Dispelling the common myth of the educated liberal.
Kim Strassel's excellent column today effectively makes the case that both Santorum and Romney are playing (to lose) Obama's class warfare game. One peripheral phrase leapt out at me, and spurred me to write this. Strassel says:…
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76 - roger nowosielski
The American in me, surprised?
Can't help it.
77 - roger nowosielski
Help me think of drama, zing, modern-day political drama. It's got to be political not only because that's what I care about but also, because it affects all of us. Not the Tennessee Williams or Eugene O'Neil kind, but political drama after the fashion of Aeschylus or Shakespeare. Is our age capable of this kind of pathos, the kind of political speech that's been crafted by Thucydides. Does Pinter come close? Can we do better?
If you point the way, zing, I'll be forever grateful, because a play is what I must write, but it has to be a political play. And I promise. I'll be forever out of your (pubic?) hair.
78 - roger nowosielski
Anyways, I'm off for tonight. Come back tomorrow, you hear?
79 - Glenn Contrarian
Roger -
Well, zing, Glenn's connecting the idea of teaching, or being an artist, with pay, did indeed strike me as rather ignorant. Of course I did not know about Glenn's personal circumstances, about having foster kids or any of that. But even if I have been aware of those circumstances, his statement still would have struck me as odd and untrue.
1 - I never mentioned artists at all! WHERE did that come from? Lay off the sauce, willya?
2 - You really must think teachers are stupid. The hardest positions to fill in school anymore are those of math and science teachers. Why? Because they can take a position as a teacher, or they can take a position in the private sector (or other government sectors) making three and four times as much. Hmmm, let me see here - $2K/month to be a teacher, or $8K/month to be a computer programmer...gee, what to do, what to do?
Do you REALLY think someone with children would choose a career where they would have to struggle to make ends meet when they could make so much more elsewhere? Do you really?
What are you smoking, Roger? I don't know where you got your idea that teachers will teach even if they're paid peanuts or less, but teachers are NOT BENEDICTINE MONKS. Teachers are NOT BUDDHIST MONKS. Teachers do NOT LIVE BY OATHS OF POVERTY.
Many, many people would love to be teachers...as would I. The time I loved most in my Naval career was that of teaching the troops, and that's why there's a "Troops to Teachers" program for retired farts like me can go teach if we've a degree. And it's a popular program - why? Because if you talk to retired military people, generally speaking the thing we miss most about military service is guiding all the younger people (and YES, we often do so in classroom settings). In other words, WE MISS TEACHING. It's the very same thing. You'll probably disagree with a profanity-laced rant...but nearly every retired military guy will tell you the same thing.
I don't know where you got your idea that teachers are somehow preprogrammed to teach regardless of how little they get paid...but they're not. They're NOT MONKS. Like most of the rest of society, the great majority really want to do a good job...but they want to get paid well for the service they provide!
And you have YET to provide a reply showing why it is that you think that FORTY PERCENT of the teachers in Texas feel the need to moonlight since YOU think that if they're really teachers, they'll teach no matter how little they're paid!
Again, Roger, lay off the sauce, and stop spewing hatred and insults at those who didn't insult you. It only makes you look bad.
80 - Glenn Contrarian
Roger -
I think it's time for me to stop arguing with you about teachers and economy and so on and so forth. Let's get to the real issue.
Right now you're very bitter and angry and you're lashing out. It shows in your writing. Don't tell me it doesn't - it's painfully obvious (you've let on more than you think over the years on BC) and if I were a betting man I'd lay odds it's because of the change from the life you once had out west to the life you have now. Yes, it sucks. You've known a much better lifestyle and you're trying your level best to find happiness with much less and in a significantly different class of people, most of whom don't have anything close to your level of education and knowledge. And you're understandably angry about the unfairness of it all.
Again, it's understandable...and because of that it's incumbent upon me to not judge you for your anger.
Anyway, it just occurred to me that maybe it's a good thing if you let it out here in the digital world, as long as you don't take your bitterness and anger out on people in the physical world. That, and IIRC you're degreed, and because of that you can certainly teach. Go teach overseas in a third-world nation, and perhaps you'll find the same kind of happiness that I found - not so much in the way of a significant other (though that's always a good possibility), but in the daily lives of the people, interacting with them, helping them, and seeing the gratitude in their eyes.
Another real possibility is the Peace Corps. A nurse that works with us here told us about her daughter who's off to Botswana...and her daughter told her how one of her fellow Peace Corps volunteers was 83 years old. So it's not too late - you can still do it, Roger.
There's happiness to be found in this world, Roger - and America is not the happiest place. Do something completely different - go where people will be truly grateful for you...and soon you'll find that you're grateful for them, too.
81 - roger nowosielski
Stop being on the defensive, Glenn, just because I or anyone finds a hole in your argument. Yes, to me teaching is a vocation, and I'm being in earnest. Nobody's saying teachers should be starving, but there is also something which is called the labor of love (and that's the connection between true teachers and artists), and your argument "you get what you pay for" fails to take that into consideration; that was the full extent of my point, nothing else.
And no, I do not need your advice, nor have I asked for it, as regards my personal life. So don't presume that you know me well enough to be giving it, especially when it comes unsolicited.
82 - Glenn Contrarian
You still don't grok that while teachers love to teach, they love to provide for their own children even more...and it is a critical error on your part to think that they would put their vocation above the well-being of their own families.
And when it comes to unsolicited advice, how many times have you passed judgment on me, or given unsolicited advice? MANY times. So you don't have a whole lot of room to talk. I've always been of the opinion that buddies tell a man what wants to hear, but friends tell a man what he needs to hear. THAT, Roger, is why I sincerely say 'thank you' to someone who sincerely tries to give helpful advice...
...because helpful advice is still helpful advice, regardless of how much you may despise the one who gives it. That's a good tool to keep in your psychological toolbox, Roger, if you've the courage to use it.
83 - roger nowosielski
Whatever, Glenn. I'm quickly approaching the point Irene has already reached, and that is not to pay you any heed. And I'd never consider you my friend, whether here or in real life, so save your sermons for somebody else.
84 - Glenn Contrarian
That's up to you. You can lead a horse to water....