Individuals Used To Matter

We old-fashioned types are pretty shocked when we hear crazy collectivist talk spewing out of what is at least in theory a mainstream media outlet.  We shake our heads and shake our fists and cry out in despair and confusion, “What the hell is going on here? What is wrong with you people?”

It’s hard.  It’s hard to understand what has happened to our country.  How have we managed to elect and reelect a man demonstrably uncomfortable with the constraints of our Constitution?  How have we devolved from the land of opportunity to the land of entitlement?

The scary results before us now are the fruition of many years of individual abdication.  We, as individuals, keep relinquishing our responsibilities.  Young adults wandering the streets today are the grandchildren of a culture that demands both rights and blamelessness.

Nobody wants to take responsibility anymore.  We could list examples all day long, but that doesn’t really help us to understand how we got here.

The devil’s in the details.

Even the smallest decision can resonate far beyond its initial design.

Older son learned to read early.  We naively expected schools to take this skill into account, but by the final year of his brick-and-mortar experience, we knew that would never happen.  In third grade, the slow and thorough application of “reading strategies” to standardized (and therefore lame) material was not only the norm but mandatory, regardless of a child’s reading level.

They have to go through this process, I was told.  Even if they can mechanically read the words, they won’t be able to comprehend the meaning unless we use these strategies to teach them, I was told by Educators Who Are Well Meaning But Shall Remain Nameless.

I might have bought this premise, too, were it not for my own experience.  I was a child once, and a good reader.  My 1st grade teacher noticed.  She told me one day, go to the 2nd grade classroom during reading time.

While my classmates recited aloud the latest 1st grade adventures of Dick and Jane, I went upstairs and into a strange 2nd grade classroom.  The teacher there informed me that her class was at P.E., and I was to read all the “readers” at my own pace.  The shelf of readers extended the length of one wall.

No one ever asked me to apply a reading strategy.  No one ascertained whether I was really reading, or just messing about and taking advantage of the situation.  By the end of the year, I had ingested every reader shelved on that wall.

Fast forward thirty years.  I proposed the same arrangement to a very kind and capable teacher, and she looked at me as if lobsters were coming out of my ears.  You can’t do that, she protested.  The schedule won’t allow it.

Right.  The schedule won’t allow it.

In other words, its not her responsibility.

Thirty years ago, an underpaid urban public school teacher didn’t think twice about taking responsibility for the needs of an early reading student.  The arrangement was probably concocted in the teacher’s lounge.  They probably didn’t even run the idea by the principal first.

Did this arrangement substantially improve my education?

I don’t know.

It sure feels significant, though.  It sure feels like proof that the individual used to matter.

But not anymore.

Offend A Feminist Week Already?

Thank goodness for a good man like Mr. G to remind silly me it’s That Time Of Year again.  I’ve been too busy cooking and child-raising to write a proper post on the subject.

For now, feminists will have to be satisfied with gnashing their teeth over the rank misogyny of a TV show that portrays a woman entirely owned by a man, to whom she refers to as ”master.”

Storing Treasures

I just tried out the Meme Maker for the first time!  Like it?

 

The Tragedy of The Commons, Children’s Edition

The whole “the kids don’t belong to you; they belong to the community” bit is just a less cagey way of saying “it takes a village,” so at least Melissa Harris-Perry gets points for honesty.

My favorite part of the “All Your Children Are Belong To Us” MSNBC Promo comes at the end:

“Once it’s everybody’s responsibility and not just the household’s, then we start making better investments.”

I marvel at the sheer act of willful blindness required in order to believe such a complete load of male bovine manure.  I mean, let’s all apply this to our front yards, shall we, and then hold our breath while we wait for the neighbors to come mow ours?

You know, corporations are a kind of microcosm of the larger society.  Corporate-y type folks who make their living ensuring that a corporation ”makes better investments” have noticed that the truth is exactly inverse to Ms. Harris-Perry’s statement:

When everyone is responsible, no one is responsible.

And haven’t the sociological/psychological types done study after study and pretty much come up with the same truth regarding human nature?

