Texas A&M to the SEC

Team Speed Kills disects the rumour mill. It all comes down to this:

The SEC is a great conference the way it is and should not expand just to expand. But if the Big XIIish is going to spin apart -- and it eventually will -- the SEC has to get Texas A&M.

While I think this probably means things will happen sooner rather than later, I still come back to the same question I keep thinking of: what other team gets the invite?



.

Historic Truths

Right now, a bunch of Democrats, Liberals, and Progressives are whining loudly about the Debt Deal, a political battle they lost to a group of opponents whose every policy and political priority was exposed as either a failure or a fraud between 2000 and 2008, and from 2008 to 2010. So, of course, the most important thing they want to do today is remind people about how terrible they are at politics, and expect people to reelect them so they can continue losing to occupants from the clown car.

The excuses are plentiful, but the "American people are just a bunch of racist, ignorant, Bible-thumping rednecks biding their time until the South Rises Ag'in" train is never late. (HT: Jeffrey) Yeah, I know that article makes a lot of very good points, but the macro topic is the old DLP abdication of political agency at the hands of Americans who "just don't get it."

The article discusses symptoms while ignoring the actual illness. Yes, the far right will never accept policy victories delivered to them from Democrats, Liberals, and Progressives any more than from Centrists or Pragmatists. To those true believers, anyone to their left is a baby-killing, terrorist-sympathizing, America-hating, Godless, Kenyan anti-colonialist, fascist, communist, Marxist, homosexual-agenda-following illegitimate, and no amount of giving them what they want is going to change their mind. Seriously, everyone to their left could vote unanimously for their entire platform tomorrow, and we'd still be trying to destroy America in their eyes.

That is a fundamentally ridiculous set of beliefs for a party to hold, and they strain the bounds of credibility. So what is the larger illness that keeps the Democrats, Liberals, and Progressives from winning political victories against these individuals? Very easily stated: the right wing chooses what political issue to fight over, makes an issue out of it, makes a bunch of stuff up about it and then dares members of the DLP to address their make believe claims and come and knock them off their hill. That is not a winning proposition, because you can't meet crazy with crazy. The right knows how the DLP is going to respond before the DLP even knows what they're going to be talking about. The DLP responds by repeating right-wing talking points, disputing right-wing talking points, and generally giving more credibility and attention to right wing talking points than they are due.

Here's the rub: they sacrifice their own momentum to do so. If we're discussing right-wing issues, we are not discussing progress-prone issues. By the time the right has won a political battle, like the Debt Deal, the DLP's only recourse is to try and figure out what is to blame. The blame usually lands on the people in the "red states" who are "voting against their personal interests" because they are "dumb." That way, anyone who was even considering giving ear to DLP priorities is turned off or written off. Nowhere do I see critiques of DLP's own political marketing strategois.

As a Southern Liberal who has watched the professional political class hand the South over to the GOP, the Tea Party, and the Fire-Eaters Born Anew, this drives me crazy.

For example, there is a way the DLP could spool up a huge progress-prone political campaign right this instant that reminds people that the right wing has zero credibility and is in fact attempting to re-write American history to replace it with bullshit, reminds people the progress our nation has made when it comes to our social justice history - advances owed to unabashed small-l liberalism, comes down on the side of family values, legitimizes African-Americans as part of the American society, and exposes the mythology of the "good ole days" as nothing more than unvarnished feudalism that we are happy to be rid of. And it teaches a little bit about real American history and how our nation has overcome nearly insurmountable obstacles in the past to become a better, more exceptional place. Not only is that something we should all be very proud of, it celebrates America with regard to this nation's unique story.

I am, of course, discussing the Antebellum Myth About Slave Families and the Right Wingers Who Tell Such Lies to the American People. Every Democrat, every Liberal, every Progressive should be on the news right now talking about this issue.

Stop whining about losing the Debt Deal politics, start talking real American values, start pointing out the foes to those values, and start winning the next round of Debt Deal politics. That's how this stuff works, y'all.

.

"Resegregating the South"

Cynthia Tucker at the AJC reexamines the unintended consequences of the Voting Rights Act of 1984. She starts with a mea culpa and then blisters the effect gerrymandering redistricting has had on our nation as a whole, and particularly the South.

