Archive for People
August 13, 2008 at 8:55 am · Filed under Daily Life, Economy, People, Work
My kids just starting attending a private Christian school. Since my wife teaches there, we are able to put both of our girls in for free, which is nice. I’m really impressed with this school. My first impression is that parents are truly involved. The school has a program in which parents have to achieve a certain number of points each year choosing from a whole bunch of different activities in order to continue on the following year. Some of these activities include sitting in on your child’s class for an hour, maintaining a section of landscaping on the grounds (adopt a ground), teaching a class, attending parent-teacher meetings, helping with fall festival, etc. Yes, parents can get busy and forget about how important involvement in the school is and specifically the education of their child, but I think it goes deeper to something else.
These parents are paying some good money to get into the school. And in addition to those hefty tuition payments, the parents (whether property owners and renters) still have to pay for public schools through property taxes (renters pay through the lease payment). Though taxes are necessary, they become a hidden fee that you don’t see come directly out of your bank account each month. And that is my point.
When you have to put your money directly from your wallet into something you believe in, you darn sure are going to make every effort to ensure that it is put to good use. In the case of the school, parents show up. They spend time talking with teachers. They get on committees. They want success.
Unfortunately, when our monies are taken through backdoor channels like withholding taxes, electronic tithing (which I do), and property taxes, we can lose connection to that money and its purpose. If every American that now paid withholding actually had to pay it out of pocket like we do for gas in the car, there would be an uproar when it rises exponentially. The thing is, we just don’t see it. If we did, I think we’d each take a little more responsibility with how that money is being used. If public school parents were required to pay for their child directly and not through the property tax system, more public school parents would get involved (and not just in how good the football team is or who is the best chearleader). The effect would be more pressure on the school boards to do the right things and not the politically correct things. Teachers would see the trickle down effect of that. Kids that really want to be there would get a great education. Kids that don’t would save their parents the cost of the tuition and could pick strawberries for all I care. There appears to be enough of that work out there that we now need illegals to do.
So how involved are you?
Head on over to Ethos for Watercooler Wednesday. You’ll find some good folks there.
August 6, 2008 at 8:26 am · Filed under Daily Life, People
I stopped in at Walgreens in Donelson this morning to pick up supplies for our new office. The cosmetics register was opened and I struck up a conversation with Sandy, a former guidance counselor from Chicago. Sandy worked in the Chicago school system in the same high school for 47 years, retiring recently after the pace got a little too crazy, not to mention the students. We chatted for 15 minutes about kids in school and how so much has changed since she first began working with kids. The conversation turned to parents and how much of an impact they have during the formative years of child’s life. She remembered times when she would have to call home and tell a mom that she wasn’t supposed to smoke pot with her high schooler before school.
Then Sandy mentioned the antics of some children who visited the store this past weekend during the tax holiday. On Sunday she said these 
children were very rude, some asking that she leave the register (whose line was long) to find an item. Others got irate at the length of the lines. One child actually spit at a cashier when he didn’t get his way. Sadly, these weren’t children, but adults acting like children. Boy, some role models we are for kids. It reminded me of a visit to Kmart recently (it also was this past Sunday). Same situation. One lady got so angry that the line was long that she stormed out, dropping her items on the ground and stepping over them on the way out.
Where does this anger come from? This particular Kmart lady was in her 50’s from what I could tell. If she’d waited about two more minutes she would have been out the door with her stuff. When we as humans brush up against things or people we can’t control, especially when we are used to controlling everything else we can get our hands on (kids, husbands, wives, employees, cars, cable tv, etc.), something snaps. Coincidentally, this “control freakism” usually comes when you’ve intentionally decided to throw out the notion that someone greater controls things anyway, including your own perfect self. It sure is humbling (and frustrating) when you realize you can’t control everything. A data stream of garbage directed at a unsuspecting cashier usually makes it all better, just like a drink to help make the pain go away. You feel in control again for a time. It won’t last long, but there are always more cashiers, more drivers on the interstate, more spouses to get your fix.
Well, once again I’m sure glad I get to be a part of Watercooler Wednesday over at Ethos. People there will treat you nice.
July 30, 2008 at 5:25 pm · Filed under Daily Life, History, People, Travel
I visited a small city in Russia a few years ago. It’s really not that small. Formerly Stalingrad, now Volgograd, it’s a city where history lives just down the street from my good friend Vitaly (and a million or so others). I met Vitaly on a trip there with a all-volunteer orchestra from the US. Vitaly and I hit it off quickly. He knew English well enough and had a neat sense of humor. He is a taxi van driver and the pastor of a small church there. He gets paid by doing the former so that he can help others doing the latter.
So we’ve been keeping in touch via email regularly. I got to visit him again last year when I visited Moscow, Tomsk (Siberia), and Volgograd performing with a big band jazz group. This is one of those friendships that just picked up again as if I had only gone down the street for some groceries. He tells me his English is good but he always confuses kitchen and chicken in translation.
I sent him an email asking if he’s experienced the same kind of thing I had where weeks go by and the time in between vanished as if stolen by a thief. He responded well.
You said interesting thing about time. It is true. It is difficult to understand that every minute or hour which God gave us costs “very expensive”, and we shall to spend it very very wise. I pray to God about that regular. Life is short, pray hard.
Such truth from halfway around the world. I look forward to visiting him again next year as our family plans a trip around the world with stops in Moscow, Volgograd, and then Taipei. And don’t you forget to visit the online destination called Watercooler Wednesday each week at Ethos.
July 16, 2008 at 8:54 am · Filed under Art, Mind, People, Random
I’ve been friends with Dan Merriam since high school. He was a few years older than me. I remember early on he was one of those guys who could draw/paint anything. During the first few years of college we were roommates in Naples, Maine as he was just beginning to move into the professional world of transparent watercolor. Our family has many of his originals from the very early days.
As time passed, Dan was recognized and heralded by many in the art world as a creative genius in the art of contemporary surrealism and transparent watercolor. He wrote a book chronicling his path called The Art of Daniel Merriam: The Impetus of Dreams
. I’ve got this painting below called Cat’s Cradle at my home. Each painting is filled with so many pieces that you can literally stare for hours and never fully see everything.
Here are a couple of links to view his artwork.
http://www.animazing.com/gallery/merriam.htm
http://www.danielmerriam.com/index.php
http://www.visionsfineart.com/merriam/aa_index.html
Join me and others every Wednesday as we gather around the Watercooler at Ethos.
July 14, 2008 at 5:15 pm · Filed under History, People
We’ve been watching the HBO miniseries on John Adams life. Man, times were tough back then. John had a strong personality and had to persuade much of the continental congress that independence was the right thing. It was uphill all the way. He had some great quotes which I provide here.
We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.
Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.
But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.
I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.
and perhaps my favorite…
In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.
