What will be
I’ve spent the last few days processing the emotions I felt when I heard on NPR Friday morning that Al Gore (and friends) won the Nobel Peace Prize. I think my feelings have been bubbling under the surface of my consciousness ever since I saw An Inconvenient Truth.
I’ve had a very hard time with the friction between the faith I am trying very hard to live and the emotional turmoil that I and many others have experienced as a result of the political choices our federal government has made since December 12, 2000 (when the SCOTUS issued Bush v. Gore). I want to have faith that the universe knows what it’s doing and that everything will be as it is supposed to be, but I also see thousands dead, tens of thousands injured, rollbacks of civil liberties and civil rights, and politicians more concerned with power than with people.
And all of a sudden in that 15 second headline before they cut to haranguing me about donating money to public radio, my dilemma unraveled. Faith won. (more…)
Moving toward leaving no child behind
Updated to fix the link.
the morality of the lottery, or why 4alarm is a big fat hypocrite.
Today, I read this article from the New York Times on how little revenue lotteries create in the scheme of K-12 education budgets, and how the business of running lotteries is eating increasingly into the already slim profits. In fact, the blog entry through which I read the story was titled “What has six balls and screws teachers?” These lotteries have exploded across the country – 42 states and the District of Columbia now have them. In most instances, the lotteries fund education projects of various flavors. And this is how they are sold to the electorate. “The lottery is great! It’ll pay for cute little children to learn how to read. All for freeeeee to the taxpayers!” That sort of shit. I remember this exact propaganda when Virginia passed a referendum to start a lottery when I was a kid.
But you know what, even when you discount the added cost of the social burden of gambling addiction and such, the lottery doesn’t pay for shit. (more…)
