Saturday, July 09, 2005
PARTS AND PIECES
How much of our future is but a re-run of our own past? Have you every given that concept just a little bit of thought? It is very much like asking yourself if the new car you buy is actually assembled, put-together or "made" in the the United States using mainly cheaper foreign parts and pieces and with profits from the project going to the firm in Japan, can be spoken of and marketed as a car "made in the United States of America." We are, when you think about it at all, are - so often - pretty much what we have been both here and elsewhere.. We don't change as radically as we might think we do. There are additions from time to time, but the basic quality remains as it as before. Isn't that a true statement? Think about it in your life. If so, credit for some good we have must go to our forebears - some demerits, as well - because we share much of our past when we build our future. Why, then, do so many people decry the teaching of history? For what reasons does our nation become more and more determined, to avoid teaching the realities of human history - perhaps, much less than we might think - by events of the past. To ignore our national heritage -. True, our past has not always been perfectness have known both good and bad - and not to seek some understanding of why we do what we do, is a tragic mistake, it seems to me. If you have an dreams about what you want your nation to be, look at what it has been thus far. Many of the essentials for the future to be found in the past. And, if that worries you as a sort of fatalism, think of it in this manner: there is marked possibility that no one thought of doing what you wish to be done in the past. You can innovate paths into the future as well as make subtle changes in methodology used in the living of the past patterns. I have been shocked and amazed when I come across such a lack of knowledge concerning our history among both the young and old. The old I expect to know it; the young not knowing it is understandable in view of our educational circumstances today. We strayed from our former educational path in the era of so-called "permissive education", I believe, when History and Geography were two of the subjects which were truncated to fit and later lumped together with others under the fragmented headings of "Civics", "Social Studies", or "Cultural Sources". It may well be that I am too severe when I say (as I have) that these ideas concerning educational reform were "thrust upon us." It might be a bit closer to the actual truth if I say we readily accepted the proffered ideas because we respected leaders of the time in this important field as being true educators. We did not realize to what extent many of them had become administrators, businessmen, CEO's and Big-Time Operators, in essence. We suddenly realize that previously "single" subjects were now being "covered" in one or two-week" units". The story is told concerning Einstein visiting such a school where a little girl asked him what he did for a living. "I'm an astronomer." he replied . She looked at him with assurance , and said: "Oh, we learned all about that two weeks ago." There are no magic short-cuts. Each of us is an American and everyone of us has a heritage we must respect and use to our mutual advantage. A.L.M July 9, 2005 [c622wds]
Thursday, July 07, 2005
ARUBA RUBARB I can readily understand how it is that the citizens of the usually serene and beautiful isle called Aruba are disturbed. The media has spread the false set of ideas that give the impression that the small island is a haven for crime and everything that could possibly be wrong for a tourist site. The perplexing Twitty-Holloway case has been given a background making it some sort of wild specimen which is being studied from various experimental angles. The media has been unfair with the established citizenry of the island as being far too aggressive and of setting forth that which can be shown to be untrue. It seems to disturb outsiders, for instance, that Aruba is not exactly the tropical paradise they expected it to be. It is actually more desert-like than they had thought; arid in some areas, with tumbled, rocky coastlines, a great variety of low-lying, snarled vegetation and several varieties of cacti growing prominently everywhere. The rugged interior is sparingly occupied and you realize that much of it resembles its neighbor Trinidad to the south a few miles. Aruba seems more South American than Carri bean. Too much attention has been brought to focus on the small island in the past month as he result of the disappearance of a young American student. The colonial heritage of Aruba is Dutch and the prevailing law of the land is in accord with ownership. From the very start of the Natalee Holloway case the legal system of the island has caused great misunderstanding abroad. The American mind,in particular,has been thwarted in attempts to just comprehend what has been taking place. The case has been complicated by the fixed presence of the victim's mother, constantly demanding more investigations. Her odd comments have confused the matter even more so and many Americans can't see why we just don't just go in there and solve the case. The jurisdiction is not ours to claim. We have no rights to be there doing anything except to provide equipment and supplies and assist only when requested to do so. The strange case may well hinge on one an action which, as far as I