I wonder if Ms. Harris-Perry, being a good collectivist and all, would respect Garrett Hardin‘s belief that human overpopulation is a serious global threat?  If so, maybe she could also put some merit into his concept of The Tragedy of the Commons:

“In 1974 the general public got a graphic illustration of the “tragedy of the commons” in satellite photos of the earth. Pictures of northern Africa showed an irregular dark patch 390 square miles in area. Ground-level investigation revealed a fenced area inside of which there was plenty of grass. Outside, the ground cover had been devastated.

The explanation was simple. The fenced area was private property . . . .”

Yeah.  Let’s all ignore a truth so obvious that even a Malthusian human ecologist with totalitarian tendencies can see it, and let’s ”break through” the private idea that kids belong to their parents.  Let’s engage in an experiment called The Tragedy of the Commonly Cared-for Children, because Miss MSNBC Lady says things’ll turn out just peachy.

Good grief.

I haven’t seen a more sure sign of the decline of our society since I first saw somebody pushing one of those dog strollers through the park.

Yeah, that’s right. I’m hating on the cute dog’s stroller.

Waxing Unpolitically

I’m still here, really really!

I’m just doing uncomputer-y things lately.  We had a wonderful trip to Tennessee, visiting people and places without internet connection, and I am too cheap to carry a smart phone or figure out the “air card” thing I’ve heard about.

It even snowed.  Snowed!  In the three days we inhabited the mountains of Tennessee, we “Floridians” got to enjoy a winter wonderland.  Serious you guys:

We were so enamoured by this east-Tennessee town’s beauty, quiet, and supermajority-ness that a survey of real estate within our price range became necessary.  (Note to property buyers:  “rustic and unique” is not as good as it sounds.)  Next, we traveled west, taking the same old I-40 of our youth and visiting loved ones along the way.

At one particularly delicious catfish restaurant in rural Dickson County, the boys began an immediate friendship in the way that only children can.  The only source of entertainment was a claw crane, and those kids wheedled enough coins from us grown-ups to garner a blue monkey, an orange monkey, an orca, and some kind of creepy pig-dog critter.

The arrival of deep-fried goodness interrupted their creature collecting.  Then, handwritten notes started passing from table to table.  When our out-of-town status was revealed, phone numbers were exchanged.  I didn’t put much thought into that exchange.  My boys are mostly monosyllabic on the rare occasion that they are forced into telephone conversation.

Well, they were mostly monosyllabic.  Now, our older son has become most decidedly polysyllabic, chattering on the phone every other night, often until we tell him to hang up.

Have you figured it out yet?  That new friend is a girl.

Yep.

Child-raising is a humbling hobby.  The minute you’ve got ‘em pegged, they enter a new phase.  A new and scary phase.

Now we are home, but still I stray from the computer.  Mostly because I had to get it fixed because it was overheating and the fan sounded like a commercial airliner preparing for take off.  Also because of the homeschooling.  Also because of my garden.

I am not a gardener; I am a mad scientist.  Or a mad gardener.  Anyway, the mealy bugs and tobacco worms (or things that resemble the worm my mother-in-law once authoritatively labelled a tobacco worm) did a fair bit of damage, and also my impatience has caused problems.

If I had been patient enough to read up before planting, then I would have known that drainage concerns dictate the plot should be on the highest point, or at least raised several inches from the ground around it.

Makes sense when you think about it.  Florida is dang swampy.

So, impulsive me has been forced to continually add dirt, after each thunderstorm washes wide gullies through my plot.  The pepper plants have languished as a result.  They sit, dwarfed and sad, feeding a single pepper and threatening to just give up and die.

The strawberry plants weather it all with good cheer, but every time the cheer results in a reddening berry, bam.  Something swoops in and consumes it.

Sigh.  The biggest successes are the unplanned additions:  yams and red potatoes that sprouted whilst being neglected in my pantry.  The farming book says don’t use grocery-bought potatoes for seeding.

Uh-huh.  My new potatoes beg to differ.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter.  I’ll be waxing politically again eventually.