This Rant’s for YOU!

Tags

deficits, economy, education, first impressions, Fox News, Glenn Beck, psychology, school lunches, sociology, taxes, tea parties

I mean, if it were possible to see smoke coming out of my ears, by golly you could have witnessed it first hand. I was, to put it simply, LIVID with anger.

It seems the school district in Albuquerque, NM is running a deficit in its school lunch program. As the number of people in serious financial crisis increases, more kids come to school unable to pay for their lunches.

The solution per the school district? Why it’s to pull these kids out of the line, and feed them a “cheap” lunch of cheese sandwich, a fruit, and a carton of milk or juice. The paying kids get a nutritious hot meal.

How any thinking adult could conclude that this is a solution is beyond my poor aching mind to conceive of. I don’t care what it takes, I simply don’t care. This is wrong, wrong, immoral, wrong. DID YOU HEAR ME????? WRONG!

I have not been able to get out of my mind a story I heard some weeks ago on NBC’s 6pm news about a restaurant which has “suggested” prices. Those that can’t pay it pay what they can, or nothing. If nothing, they sign up to sweep, clean, and otherwise help out in the restaurant. Those able to pay a little more than the suggested price do so.

I can’t help but think that plenty of solo entrepreneurs could be doing the same in any number of businesses. I suspect on the whole they would do just fine financially and suspect more that their business would significantly increase.

Why not try out something like this at the school? The kids would learn important lessons, and everybody learns that we are a whole, not just the rich kids and the poor kids. Shame on Albuquerque, and by the way, they are not the only one’s doing this.

I’m not sure how “Britain, You’ve Got Talent” is structured, but I think it’s similar to “American Idol.”

Although the auditions in Britain appear to be before a live audience, it seems that the usual number of “clinkers” are invited to offer their lack of ability before the cameras for the “fun” of it.

Now I admit, we watch American Idol, mostly for the auditions. We tend to stop watching until the numbers are down to ten or so finalists. I let myself off the hook by telling myself that these no-talents cannot possibly expect they can sing, they MUST know better. They show up just to see if they can get on TV, a victory in and of itself.  That’s my rationalization, however poor it is.

However, we need to step back and look at ourselves a bit as we watch the Susan Boyle audition. We noted that Simon Cowell had that usual sarcastic question, “how old are you my dear?” That is followed by the blond judge rolling her eyes as Ms. Boyle replied “Forty-seven, and that’s only on this side.” You could see the expectation of a truly awful rendition of something, replete with catcalls and boos acomin’.

Then the woman began to sing and all the faces changed instantly to smiles and awe. People started to clap, and stand up, including the judges. The sarcasm melted on lips, unsaid, forgotten, and no doubt most of the onlookers forgot that they had even contemplated her being bad.

Why did they contemplate this at all? Because we are still a species who tends to judge by looks. Ms Boyle is by no means homely, but she is not a classic beauty either. She was not fashionably dressed. She is a bit dowdy. And the assumptions flew, in everyone’s mind. No doubt I would have been no different.

Isn’t it about time we stopped judging folks on such thin evidence as looks? That child with Down’s Syndrome might just have an amazing gift of spiritual clarity. That homeless man might just have been a college physics professor. That single mom living in the projects might have the talent of world class sculptor. You don’t know, and I don’t know, and we judge that package by, well, its packaging don’t we.

Susan Boyle reminds us of how wrong we can be. As she put it, “The ones who were mean to me, are now nice to me,” and she is right.  And we all ought to be ashamed.

We went to town yesterday. It was my birthday, and the Contrarian bit the bullet and insisted we could “shop” anywhere I wished.

Me, I was busy scanning the highways and byways looking for the tea party crowd. I was salivating to give them a “piece of my mind.” And no, I don’t mean that literally, I wouldn’t dream of reducing my pondering power by one bit, thank you very much.

I mean, seriously, I heard people say, “I’m going to protest the  rise in my taxes!” Okay, I was ready to pounce. “Explain to me, how much your taxes have risen in the last 85 days? Since, you know, President Obama has been in charge?”  “I want to protest placing this burden on my grandchildren!” they growl. “And you got your degree in economics, exactly where?” “I want to protest my taxes going to save banks!” “Did you protest against your tax dollars going to Guantanamo? or for wiretapping of your fellow citizens?” I ask.

Foxy NO News started this crap, headed up by the likes of the certifiable Glenn Beck and the opportunist Sean Hannity. This has got nothing else to do about anything other than they lost and they need an angle. Was it only a couple of short years ago that protesting against a president was “unpatriotic” and “unAmerican?” Now it seems, it’s just the opposite.

Get over it Fox. You lost, and if you were honest, you’d admit that you actually love that Obama won. Your ratings were slipping as you tried to uphold the idiot boy George and his band of uber storm troopers. You have someone to really rant at again. Don’t tell me that you all don’t send Christmas cards to all the top Dems thanking them for giving you a target. But you aren’t honest. Come to think about it, you can’t even spell the word can ya?