know, has not been undertaken. Only quick, cursory and happenstance chit-chat has been exchanged thus far with the other girls who were with Natalee Holloway on the special trip. All of the other schoolgirls on the trip have been ought to be intensely interviewed. One woman investigator might talk with the girls and find out what they think they knew Natalee Holloway was doing the night she disappeared. You can't tell me a gaggle of young girls would not known pretty much what was thinking about boys and men and much of what she did with them. Whom had she been seeing? It's called "girl gossip". It is not infallible but it suggests paths to be taken. The longer this case is allowed to drag along,especially with other girls omitted, Natalee's abrasive Mama on stage every moment heaping ridicule on police judicial officials or anyone who gets in her way - is going to get worse day-by-day. There are people wondering if she is the devoted Mother she claims to be. What are - or were - the actual mother-daughter relationships? Girl gossips would know about that sort of thing. A.L.M. July 7, 2005 [c567wds]
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
CONTENTS OF PRAYER Many people - among them professing Christians as ell as devout members of other groups - learn to pray through experiences such as the events of September 11th 2001. Such increased tensions either brought about or enlarged by tragic events lead us to the realization that we do not keep at hand a stock of "vivid" and "honest" words urged upon us by psalm writers of old or proper prayers. They suggest words be used which express one's inmost fears and doubts; sincere and natural enough to convey such sentiments as desperation. The words are your,personal affirmation that you,too, believe God can ward off trouble or equip us to bear it. The natural use of common words - from whatever language - suggests how God belongs to all. Many people pray only in times of trouble, but they deceive themselves because if you but look about you in the world in which we live, you will quickly become aware of the fact that we are a part of that in which we thrive and that we are, probably, in as much or more difficulties than many of those who claim they have been, are, or will ever be. Issac Singer, one of our writers who has delved into that which makes people tick once said: "I only prayer when I am in trouble. But I am in trouble all the time, and so I pray all the time." We often, today, express our chagrin when we read news accounts of misfortune, crime, hatred, avarice and cruelty and prayer wells up naturally as we seek to allay calamities, but very often the causes thereof are overlooked in the conquest of the immediate evil. A.L.M. July 6, 2005 [c291wds]
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
PANDORA'S CONTAINER Thousands of shipping containers enter our major seaports every day and no one seems to know how many of them have been in inspected for reasons of homeland security. It has been, and continues to be, one of our major unsolved concerns as we have worked our way, slowly at times, but steadily toward the day when we can stop worrying about potential attacks and begin to place our trust in those preparations we have made. The gradual attainment to a more secure life for all is sometimes difficult for some individual to realize how much living has changed since "Nine-Eleven". Our major sea port cities are still inadequately prepared to forestall an in-filtering attack using clandestine weaponry. A relatively simple "bomb" well within the manufacturing skills o scores of our enemies and any one of them could deliver vast devastation to almost any of our coastal metro areas. The logical path of such attacks is through the mis-use of the omni-present shipping container which is the symbol of our commercially centered century. Thousand of such containers are checked for improper use use but thousands are also completing the entire route across the face of the world's seas without any security check whatsoever being made at any point.i The very nature of the business make more or less impossible to do more than a modest job. This is not a time for seeking to place blame for shortcomings , but rather a time when we must, as individuals, whatever we do best better. This is not the biggest threat we face. The largest potential for loss of life are the open initiations we send the world's terrorists is to be seen almost daily in our national mania for gathering together in large and large crowds or sporting events, religious gathering, entertainment "concerts" even shopping. We have yet to meet the terrorist first-hand in our midst.Do we face such a phase in our present war? A.L.M. July 5, 2005 [c348wds]
Monday, July 04, 2005
