Re: The value of shopping local

"Amy Blankenship" wrote in news:h2Z_i.4009$ snipped-for-privacy@bignews6.bellsouth.net:

More to the point, further back, there *was* public education - teh proverbial Schoolhouse. Many people didn't get past early grades, because they had to start working -0 that it true. But a fifth-grade education form the old schoolhouse was better than the current bhigh- school diploma.

THe difference was that education was more local, and I think that people therefore were more invested in it.

Also, a huge problem is that the people born in the 60's and 70's

But when that doesn't exist, and people don't even sit down to dinner together, what sort of bonds *can* exist? Many kids grow up being just plain unconnected to much of anything, with the result that many don't care about much of anything.

I don't knwo what role schools can play in all of this, but I do have the idea that the increased bureaucratization of school systems jsut adds to that detatchment, because the school, at least in more urban areas, is not really rooted in any community - administrators come froma ll over, and it's just this massive conglomeration that the kids move through.

In a way, it's soprt of like "globalization" - massive faceless organizations in which the poeple who should be, and used to be, most important (the "consumer", or, in the case of schools, the kids, and specifically, their education) is now the least important.

As with a globalized corporation, the people making up the base of the theoretical pyramid (as in, We The People), become powerless, lacking control, emotionally detatched, becasue they are no longer dealing with something that' spart of their community, but rather, some huge faceless monster hat sits on them, is imposed by some distant force.

I think that is the underlying foundation-stone of a great many problems.

But the sulution is...?

"Don" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news3.newsguy.com:

THey had public education is at least some communities - but it was community/public, not state/public or federal/public. Even when states had standards, schools were still part and parcel of, "owned", if you will, by, the local community.

But it did exist.

"Don" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news3.newsguy.com:

So what we need is to get 6-yr-olds back into the factories, do away completely with anything even remotely resembling worker safety, return to the Company Town and Company Store system, return to Boss Tweed politics, and go back to not giving a damn is there is a dead worker for every yard of railroad or pavement...?? Oh, and let's not forget the good old days of cholera, and rampant TB, and polio...

The past was not perfect. They had their problems then, we have our problems now, and we solve nothing by simply citing some need to return to a suppsoedly idyllic past. The past was never idyllic, unless perhaps one was wealthy - and even the wealthy got polio.

THere are huge problems today, but there are also things I personally would not trade to return top the past. heck, a simple-enough example - Dr. S. Waxman, working at Rutgers University - yes, one of those horrible, evil public institutions - discovered tetracycline. I was one of the first guinea pigs to get it - I was not even two, and dying from a URI, so the doctors had nothing to lose by giving it to me. And, for better or worse, here I am...

THe past is a fabric, a tapestry, and present-day solutions can't be achieved by merely cutting cutting patches from the past and sewing them on. Society *as a whole* needs to reassess itself.

"More Money" is unfortunatley very American - it's a lot like "bigger vehicles" and "giant teevee screens". IOW, the entire "bigger is better" mentality. What matters more is quantity rather than quality, appearance rather than substance.

The most important aspect of education, however, is *not* ever-more- expensive gee-gaws, but rather, learning how to think - how to gather facts, assimilate them, derive principles, and then apply thiose principles to other areas. I learned that on my own, but it'd be interesting to see it being taught, because it's so useful.

"Michael Bulatovich" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news4.newsguy.com:

Voting with one's feet... My sister moved to England, and then to Australia (having married an Aussie), and has never looked back - she loves it there.

Or even not necessarily political. I think that any positive action has a ripple effect. As does any negative action. And whatever sort fo ripples onemakes do tend to come back to one... SO as I see it, beingt at least occasionally interested in others benefits my own self-interest ;)

THe other thing is, WHy bother kids if you aren't going to enjoy them? I couldn't have any, but if I did, esp. when older, the greatest thing would be going out and watching them explore teh world. One of the best things about raising birds was seing them do that, explore their world (huge cage but often, the whole apartment ) and grow and develop. I just don't see why a lot of people have kids at all, given that many just ignore tham and bitch about them.

My Dad taught me fractions like that. Fodd is always a good stimulant for learnign

Or even things like Origami, or making models (plastic, paper, wood, clay, whatever).

The worst way, IMO, is to take active, squirmy kids, slam their butts down into a chair, and expect them to learn a bunch of rote stuff that isn't related (byt the instructor) to anything useful or practical or real.

And you too.

Sorta like the thought of everyone walking around with their own nukes being far worse (but more fleeting) than the worst government that the framers could have imagined when they declared the right to bear arms to address that problem?

At the head of every glittering line of kings, there's a bloody dagger.

What the uninsured are doing is letting the public pay for the risk. Your hospital bill is about 33% higher than it should be because you are paying for those like YOU who don't bother to pay. Some people die without needing any medical care, some need a little, and a few quite a bit. A national pool is the only way to average out costs. If you get sick with a private policy, they drop you.

Overall the costs of insurance in the medical business is less than you pay for your private life. It is not evenly distributed by area, however.

Uh, cumin is a *spice*, Don. ;)

Besides, I'm saving myself for threeways with Ken Tucky. ;D

Ah, ok, I've seen the film. Wholesome family entertainment. 'Midnight Cowboy' with Voight, too, comes to mind.

The other day, I tried without success to find and download 'Ms. Robinson', with Dustin Hoffman.

Try looking for "The Graduate."

I think that's what I used, but I'll give it another try just in case, thanks.

BTW, as per your "suggestion", yesterday, I decided to have a can sardines for some vitamin D... I don't feel any different... When's it supposed to kick in?

According to the below, you'd have to eat at least two and a half cups of them to hit the now often recommended 1000 units.

Without it, I start to fall asleep earlier and earlier, and waking earlier and earlier, which means I eventually start living like a vampire. Very bad for the brain. Mood changes have followed the sleep cycle getting messed up in the past. Now that's all history.

Definitely good points to consider, and, yes, sometimes I do have trouble sleeping well in the winter. I am aware of that vitamin, its importance and how to get it (Shitake mushroom and salmon omelete, anyone?) but will admit that I generally rely on getting it with sun exposure or through natural sources, which of course can be very difficult during the winter... Ok, I'll look into vitamin supplements then.

hmm, I'm uppping my dose. Any side effects?

No, you just think you are not a biological person who can get sick. At some point you will, and then you will have to become a sponge and ask the rest of us to pay for you.

Not that I know of. You should be aware that I'm a pretty *big* specimen, and that factors into my self-treatment. The other half of my regimen is to walk the dog for half an hour or so in the morning to take in some of that high-intensity blue light. These two are my ailerons.