Other than saying "everything" and accomplishing nothing, let's look at the question of money.  A local school board here last week was faced with this question, and their answer is indicative of the troubles facing our public education system.

The current President of the School Board announced his retirement at the end of the school year this year, which will be effective come June 2006.  Nothing wrong with that, I suppose.  It gives the board enough time to find his replacement, and the money...  well, the board has to have a president right?  What I have a major problem with is his request for a 3% pay raise three days prior to announcing his retirement.

This gentleman makes $124,000 a year, plus benefits.  Suddenly 3%gets us out of the range of nickels and dimes.  I could maybe relate to, and understand the request had he done a good job.  As is, it comes across as him trying to line his pockets.  Let me explain a little bit.

During his tenure as President, the district has been downsized by 80 teachers, while student population continues to grow at about 5% a year.  The district's rating on both national and state levels has slipped.  Not to mention the fact that they just finished a new contract with the teachers which eliminates raises for three more years, and the knowledge that their benefits would be reduced to try and save the retirement fund.  This man definitely has some gaul asking for a raise!

When it first came up, the vote was postponed, but that would only last three weeks.  Second time it came in front of the board for a vote, no delays, no talking, no nothing...  well, except that they gave him his 3% raise AND an increase in his benefits!  Huh?

I have no doubt that the Board needs a president.  I have no doubt that the job is probably worth a six figure income for the right person.  Trouble is, he's not the "right person" and we have his experience to prove it.  The school system, and every public school system in the country, would be much better served by taking that money and getting the teachers above "working poverty" levels.  Maybe then we could find teachers that actually like teaching and kids, rather than glorified babysitters.  After all, why do we fund a public education system?  To pay an ineffective administrator, or to try and give our kids better opportunities than we had?

When I was much younger, and living in more idealistic thought patterns, I have been known to do some rather outrageous things to get a point across.  Here's one example:

While applying for student aid for college, I reworded the qualifications for the NAACP's College Fund, replacing any mention of race or color with white, and then with three others:  Asian, Middle Eastern, and South American.  If that wasn't folly enough, I then put them together and sent them to a Pennsylvania State Senator as a proposal for a "new" college fund I was wanting to set up.  Needless to say, the letter of response I got basically said it was the most racist thing they had ever seen, and I must be crazy!

Now, I do agree, what I wrote was extremely racist, but I still hold my original premise that the original text is also racist.  You see, none of us have control over whether we are born male or female, or what color skin we have.  That's the basis of racism:  the judgement of people (whether in a bad light for others, or yourself in a good light) on terms and conditions over which no one has control.

Such are the follies of youth!  I was raised to be "color blind", and in fact I am.  It never comes into my head that someone acts a certain way, or that I can expect different reactions based on the pigment of someone's skin, or whether in the wonder of nature they recieved an X or Y chromosome.  Things get complicated for me when I am interacting in society.

Case in point, while I was a driver for a moving company, I was one of three employees who were not African American.  The joke at the office was that we were the "token white guys".  Being on good terms with the guys I used as laborers, and with my views, I made a deal with them.  I asked each where they were born, then told them were I was.  We were all American, by birth and by right, therefore we were all equal at least on my truck!  When one of them asked what I was getting at, it was simple:  I requested that we remain equal by referring to me as English-Dane-German-American rather than white, in order to maintain the status quo of society.  Moral of this:  my request made no sense.  The decision was that we were all men, with a job to do.

As a white male, it is impossible for me to understand anyone's heritage besides my own.  I want to, but I want to understand them as equals, and the help build a new, better AMERICAN heritage.  I am willing to treat anyone with equality as long as they are willing to stand  equally with me.  If you want equality, please do not force me into having to think of you as anything BUT  equal in order to remain "politically correct".

Every once in a while, I sit back and look at oddities that occur in our society, that when compared to the way we "normally" handle things gives my sarcastic side plenty of fodder!

1.)  Why is it we design "child proof" lighters so that the easiest way to get them to work is with a child sized thumb?

2.)  Why does it take a table knife, gripper pad, and a body builder to get the lid off a jar of pickles, but perscription medications, even with child proof caps, are no problem at all?

3.)  Why do we complain of gas prices and yet refuse to walk anywhere?

4.)  Why do we harp about wanting to "protect" nature, and leaving it pristine for future generations, then build roads for cars, trucks and busses to get to it and harm it?

and last but definitely not least for today:

5.)  Why do we vote to keep the government out of our daily lives, but then want them to fix every little problem that comes up?

