I listened to the President the other night. I have read and heard the many comments about his plan for jobs. People are so mean. I think his ideas are good. His first move in improving Education in this country should be restoring the Education budget with emphasis on using the funding for HIRING TEACHERS, not equipment, not buildings, not software, not administrative personnel, and not paraprofessional aides. While it is true all schools need all of these to function, they do not need anything more than they need teachers. You must have someone who needs to learn (students) and someone who can teach those who need to learn (teachers). All the other things are designed to make school better and the job of the teacher easier.
I heard what he said about roads and bridges. Fixing these are not just what we should do for the economy, it is about safety. While I feel that asphalt has played the lesser known, but nonetheless highly responsible role for global warming, it is better (if we must have it) to have it placed safely for the people who ride on it daily. Bridges have to be safe. We have seen what happens when they are not. We must have better airports and flight systems. They must be safe and flights must not be crowding the airspace. How we will do this I do not know. People all want to go to the same place at the same time, due to convenience. If people have business in Chicago, they don't want to land in Bloomington and drive in. We have become believers of "Time is Money" and that is how we have designed our world - to save us time, thereby saving us money. With this "Age of Technology," is it still important to have our businesses in major cities? I don't know. Maybe giving a tax break to the company who decides it is okay to move 75 or 100 miles away from a major city base would encourage a spread that would take the pressure off major airports. Maybe then smaller airports would be utilized at times. Maybe the answer lies in just not routing every flight through a major center. I live in Mobile. Why do I have to fly to Dallas/Ft. Worth or Atlanta to get a flight to Orlando or Birmingham? Just a thought....
I feel he is right about the trade agreements. I sent him a letter expressing just this thought. We cannot continue to have American companies manufacture in foreign countries to escape fees, regulations, and unions while American families go without jobs. While we do understand the CEO's and Board's desire for money, the salaries they are paying should be funding American households, not Indian, Mexican, or Chinese ones. The last time I looked, other countries do not pay income tax to the United States. No wonder our country is losing money left and right. Bring back manufacturing to the inside of our borders. Put Americans back to work in factories making money and paying state and federal taxes. Hmm? What a concept! If I can think of it, it must not be hard.
I know there will be many congress members and senators who feel they will vote against this plan simply because it was written by our President. Why? Because he is Democratic and/or because they don't like him. What they need to remember is that the "bail out" of the 'big boys' did not work. It was never designed to and it was initiated by another party's administration. We all said, "why not bail out us, the little guy?" Well people, this is the best way and probably the only way we will get our government to do so.
Sign the damn act. Act like we are one country and get behind our leader. He is our leader right now and no amount of arguing by the Legislature will change that. If our neighborhood had a natural disaster and a school, hospital, or our only store were destroyed, we would work together to rebuild it whether we liked each other or not. We would do this because it is to the benefit of all. Well, one hell of a natural disaster of sorts has hit our country in the form of a severely faltering economy. We can fix this by restoring jobs to American citizens. We do this by working together to rescind current foreign trade agreements and bring manufacturing back inside our borders. We do this by agreeing with the plan. It is not about "who" came up with it. It is about "We The People" and the future of our country, The United States of America.
Monday, September 12, 2011
Monday, August 15, 2011
Depressed and When Will The Government Free Up Education Funds So I Can Get a Job?
I cannot believe how hard it is to find a job. I ask myself: "Are you doing all you can? Should you be trying something new?" I don't know. I thought I was trying something new when I went into Education. Obviously the field is not wanting people as much as they said they were. There are way too many of us without full time teaching jobs for them to be too desperate for teachers. If we choose to go into another field to have work, we risk no one knowing us and making it even harder to find work as a teacher. Some of us have even been offered work at schools not as teachers. I guess the principals could be trying to be helpful. I think maybe they are trying to have an extra teacher or two on staff "just in case" for 20K a year less. Sort of insulting is what it really is. I am a teacher. I went to school and paid for my tuition in loans that must be repaid. I was not lucky enough to get any "free" money from the government to go to school. I need a full time job in my profession!
I went to an interview today for a temporary (or interim) teaching job for 1st Grade. It seemed like everything was going well and then poof! I got the distinct feeling it went South (and not in the good way). I don't know why. I don't know where it went wrong. I have replayed it over and over and I can't figure it out. Maybe tomorrow I will be able to see it. Going to sleep now and very sad.
