Sun AM/PM

What a beautiful AM!  There was about an inch of new, powdery snow on the ground and the sun was out in a cloudless sky.  OK, the temperatures were a bit brisk, 6 degrees at the outset of my run.  But, 11 or so miles later, I was a bit tired, but refreshed at the same time.  It was just about the perfect distance today; any longer would have been a drag, esp with those layers of clothes.  And, I wondered more than once while finishing up, "How do people run marathons?"  I can't imagine doing another 15 miles after what I did this AM.  In fact, I couldn't.  Hmmm......  Oh, Oh.  I have done a marathon, more than one--12 to be exact.  And I don't know how many of my training runs, esp for the middle marathons, were 26 or more miles, but there were some.  Sometimes I think of 26 miles and I just shake my head.

"Pretend history."  Hmmm......  How should we deal with that?  What is "pretend history?"  It's history that never really happened, but is presented as if it did to advance an agenda or philosophy.  I guess the top example of that is "FDR's New Deal pulled us out of the Depression."  Well, no it didn't.  Unemployment in the US when FDR took over was about 12.9 million, almost 30%.  After billions and billions of dollars of federal assistance, by 1937 there were still 11 million Americans out of work, about 22% of the workforce.  (Of course, who knows how the figures were determined?)  By 1939, Henry Morganthau, the Secretary of the Treasury in FDR's Cabinet, sadly noted, "We have tried spending money.  We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work."  In fact, the top tax rate a few years later was 94%!  What eventually put Americans back to work were the tax cuts--and lower federal government spending--of the immediate post-war period.  Even with the many GIs returning from Europe and the Pacific, unemployment was in the 2-3% range, well under 4%, the benchmark economists use for "full employment."  Yet, textbooks and teachers continue with the mantra, "FDR's New Deal pulled us out of the Depression."  Another such "pretend history," I think, is the bad rap given the Treaty of Versailles.  It has been discredited with causing the Second World War, the rise of Hitler, and probably breast cancer.  I say, "Phooey!"  Very few people even considered the Versailles Treaty in 1926, 1927, 1928, and early 1929.  Only after the onset of the Depression did Versailles become a whipping boy, ironically used by Hitler and those who blamed it for leading to Hitler.  Methinks, no Depression, no Hitler.  Whether or not there would have been a WW2, well, there are the Japanese to consider.  More recently, the justification/defense for Bill Clinton's sexual escapades was clearly, "What's the big deal?  They all did it!"  "They," of course, were the Presidents.  "It" was an affair.  Really?  Name the Presidents who had affairs.  Now, they have to have been Presidents when they had them--not before or after.  And, they had to have been married; is it an "affair" if the President isn't married?  Yet, people bought this malarkey, this "pretend history."  I even worked with college-educated people who bought this.  When I asked for specific Presidents from these poorly-educated teachers, I usually was dismissed with something like, "Oh, they really all did, even if we don't know about the affairs."  That, probably, is another piece of evidence that their education was lacking.  I really have no answer to dealing with "pretend history," other than urging Americans/students to think for themselves, to question what they are told/"taught."  (Oops, look where asking students to question got Socrates!)

One Detroit newspaper editor this AM wrote that "sensible" Republicans in the Michigan legislature should take the ObamaCare money.  Oh, he had reason, mostly that Michigan can use the money.  Sure, who can't use more money?  But that's not really the point, is it?  Apparently this guy has never read Marlowe's play Dr. Faustus or Goethe's novel Faust (a couple hundred years later).  Selling one's soul to the devil results in tragedy.  I suppose, in this editor's mind, if we don't spend other people's money, somebody else will.  That always grates on me, reminiscent of the Neanderthal attitude of the public schools, that "We have to spend all the money now (even if on unnecessary things) because, if we don't, we won't get as much next time."  Once, when I questioned an administrator about this, his reply was, "You'd be cutting your own throat."  I think these people are still running our schools.

Here's an example.  Some 5-year old kindergartner (I'd assume) was threatened with explusion the next time he made a gun out of Legos!  And, according to Walter Williams, other students have been suspended for merely drawing guns.  Again, I draw upon my own personal experiences.  The diversity guru at the school I once worked was opposed to a number of school nicknames, even The Fighting Irish of Notre Dame.  Her comment to me was, "I oppose any name that includes the word, 'fighting.'  I'm against 'fighting.'"  What about "fighting" against, say, the Nazis?  What about "fighting" for one's rights?  I was, she said, just trying to twist her words.  Oh?

I was surprised to learn recently that, in 2011 (according to FBI statistics), 50% more murders were committed with "hammers and clubs" than with rifles.  I don't know exactly what that means, but it sure gives pause to those handwringers who say, "We have to do something."  Obviously, the answer is to ban "hammers and clubs."  Similarly, aren't more fatal car accidents caused by young drivers and speeders than by drinking drivers?  (Of course, there may be overlaps; I don't know.)  If so, why is there no big movement to increase the age of driving to 21 or at least 18?  And why don't we again lower our speed limits, like in the '70s and '80s?  (And wouldn't lower limits also cut down on petrol usage, lowering our dependence on foreign oil?)

Speaking of oil, I didn't hear a reason, but what has caused gasoline to hit $4 a gallon this time?  I passed two stations today with the price at $3.98.  Where is the outrage?  Have we become inured to this price of gas?  Yet, the federal government stands in the way of our own oil production, of buying Canadian oil, etc.  And, remember a few years ago, the Republicans in Michigan were demanding the Democrat governor, Jennifer Granholm, to suspend the state tax on gas to lower the price?  Now, it's the Republicans who not only aren't considering suspending the state tax, but want to increase it and registration fees.  Democrats.  Republicans.  A pox on both of their houses!

Two jobs I wonder who in his/her right mind would want:  mayor of Detroit and public school teacher.