And if it is to change, we will need many voices ready to overcome the racially-based demoagougery we are sure to hear from the left. Especially the machine politicians who benefit the most directly from turning majority-minority districts into personal fiefdoms.

If black voters think they have made substantial gains simply by having more black representatives in Congress, they’re wrong. They’d have more influence if they were spread through several legislative districts, forcing more candidates to court them.

I'm glad to hear someone saying it. Y'all what has been going on is bad for everyone. We need more demographically balanced districts all over the country, and we will need them if we ever, ever hope to rationally address the problems this nation is facing.

Case and point: Louisiana just got some new Congressional districts. Take a moment and look at the map. See if you can guess which one is specifically drawn to concentrate as many minority voters as possible.

Then look at the demographics. For a state that is one-third African-American, African-Americans have a voice in only one-sixth of the state's Congressional delegation.

Unintended consequences don't begin to cover it.

.

"Barbecue" Rymes with "Argue"

Though mostly good natured arguing. Because at the heart of the matter, we are talking about sharing food with family, community, and culture,. Sauce and style have become more of a team effort in the internet age. Wear your Eastern Carolina jersey proudly, y'all, I'll be over here onboard the Southern Soul train reppin' Island City barbecue 'till I die.

Where I grew up in Georgia, we had a lot of barbecue at a lot of different places. Some was pork, some was beef, some was chicken or sausage or venison cooked over the same coals. Because if you've already got the coals working, what's the harm in more meat over the fire?

There was usually a selection of sauces: vinegar based, tomato based, mustard based. There were even flavors: hot, sweet, and regular. And you could order it chopped or pulled.

Now that I live in New Orleans, there is cochon-de-lait. Which is either very similar or entirely different from "barbecue" depending on who you are talking to. And, of course, barbecue shrimp - which is its own culinary category altogether.

For some folks, "barbecue" is a noun: the pork and/or beef that is cooked for a long time at "low" heat over a pit of coals. Chicken or sausage or venison didn't count as "barbecue," but were just the sauce covered side-items to the "barbecue."

For others "barbecue" is the verb of cooking any or all meats at "low" heat over a pit of coals. As someone who grew up in Coastal Georgia, this is the closest to my cultural upbringing.

Though there is one line I draw with my inclusiveness: grillin' is not barbecue.

.

Refighting the Past

You're never really done with legislation. You're never really done with human freedom or civil rights. Once you think you have them, there will always be someone who wants to try and roll them back. The price for freedom is eternal vigilance in so many definitions of the word.

Sometimes that vigilance means keeping your eyes open when the guy next to you in the subway keeps trying to light a fuse in his jacket. Other times that vigilance requires you to keep people from re-writing history to move political goal posts today.

The ongoing battle over the Civil Rights Act of 1964 - and yes I said ongoing because we aren't really done with it - got another boost with Ron Paul recently. While liberals and progressives stand around shocked to find out that people will actually say in public that they don't support the CRA (and are more shocked to find out these individuals still command political support), the forces of revisionism are hard at work to justify such political beliefs.

And it works. Remember folks, "the free market didn't enforce segregation, the government enforced segregation." Or that's the narrative, at least.

While hardly all-in with this narrative (like the Pauls), Doug Mataconis at Outside the Beltway comes dangerously close to rationalizing it.

Racial segregation in the South wasn’t a product of the free market, it was the product of a state imposing racial prejudices under the threat of criminal prosecution.

"Big Government" strikes again? Hardly.

While this article's explorations of SCOTUS decisions kneecapping the 14th Amendment in the Slaughterhouse Cases of 1873 (involving New Orleans) and the Civil Rights Cases of 1883 are quite valuable, I take issue with the idea that,

different outcome in The Slaughterhouse Cases and The Civil Rights Cases, the entire system of mandated racial segregation known as Jim Crow would have been under direct legal assault at the time of it’s birth.

There's a big concern I have with saying things like that. You see, Jim Crow was under legal assault from the time of its birth - The Civil Rights cases represented the first wave of such assaults, and Plessy vs. Ferguson represented the second wave. What we also know from our history is that these robust legal assaults, as well as others, failed.

