The Cynical America-Losing Heart

The cynical American drives over the speed limit and slows down when a cop is spotted.
The cynical American believes if the grocery store gives you more change -keep it-prices are expensive.
The cynical American uses credit cards, payday loans,and home equity as if it were cash. In fact, Cynical America has marketed borrowing money as a normal way of life.
Cynical Americans do not believe in public school education, welfare for the poorest, helping children of illegal immigrants or providing free medical care to our sickest elderly or our children.
Cynical Americans take sick days from work because they are "owed" and think nothing of pulling their children out of school for a two vacation.

Cynical American government wastes our time attacking one another instead of finding solutions.
-They sponsor people to run for office based on cynical loyalties and not qualifications.
-They blame one another while America's infrastructure falls apart, our economy fails, our jobs lost, our small businesses fail, and our homes are foreclosed.
-Cynical politicians get elected to enrich themselves through corporate and lobbying industries and forget it is us they are supposed to watching out for-and Cynical Americans assume cynical politicians will be greedy and dishonest.
-Cynical politicians who break the law are only remorseful at having gotten caught.
-Cynical politicians who break the law and are not called out on it are outraged when they are-because if they aren't in jail, no one has the right to accuse them of unethical behavior.

-Cynical Americans and Cynical Politicians believe fudging the truth, evading the real issue, keeping silent about important truths to protect an overall dishonest situation. not stepping up to call out any of these falls under the umbrella of "loyalty" and are ethical.

American children, who are not cynical, yet, are taught, in our public schools some of the most important lessons of life-values.

As a second grade teacher I teach my students how to get along even if they don't like each other. I tell them not everyone likes everyone but they do need to respect one another.

-I teach my students the difference between having pride in doing their very best work and owning a Wii.
-My students learn that working together can almost always result in a victory where everyone benefits. They have also learned, through their own trial and error, spending too much time arguing who will lead the group almost always results in getting nothing accomplished.

-My students discover that even at age seven, one caring act, such as helping another student understand a math problem, can create a change that is further reaching-because people rarely forget a kindness and that little extra boost brings along the classes overall learning. (And kid talk is so much more effective)

-My students know the difference between trying to "please the teacher" and "taking pride in what they can do them selves"

-_My students learn early on that kids don't have control over what they have, so those that come to school in ragged clothes or worn out shoes;this does not make them less of a person.

The great equalizer in our class is our earnestness, our honesty and our efforts.

You see, in Elementary school, in second grade, life is pretty transparent. It is also safe, predictable, caring and compassionate.

-With those values in place, kids feel free to learn, try and make good decisions, learn from failures and mistakes, and most importantly, continuously evaluate their own behaviors.

The Cynical America is out there waiting for them, they are exposed to it by parents, neighbors, health care providers, government systems.

Some lose their way.
Many don't. Somewhere in this world, my students continue to believe America does not have tobe cynical if we can be respectful of our differences, work together for the common good, and remember to help each out once in awhile.
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More Karl Rove at the RNC??

Hello??
Did anyone else see that smug look on Karl Rove's face at the RNC?

What are you thinking???

Buy Nothing For One Day!!!!

After bailing our Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae and a few stray banks,

have you gotten the feeling we all get the Italian kiss off as workers?

The new mortgage "save" for American citizens really gives money to the mortgage companies.

I'm getting a little tired of government bailing out the big ones and leaving us with the bill.

Doesn't it make sense that all the big guys' problems have more to do with the fact the workers are struggling to pay bills? Those mortgages would be paid if workers weren't being laid off or squeezed.

More than one news report this morning (NY Times, AP) point out the disparity between the increase in profits for large companies(based on exports) and the decrease in US workers pay-or the flatline of workers pay and the inflation of costs.

Let's show the United States Government who really rules our economy.

Americans unite. Gas up your vehicle and buy necessary supplies.

Make Tuesdays for the month of October "No spend days"

Not a dime for a soda machine. Not one fast food stop.

Smokers-make sure you have them

No appointments where you have to spend money.

Grind our economy to a halt.

Let the rich corporations and the wealthy business owners sweat a little-let them spend their money.

DO it on purpose. Let the public know you are doing it.

Let's make a statement.

You want our business every day?

Quit bailing out the big guys and pay attention.

We, the people, run this economy, not the government, or the top 2% of the nation's wealthiest.

Us little guys.

No money Tuesdays.

Are you listening out there, big government and lobbyists?

Pay attention.

Just one day.

Rove and McCain-America speaks????

After all we have experienced-the lies and deceit of the Bush Administration-Karl Rove's insidious manipulations of our government-

He is one of the masterminds of the McCain campaign??!

My country must be out of their collective minds.

What is wrong with Americans?

This is not reality TV folks-it is for real.

There isn't going to be any finale where you all get to turn off the set and go about your lives.

Well, I suppose you will have LOTS more time to watch it since you won't be employed, have health insurance that will care for your family or even the luxury of Social Security when you are old.

You make me sick.

Vote for Rove/McCain and the trophy chick willing to throw her family under the bus for her political aspirations.

Shame on your stupidity. Shame, shame shame..

You deserve what happens next.

The bitter divorce presidential race....a grey party?

I scour the Internet to see if there are others out there feeling this same feeling.
The ugliness we seem to be feeling as we arch away from one another like magnets exposed to polar ends.

This isn't a political race about "family values", it is an emotional race about our worst and best qualities.

It is a race about race-about sex-about motherhood-feels like an all out war -pitting our most internal beliefs and, yes, our deepest fears.

I wonder why political parties do this?

At a time when we need each other the most, our country has a chasm miles wide and deep.

In times of trillion dollar debt, unemployment, the greatest divide between the rich and the rest of us, an energy crisis, global warming, educational crisis, inflation and financial crisis, our emotions have become almost murderous when it comes to politics. Our country's future is not one big assed photo op filled with sound bites.

Isn't there someone out there who can pull us back together again?

As I always said in my marriage(now long gone) Do you want to be right or married? Compromise goes a long ways in life.

We need to work with the grey to get the black and white.

One Pissed Off Old Lady: Bristol Palin, Why would your mom do this to you??

One Pissed Off Old Lady: Bristol Palin, Why would your mom do this to you??

Bristol Palin, Why would your mom do this to you??

My sixteen year old daughter is not pregnant. My little sister was at age 16, and so was my niece.

They come from a small town, not unlike many in Alaska. Teen pregnancy rates are high in small towns. Communities tend to help raise the children when we all know each other.

My sister married her boyfriend and divorced a few years later.

My niece waited until her daughter was four before she married another man.

Life happens life that.

I really feel for Bristol. You have to understand seventeen year old girls.

To become a matter of national debate has to be a horrible nightmare for her.

If she had any doubts about wanting to marry the father of her child, do you think she feels as if she has a choice now?

While her picture is played across the nations papers, where is his? The same old victimization garbage.

Shame of Bristol's mom.

She had to have known her daughter's pregnancy would become a major focal point if she were to take the vice presidency nomination.

There is no money or power in the world that would compel me to put my daughter through the media insanity that enthralls our nation in a feeding frenzy of glee -devouring and purging other's dignity as if it were the finishing touch of a gluttonous meal.

Bristol, if you need a quiet place to hide, where privacy and nurturing is important, and where we will protect you, as families have been shown to do, with their children, in the past,

You are welcome in my home.