Double Standards?

Sometimes it's difficult to believe what is true and what isn't.  Government officials, news sources, it seems like so many people, hide complete stories, deceive or distort, or outright lie.  Sometimes, though, there might be legitimate mistakes.  I know, since I made one yesterday.

I was telling my students about the Instruction Booklet for the IRS 1040A form.  I said, "It's 74 pages long!"  One student was disbelieving, even telling me I was wrong, but not in so many words.  Well, she was right and I was wrong.  The instructions, to fill out three or four single pages, are not 74 pages.  Nope, I looked it up.  They are 88 pages.  No, that doesn't make me feel better.

I heard this AM that some companies, although I didn't catch the names, are considering a boycott of North Carolina over the state's recent transgender bathroom law.  These apparently were big corporations.  The law relegates bathroom use by gender/sex (I can't ever remember how the two now differ, thanks to the sociologists!), not by what a person says or thinks or feels he or she is.  So, if these corporation boycott NC, will they (or do they already) boycott countries like Iran, China, Syria, Saudi Arabia, etc.?  I just ask because these countries do more than merely discriminate on the basis of what gender/sex one feels, thinks, etc he/she is today.  They beat and torture and even kill (thrown off buildings, beheaded) the transgenders, not to mention gays, Christians, etc.  Just askin'......

In the same vein, what's with this gangsta rapper, some female, who Tweeted/Twitted or whatever it is called that Sarah Palin should be sexually assaulted, etc.?  I thought Tweeter/Twitter or whatever it is called had regulations against that, that threatening Tweets/Twits were prohibited.  According to several newspaper accounts I saw, which picked up the Tweets/Twits before the rapper (?) removed them, they were pretty graphic, threatening, etc.  Why have a policy if some people can get away with flaunting it?  Even if there were no such policy, why would anyone want to belong to Tweeter/Twitter if such posts are permitted?  Why don't those who believe in a civilized society just cancel their accounts?  (BTW, is it true, that Twitter/Tweeter has posted a profit in only one quarter in the last decade?  I don't know.  It's hard to believe everything.)

It was pretty cool this AM listening to a radio talk show host turn a minister inside out over the abortion question.  The host asked how a Christian pastor could publicly support a political candidate so overtly in favor of abortions.  The minister blathered this and blathered that and after the fourth time the host directly asked the question, he also asked, "What's so hard to answer about this?"  Again, the pastor was intellectually handcuffed and continued to just talk Chinese.

Why is it that local school boards almost always act to serve administrators, not the citizens/taxpayers of their school district?  It appears to be happening right now, as it has for the past 45 years out here.  No matter how much one argues with intelligence, insight, logic, and facts, it seems the school board merely rubber stamps what administrators throw at them.  Last Mon eve, at a school board meeting, a local resident had a brilliant (and that's the term I used that night to describe it to others) presentation that refuted much of a proposal coming from the superintendent.  It called into question the super's so-called "facts" and "logic," not to mention providing far greater insights that the superintendent did.  Yet, why did I get the impression the "brilliant" presentation had no impact at all on the board members present?  Gee, could it have been 45 years of experience?  We'll see on this one in a couple of weeks.  I won't quit bombarding the board with e-mails and ideas of my own.

I did have a chance to talk with one of the board members after the meeting.  Rather than close a school (and, admittedly, I have a vested interest in the school remaining open), I demonstrated in fewer than 10 minutes how the district could save more money than closing the school.  Granted, my plan would call for the layoffs of some administrators or make-do/boondoggle positions they created.  Why do school boards balk at cutting administrators?  They don't seem to be nearly as hesitant when cutting teachers or other employees.  Maybe it's because they really have no understanding of how schools work, of quality education.  Over one hundred years ago, I think Mark Twain had it right.  "In the first place, God created idiots.  That was for practice.  Then he created school boards."