An argument that:

So, as a philosophical matter, the Pauls are both correct that the state should not have the authority to tell businesses who they can choose as customers.

Is a almost an identical argument used by the Supreme Court to strike down the Civil Rights Act of 1875. And look what that philosophical matter got us - nearly 100 more years of Jim Crow and ongoing Jim Crow legacy today.

This issue is another place where I take exception with "libertarianism," even as I have my own robust blue libertarian streak of cynical distrust of the government.

Sorry folks, I. Live. In. The. South. Down here, you can't go six months without some popular politician reminding folks the importance of "state's rights" to ignore Federal laws (like the CRA) or complaining that all redistricting has to go through Justice Department approval in the same breath that carries discussions of diluting or off-loading minority voting strength.

Segregation and Jim Crow were state government mandates, free-market mandates, and cultural mandates all wrapped up in one. Businesses were getting subsidies and contributing to political campaigns back in the day just as much as they are today. As a matter of fact, that era is often described as the "good ole days" before all the "government regulations" came in and "ruined business." One wonders if more regular health inspections are the "government regulations" being discussed...

Should we even talk about the social stigma that would be ascribed to businesses that served "mixed" clientele during that time? After all, once schools and businesses were legally forced to integrate, white people fled to the suburbs and exurbs. There, they spent time socially engineering their own communities far away from the cities and the colored folks. They didn't have to go to school, shop with, or hire the colored folks if there ain't no colored folks around. And yet, the government doesn't interfere with their right to do so. As a matter of fact, it subsidizes the ability to self-segregate, by subsidizing road construction and oil exploration.

I think about all those free market forces at work when I drive through New Orleans East, an area where 71,000 people live where there's only ONE grocery store. Guess what race most of the residents there are.

The author sums up my whole opinion on the CRA in his closing:

by the time the 1964 Civil Rights Act came into being the distinction between private and public behavior under Jim Crow was a hard line to draw, especially when social pressure by Southern whites made it virtually impossible for any business owner who didn’t want to discriminate against blacks from doing so. The only way to bring down the whole system, a system that arguably might not have existed if the 14th Amendment hadn’t been virtually gutted in the latter years of the 19th Century, was to use the authority of the Federal Government to do so.

So, yeah, you could say that I don't mind "Big Government" robustly enforcing the 14th Amendment through the Civil Rights Act of 1964. While it may be philosophically OK to think that parts of the CRA are coercive in nature, and a little bit of overreach on the part of the government, I only wished we lived in a society so perfect that we didn't need a government to make sure doors of opportunity are open to all citizens. Until we get to that More Perfect Union, I don't mind "Big Government" telling people interested in starting a business that they will be unable to segregate based on race, creed, or color if they would like to do business in the United States. We ain't yet far enough removed from the bad ole days yet.

.

Of Heritage & Concrete

One thing I never got about the "Heritage Not Hate" line of thought regarding the Civil War South is how so many of the staunchest supporters of "heritage" done sold the family farm off to some hot shot real estate developer who bulldozed the trees, graded away the creeks, and laid concrete over the red clay with singular disregard for the bones of warriors long forgotten.

That's why so much of the South ain't got no sense of place no more, it is just one long strip mall connecting ranch-style houses with the local movie theater.

Pictures are worth a 1,000 words, but these pictures are worth far more than that.

I don't got to say much. All I got to do is remind folks that it didn't take Sherman "burning" Atlanta or torching Columbia, or Grant chewing up the approaches to Nashville and Richmond. We'd have paved over a fair bit of the good stuff ourselves, left to our own devices. That's one thing the last 150 years have proved beyond a shadow of a doubt.

.

150 Years

How far we have come since then.

How far we have yet to go.

.

The Other 99%

There were a lot of pathologies present in the way America, and especially cities in the South, concentrated poverty and minorities in public housing projects. Coupled with the criminal mismanagement of public education resources, these pathologies created conditions responsible for replicating generations of at-risk populations.

While some folks can be lulled into the false choice that any change to a bad situation is good change, we must never forget that "solutions" may simply create or replicate progress-resistant pathologies in different ways. And guess which Southern American cities get to go first?

