Stuck in the Middle With You

There is more and more evidence that our current educational efforts for our young are failing. The recent report of the results of math and science competition with the world is but the most recent. The drop out rate, the poor performance on end of grade tests, the number of parents home-schooling, and the impact of technology on the learning styles of the coming generation all are major factors in the discussion.

What is also more and more evident is that we are all stuck in the middle with old ideas. The Republican philosophy seems to be pushing for two different solutions. One is the return of neighborhood schools which would result, most likely, in the re-segregating the schools. Most neighborhoods that I see are single ethnic groupings. The other direction that the Republicans talk about is vouchers for parents. This would give parental choice to families but would result in leaving the public schools with the neglected and ignored children.

But the Democratic Leadership does not seem to have any new or better ideas or programs. They talk about pushing for excellence and for new approaches but they are politically tied historically to Teachers Unions which have resisted changes and especially resisted the demand for competency in teaching. They refuse to support or offer ways to evaluate teachers' performances. It is the duty of Unions to work for its members and so Teacher's Union are for protecting the teachers and their first focus is not the education of the student.

There seems to me to be a major need to re-examine the whole educational system. How can we get all of our children to the place of reading and basic math. We need the ability to say that all students will achieve a certain level of skill before moving forward. Nobody gets passed the third grade until they can read, write, and do math at that level. That means pulling out those that do not pass first grade standards at the first grade. It means holding back a second grade child until they can do second grade work. It means a lot of remedial and special attention in these early grades. It may mean that the population of elementary schools will shoot up wildly.

There is a need to develop more educational tracks besides Hard knocks and college. More service skills are needed. Not every child is college material nor wants to be college educated, but almost all work now requires some kind of education beyond high school. Most education needs cooperation of others. It is not apparent that we as a nation are getting our value from our investment in education. We need some people to find away to think outside of the limits of the Republicans and the Democrats and to think about how to prepare our youth for the new world they will be living in.

C'mon Man, Read the Thing

I have lamented in these blogs the obvious fact that there are a host of people who claim to believe the Bible word for word, who apparently have not read it. If the Bible had everything that they believe is in it the book would be three times as big as it is now. It is already a pretty big book. There is lots of stuff in there that is hard to endure in reading. There are lots of stories and history that is like the history of the Lancasters and Yorks in England. But there is a lot of stuff that people claim that is in there that is just not in there. One of the most frequently quoted passages that does not exist in the Bible is the "God helps those who help themselves."

My current disappointment stems from the debate on a local blog about suicide. A man in our area shot his "significant other" and then shot himself. The debate on the blog has been what a nice man he was and yet how unfortunate for him that he will be going to Hell. He is definitely going to Hell, according to the religious experts in our community, because the Bible says that those who commit suicide go to Hell.

Now the Roman Catholic Church has a pretty strong position on suicide that concludes that since the person "kills" himself and does not get a chance to confess and repent of his sins, then the unrepentant sinner goes to Hell. It is a Catholic doctrine, as I understand it.

But a search of the Bible brings forth only about five or six texts that mention suicide. There is Samson who kills himself and many others as he pulled down the towers of the building and it collapsed on the crowd. There is Saul and his assistant killing themselves rather than being capture at the end of a losing battle. There are a couple of other Old Testament references. And then there is Judas who killed himself after betraying Jesus. The Judas event is mentioned in the Gospel and in Acts. But there is not blanket condemnation that all who commit suicide will go to Hell. The Bible just does not say that those who commit suicide go to Hell. As the Roman Catholic Church has done one may build an argument from the Commandments to the position that suicide is an ultimate insult to God as God is the giver of life, and to take your own is to really play God, and is a sin unconfessed and unforgiven and thus one goes to Hell, but that is not the same as it being in the Bible.

C'mon man, read the book. It is not a productive witness to the truth in Scripture to declare things in there that are not in there. When others discover you have lied to them by claiming something is in the Bible that is not in the Bible they will not be likely to believe you testimony again. Bert Erhman is a very vicious and angry critic of Christianity because he grew up in a fundamentalist congregation which swore to him that every word in the Bible was the literal truth. He went to college and seminary and then began to discover that the only possible infallible inerrant Bible was the original first writings and we do not have copies of that first writing. The whole textual history with all of the variants, mistakes and intentional corrections mean that the Bible we have is our best guess. Bert has become one of the best informed historians of the early church,but also one of Christianity's sharpest critics because his congregation lied to him and mislead him.

C'mon man, read the book and stick to what it says. It is amazing enough without having to supplement it with your own collection of ideas from other places.

How Long is Too Long

The debate about medical care has many sides to it. The amount of human intervention into the living and dying process is constant and for the most part beneficial to most of us. But still the mysteries of life and death amaze me. Within the last week there was the very sudden and dramatic death of a man. He had a very serious lung condition but the Doctors had not been concerned. He was feeling good at lunch time and by four o'clock his lungs had filled with fluid and he was dead.

On the heels of that even comes the announcement that a woman who was 105 has died. Her old sister was about that old when she died. But good genes and good medical care and good around the clocking nursing care had preserved both of them for a very long time.

I think it was in the musical Porgy and Bess that a man sings a song about "Methuselah lived 900 years but who calls that living when no woman's going to give in to no man who is 900 years." Well, there is something of the same that could be said for both of those sisters. For the last twenty years of their lives they were confined to the bed. For at least the last 15 years of life for the one who just died, it did not appear to those visiting her, that she knew where she was, that she knew who she was, that she knew anybody who visited her. The nurses would always say that she responded but it was not obvious to me. Who calls that living when you don't know anything? can't do anything? can't remember anything? and all you do is take in food and give it back. Babies do not have to endure that situation more than a year or so.