Nope. Next day and still confused and depressed...
Still sad and cannot understand why I am having trouble unless it has to do with a) my age, or. . . b) . . . . my age. Of course it is illegal to discriminate against someone because of their age so there is nothing they would say to me, but it seems like whenever it comes around to mentioning family and the fact that I have "grandchildren" (something you would think could actually be a positive thing) the conversation goes wonky and trails away. Same thing happens if anyone asks about why I would want to leave nursing, or if I mention I have had cancer. Sorry folks, it is true. I survived when the odds were against me and I am not about to apologize to anyone because of it.
I have resolved therefore that the next time I have an interview for a full time or interim position I will, a) not mention the fact I have a family, b) not ever mention the fact I had a career prior to teaching (if they bring it up that damned ADN, I will say, "Yes I was a nurse. It is a noble and caring profession. I found myself able to stay at home and raise my daughter so I did. When she was in high school I went back to college to become what I always wanted to be, was always called to be: a teacher."), and I will never, never, never mention I was sick with cancer. They don't want to know I survived. They look at me like I am some sort of freak because I did not die. Screw them. They don't deserve to know. It is my and my family’s miracle, not theirs. It is not their business. They cannot ask and I will not tell. I'm tired of crap beyond my control being held against me. I am no more likely to die tomorrow than the next person.
Wow! I'm so tired of the hypocrisy of the schools. I'm good enough to sub for you, to fill in when your 30 year old teacher has to stay home with her sick kid, her sick mother, or her sick husband, or her sick dog, but I am not good enough to work in your school in my own classroom. My parents are both dead, my husband's are too, so I won't have to take leave to care for them or go to their funerals. My children are grown so they pretty much can deal with the world on their own with minimal (they like it that way) influence from me. My husband has been working his ass off for years and would love it if I had a full time job so he could actually take some of that 5 weeks’ vacation he has every year and do some home projects. One day we will get around to a vacation - just the two of us. But that will be a summer or spring break type of thing.
I'm a good teacher. I can teach children how to read, how to do math, how to explore their world and understand their community and their history. I can teach them manners they will be proud to display for their parents. I can teach them not just what we do, but why we do it. It matters people - I want to know why I have to walk down the right side of the hall. They deserve no less. I am a good teacher. I want a chance to prove it. I want to teach in my own classroom of imperfect young people and help them to become the best people they can be. I want the chance to enrich their lives at least as much as they enrich mine.
I did it right. I went to school to get my degree. I could have subbed without ever going back to school and made $60 a day. You know anyone's Mama can sub if they have at least a GED and get paid $60 a day. I don't make but $90 a day for substituting now (definitely not worth what a Bachelor's Degree in Elementary Education cost me). I could have been a paraprofessional or "classroom aide" without ever going back to college (I had an Associate’s Degree and that is all it takes) and made $15,000 a year (worked my behind off for it for sure). Teaching pay here only begins at 36K a year. I'm sure I could have gotten a degree in something else that pays better, accounting or something. I am good with math and numbers. What I am trying to get across is I'm not in teaching for the money. I'm not in it for the summers. I'm not in it because I was a "bored housewife" wanting a diversion and thumbed noses to everyone who thinks so.
I became a teacher simply because I want to make a difference. Coming close to dying gets you understanding what matters in the world. I want to be the person a child remembers helped him or her understand a concept they struggled with. Something that when they finally did get it, helped them make a little more sense of their world. I'm in Education, for the children who need people that give a damn whether they learn to read, write, or understand the world and how it works. I am a teacher because I want to make a difference in the lives of children. Children are the only future we have. We have to teach them well. We have to teach them how to make a difference in their world. I just want the chance to do that. I don’t think that is too much to ask. Would somebody here please give me a chance?
Monday, August 8, 2011
Credit Ratings, Bail-outs, and American Money
So...they have dropped the credit rating of the United States of America. Hmm. That seems par for the course as they have dropped the credit scores for most of the people living in the United States of America. Nice to know our country is no better or worse a risk than the rest of us.
