineers and you know what they did...

nothing…

in every other arena, someone who has the power to save lives, knows lives could be lost if they do not act, and then do not act and lives are lost... they would be criminally libel for the deaths… I believe it is called criminally negligent manslaughter… the government is guilty of this, but no one holds those in charge who killed people through negligence accountable…

that simply sucks…

trust your government?... what may be worse is the news media, the noble fourth estate that loves to point fingers and dramatize human failure and claims to have a noble mission to tell people the truth, seemed to miss this atrocity… did they deliberately ignore the facts?...

all the news that’s fit to print?

sometimes, humans are nauseating...

what is it?

no time?... of course there is no time, at least not enough time, especially when you choose to fill your life with stuff that leaves no time for the other stuff...

no one in the real daily life who really cares?... of course, that is what happens when you choose the suprficial and/or you choose to build walls, traps, mirrors, and every or any other diversions to avoid real intimacy, true trusting sharing, and honest love...

did i do that?... of course, and excused because you've been burned enough to justify doing it doesn't change the fact that it's done...

trapped?... of course, so not that you know...

what are you gonna do about it?...

another meaningless complaint?

politics

i do not want to be a democrat or a republican or any blind faith follower of any party or anything... i seldom listen to any politician and seldom listen to or watch the news because i sense a bias so obvious and an agenda so hypocritical and full of subtrifuge that want to puke just thinking that we the people accept the ignoarance they assume we must have... i want to believe that i actually hear what these people are saying...

tonight i hear a president saying some things that made sense and wondered if he would have any influence at all on the politics as usual... watching the ridiculous posing of the congres people and senators, the standing ovations and the seated silence based on party affiliation and obviously not based on what may or may not be right, i wondered why the president did not call all of them out for the hypocrits and posers they were...

so is the president any different?...

not much, he played the same game... and well... but still, in the end, the president gave me a good feeling, a hopeful feeling that maybe something might actually change in washington to bring more fairness and justice to this country... and then i listened to ten minutes of cliche and rhetoric and negativity under the viel of smiling doublespeak, subtle inferences that the president did not say what he just said, carefully phrased juxtapositions suggesting that the president actually said the opposite of what he just said, out and out political campagning that had nothing to do with anything, and meaningless pandering to people's base fears from the republican rebuttal and realized there is very little if any hope for truth or justice in the american way today...

so sad, i hope i don't put myself through this again anytime soon...

social status

so i'm flipping through tv stations and find there is a movement in florida to create county level council on the social status of black men and boys meeting in the office of the attorney general in orlando, florida... have we made any real mind-set or perspective progress since the civil war in the south?...

a group who's mission is to look for and point fingers, look for weaknesses, and shout unfair for black men and boys?... is this legitimate affirmative action (affirm is a positive term, right?) or is it a veiled way of castrating men and boys in and of itself?... is the perspective to pity and organize people to help black men and boys because they can't effectively take care of themselves?...

people are so tied up in social status, so in love with the victim mindset, so kind to similarities and opportunities to bridges gaps and come together, so comfortable with segregation and pity parties and pointing fingers... so what we've got is a group of mostly very overweight people trying to find money (and justification to get the money) from government (taxes) to get some excitement going to organize local groups with a purpose of studying the social status of black men and boys...

the chairperson of this council is the Director, Office of Supplier Diversity, Department of management Services... is this bureacracy gone made or a real need seeking a real solution for a real problem?... perhaps the underlying source of the concerns is the very attitude that black men and boys need local government groups to promote their social status, inherently setting black men and boys apart as inferior and "needing help" based solely on race and gender...

not racism?...

i wish people would stop judging people based soley on race or gender... but that is the culture we live in and the people in power support it because it keeps the majority of people in divided social groups feeling needy with a hand out for help instead of empowered and united as human beings...

sigh...

irresponsible adults

adults love to call kids irresponsible, but to see how dangerously (and criminally) irresponsible adults are, just turn on the news... i try to avoid the news, but tonight, a kid goes to the bathroom after school and when he comes out, his school bus has already pulled away... his sisters tell the bus driver, who reportedly tells them he can't turn the bus around... the kid tells a crossing guard as he's starting the five mile walk home along busy roads without sidewalks, and the crossing guard does nothing... the news asks the school representative who was responsible for the safety of the children on and leaving school property, and there's no one named responsible... so the kid is picked up by his father somewhere along the wroad on the way home after his sisters got home and told their father what happened...

i detest the ambulance chasing legal system we've got in this country, but in this case, someone on the school board should be fired for not having the right answer when questioned and someone at the school should be fired for putting that child at risk... if the kid had disappeared and become one of the many missing children in this country, would there be more concern?...

check the milk cartons, probably not..