New Orleans and Atlanta are providing the opening scenes of a new era of American decline, with fewer and fewer economic opportunities and more and more ways to fall through the cracks.

This becomes very important to me. I realize that every year, as I become more secure in my job, as I gain experience and encounter my yearly merit raises, my economic position slips further and further down the class ladder. At the same time, there is a group of politicians in this country that blame my personal economic decline and tax burden on the most at-risk members of our society.

While the emotional reaction is immediate when you see an outwardly looking, able-bodied someone using public assistance to purchase junk food in the grocery store, and argue with the clerk about it, the reverse emotion is true when you talk to folks who do menial service work for private contractors 50 hours a week and still can't make ends meet without SNAP benefits. Help out with a city-assisted evacuation sometime, and the few dozen people who are obviously taking advantage of the situation - and complaining about it - will boil your blood. Perspective comes when you see the thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people who need the assistance, whose elderly, infirm, or children would be at the mercy of leaky levees yet again if the storm comes too close. There is always a disconnect between what people say on television and radio and what actually happens in front of your face. Yes, there may be wasted tax dollars spent on the social safety net for these people, but that simply cannot be so much it is destroying our nation's fiscal health.

On the other hand, according to that group of politicians, it is the tax burden on the richest people and the corporations that is holding our economy back. So we cut and cut the taxes of the top 1%, we provide endless tax loopholes and subsidies so those corporations will provide jobs and that 1% will spend their money around. We've been following this general fiscal plan since about 1980, and all our nation has done is find fiscal decline.

The explanations seem to make sense. Lower taxes allow people to spend more on goods, and people at the top have the most buying power. But does that spending go to regular goods that create the most jobs, or to the luxury goods that require already well-paid specialists? Are they investing in real businesses that build the economy or the legalized gambling in the stock markets? The idea that corporations will move their jobs to the places where they incrue the lowest costs (and make the most profit) seems to make sense until you realize that - where are they going to go?

Then there is the deeply soothing narrative that, if we increase taxes on companies, and eliminate their subsidies and loopholes, they will "pass the cost on to the consumer." This also makes sense in the "common sensism" of soundbyte news and talk radio. But in a free market economy, isn't that up to the consumer to decide?

I don't buy a lot of stuff. I try not to buy a lot of gasoline. I don't fly commercial. I don't live in a suburb. But my tax dollars are used to subsidize or provide loopholes for companies that buy crap goods from cheap manufacturers in China; my tax dollars go to subsidize the oil companies and their billions and billions of profits; my tax dollars go to subsidize the airline industry at the expense of rail and mass transit; my tax dollars go to subsidize infrastructure and schools in other parts of the state or country while our levees leak, our roads are cratered, and our schools are being privatized because 'they don't work' for lack of resources. I'm not chosing to consume goods I'm already paying for.

Pennies come out of my tax dollars and go to the social safety net. But quarters go to subsidize the lifestyles of the top 1%. And by saying this, I know that makes me a "class warrior" to some - usually those who would have me focus my attention on the pathologies present among the most disenfranchised, at-risk populations because they can provide the easiest scapegoat.

.

Sports Tawk

Yule unnerstan wen yoo click awnit.

.

The Rail Problem

McArdle knocks this one out of the park by describing how high-speed rail advocates sabotage their own efforts.

The point is not trains for the sake of trains. The point is a viable transportation option that delivers a return on an investment.

Instead of a Tampa-to-Orlando showcase, let's get moving on the Southeastern High Speed Rail Corridor. That line can terminate in New Orleans, after expanding to Birmingham and Hattiesburg.

And you know what city is already reading the writing on the wall? Atlanta. They've recently started moving forward on design.

.

South Regional Weather Bracket

Vote for cities with the most extreme weather. Guess which city is the 3 seed?

Hint: it is also the 4th most tornado prone large US City.

.

Heritage

Reading some Ta-Nehisi Coates, I am reminded that if Civil War rememberance in the South was more honestly about "heritage," as it should be, then we'd see an awful lot more events like this.

