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Education

The complexities of education in American society are much too great to break down in a single blog post, but it is almost certain that it is education that separates the successful individuals from the meager ones and the memorable members of society from the mediocre.

The twist is that ”education” can be defined differently by different people. While we can all agree that one needs a foundation in the basics of reading, writing, arithmetic (do people still use that term?), art, history, etc., the question is what happens beyond that basic understanding of how the world works, or for that matter, beyond the higher degrees as well? How many of us continue to “educate” ourselves by reading, paying attention, or simply talking to people and discussing issues. I’ve found that the most “blue collar” of people are often quite well “self-educated” and those who are supposed to be “elitist” and “out of touch” are often quite aware of the world, whether it be from personal experience, literature, or humanitarian work.

This week, I attended a political event by a set of quirky circumstances and I was quite enlightened. While my basic views may not have changed, I was enlightened by the opportunity to engage in conversation with other people who care about this country. As I pursue my post-graduate education, I will try to remind myself that the majority of real-world “education” happens outside of the classroom.  

Memorial Day

Memorial Day is a wonderful time to reflect on what it all really means. It’s almost impossible for those of us who are safe and sound, still enjoying our time here on Earth to really appreciate the sacrifices that have been made by members of our armed services, but we can try. We can tell a veteran thank you. We can tell the Lord thank you. We can stand for the pledge and show respect for this country.

Whenever I feel down and out or upset about things like politics or money, I think about how lucky I am to have my life. I think about the men, women, and children who have died in political conflicts all over the world and suddenly a long political primary doesn’t seem like such a big deal.

On this Memorial Day, pause to say thank you- for what you may ask? For being able to sit and read this blog when many others have passed on. Happy Memorial Day.

Thank You

Thanks cannot express the gratitude that I feel

For your bravery and sacrifices

Sometimes it just doesn’t seem real

That there is a war going on out there

While I’m here at home watching TV

and styling my hair

I know that one cannot live day to day

Worrying about the problems of the world

But you are out there fighting for me and doing

more than worrying or arguing about philosophies

And for that I thank you

By Debra Johnson

The Messenger

I want to be a starving artist,

not a starving teacher

or a starving student

but a starving artist.

For that matter, I don’t want to

starve at all, but if I must, then I pray

that God make me a starving artist

with the power to deliver a message

so strong that people wake up from their

Various Slumbers

and take note of the beauty and the truth

in the message despite the many flaws of

the messenger.

Chasing Dreams

If there are 5 forks in the road,

how can you tell which one is

the road less traveled?

If your stride is different,

does it really matter

how many people

you cross paths with along

the way?

Is a different choice a better

choice…

or just a different choice?

Does it really make a difference at all

which dream you chase as long as

you’re not afraid to jump into the race?

New Web Site

For some reason, I continued to be intrigued by the number of free services offered by Google. Unfortunately, Blogger does not compare to WordPress, but I am trying out Google’s page creator. Check out my “website” and tell me what you think. http://writingbydebra.googlepages.com

Never Satisfied

One can only wait so long for a desire to be quenched

Before one feels the burn

One can only wait so long for a dream to come true

For a hope to become a reality

To achieve success

One can only wait so long for a prayer to be answered

For a wish to be fulfilled

To attain a goal

But what happens to those who live the dream, but are still

Never satisfied

By Debra Johnson

Ok, so if you make money of any kind in any industry that is even remotely related to politics or media, then apparently you’re fair game. The latest victim(?) is Miley Cyrus aka Disney star Hannah Montana. I guess we all should have seen it coming. With a popular show, sold out concerts, a stable family life, lack of partying, restraint from smoking, drinking, or alcohol abuse, along with a belief in God, she was bound to be criticized.

I watch Hannah Montana with my son. I watch lots of Disney shows because they are just about the only shows were I can guarantee no swearing or making out. I enjoy the show and her songs are catchy. If her concert tickets weren’t sky high and didn’t sell out in under a minute, I might even check out a live show.