I wonder if the S&P even considered dropping that score while we were bailing out every other bank on a list of so many. Probably not. That would have tanked their dear banking industry. Did they ever tell the U. S. well if you keep helping out all these other "interests" it is going to cause problems for you? Did they say that when we were sending billions of dollars into the world of finance, millions into poor, starving countries, millions into repair of storm and war trashed countries not in America? Did they warn them then? Who knows? Probably not. Banking, in this country, does not warn you when you are about to screw up. They let you and then slap your hand with a ruler. How? By making you pay exorbitant fees and lowering your..........wait for it..........credit score! Seems the hands of the United States have been slapped by an industry they just bailed out. Really? Unfortunately it is not surprising.
Let us look at what the U. S. does. We have already addressed the bailouts but realize this: the priority of the United States should always be the United States' citizens, not the companies inside its borders. The citizens of this country should have been bailed out. Mortgages paid up to date plus 1 year. Be fair: rent paid in advance for 1 year - if you move too bad. Credit card balances should have been paid for consumers up to $10,000 per person. Let the consumer decide which cards got paid and have them sign a paper that they would be responsible for all else. All this still would not have cost what the bail outs did and the banks would have been able to get an influx of cash because bills were being paid. Bills get paid, credit opens up, and people shop. Jobs are born and all sides win. Now-what about the government? Well how about since this was a "bail out" they could have started by increasing tax rate the way they are going to do anyway eventually. It could have been at a less painful rate that would guarantee the government income. I believe that even the staunchest liberal knows that eventually you must give for getting. People would have accepted it more than they have this monster in the room we have now.
Also, we need to look at the way the government hands out our money willy-nilly to every country that wants it. Not to be rude here, but that is what NGO's and private citizens and fund raisers are for. I am saddened by the children of Somalia. It is tragic. If you ask an anthropologist about this, they will tell you it is sad, but it is the way of nature. When a society cannot support itself, people die off until the numbers are diminished enough to begin again. It is awful. Yet, to me, what is more awful, most awful is that in this country, this country of abundance and plenty, we have children who starve every day. Not one, not 100, but millions. We have children who cannot eat one meal every day, never mind three. We have children who cannot get proper care. We have children in prisons because they made a choice that no child should ever come close to even considering. How dare this country send money to others when our own children are faltering in poverty! It is criminal to allow this to happen inside our borders. Let those who can, send money off to other parts of the world; private citizens and NGO's. Let the government take care of it's own people. That is what it is supposed to do. How can you look at a child who has no food in this country and try to explain why you are sending money to some place in the world they cannot comprehend? All they know is they are Americans and they have no food. Children truly look at things simply.
We also send money to war torn areas to repair what we (sometimes) have demolished and what terrorists (most times) have demolished. This is what we are told. This just needs to stop. I'm sorry. When did this begin? When you are at war with any country; America, for one, and America comes in and blows your country up, America is not the party responsible for rebuilding it. Clear? If you choose to let terrorists and rebel factions hide within your borders and you know we are looking to put them out of business you are opening yourself up for damage. Historically, the only time one country repairs the damage they did in war in another country, was when they were taking over said country. We are not allowed to take over any longer so hence, we do not need to "repair." If you don't hide criminals within your borders, or rather, you run them out when they are found, you have nothing to worry about. How many U. S. servicemen and women have been killed patrolling around neighborhoods where the citizens of that country are actually hiding evil within their walls knowingly? Too many to count, that's how many. War is not a blow it up, fix it up business. That's what children do when they are playing and war is not playing a game. When you are at war you fix your own country, not the one you are fighting against. The point is to cause enough damage to win, right? I know the governments of those countries did not declare war themselves, but they are protecting those who did by allowing them to continue to live in their country and carry out their business.
This global charity drive needs to cease. Judging by the economic strife our government is feeling, it is time now. If you ask any American they will say this: When you can barely pay your bills, you pay for the place you live, groceries, gas for car, utilities, and then "other" bills. Charity falls under "other." Hello U. S. Government: it is time to follow the plan you ask the people in your country to. Quit sending money, that we cannot afford to send, overseas for building, repairs, or charity. It is sad, but charity will have to wait until we have some of our bills paid off. You have to take care of this country and the citizens of this country before you go off saving the world. Maybe then, with bills paid, we will be again able to help others in the world who have needs and the S&P will up our credit rating.