After all, hundreds of thousands of Southerners fought for the Union, and hundreds of thousands of those Southerners were black.

Though in complete honesty, it isn't just the South who has ignored the history of the USCT. That's why the event was held in Harrisburg in the first place, instead of Washington.

How powerful would it be to one day host a Civil War rememberance event in the South that honored the sacrifices of all her people, regardless of color or color of uniform, just an unvarnished realization of our shared regional and national tragedies? We've got 4 more Aprils to figure it out, and we can say it only took us 150 years.

.

The Numbers

The usual way of discussing education is for individuals on both sides to talk past each other. If you think the problem with education lies with the teachers' unions, you point to the anecdotes of bad teachers who have been kept on the payroll. If you think the problems with education have nothing to do with teachers' unions, you point out that the states with the weakest teachers' unions have the lowest performances.

I've done that last part. But don't get too excited, because that's usually used in response to individuals in the first category (even if they aren't listening). If you're the one selling something, you've got to prove that what you're selling is worth buying, after all.

Though it is nice, every once in a while, to see someone really dig into those numbers. That analysis doesn't pull any punches, and does not ignore something a lot of people would be more comfortable if we didn't talk about. Wingfield could have just let all that information sit in his comments section, so I have to respect that he doesn't shy away from the topic.

Race.

If they are to be believed, what do these numbers tell us? I see three things that really stand out: 1) the artificial, race-based gap in educational acheivement exists across the board, 2) that gap is the main failing of American public education regardless of state, and 3) teachers' unions don't really have a lot to do with it.

I'll keep this in mind the next time some education "reformer's" sales pitch leads with how important it is to break teachers' unions to increase student success.

The numbers still tell us that shouldn't be our priority.

.

2012

I'll say it now, the Democrats will not retake the House of Representatives in 2012. As a matter of fact, I'm of the opinion that the Democrats won't even have a chance to retake the House of Representatives again until after 2020.

And they'll only do that if they can expand their influence in state legislatures in time for the next census figures. Remember, with the GOP sweep of so many state houses during the redistricting process, they get to politically consolidate congressional power through demographic manipulation. Not that the Democrats were any angels when they controlled this process, but the GOP isn't even going to have to play ball with Democrats in the South this time around. That'll free up resources to fight this out in other states in other regions.

Maybe that will teach the national Democrats not to ignore the state parties. Especially in the South.

.

By the Numbers

Events in Wisconsin have collided with an interesting narrative when it comes to public education.

For years, school "reformers" have focused on teachers and teachers' unions as keys to making education better. I would go so far as to say it is a national talking point that teachers' unions ruin public education.

Of course, this line of thinking might make you think that states with the least powerful teachers' unions have the best public education systems, right? Well, the states with the least powerful teachers' unions are all in the South.

Uh oh.

The states with the worst education scores are also in the South.

.

The Unions Forever?

I don't subscribe to that apparent left-wing narrative that "all unions are always good always." Unions, like any large human organization, are just as capable of serious and fatal flaws as they are to obsolecence.

But the "union thuggery" narrative used so often by the far-right wing, despite contrary evidence, is a national one. It further erodes the credibility of real conservatives who associate with madness like this and refreshes in my mind what is at stake in Madison.

Don't fool yourself, this is all about political power, political marketing and credibility. Ending the right to collectively bargain has very little to do with actually balancing a budget. Because budgets have to do with revenues and expenditures; you don't balance those two things by significantly cutting revenues while reducing tiny amounts of expenditures and granting massive subsidies or giveaways to political allies.

In essence, the Republican runs on a platform of fiscal responsiblity, then institutes fiscally irresponsible legislation while cloaking it in some larger, more emotional national narrative. If they actually win, all the better. If they lose, they get to harvest the support that comes from intellectually incurious individuals on their "side" who see other Americans as less than Americans. Partisan political hackery at its finest.

As for the unions and their sympathizers, I can only hope this serves as a wake-up call to revitalize local and state-level activism. I hope it serves as a moment when these unions and activists become more politically savvy. (The ironic "union thug" t-shirt is a fantastic idea that needs to be replicated.) I hope this is the moment they begin to bring unions back from the brink of outdated-ness that they are fast approaching. There is some serious antipathy towards unions in this country, and for real reasons. These folks should start to see that, and not just base their support on something because all the cool liberals are doing it.

