Why learn to read and write??

Adults don't read they listen. Adults don't write they twitter using shortcut spelling.
Kids today get most of their information from media sources. The least used? Newspapers, books, magazines.
Some use the internet. Have you noticed most information is now on video?
Why teach forms of communication which are quickly becoming outdated?
My students at school are required to complete math and reading on computers.
They put headphones on and listen to the instructions and oftentimes the questions or the passages.
Teachers are outdated sources of information.
Children actually seem to learn quicker if on computers.
Perhaps we need to rethink education?
With all  the disgruntled parents complaining about the standard of education provided children it is ironic most of them don't use the skills teachers are required to teach their children.
Think about it.
If you are reading this without the aid of a video or picture you are a minority.

Kent State all over again only no one is screaming

Viewing the photos of students being pepper sprayed by the police brings back a lot of memories. I was a kid when the students were killed at Kent State but it remains a horrible vision in my head. At that time I think we realized police brutality had gone too far. The National Guard crossed the line.
With cell phone cameras providing us the photos and videos one would think we would immediately respond to the brutality upon 80 year old women, veterans and students. The photos are all over the internet.
The media doesn't seem to be showing much but Huffington Post does, as well as You Tube.
Not much of a peep comes from the citizens of this country.
Homeless camps are springing up all over the US. The "new middle class poor" are photographed each day. Those thrown out of their homes with nowhere to go is common place. Yet not a peep.
The masses like to believe it is the fault of those in the situations.
Of course, it will NEVER happen to them, will it?
So why bother speaking out?
It's not THEIR business, is it?
Pretty freakin scary

Megachurch Schuler's downfall

What is it about the Crystal Cathedral that brought thousands of people on a pilgrimage of sorts-the the Holy Land in Garden Grove, California, of all places?
The eighties was the time of megachurches with Capella groups, full bands with rock and roll scripture and the dollars were flowing.
Rev. Schuler was an all star!
I remember the era well. One of the ministers from our church received a "calling"
A silver haired, charismatic minister who like the idea of fame on TV as opposed to a church from a 500,000+ city.
Off he went to make his fortune. Glitter and all.
After all, God is not humble in megachurches. Greed is good. Associate minsters run off with wealthy married women, and the downfall makes the sin even more glorious to forgive.
The flash of the eighties gave way to the pathetic sinning of the mega ministers. After all, what would a mega church be without a spectacular fall?
Sadly, Rev Schuler's charisma did not have a biological component and the children could not carry the message in such a spectacular way.
The church is now in bankruptcy and the only dollars left to tell the story will be the profit on the sale of the cathedral.
Jesus was a humble man who taught us to care for our neighbors.
This is not a popular message in today's culture.
It was never a popular message for megachurches.
Like any for profit, the money was meant for bigger and better stuff.
Outreach buildings, big cars, private jets, special speaking gigs, prime Sunday TV.
Do you think the message Jesus carried to the masses will ever become "hip" again?
Or is the fall of the megachurch just a blip on the radar to total selfishness and disregard for our society as a whole?

The new morals of our young adults-Penn State

What have we taught them? Is this new generation a result of our own selfishness? Is the world population at such a tilting point we have forgone teaching ethics, morals and compassion? Have we become a earth populated with predators and victims?
The reaction of students at Penn State floored me. To protest the removal of a man who for years looked the other way while young boys were allowed to be brutalized by a staff member for the sake of a trophy? Students felt a "legendary coach" is being wrongly singled out? A University President who refused to deal with the problem for years? All up this chain of accountability, not just one, but many allowed young boys to be sodomized? Students are angry?
Are they stupid, selfish or just confused?
What does this say about our country's moral values?
Have we become so jaded, so inured to what is horrific, we don't care anymore?
Across the world we read stories which indicate the ripping of the fabric of societies built to care for those  most vulnerable citizens-the elderly man who dies in his home after the gas company shuts off his heat, children in China given up for adoption after being stolen from families, sexual slavery in third world countries, vast corporations exploiting women and children for labor.
Police shootings, beatings, caught on tape, a judge who beats his daughter with a belt, caught on tape, without punishment. Cain still in the running after four women step forward to talk about sexual harassment and he jokes about it??
Is it because so much is unearthed we try to minimize the horror in our minds and look the other way? Citizens phone messages cracked, and Murdoch is still in business?
I could go on and on but it appears to me the new world order is in favor of the predator and if you are perceived as a victim -you will soon become one.
People should be afraid, not outraged for the wrong reasons.
You might be next. You will have no support in this world order. The predator rules.

