Is it just me, or since the elections, are we back in Kansas again? Is the bad dream over? Have we witnessed some sort of "have you no decency" moment?

First question...no, we are not back in Kansas yet. There are still a few scary, winged monkeys flying around here. In Iraq there are body parts flying around, which is a lot scarier. Second question...again, scary winged monkeys and body parts flying around, so no, bad dream not over. At least we know we are having a bad dream now, though, which is better. Makes the winged monkeys, if not the flying body parts, less scary...

Have we witnessed some sort of "have you no decency" moment? I think so, although it took the form of an hypocrisy exposed in the form of gay sex...

So we all do some crazy things from time to time in our lives, especially as we approach middle age…especially us men folk.  So last Valentine’s Day, lonely and depressed, I found myself in the lonely hearts desert of Yahoo messenger…in a Philippine chat room.  You see, I am divorced, not getting any younger… I have dated over the years, and although I don’t mean to brag, most have been at least fairly attractive and way too young (though all totally legal!).  Like my last girlfriend.  Gorgeous young college girl, strange and quirky, bright but weird, and more than willing to let me “help her write” her English and History papers…

Ever notice how when one argues with a typical know nuthin' ditto head or Anne
Coulter type, how likely it is that you will be viciously slandered, accused
of aiding the enemy, of treason and worse? If one points out anything remotely
unflattering about our country, regardless of veracity of the statement...TREASON!

Sigh...

Well, to all ditto head juju zombies and McCarthy wannabees out there, let me try
to make you understand how I and many others really do love our country...

First, let me say how I do NOT love my country. I do NOT love my country the way
I love my favorite sports franchise. I do not dress in red white and blue, wave

As an educator with some 15 years experience in public, private, and overseas education, I intend to devote the next several blog entries to the topic with which I am most familiar, with occasional diversions, of course, as the passion of the moment dictates.  This first is meant to be nothing more than a broad reflection.  Future posts will delve into specifics.  You, the reader, are welcome to comment and question and such commentary/inquiry may well dictate the nature of my future postings.

Let me say that with all due respect to my fellow educational professionals, it has been my impression over the years that our educational system is in dire need of a complete overhaul.  Sacred cows must be slaughtered, cherished notions reviewed and often discarded, and major restructuring undertaken.   We must take a clear look at what is wrong, what is right, and engage in open minded discourse without grandstanding and politicizing of this monumentally important to our very democracy issue.  This inability to engage in meanigful discourse, of course, is part and parcel of the problem itself...

Although we remember Rome more as an empire, for almost half her history she was in fact a republic, and like us, an altogether imperfect, yet earnest, democracy.  This now rather obscure fact was once considered common knowledge to anyone deemed educated in this country, when knowledge of classical studies was an indispensable cornerstone of a well rounded education.  Any study of the thoughts and writings of our forefathers will reveal that such understanding of the Greco-Roman past profoundly influenced their vision for our future.  We chose to name our upper legislative house "the senate" and proceeded to imitate Roman architecture not only in the design of our capital, but in early civic buildings throughout our country.  This did not spring from an admiration of the degenerate imperial phase of Roman civilization, but rather from the first half millenium, before multiple pressures, including their inability to make the leap from direct to representative democracy, as well as their own success, drowned out Rome's once vibrant democratic traditions. 

I do not pretend to be an expert on anything, and despite the radical tone of the title of my first post, am not a conspiracy theorist, wild eyed leftist, nor very good speller...

But I am no silly ninny either, and having awakened a few years ago from mainstream media popular culture somnambulance, have begun thinking...always a dangerous activity for those who find themselves cursed with living in "interesting times"... And interesting times these are indeed.

As a conservative blogger on a conservative website not quite correctly pointed out to me, whoever first starts lobbing accusations of naziism or compares one's opponents to Adolph Hitler, has lost the arguement.  Again, seldom one to play by the rules of my enemies, I nonetheless concede the hyperbolic nature and oft overused, ad hominum character of these terms...naziism was so specific, in time and place, and Hitler so monstrously off the scale evil, that I hesitate to go there to describe the nature of America's most dangerous, insidious, and powerful enemies today.  "Fascists", however, although nonetheless inflamatory, I think falls sufficiently close to the nature of these folks as to warrant reasonable consideration...