Have We Gotten Soft?

[Dave Roberts]

There are some important questions raised in this opinion piece in Time Magazine



What do you think?

[Gene Scarborough]

I think we are throwing money at wasted spaces = war / welfare AND neglecting more important things like good education.

Even more basic is our obsession with computer games and entertainment. It is amazing how we gladly spend $2-3K for a flat screen TV and fail to prune that big tree we enjoy putting shade on us and oxygen back into the atmosphere!!!

There are certain things only a good education will give us--like the ability to think for ourselves--but most young people want to graduate and get a $60K job without any experience. Corporations gladly hire them for $30K and find pleasant enticements to get rid of the older heads who made the company what it is today!!!

[Tim Bonney]

I agree that our country is no longer making education the priority it once was. Instead we are cutting education to save money while we continue to spend billions on senseless wars. Education aid to college students is also much less available than I remember when I was in school. Now your only option is to borrow huge sums of money in the hopes of paying it back when you get a job (assuming you get a job.)

[Ed Pettibone]

[Tim Bonney]

[Ed Pettibone]

[Tim Bonney]

Actually, I wasn't speaking about you when talking about technology. It seemed to be Gene that was downing technology. I agree a really huge screen is only good in a really big room. It is a waste otherwise.

I'm not so much for taxing the rich more because of the exact revenue. I'm for equal taxation. I find it unfair that a rich CEO can end up paying less taxes than his secretary (Warren Buffett has pointed out this issue) because earnings are taxed in much more highly thank making money off of money. So if you are earning money by hard work and sweat you get taxes more than if you are a really good investor. That seems unfair to me because it skews the cost taxation towards the working classes. I only want everyone to pay their fair share. I know that is hard to figure out. But our system is such a mess now I feel it could be fairer.

[Haruo]

Our TV is 13" and we don't have cable. So there, Gene, we're not soft. We just spend time in front of a smaller number of square inches instead of pruning the shade trees...

[KeithE]

[Dave Roberts]

My concern in posting this is primarily the recognition that we as a society have de-emphasized education and have given in to the path of least resistance. I lived for over two decades in NC where the state board of education mandated that only 10% of the students in any grade could be retained in a given year for failure to pass the grade. I've now spent 17 years in VA where the public school systems spends its time teaching the answers to state-mandated standardized tests which determine whether a school system remains accredited. The loss of science and math graduates for our country and the shrinking numbers of engineers graduating from our universities does not bode well for the future. Also, I'm conscious of private school systems in which many parents feel that if they are paying the bills, their children should pass.

The absence of taking personal responsibility for our own direction seems a major concern of our society. I'm convinced that this starts in the home and branches out to the wider world. Where I work with a law enforcement agency, I know my perspective is skewed, but I see so many young people whose parents take little or no interest in helping their children to achieve or in giving them the direction that will help them to succeed. Indeed, we seem preoccupied as a society with short-term goals and instant gratifications. We are not working toward the long-term goals that will build meaningful lives and are not willing to wait for the satisfactions of delayed gratification. Thus people do not save toward down payments for houses, cars, or entertainment systems. Indeed, we can find creditors who are willing to offer credit gimmicks at almost every turn not telling folks the truth. My father-in-law owned a retail establishment for a number of years in Memphis, TN. He tried to be fair with people, but lost business in his later years because he did not raise his prices and offer "no down payment, no payments for 2 years" financing which he felt was dishonest. Now that seems the norm. Few people pay off their items in the stated periods, and when they receive their bills after 2 years, suddenly financing is added that makes the bill unpayable. I admire the fact that he was unwilling to treat people that way, but it cost him business share.

I am not so much concerned with the video game or electronic gadget industries as I am with the ways that we use them. TV's are fine, if they don't become our focus for everything. They need to be turned off sometimes. Video games can create interesting challenges, as long as kids and adults who play them get up and go do something else. Computers are great tools, if we don't spend our whole lives just chasing from one website to another and from one search to another. I like my PDA, but I don't spend my entire day playing with it. And, I even turn my cell phone off sometimes when I want privacy. I'm glad to have all of them, but they are not central. We need a sense of goals and then work toward those.

[Gene Scarborough]

We are meandering a bit on the basic theme of this thread, gentlemen!!!

All this stuff has a basic element of "choices." We take in tax money and some of the decisions of late are so stupid it's not funny!

It seems that the mandate to make students pass certain tests is just resulting in schools playing games with the tests. In addition, some schools in poverty situations have no parents backing the teachers in learning. Until students value thinking and learning, we are at a dead end. They are plenty smart when it comes to outsmarting the welfare system so it's not a matter of intelligence as much as using it on jobs rather than welfare scams.

After some 40 years of Title XX it is obvious that just throwing federal money at a problems fails to solve anything! The same is true of education if teacher are just in it for the money and could care less about their students and teaching them to be creative and serious about the basics.

[KeithE]

[Gene Scarborough]

A Colonel is a Colonel and didn't get his rank without kissing ass / putting on a show!!!!

[Stephen Fox]

I today had exchange with a Provost of a Grand Institution of Higher Education recommending a 7th grader of merit. If Institutions with Baptist connections can do their best to base their entrances on merit and character and not legacy or the pockets of the parents, then word will get around.

As for getting soft, Gene should compare his pilgrimage to Martin Luther King, Jr. as revealed in the Marshall Frady bio.

[Haruo]

I'm just astounded that I supervise high school graduates (and/or GED holders, and some with college degrees even) who can't do quarter-hour addition in their heads. They turn in a timesheet with a total of 6 hours, and show it itemized as 2.25 on one job and 2.75 on another job and 1.5 on a third job and a .25 paid break, and they don't understand what to do to fix it when I refuse to accept it at the end of the day. Or rather, they don't see anything wrong with it.

[Ed Pettibone]

[Dave Roberts]

[Gene Scarborough]

Rev. Petty-to-the-bone----

(1) Truth and slander lie in different corners of any good discussion
(2) Some Preachers put on so much bravado and bull, it's hard to recognize after a while
(3) No Colonel became such without knowing the program = focus on career development / justify your existence whether you do anything of not / make sure if you helped a little lady across the street it gets on the front page with good wording!
(4) Take a camera at all times with you and make sure it can edit pics for effect

Nuff said---good buddy??????

[KeithE]

[Ed Pettibone]

[Gene Scarborough]

MR Petty-to-the-bone----

When I get senile, I'll let you know!!!

When you quit goading me, I'll be nice!!!

Remember, you are dealing with a member of the Emory University Debating Team----we happened to win First Place as I participated (1964-67)------in the entire country!!!!!

Beware, you are not dealing with a novice in this game, but you make it easy to win most of the time!

[Ed Pettibone]

Gene Scarborough;

MR Petty-to-the-bone----

When I get senile, I'll let you know!!!

Ed: Will you know?

When you quit goading me, I'll be nice!!!

Ed: I am not sure you know the meaning of nice.

Remember, you are dealing with a member of the Emory University Debating Team----we happened to win First Place as I participated (1964-67)------in the entire country!!!!!

Beware, you are not dealing with a novice in this game, but you make it easy to win most of the time![/quote]

Ed: Shall we take a vote? But then from what I have seen here, it is possible that you have slipped seriously since your college days.

[Gene Scarborough]

Mr. Petty-to-the-bone

OOPS----but you just messed with senile old me again!!!!

Can't remember which buttons I punched and If I'm a little harsh-----I jest caint hep it!!!!!

[Haruo]

Okay, let's get civil.

Both of you.

Seriously.

[Ed Pettibone]