Cannibalism among the 1%

Greece and Italy have instituted austerity measures. This means pulling back government dollars, laying off workers and "belt tightening".
In the United States the media has been spouting "austerity" for the past three years.
This has resulted in high unemployment, high foreclosure rates and a decrease in spending from the average citizen.
It hasn't however, resulted in a decreasing income for Wall Street , bankers, and for profit corporations- megabucks CEO's, a 300% plus disparity in income from their workers.
Our politicians seem to be doing just fine with corporate donations , PAC support at all time highs.
The average citizen spends less, makes less, eats less meat, forgoes vacations and holidays, budgets without money, worries about rising costs of fuel and food.

I never agreed with George Bush but on this I do. People need to spend to get the economy going. Businesses can cut back employees, develop part time jobs without benefits and find hundreds of ways to get money to their stockholders, but eventually, not in the too far off future even those austerity measures, ( based on greed) will implode. You can only keep what you get.
If you don't get, you don't get to keep.
People will cut back on the extras first. Dining out. Gambling. Big screen TV's. Video games, washers and dryers, big expenses.
When we don't have it to spend, we can't spend it.
It seems pretty foolish for stockholders to de-invest in the communities which feed them for short term gains. Invest in jobs and the economy will begin to improve, people will have money to spend.
Continue to be greedy, take the short term money and run, and as we are already seeing, businesses go bankrupt, everyone loses, and the spiral continues.
Suck the livelihood out of people and no one is left to feed the 1% but the 1%.
Isn't that called cannibalism?

Is The Tide Turning? Jobless with no safety net

The world order is changing and it isn't for the benefit of the average planetary citizen.
What will become of us?

Las Vegas Decay-Family Style

A new book, Fade, Crumble and Sag introduced a number of authors writing about the decomposition of Las Vegas during Las Vegas Book Week.
I thought I would add my chapter, entitled, "Families, or what is left of them"

Two second grade girls are picked up by their mothers after school wearing six inch heels, breast exposing tops and shorts covering little. Not a blink on the playground of hundreds- parents picking up students after school. These girls are proud of their mommies, of course.
After Christmas vacation one year a little boy did not return to my class. His mother had murdered her boyfriend with a butcher knife in front of her five children. After a month he returned, quiet, withdrawn, spending time in Child Haven  which is not an experience anyone would wish on an eight year old child.

A lock down lasting until 6pm kept nine hundred students in my school one year. A man shooting a high powered rifle directly across the street had to be killed before we could release the kids.
 A student I tutored  at   home had six locks on her front door, along with all the
windows barred. A few months after working at her home her father was arrested as a gang leader and a drug lord. Her mother previously lost custody due to her drug habit.
Some staff are not much better. A principal and counselor were arrested for drug dealing, another accused of stealing from the school-was not fired but a senior staff member was for with holding information about the alleged thefts.

Families move here for the same reason singles do-it is a city in which one can disappear. The likelihood of protective services, the police or the government sticking noses into peoples business is minimal. Corruption is so rampant child abuse, neglect, gang activity or prostitution are all small potato issues for this hands off government.

Las Vegas sounds no siren call of seduction. Las Vegas makes no empty promises for those who come to the city to make a life. Las Vegas is not a deceitful mistress, mother or father figure.
It is exactly what is promises to be-sinful, evil, careless, cruel and heartless.
Be it the kindergartner who comes to school with rope burns around his wrists, the old man who dies alone in his trailer and is buried in a mass paupers grave, the homeless families who beg at Wal Mart, the mentally ill who's self talk is passed by without a blink, or the line of homeless vets, families and singles who line up on Owens  Avenue in cardboard boxes, settling in for the night.
Those who defend the city are the predators-"If you don't like it, leave!"
As if those who are game for these predators have a chance of leaving, unless by cheap death-another staple of the Vegas experience.