I wonder if the S&P even considered dropping that score while we were bailing out every other bank on a list of so many. Probably not. That would have tanked their dear banking industry. Did they ever tell the U. S. well if you keep helping out all these other "interests" it is going to cause problems for you? Did they say that when we were sending billions of dollars into the world of finance, millions into poor, starving countries, millions into repair of storm and war trashed countries not in America? Did they warn them then? Who knows? Probably not. Banking, in this country, does not warn you when you are about to screw up. They let you and then slap your hand with a ruler. How? By making you pay exorbitant fees and lowering your..........wait for it..........credit score! Seems the hands of the United States have been slapped by an industry they just bailed out. Really? Unfortunately it is not surprising.
Let us look at what the U. S. does. We have already addressed the bailouts but realize this: the priority of the United States should always be the United States' citizens, not the companies inside its borders. The citizens of this country should have been bailed out. Mortgages paid up to date plus 1 year. Be fair: rent paid in advance for 1 year - if you move too bad. Credit card balances should have been paid for consumers up to $10,000 per person. Let the consumer decide which cards got paid and have them sign a paper that they would be responsible for all else. All this still would not have cost what the bail outs did and the banks would have been able to get an influx of cash because bills were being paid. Bills get paid, credit opens up, and people shop. Jobs are born and all sides win. Now-what about the government? Well how about since this was a "bail out" they could have started by increasing tax rate the way they are going to do anyway eventually. It could have been at a less painful rate that would guarantee the government income. I believe that even the staunchest liberal knows that eventually you must give for getting. People would have accepted it more than they have this monster in the room we have now.
Also, we need to look at the way the government hands out our money willy-nilly to every country that wants it. Not to be rude here, but that is what NGO's and private citizens and fund raisers are for. I am saddened by the children of Somalia. It is tragic. If you ask an anthropologist about this, they will tell you it is sad, but it is the way of nature. When a society cannot support itself, people die off until the numbers are diminished enough to begin again. It is awful. Yet, to me, what is more awful, most awful is that in this country, this country of abundance and plenty, we have children who starve every day. Not one, not 100, but millions. We have children who cannot eat one meal every day, never mind three. We have children who cannot get proper care. We have children in prisons because they made a choice that no child should ever come close to even considering. How dare this country send money to others when our own children are faltering in poverty! It is criminal to allow this to happen inside our borders. Let those who can, send money off to other parts of the world; private citizens and NGO's. Let the government take care of it's own people. That is what it is supposed to do. How can you look at a child who has no food in this country and try to explain why you are sending money to some place in the world they cannot comprehend? All they know is they are Americans and they have no food. Children truly look at things simply.
We also send money to war torn areas to repair what we (sometimes) have demolished and what terrorists (most times) have demolished. This is what we are told. This just needs to stop. I'm sorry. When did this begin? When you are at war with any country; America, for one, and America comes in and blows your country up, America is not the party responsible for rebuilding it. Clear? If you choose to let terrorists and rebel factions hide within your borders and you know we are looking to put them out of business you are opening yourself up for damage. Historically, the only time one country repairs the damage they did in war in another country, was when they were taking over said country. We are not allowed to take over any longer so hence, we do not need to "repair." If you don't hide criminals within your borders, or rather, you run them out when they are found, you have nothing to worry about. How many U. S. servicemen and women have been killed patrolling around neighborhoods where the citizens of that country are actually hiding evil within their walls knowingly? Too many to count, that's how many. War is not a blow it up, fix it up business. That's what children do when they are playing and war is not playing a game. When you are at war you fix your own country, not the one you are fighting against. The point is to cause enough damage to win, right? I know the governments of those countries did not declare war themselves, but they are protecting those who did by allowing them to continue to live in their country and carry out their business.
This global charity drive needs to cease. Judging by the economic strife our government is feeling, it is time now. If you ask any American they will say this: When you can barely pay your bills, you pay for the place you live, groceries, gas for car, utilities, and then "other" bills. Charity falls under "other." Hello U. S. Government: it is time to follow the plan you ask the people in your country to. Quit sending money, that we cannot afford to send, overseas for building, repairs, or charity. It is sad, but charity will have to wait until we have some of our bills paid off. You have to take care of this country and the citizens of this country before you go off saving the world. Maybe then, with bills paid, we will be again able to help others in the world who have needs and the S&P will up our credit rating.
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Sort Of New To This
Hi everyone. I'm Pickles and these are my thoughts. I'm going to begin this blog and see where it goes. It is my take on what I see happening around me. You may not agree and that is okay. You don't have to. We can all have an opinion. See you soon.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)