I am not sure I have a solution to this issue. There are others who are more resolute than I am who might argue "mercy killings." Some would suggest that benign neglect would be wise. These two sisters did not even have children or family members to make those decisions. Distant relatives were all that were remaining. But it is such stories as these that shape our debate about human life and medical care. Our debate about wise use of our limited resources and equipment.

Out There - In Here

In the last few years there seems to have been a very strong public push by a number of writers to eliminate the belief in God. Several major works have been published and have had fairly wide success on the book selling lists. The arguments continue that faith in the supernatural is irrational, illogical, and dangerous. The author point out that there is no objective proof for the existence of God and that such claims for a wise and loving God run contrary to the facts of history: the suffering of humanity, the violence of nature, and the evil in the world. In fact, the evidence is strong that religious convictions have caused as much or more harm than they have done good.

These books seem to have a great deal of success in the market place as there is a perception that society is become more scientific, more technologically advanced, more educated, and more rational. It is believed by many that the belief in the supernatural is waning.

So it is interesting to me that when one looks at the novels that are popular, when one looks at the movies, when one the T.V. dramas there seems to be one theme that is sure to be a success. It is the theme of the supernatural. Vampires, Harry Potter, Star Wars, and a host of other popular expressions reassert the presence of mystery and mysterious powers into life. It is also true that people still say that they may not be religious but they see themselves as "spiritual (whatever that means).

What is supposed to be ruled out by education and science: the presence of the supernatural; is reintroduced by the popular media and the fascination with the possibility of the mystery and mysterious powers. We may want to be rational people but there remains a very active part of us that wants some power greater than our own intelligence to be able to help us.

Goodness - More of the Same

The sport's world seems to be giving me more than I can handle in stupidity. The vast difference between rules and reality. In Tacoma, Washington (as seen on CNN) on a Friday night in a high school football game, a young man scored a touchdown. He knelt, lifted one finger to the sky, got up, gave the ball to the official and got a penalty for ...... I am not exactly sure what was the reason given. There is a rule which was, at the first of the program, given. Excessive celebration - which says that one must not do too much to call attention to one's self. This act is an act that one has seen hundreds of time on T.V. It is an act of devotion in "jock religion" To give God glory for the ability and the success. Never mind that God must have not given the other players who did not tackle him any success. But it is an act that has happened lots of times without a penalty being called.

Now the penalty has drawn much more attention to the event than it would have ever gotten without it. The young man did claim it was a Christian intention of his, but just seeing the event it certainly could have been Allah who was being honored or Yahweh, Buddha or one of the Hindu gods. There is nothing inherently Christian about pointing to the sky. The whole act took all of about two seconds of time.

The Washington State High School Athletic Association gave to CNN another interpretation that another rule says that the ball must be immediately surrendered to the official after the touchdown and the student did not comply with that rule and so was given a penalty. Whatever happened to Thumper's mother's advice, "If you can't say anything good, don't say anything at all?" The Association would have been wiser to say we are talking to the official about his call. And never respond again.

For me it is obvious that this official had an agenda of his own. If that same act has been done hundreds of times around the country in all kinds of sports without penalties being called, why would you call it this time on this Friday night in Washington? I would suspect that this official had decided that if he ever saw someone doing that, he would flag it. Okay, but he has given more attention to that young man than that young man ever expected to receive. CNN reported the 94% of people who responded to their question, said they thought the official had blown the call. Not only that official but the Association also blew the call when they tried to justify it with a second rule.

The Right, The Rule, The Stupid

For the record, let me say that I think that the NCAA's position on Cam Newton is the ethically correct decision. The NCAA has ruled that since there is no evidence that Cam Newton knew what his father was doing, Cam Newton should not be punished and ruled ineligible to pay for Auburn. That decision fits in with all of our concepts of justice and morality. An individual is morally responsible for his own actions. There is no evidence, at the moment, that Cecil Newton, Cam's Father, had any contact with Auburn or made the same offer to them to get Cam to pay if Auburn gave Cecil Newton money. So I think that the position is the better position.

But the problem is that the NCAA has a rule on its books that states that if a parent, relative, friend or adviser violates the rules and asks for "favors" for an athlete, that athlete is ineligible. I do not know when that rule was made but listening to the sport talk shows it is apparently a rule that has been there a while and a rule that is well known. Reggie Bush and USC history has made the rule well known.

So here is one of those great problems of where the rule, the law, and the justice and fairness are in conflict with each other. It is in the middle of such situations that one realizes that all those who preach "law and order," those who claim that somebody broke the law and has to be punished, do not understand the realities of life. We are always living in societies that try to provide structure to community living by the "rules" and yet the reality of our human life together is always different and more complex than the rules. Justice is not always found in rules and law.

The Stupid in this class is the effort that the NCAA is making to try to justify the ruling that they made. The effort to pretend that they do not have a rule about this and to avoid enforcing that rule on Cam Newton. There is apparently evidence that Cecil Newton did shop his son around to colleges in the SEC. That would make Cam ineligible under their rules. The knots that the NCAA is twisting itself into to try both to defend the ruling and to look like they are following the rules is just silly. It just continues to make a mockery of their whole efforts to police the problems.