A Small Victory

28th day

I apologize in advance for all the links to CNN and Newsday, for incomprehensible rants, for saying nothing in so many words, and for the giant chocolate cake I am about to devour.

News. Sometimes it's enlightening, but mostly it's depressing, frustrating and infuriating.

I won't even bother pointing to the story about our president once again saying something wholly inappoproriate. You all know I think he is a blithering buffoon, so there's no point in additional snarkiness on my part.

Oh, wait. So I won't link to the story about ethnic insults eminating from his mouth, but I will talk about the Education bill. While U.S. Education received a "C" grade in a recent survey, Bush passes a bill that will require even more testing for our nation's students. Testing is just the wrong way to go. As it is, in New York, teachers spend most of 4th grade preparing students for standardized tests. They teach to the tests, and nothing else. How does this help? What about the education they are missing out on because a whole year turns into test preparation? Testing is subjective at best. Some kids who are otherwise A students do terribly on tests. What about the other parts of education besides the four main subjects? Bush wants to get all kids reading by third grade. Not for nothing, but most kids are reading way before that. If he really wanted to take some initiative, he would find a way to make it mandatory that parents are involved in their child's education (see Chris). That's where most of the problem lies. Parents who want to blame the teachers, the administration, the school system - everyone but themselves. Of course, it doesn't help to have a president who stands in front of you hammering home the importance of reading and then says about the bill he just passed, "I don't intend to read it all. It's not exactly light reading."

And speaking of kids and their parents, while having lunch in a diner today, I had the displeasure of having Court TV thrown at me from 5 different sets at 5 different angles. What the hell kind of world do we live in when, live on television, we have a kid sitting on the stand testifying that he saw his father beat the shit out of his friend's father? Beat him so severely that he killed him.

It's the very same world where you can spend 5 years raping and sodomizing your step-daughter and then get only a year in jail for it. Or where you can be arrested and held in jail for almost four months and still not be charged with anything, except, perhaps, being Muslim. Or where someone's "shining star" is in reality a suicidal terrorist sympathizer. Or was he? The FBI paints him as a troubled loner. His classmates beg to differ. It's gotten to the point where I don't believe anything that comes out of the mouth of anyone affiliated with a government agency. Yea, the kid was troubled. Duh, he committed suicide. But don't try to add a little drama to the story by turning the kid into a trenchcoat-wearing terrorist.

I'll tell you what kind of world it is, folks. It's the kind of world where Creed can dominate the Billboard charts. What have we become??

Can you tell where I'm at in my cycle right now? It's pretty obvious, no? Mark this day. Check back same time next month if you like this sort of thing.

Anyone want to share a chocolate fudge cake with me?