Labor Day

Today evokes mixed emotions about labor unions. I know the history of them, the advances in pay, safety, health, etc. that they brought, likely decades, if not never, before they otherwise would have come. I know how teachers' salaries were improved--the other day I reminisced to another how I took a $2-3000 pay cut to start teaching and that doesn't include regular overtime that usually doubled my weekly paycheck. I don't regret that move, but I do sometimes wonder what it would have been like to stay with my road construction job. I enjoyed it a lot, was paid much better than teaching, and was outside. I didn't want to quit it, but was sort of forced to do so by my father, who said something like, "I didn't pay for you to go to college so you could work construction." Fair enough, I guess--but I did enjoy the job. My first teaching job was about a quarter an hour, maybe a bit more. But, when I coached football and baseball, I was paid less than a quarter an hour, all tolled. So, I appreciate all that....

Yet, unions have become something else, something, I think, detrimental in many ways. I don't like the work rules, the stay-at-home-but-still-get-paid, etc. There have been, by necessity in recent years, changes in some of that attitude. But I've heard, still, union workers who sort of boast that "two people do one job," etc. In education, the unions have become a bulwark against quality (can I use "bulwark" and "against" like that???). They protect lousy teachers. They, illogically and ridiculously, maintain that all teachers are good, dedicated, etc. They aren't. So, I'm of two minds about unions.

I read an article about some Hollywood-type doing a reality show about teaching in a public school. My initial response was, "Here we go again: anyone can teach." I still have a bit of that thought, but the Hollywood-type did relate how difficult teaching, real teaching is. He might have focused on the "helping" part, the "self-esteem," "relevance," etc., far too much, though. But he did tell of the vast knowledge and thought that must go into teaching, although, again, the "feel good" aspect seemed to be the focus. OK....

I still wonder, as I did a week or so ago, before the radio shows began their blathering, what would have happened had a so-called "Tea Partier" held the Discovery Channel hostage. That the nut case was an avid follower of Algore and the global warming crowd, that he was a supporter and smuggler of illegal aliens apparently doesn't translate to the same fear-mongering and name-calling that "Tea Party" evokes. The article on the hostage crisis and ultimate shooting appeared on page 10 of the Detroit newspaper, of 14 pages in the section. That seems pretty far back. Why do I believe it would have been front page if a "Tea Partier?"

If so many take potshots at Sarah Palin's intelligence (and she may or may not be smart), why aren't there more at other women office holders? I'm thinking, mainly, of two pretty high profile Michigan pols. Nothing they've done, nothing they've said have led to anyone saying, "Wow! She's a genius!" In fact, when I have heard them on the radio, read their op-ed pieces, listened to their soundbites, I have had the exact opposite thought. I guess there is a double-standard.

You know, before I give any credibility to the arguments (even by Americans!) that people in third-world nations have legitimate grievances against the US--that they legitimately hate us--I want to see them rise up against their own. Why is the US the villain, but not the sheik, the emir, the dictator, the king, etc.? Who has taken all this American money and not given it to their people, not allowed it to trickle down to their people? Who live in mansions, palaces, etc., travel all over, lead jet-set lives, etc., while their people continue to exist often in subsistance manners? And how can Americans defend this anti-American silliness without first addressing what is happening in these other nations? How can they defend people, namely the Islamists (be they the Taliban, Hamas, Hezbollah, or whoever), who treat their own the way they do? Where are the women's rights groups? (A woman slated for death by stoning in one of these Muslim nations for adultery was publicly flogged because a photo of her, without a veil, appeared in a London newspaper--a photo that was not of her it turns out! Death, lashes for these transgressions?) Where are the children's advocacy and other human rights groups? (Strap a bomb to a kid or a handicapped person and send him off to blow himself up--along with other innocents?) Of course, where are the anointed Nobel Peace Prize winners, esp Algore and Obama? Where are their protests? Surely their anointed positions create a pulpit for standing against this barbarity? Yet, they remain silent, very silent. Hypocrites! Of course, where is the Pope and other world religious leaders? Where are the so-called moderate Muslims? Maybe we should all get the equivalent of "Free Tibet" bumper stickers???? Oh, let's just trade more with Red China, Saudi Arabia, etc....

Grrrrrr.....