DISHONEST CALLS We are getting mixed and muddled figures from those persons now held responsible for gathering together and compiling information concerning the acting of high school students in the United States who, annually, become drop-outs before graduation. The 2002 “No Child Left Behind Act” had a clause or two in it, as did other legislation before it, which required each state to report in detail on then number of student drop-outs occurring each school year. Such reports have been meager, to say the last, and ,in some cases, dishonest. A Senior Fellow of the Manhattan Institute for Public Policy, reported on the study a few months ago, as February ended that some states felt drop-outs were not a serious problem at all and records were rather sketchy. It 2003 the National Center on Education Statistics reported that eighty-five per cent of all Americans of twenty -five years of age had completed high school. Down the line, to where we now stand, few people, actually believed such glowing figures. It tuned out that such a survey came from a questionnaire filled out by people re reporting their own educational background. Total honesty ..absolute truthfulness would have been required from each and every respondent and would not include t People have used statistics from such surveys to prove there is no drop-out problem ,while others doubt such studies and find good reason to contend that the problem of drop-out at the high school level in our system today. No one seems to know what the actual drop-out rate is in any one school district. No one actually keeps such “negative” records and information comes mainly from police and public welfare reports. Some states report impressive percentages of graduates but the Manhattan Institute research compared the size of ninth grade classes to the number of high school graduates and came up with a figure of about thirty-per cent dropouts. New Jersey currently stands at the top of the number of high school graduates ...89 per cent, and South Carolina is at the bottom,with a 53 per cent graduates; Hispanics and blacks at around 50%. Our National Governor's conclave this past winter agreed that the decline of our high school educational program was a major problem of concern for all of us. Think about that! What is your part going to be? A.L.M. July 4, 2005 (c496wds)
Sunday, July 03, 2005
PACIFIC The word itself means "peaceful", does it not? Tranquil? Untroubled? Yet in the Pacific area we have about three hundred thousand soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines and other armed forces personnel who are, it seems ,of necessity, to maintain tranquility. The Pacific Ocean rim is not exactly peaceful and is is a potential area for trouble in the future. That fact is obvious in the reality which keeps telling us that - in time - each of the two nations, Red China and North Korea - must expand even just to assert being the strong powers we are watching them become. We are, in some ways, even helping them grow into powerful nations which will, sooner or later, be our competition and,, hence to be viewed as enemies. North Korea and Red China have each made marked progress in recent times when it comes to military readiness and a growth of a new acceptance of their lot by a generation of young people in both lands. We have done very little to dissuade any of them from believing what they are being told to them by leaders of questionable intent. Our military maneuvers and training program are fashioned with the idea that China might well be our advisory but we strive to call such preparations by other names with connote concepts of friendliness and cooperation. That idea has been there in the back of our planning ever since the Chinese came charging across to aid North Korea during the Korean War. It is considered, by many, to be inevitable. We have around 40,000 marines soldiers and in Asia, in general, 120,000 seaman afloat and they are at about ninety locations, in addition to about 37,000 in Korea. The general public is, perhaps, aware of the "occupational troops" being in Korea but few know about joint exercises we are carrying on in cooperation with the Aussies and the Japanese at Narathinatt, Thailand or at Shoalwater Bay, in Australia. The Thai operation, called "Cobra Gold" and the "Foal Eagle" exercises in Korea both practiced wisely against a possible Oriental aggressor. In spite of repeated attempts to establish better relations between China and the China and the United States, much suspicion and distrust still exists - and with good reason - on both sides. Sword rattling by Red China concerning Taiwan and the "One China" concept are disconcerting to say the least. They may be major issues at any moment, for their would be no better time than while the Middle East could do the larger portion of any fighting required for them. Since getting Hong Kong back from the British, China has been more confident in the field of international relations,although she might, at the moment continue to take the offshore islands back by less combative methods. It is not a pleasant prospect -this facing up, once more, against what used to be called "the yellow peril" when I was a kid. We refrain from using that terms now. It seems to sound too direct and cataclysmic but the harsh reality of, potentially, greatly modified tranquility such as we now know, must be questioned if we are to survive. It is my hope that our leadership stability might continue to be the critical core of our policy which maintains our China relationships. Much depends on their readiness to use the North Korean differences as a means of bringing about their own desires. Chinese aggression in the Pacific need not be direct. I have strong memories of the way many people felt in the first quarter of the 20th Century when we spoke with fear and dread of a future "Yellow Peril" danger. Pearl Harbor and all that followed, seemed to have been that to many people, but it may proved to have been only a dress-rehearsal of some kind. The real "Yellow Peril" crisis might be still be in our future. Could be. A.L.M. July 3, 2005 [c657wds]
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