And Now... A Moment With Sowell

End of today's lesson.

I Too Have No Self-Esteem!

I challenge anyone to watch this video, carefully think about what Matt Walsh says about this topic, and argue convincingly that he's full of "#&it". Most students are being sold a fallacy today by well-meaning teachers.

I agree 100% with what Matt Walsh explains here. Why? Because not only does it make inarguable sense to anyone with half a brain, but I experienced the very things he points out as examples; math and athletics to be precise.

I didn't do well with math as a student, but over time and persistence, I eventually improved by putting effort into learning it better than I had when I was younger. I may not have been the best distance runner in the state I went to high school in, but because I committed myself to more effort in my training, I eventually became a respectable marathoner; finishing 166th out of 4,000 in the Boston back in 1975 while in my early 20s and the second fastest time(2:33:25) in the nation for NAIA Div. III colleges in 1978 in my mid-20s, which earned my track team 8 points at the national meet. 

Accomplishing these things, along with getting my bachelors, and eventually a masters degree in education, I improved my self-worth and was more able to give my students what they needed in my classes; attention, compassion, interest in them as an individual, and passing on values of applying one's talents and strengths to them. 

After all, isn't this what being a teacher's all about?

Establishment Puts Cronies Over Citizens On Missle Defense!

If this isn't a perfect example of how elected officials in the "swamp" become corrupted by it and forget who elected them to office to be their voice in Congress, then I don't know what is. Caution, reading this article might cause your hair to catch on fire, your last meal to appear before you, and your blood pressure to rise. So, please, heed my warning and be prepared!

As the article says, "Republicans banked votes, contractors banked the money, and America’s vulnerabilities deepened. Unless President Trump changes basic policy, the cycle repeats."

Actually, I would use another word for "deepened". I would personally prefer "worsened" because it more accurately describes the situation.

So Much Information, Yet, So Little Knowledge

Here's the text copied from this link: (This page includes a video on the top of it.) For more specific details on this issue, check out this link.

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Can you name the three branches of government? 

If you’re able to list executive, legislative and judicial as the three branches of the U.S. government, you are one of just 26 percent of Americans who can, according to a new poll from the Annenberg Public Policy Center. (Emphasis mine.)

This survey’s results show us that America is having an identity crisis, Glenn asserted on radio Wednesday. “We don’t even know who we are,” he said. 

We have all the information in the world available for us through technology. 

How is it possible that Americans are so ignorant about our own government when we have so many tools available and everyone is required to go to school? 

“The generation with the most information is the least informed,” Glenn said, urging Americans to reach out to one another as we relearn the basics.
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I believe I can answer that last question adequately. 

During the latter six years of my 30 year teaching career in public education I taught at the middle school and high school levels during the first decade of the new millennium.

My experience revealed to me that there was a large number of students who came from single parent households, or dysfunctional families that had various issues which contributed to that dysfunctional circumstance; drugs, sexual abuse, neglect, indifference by the parent to the child's progress in school. Combined that with the advent of cellular phones which only became affordable to the general public, and you have the mix for a younger generation that could care less about their class instruction.

However, there's also the factor of curriculum having been modified to such an extent that most, if not all, Social Studies classes at high schools across the nation never actually taught to any significant degree the structure of our nation's federal government. If it was taught to any extent, it was not given much emphasis. And, at about this time, there was the emerging social attitude of "entitlement" - that they are owed something for nothing, such as being admitted to a prestigious college because they are a minority (except for Asians) and that our country stole from others as greedy capitalists in the past, which has given the youth of our country a concept about America's history as being an oppressor to all other nations around the world. After all, look at our fixation with Confederate statues now!

Youth today know more about Jay Z and Beyonce' than they do about their own country which has given them the greatest opportunity to apply their natural talents, if only they'd listen, work hard, and apply what they've learned. But their response would be, "What? You expect me to do what?" 

Now, we see riots on college campuses to suppress free speech because these youth believe it's fighting fascism, and they've been brainwashed by their professors to believe that anything they hear is violence against their delicate sensitivities. So, it's no mystery to me as to why we are experiencing this deficit of knowledge today.

We've Forgtten!

On Sept. 11th, only two days ago, I briefly thought to myself, "Man, its been sixteen years since the World Trade Center was hit by those two planes in New York. I'll always remember that morning!" What I didn't bother checking was whether there were any broadcasts about it on the television... mainly because I'm so disillusioned by what's on it these days that I avoid it as much as possible.

Then, today, after stumbling across this video from the M.R.C. TV's Reality Check I realized that we are now so distracted by all of the crap going on socially these days that we've completely been taken off focus on remembering Sept. 11th. So, I'm also including this link to a montage of news coverage from a YouTube.com post which provides the viewer with an amazing perspective on just what happened that day that change the world.

To more fully comprehend the terror for those trapped in the buildings as attempts to rescue them were being made, I recommend watching this video, composed by Michael Deth, titled "The Final Journey". And this one of a fire fighter's family who shares their story of losing him that day.

Here's an interview of Donald Trump only a few days after the devastation and horror.

A New National Debt Benchmark Reached

The following is an excerpt from a Senate Conservatives Fund email I received today:

Our country's national debt is now more than $20 trillion and the current Republican leadership in Washington doesn't care.

Senator Mitch McConnell has offered no plan to cut spending and has no intention of ever doing so.

Even worse, he told the New York Times this week that he secretly added a provision to the recent spending and debt deal that created not just one but two budget cliffs before the 2018 elections.

This would not be a bad thing if Republicans were willing to use these deadlines as leverage to pass conservative policies just as the Democrats have done in the past to enact liberal policies. 

But sadly Senator McConnell and other GOP leaders in Washington do not believe in our principles and certainly aren't willing to fight for them when it matters.

In December, they will surrender to the Democrats and fund everything from Planned Parenthood to executive amnesty to Obamacare. And next year when the debt limit is reached again, they will increase the debt and possibly even include other liberals policies too.

I can't help but believe the reason why there are two budget cliffs before the 2018 elections is to provide the media an opportunity to pin an government shutdown on Pres. Trump.

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Here's what I sent to my Circle of Friends list yesterday:

Subject: $20,162,176,797,904.13

What's with the dollar figure in the subject line? Oh, just the national debt breaking through the next significant level which, at this point, the nation will NEVER be able to pay off.

What do you say we make it a goal to shoot for $30 TRILLION by 2020? That aught to stimulate our economy!

Actually, consumer debt is the biggest factor in the instability of our national economy, and combined with the unfunded liabilities, such as pensions - where there are less currently working to pay into the fund than are collecting out of it - our economy is hanging by a thread.

The DACA Debacle Aftermath

I've long believed that the actions taken by liberal/statists have set the tone which our nation now is witnessing with nearly everything happening in society today. This was their objective and we conservatives have stood by for most of it; feeling we were demonstrating our forgiving tolerance as Christians, and those who aren't religious, indifferent because they believed it wouldn't impact them.

Now look at how things are going... free speech is being protested, Christians are being persecuted and harassed to the point of targeting their businesses by using the court system which is liberal leaning, professors at colleges being threatened and intimidated to the point that we are now seeing what it must have been like during Hitler's rise to power in Germany back in the 1930s.

This article points more specifically to the DACA issue which currently is the topic of news these days. The sad thing is, if one looks at the statistics of our society's makeup, only ~20% are liberal, while the rest are either conservative, or independent if you break it down to the three commonly recognized parties.