And they shouldn't couch this one event in terms of "losing" and "winning." Just because the GOP gets their legislation now doesn't mean that policy can't change later. You just have to remain vigilant and involved. If you fail to acheive your objectives here, you have to reevaluate and try again later. Once you do acheive your objectives, you must always seek to improve them. In a representative republic, we don't just get to enjoy one legislative battle and then luxuriously never revisit the issue.

Because, when it comes to unions, there is an awful lot of self-improvement that could take place.

I'm from the South, so it ain't like I've had a lot of experience with unions, even though I was in one for a year. A public employees union at that. Despite even active participation in said union, I am at a loss to figure out what that union did for me as a worker. Or for any of my co-workers, for that matter. I am at a loss to figure out what value that union added to the local area, whose public schools had experienced decades of decline and neglect.

Apparently, I was paying dues so some national-level union administrators could have snazzy lunches with congressfolk, and some local-level union administrators could throw cookouts. I also guess that, if anything had happened to me, the union might appoint some local and well connected lawyer to my case, if I didn't have the wherewithal to get one on my own. They could have just called the union I was in "legal troubles insurance." That's how membership was sold to me, after all. Though I never could find out how that would have worked. I also didn't quite trust the track record, since the union watched as 5,000+ employees were summarily dismissed once upon a time, and not one thing could be done about it.

This is all in spite of the fact that I knew some very spirited and sincere individuals who worked for that union. But that's to be expected. After all, I am from the South, and we've got a lot of spirited and sincere people here. Whatever civic or private organizations we create, there are going to be those people - just like there will be bad people. That's just the nature of things.

Despite the fact that I'm a "liberal,"* I'm a Southern liberal, and we tend to focus more on race than collective bargaining. To collectively bargain, after all, you have to accept some semblance of equality in the collective. And corporate interests didn't even have to divide us down here before we were conquered, we generally handled that for them ahead of time.




* (Roughly defined, by both "liberals" and "conservatives" as "anyone who doesn't agree with the most right-wing utopian thought processes.")
.

The Low Hanging Branches

The poisoning of Toomer's Oaks in Auburn, Alabama continues to be a case study regarding Southern culture taken to the most absurd extremes.

.

All About Progression

"Recognize the romanticism of history but do not be fooled by it."

Even when it comes to the food.

Sentimentality is a powerful emotion. You remember "good times" from the past and want to try and recreate them over and over. Couple that with the natural human trait to replicate those behaviors that brought them success or accolades, as if the situation or circumstances never change, and you've got a recipie for stagnation. We spend so much time trying to replicate past success that we forfeit new successes we could acheive.

And that truth can be applied to so many things.

.

A Good School System

I'm still unpacking some of the things I heard at the 5 Years Later panel regarding the current state of New Orleans public education.

The thing that bothered me most was that everyone on stage appeared to agree with OPSB Member Brett Bonin's statement (and I'm paraphrasing) that 'now New Orleans knows what a good school system looks like.'

That might make for good copy, but the truth was exposed later on when the moderator asked the panel 'what does a good school system look like?' The panelists responded with boilerplate statements regarding "student success" and "school success scores" and students who could engage in "critical thinking." The closest any panelist came was the RSD Deputy Superintendent, who said that a good school system could be identified by a student body with an average ACT score of 20. This was verified by others in attendance.

Pardon me for thinking that if you "know" what a good school system looks like, you can describe more details than that. I could do better than that with my layman's knowledge of basic good school systems. Let me throw some darts at it:

1. A city of 350,000+ people should have, at the very least, 35 SACS accredited public elementary, middle, and high schools. Accreditation should be the basic administrative standard for any public school, traditional or charter. This means that when external evaluators from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools show up at a given school, there are instituional mechanisms in place that are known best practices in the field of education. This goes for academic and administrative elements.

2. A city of 350,000+ people should have, at the very least, 1 public SACS accredited school system, which means there is a governing body of public schools also engaged in administrative best-practices and effective instituional mechanisms that are recognized nationally.