Of all the freedoms we have in this country, by far the most valuable is the ability to make our own choices.  It is also one of the most abused, misconstrued, misinterpretted, and misused of all our liberties.

It amazes me that people will guard "their" right to choose feverishly, and yet try to limit "your" right because they don't agree.  Freedom of choice does not mean we all have to agree!  If you want the ability to decide for yourself, you must be willing to extend that to others.

On a personal level, this problem is an annoyance, but not devastating.  However, when it starts to raise its head in the political arena, it becomes much more than that.  We have seen it many times within our society when our lawmakers have tried to legislate morality.  And that is really what "choice" is all about:  a person's innate and/or learned morality is what defines the choices he or she makes. 

Like it or not, while we may not agree with, or even understand, the choices other people make, it is their right to make them.  One person's mistake may very well be the next person's triumph.  There is no way of knowing.  Regardless of how difficult it may be to watch, individuals in this country have the right to make bad decisions.  Sure, we can express our personal opinion should we be asked, but we have to remember that it is only that...  an opinion. 

Another forgotten aspect of this freedom, or at least one that conveniently gets ignored many times, is that one choice inevitably leads to another.  This happens not only from the stand point of the original person, but everyone around that person.  If someone I know makes a choice I do not agree with, I then have have to make my own choice in how to handle that, which will lead to another choice on their part, so on and so on. 

I have to sit back and laugh when I think about people that spend their lives worrying about what they are eating.  Personally, if I'm going to die someday anyway, and have no way of knowing when that day will be, I have other things that are much more important on my mind.

I have yet to see a "healthy" diet save someone from mortality, or make them able to get up after being hit by a Mack truck.  Case in point, the leading "Health and Diet expert" in the US was Dr. Atkins.  Sure, he may have had a perfectly healthy body, not a thing wrong with him after years of following his own diet plans, but it still didn't help one bit when he slipped on a piece of ice on a New York sidewalk!

For me, my main diet is caffiene and nicotine, in abundance!  Not to mention good ole beef and potatoes.  If it means that I only live to be 75 rather than 75 1/2, so be it.  At least I know while I was here I ate what I wanted, didn't feel guilty, and actually enjoyed a necessary part of the human existence rather than worrying about it!  Well, with the exception of the smoking, but just ask my father what I'm like when I am not doing that.

The last time I quit, it lasted 3 months, and then my father bought me a pack of cigarettes saying one of two things had to happen:  I had to smoke, or I had to move out.  Considering the fact that I am here to help care for my mother, the former option won!

I have a very annoying habit, or at least it seems to be annoying to most everyone else.  I seem to live in a world of ideals, always spouting off about how this should be, or that should be.  If only people would take the time to actually get to know me instead!

I actuality, I am firmly grounded in the everyday chaos most people call reality.  In both business and my personal life I am a realist.  I am even a realist in most of my opinion.  But I learned very young that accepting reality as "just the way it is" leads people into dull, impassionate lives in which one day, one year, one decade is no different from the previous.

That is where idealism finds its place in life.  It's not that I am not in touch with reality, or have no clue what is going on, but that I use the ideals of a situation (or my perceived ideals at least) as a way to discover where I want to be, not where I am.  I use it to continually reinforce within myself that there is always something better, always something to learn, and therefore always a way for me to grow.

The fact that I also hold people I meet to that idealistic view, and expect people around me to think, grow, and have the desire to better themselves and not accept life "as is" is not me trying to be mean or cruel.  To me, it's more of a way of showing people what is "possible", any fool can see what is reality!

Or maybe I should say, only the fools are willing to lie down and accept the world they live in, couched in glowing terms of being a "realist", and never grow, never dream, and never succeed in leaving the world a better place than they found it.

It is part of the human condition, part of our psyche, that we believe in a being, or power, higher than mankind.  This thread has been found in every civilization since the beginning of time that we have ever rediscovered.  That to me is "Faith".  It's not a question of religion really, but the simple belief in a power greater than ourselves.

Religion, on the other hand, almost exclusively derives from one person's or group's interpretation of this simple belief.  Take for example the Christian faith.  It is splintered into many religions due to differing interpretations of the core belief in God.  There are the Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinist, Baptists, Episcopalians, and the list goes on and on.  All these religions fall under the single faith of Christianity.

Organized religion, regardless of which faith it is based upon, is nothing more than a societal and political tool.  It always has been.  This is not to say that organized religion is a bad thing, just to point out that it is a different concept from faith itself.  Unfortunately, most of us do not have the means to change the politics of our religions, but we do have the power to abide by our faiths.

