There was a time when I thoroughly enjoyed perusing the the newspaper each morning. I was originally a Houston Post fan and the daily delivery that outlined local, national, and international events was my eye on the world along with a subscription to Newsweek. Alas, The Houston Post eventually closed its doors so I switched to The Houston Chronicle but I was never as fond of the columnists and editorial writers of that paper. Eventually I grew weary of seeing so many grammatical, spelling, and typographical errors inside its pages and I let my subscription lapse. When I see copies of it on the news stand today I realize that it is a shell of its former self. I fear that it is slowly dying and that worries me. A city the size of Houston should have a vibrant local newspaper and it doesn’t. Over time Newsweek became so pathetic that it went out of business. The last few copies of that once robust magazine were thin and cheap looking and the articles all had a sameness about them. It seemed as though a single journalist had penned every story, all of which had a definite liberal political bent. Continue reading “Finding the Truth”
Month: June 2015
Undaunted
Imagine how different your life would be if the world insisted on judging you forever based on who you were as a teenager or a young adult. What would it be like if after making a mistake here or a wrong choice there you were forced to conform to the fate resulting from your immaturity? For most of us it would be rather grim indeed. Few people manage to do the right things from the time that they become adolescents. Most of us have regrets and may even be a bit embarrassed by the way we once were. Luckily we are usually given second chances, even third or more, to redirect the trajectory of our lives. We learn from our mistakes, build on our experiences and become stronger and better persons over time. Sometimes though there will be people who want to shove us into a pigeonhole and refuse to see us any other way than how we were in our youth. Continue reading “Undaunted”
A Warrior for Good
I suspect that some of my readers don’t always have a great deal of interest in reading about the unknown individuals about whom I often write but they should be craving essays about such people. Our world is made of millions upon millions of stories which in total keep life on our big blue planet working the way it should. It is a truth that each and every life is incredibly important and taken together they create the society that affects us all. I most enjoy knowing about the young men and women who are just beginning their adult journeys. Our future depends on them and from my vantage point I see a wonderful world ahead. We should all be quite optimistic knowing that they are taking the reins. Continue reading “A Warrior for Good”
A Woman of 1960
When I was searching for a teaching position at the beginning of my career I had a general interview with a man who was old enough to be my father. He mentioned that he had worked for the school district for his entire career and that he had seen a number of changes over the years. He knew a great deal about me before I even showed up to his office because I had to include a photograph of myself with the application and I had checked a number of demographic boxes including one delineating my religion.
The personnel officer explained that he had decided to interview me in spite of my religion because “the people of the area had eschewed their former prejudice against Catholics.” He went on to provide me with a bit of history including stories about citizens who at one time had firebombed the local Catholic Church in an attempt to drive the parishioners out of the region. He said that during the shank of the baby boom they had to change their thinking a bit because there was an extreme shortage of teachers and so they began to reconsider their ban on hiring Catholics. To his delight he learned that hiring ladies who had formerly been nuns was a boon for the schools because they were well trained and most willing to follow directives. Eventually the district policies became more liberal and even encouraged Catholics to apply for jobs. Continue reading “A Woman of 1960”
Injustice
As educators we do our best but those of us who are honest know without a doubt that we sometimes make mistakes. Hopefully when we do so we are willing to admit our errors and redress them. Unfortunately that doesn’t always happen in our educational system. Children are sometimes unwittingly hurt and nobody does anything to step forward and change things. It’s difficult to upend the system. Most of society is unwilling to do so for fear of being thought of as rebellious or troublemaking. Continue reading “Injustice”
All It Takes Is A Little Love 