And before you think it cannot be done, the Archdiocese of New Orleans, Jefferson Parish public schools, Plaquemines Parish public schools, and 15 other public school systems in the state of Louisiana maintain accreditation through SACS, as do hundreds, if not thousands, of other school systems across the South. Yes, it would be a process to get there, for New Orleans, but the biggest obstacle is a local culture that accepts nothing less than progress-prone priorities. Residents of this city deserve no less than residents of any other.

When it comes to "good schools" those two were easy, low hanging fruit. Which makes it more problematic when not one member of Tuesday's panel mentioned them. The elements of "good schools" only get more difficult from here.

3. Students with an 8th grade education in a "good school system" should be able to read and comprehend the local newspaper front to back. Students with an 8th grade education in a "good school system" should possess a vocabulary large enough to express their thoughts and opinions clearly to others, and to comprehend the thoughts and opinions of others. Students with an 8th grade education in a "good school system" should be able to use mathematic skills to solve everyday problems such as calculating cost of multiple items, balancing a checkbook, paying bills, and calculating percentages for tax and tip.

4. Students with an 8th grade education in a "good school system" should be knowledgeable regarding accepted history of the state and city in which they live as well as the United States of America; students should demonstrate a familiarity with historically important persons, historically important events and why those people and events were important. Students with an 8th grade education in a "good school system" should be able to apply the scientific method as a tool in testing theories about both the natural world and the social world; they should be able to identify relevant and valid data; and they should be knowledgeable about prevailing scientific theories explaining the natural and social worlds.

5. Students in a "good school system" will, by the 8th grade, have had the opportunity to engage in the following activities for at least a semester in length, if not more: play a musical instrument or sing; paint or draw a picture; type; use a computer to access information; participate in athletics or competitive sports; build something at school; take part in a theatrical performance; exchange ideas, thoughts and opinions through debate or verbal problem solving; be provided the opportunity to balance a budget, calculate interest/tax/tip, cook, sew, garden, take care of animals or practice some form of home economics; and finally participate in experiential learning outside of school through field trips.

6. A "good school system" will create effective mechanisms to provide robust access to all of the above to students who have demonstrated learning disabilities or exceptionalities.

7. A "good school system" will create effective mechanisms to provide robust access to all of the above to students who have demonstrated an inability to socialize into the school environment without disrupting the education of others, while working to minimize the limiting effect of such disruption.

8. A "good school system" will create effective mechanisms to properly identify and evaluate students with learning disabilities, exceptionalities, and disruptive socialization issues so they can be referred to the appropriate specialists required to provide the appropriate and necessary learning environment.

9. A "good school system" will create effective mechanisms to properly identify and evaluate students who are demonstrating difficulty in acheiving basic academic goals and develop audacious educational plans to work with these students to overcome these difficuluties.

10. A "good school system" will have the support of the community it serves both professionally and voluntarily; adequate funds to maintain a physical plant while retaining and developing human resources; and a governing board responsible for identifying and supplying needed resources within the means of funding provided.

Those are ten darts at the wall that I would use to describe a "good school system." This is just off the top of my head, but almost all are items I know I've discussed before. Of course, these are just the basics. The devil is in the details regarding how you acheive these goals.

.

One Man

I'll write more about the international stuff once we see what happens. History is being written right now, maybe in a way we haven't seen since 1989. While it unfolds, and you watch the passions of people yearning to be free struggle against the yoke of those who would curtail their liberty, ask yourself what effect can one man have on the world?

For this is what the blood of patriots and of tyrants looks like in real time. Why must the cost always be so high?

Will this just be another false dawn, forcing the United States again into the realm of realpolitik to protect our interests? Or we be able to come down on the side of true freedom as our moral compass demands? It is time we start looking very deeply at our own motivations, and perhaps even our own complicity in keeping things the way that they are.

For we will not decide the outcome here. Perhaps that is for the best.

And, yes, I choose my words carefully. The very fabric of my being as an American and a Southerner knows the meaning when I see images of a people on a bridge, praying in the face water cannons, tear gas and police batons.

I don't need to think too long to realize where I've seen that before.

.