Pardon My Rant

All this educational budget talk has brought out some comments that, frankly tick me off a little bit. As a teacher I'm naturally a little biased. But I am tired of people feeling justified in saying that teachers need to experience what the rest of the workforce has been feeling lately, namely budget cuts and layoffs. Maybe this is a little egotistical of me, but I don't put my profession on the same level as a lot of other professions. I put it higher. Public school teachers educate children.  What more important job is there? (I would certainly put firemen and policemen on the same rung of the ladder.) I would love to be part of a community that puts honor where it belongs. I could say a lot about the price of a Super Bowl ticket in our city verses the amount of money we pay to teach each child per year. Why can't we be extravagant in an area that will make a real difference in the quality of life for our kids?

Denial

I watched the news last night. There were two interviews that caught my attention. One was Charlie Sheen. The other was Muammar Gaddafi. I'm struck by the differences, yet the striking similarities. Talk about two men in total denial about what is really happening around them.

Charlie Sheen was one of those interviews that I just couldn't stop watching. It was like a car wreck. You know you should look away but, you just can't help it. I hurt for him. With Gaddafi, you kind of expect some self-deception. He's a dictator after all. It's part of the job description. How could you not be responsible for killing so many people over the last 40 years and not live in denial? And, I guess, when you think about it, Charlie Sheen did grow up in Hollywood, the land of make-believe. It makes sense that he would lose touch with reality, or perhaps he never knew it.

Proverbs 16:18 says "Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall." Both men think they are in indestructible while walking, no, running down the path directly toward their own demise, taking many people with them.