First, it was pictures of her with her lips dangerously close to another girl at a teeny-bopper slumber party. Now it’s risque pictures taken for Vanity Fair. We’re talking about a 15 year-old here, people. There’s reports that she’s “baring her mid-drift” and “revealing her bra.”

People, get serious. There are too many serious issues in the world concerning children to even attempt to list, including the rape and murder of children, the kidnapping and disappearance of children, the rising number of children in foster care, the number of children infected with AIDS due to being born with HIV, the number of children living and dying in poverty, and the number of children either obese or starving in the world. Yet, the “big story” is a teen millionaire baring her mid-drift or 16-year old Jamie Lynn Spears becoming pregnant by her boyfriend.

Instead of worrying about Miley Cyrus being a role model, let’s try being role models for our own children. Let’s try less Disney channel and more walks in the park or quiet time reading together. If your children do watch TV, watch it with them and discuss the issues instead of demonizing Miley Cyrus as if she is the “enemy” who is stealing your child’s innocence through her scandals and “bra-baring.”

On the flip side, I’m sure that Vanity Fair is enjoying the extra-exposure. Sadly, the editors think that half naked pictures of 15-year olds is an effective way to sell magazines.

If the mainstream media won’t report it, WE WILL: Read the full text of Pat Buchanon’s “Brief for Whitey,” copied directly from his blog. I forewarn you, it’s racist venom at it’s finest….

PJB: A Brief for Whitey

posted by Linda

By Patrick J. Buchanan

How would he pull it off? I wondered.

How would Barack explain to his press groupies why he sat silent in a pew for 20 years as the Rev. Jeremiah Wright delivered racist rants against white America for our maligning of Fidel and Gadhafi, and inventing AIDS to infect and kill black people?

How would he justify not walking out as Wright spewed his venom about “the U.S. of K.K.K. America,” and howled, “God damn America!”

My hunch was right. Barack would turn the tables.

Yes, Barack agreed, Wright’s statements were “controversial,” and “divisive,” and “racially charged,” reflecting a “distorted view of America.”

But we must understand the man in full and the black experience out of which the Rev. Wright came: 350 years of slavery and segregation.

Barack then listed black grievances and informed us what white America must do to close the racial divide and heal the country.

The “white community,” said Barack, must start “acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination — and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past — are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds … .”

And what deeds must we perform to heal ourselves and our country?

The “white community” must invest more money in black schools and communities, enforce civil rights laws, ensure fairness in the criminal justice system and provide this generation of blacks with “ladders of opportunity” that were “unavailable” to Barack’s and the Rev. Wright’s generations.

What is wrong with Barack’s prognosis and Barack’s cure?

Only this. It is the same old con, the same old shakedown that black hustlers have been running since the Kerner Commission blamed the riots in Harlem, Watts, Newark, Detroit and a hundred other cities on, as Nixon put it, “everybody but the rioters themselves.”

Was “white racism” really responsible for those black men looting auto dealerships and liquor stories, and burning down their own communities, as Otto Kerner said — that liberal icon until the feds put him away for bribery.

Barack says we need to have a conversation about race in America.

Fair enough. But this time, it has to be a two-way conversation. White America needs to be heard from, not just lectured to.

This time, the Silent Majority needs to have its convictions, grievances and demands heard. And among them are these:

First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.

Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.

Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the ’60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream.

Governments, businesses and colleges have engaged in discrimination against white folks — with affirmative action, contract set-asides and quotas — to advance black applicants over white applicants.

Churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and individuals all over America have donated time and money to support soup kitchens, adult education, day care, retirement and nursing homes for blacks.

We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude?

Barack talks about new “ladders of opportunity” for blacks.

Let him go to Altoona and Johnstown, and ask the white kids in Catholic schools how many were visited lately by Ivy League recruiters handing out scholarships for “deserving” white kids.

Is white America really responsible for the fact that the crime and incarceration rates for African-Americans are seven times those of white America? Is it really white America’s fault that illegitimacy in the African-American community has hit 70 percent and the black dropout rate from high schools in some cities has reached 50 percent?