So the next time you think you don't like someone because they are Pagan, Jewish, Muslim or Catholic...  Ask yourself if you are basing that judgement on the religion, or on the actual person?  More than likely, that person is no different than you:  living their lives according to their faith, and a belief in a higher power or being.  Everything else is simply politics.

I'm not real sure when this societal experiment got started, but it's a crock!  The idea that everyone has to like everyone, and respect them...  Give me a break please! 

I'm not saying go out and intentionally be rude to people, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with not liking everyone, and deciding as individuals who deserves our respect, and who doesn't.  It is this very concept that makes our society diverse and interesting.

Censoring the ability to speak one's mind is how anymosity, distrust, grudges, and everything else gets started.  It also promotes a very healthy "herd mentality"....  Yeah, I said it was healthy...  For a cow maybe, but I'm not a bovine!

At least if everyone went back to being able to speak their minds we would know where everyone stood.  Then comes the time when we have to actually think and make decisions based on the other person's view.  Hmmm, what a novel idea!  Mankind as a "thinking" creature!

...From the tree hugging environmentalists!

One of my biggest pet peeves is the current "environmental" group mentality!  I mean, come on!  A bunch of rich, spoiled movie stars and city slickers knows what's best for our forests?  They need to go back to Malibu and get a real job!

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for protecting the environment, and conserving it for future generations.  I love the National Park system in both the US and Canada.  But here in lies the difference and why I'm NOT an "environmentalist"...

I want the parks, and other timbered land, to be "conserved".  I want to someday be able to take my grandkids to Sequoia National Park in California and show them the giant redwoods and watch their faces light up in wonder like mine did.  I want to be able to take them to Yosemite and Yellowstone, Bryce Canyon and the Grand Canyon, and McKinley National Park in Alaska so they can see a grizzly bear in the wild! 

You want to know WHY the National Parks in this country are burning at a rate of 3.5 million acres a summer?  It's the tree hugging environmentalists!  The burning is natural, it's Mother Nature's way of clearing the deadfall and brush to allow more growth.  But it doesn't have to be.  If the environmentalists would just relax a little and let the National Park Service clear the same deadfall and brush out, it won't completely stop the fires (lightning is still going to strike) but what it will do is make them manageable again.  Healthy forests do NOT burn the way we have seen them in the past decade!

Maybe, just maybe, the next time the lightning strikes a tree 30 miles from Old Faithful in Yellowstone, the fire can be controlled so that it doesn't render the picturesque scenery around the world's most famous geyser as bleak as Siberia after above ground nuclear testing by the Soviets!  Think I'm kidding?  Find yourself some pictures of the North Face in Yosemite before and after the fire there 4 or 5 years ago!

We have a family friend, who passed away recently.  In fact, if I were to tell you the history of this family for the past 18 months, you would think I was making it up!  Needless to say, in that time frame, there have been 6 deaths, all one at a time, all from different illnesses (no car accidents or such).  Now, there is a 17 year old young man that is basically without a family.

He will probably be coming to stay with us, and my mother and I have gotten into several debates over what this kid needs.  He's 17, and mother insists he has the "emotional" age of about 12-13.  So which way to deal with him?

To me, being male, I know how society is going to view him at 18.  Bluntly, they aren't going to give a second thought to his "emotional" age.  He'll be an adult, and he will be expected to act like an adult anywhere but here in the house.  His father had been a controlling parent, and basically was willing to make all of the decision for his son.  Now, I see this as a problem.  This kid has to be able to make decisions for himself, and we are faced with a very short time in which to find out if he can, or teach him how.

Mother on the other hand, believes we should deal with him strictly on the basis of his "emotional" age.  Basically, treat a 17 year old like he's twelve, and hold his hand until somehow, miraculously, the two ages meet.  This doesn't surprise me much, since I still get treated like I am thirteen most of the time. 

I think basically what the debate boils down to is when do people actually become "adults"?  When is it time to say "Alright, you have to grow up!"?  At what age, and which age (emotional or physical) can you reasonably expect, and can society reasonably expect, a person to make adult decisions?  I know there's no easy answer to this, and I know it's a problem that faces most parents.

I would think at some point the expectations of the society must prevail.  But even that gets blurry with 16 and 17 year olds getting tried as adults and held responsible for their actions as adults.  We live in a society where like it or not, adulthood is based on physical age, not emotional age.