Is that the fault of white America or, first and foremost, a failure of the black community itself?

As for racism, its ugliest manifestation is in interracial crime, and especially interracial crimes of violence. Is Barack Obama aware that while white criminals choose black victims 3 percent of the time, black criminals choose white victims 45 percent of the time?

Is Barack aware that black-on-white rapes are 100 times more common than the reverse, that black-on-white robberies were 139 times as common in the first three years of this decade as the reverse?

We have all heard ad nauseam from the Rev. Al about Tawana Brawley, the Duke rape case and Jena. And all turned out to be hoaxes. But about the epidemic of black assaults on whites that are real, we hear nothing.

Sorry, Barack, some of us have heard it all before, about 40 years and 40 trillion tax dollars ago.

I remember when I was younger, I wanted to be a broadcast journalist. I thought that the job of anchor men and women was to educate people on the issues, to enlighten, and to hold public organizations accountable for their actions.Thankfully, I came to my senses and majored in English, only minoring in Communications.

I am glad that I did not become a journalist of any kind because apparently the job of the news media is to slander the name of politicians and celebrities, distort the issues, and incite rage in common folk by misinforming us. In the words of Tavis Smiley, “What does the Jeremiah Wright story have to do with high gas prices, the job I can’t find, the education I cannot finance, and the health insurance that I cannot afford?” They use sound bites to play mind games with us, deciding for us what’s important and what’s not.

MSNBC, for example, is covering the Jeremiah Wright story relentlessly, but has yet to talk about the memo put out by their own Pat Buchanon concerning “race relations” (to put it in PC terms). I hate to give it any more hits, but you can read it for yourself here.

Why does the media make a story out of nothing, sensationalizing trivial events and marginalizing the stories that really matter?

Why are they training us not to think? Why are people’s voting patterns reduced to a result of race and gender when clearly people are more complicated than that? Most importantly, why do we accept this? Why do we allow the same handful of people who hob-nob with the president and the candidates to be the ones to dictate with us what we should think.

Previously, I wrote a post about the problems with bloggers, but at least bloggers are ordinary people. I think that I got it wrong last time. The problem is the mainstream media, the BUSINESS of television that is interested in entertaining rather than informing.

So what is the Average Joe who is busy raising a family and working nine to five supposed to do? I suggest that he or she learn to read books written by a variety of authors from different backgrounds; don’t just read the Bible, study the history of it. Stop watching YouTube clips and you go research a given topic for yourself. Visit a public library, go for a walk, talk to people outside of your own circle. Read your party’s platform and figure out if you actually support everything that you say you stand for when you register as a Dem or Republican.

We can’t expect the media to be responsible for educating us, but there is nothing wrong with expecting editors and producers to at least respect our intelligence and stop trying to shovel trash down our throats.

A Ga-Ga Love Poem

Gone Away: A Ga-Ga Love Poem

One day I met a man
Who was just a friend
A little spot in my heart
Began to grow for him
And it has yet to come to an end

Every smile, every kiss
Every laugh, every joke
Made me wish he were mine

I used to think that he would
Become more than just a pal
But fate has dealt us a different hand

In just a few months
He will go his way and I will go mine
But I will not forget his touch or how
At one time I cared for him so much

That little spot in my heart grew right
Into love
But maybe we aren’t meant to be with
Everybody who makes us fall

Maybe there are times in our lives when
We just need to be in love with ourselves
And learn how to grow and become the
People that God meant for us to be

So, why then does he send us people who
Touch our hearts?
People who make us laugh and cry at the same time?
People who we love and hate all at once?

God sends us these people to help us grow
To show us how beautiful and ugly we are
To tell us stay the same while always
Encouraging us to change

For anyone who has ever loved and lost
Don’t forget to keep loving yourself even when
The one you loved more than anything
Is gone away

.….A lot of my poetry on this blog is just random and unedited. This poem, however, means a lot to me and I hope that you enjoyed it! Feedback is appreciated.

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