Unconventional Wisdom

From People Power Granny.

Read the write-up and watch his video here.

Hat-tip Newsalert. Article from the Washington Times.

You know I honestly have no problem with decriminalizing most narcotics. That’s not to say drug use isn’t a problem, but I think there are worse issues in say American cities than what someone consumes in their body. There are other unfortunate consequences of these laws.

What this includes is that you’d better be careful who you associate with. Say in this case I heard on TV once, some weed was found on her property. This was after she called the police when it appeared someone had broken into her house. Then they found drug paraphernalia and took her to jail, she’s now a felon because these drugs weren’t her’s. They were her boyfriend’s.

Seems unfair doesn’t it? Well for right now American isn’t ready for decriminalization or at the very least to review these laws and make them more just.

Wow! I’m sure this was risque even in that era the early 1970s. I’ll have to admit that the music is catchy!

You may know Garrison Keillor, he’s a liberal from Minnesota and he sticks up for Republicans for a change a commentary from the Chicago Tribune today…

And then there is the grief that old righteous people inflict on the young, such as our public schools. I’m looking at U.S. Department of Education statistics on reading achievement and see that here in Minnesota — proud, progressive Minnesota — on a 500-point test (average score: 225), 27 percent of 4th graders score below basic proficiency, and black and Hispanic kids score 30-some points lower than whites on average, and the 30 percent of public school kids who come from households in poverty (who qualify for reduced-price school lunches) score 27 points lower than those who don’t come from poverty.

Reading is the key to everything. Teaching children to read is a fundamental moral obligation of the society. That 27 percent are at serious risk of crippling illiteracy is an outrageous scandal.

This is a bleak picture for an old Democrat. Face it, the schools are not run by Republican oligarchs in top hats and spats, but by perfectly nice, caring, sharing people, with a smattering of yoga/raga/tofu/mojo/mantra folks like my old confreres. Nice people are failing these kids, but when they are called on it, they get very huffy. When the grand pooh-bah PhDs of education stand up and blow, they speak with great confidence about theories of teaching, and considering the test results, the bums ought to be thrown out.

There is much evidence that teaching phonics really works, especially with kids with learning disabilities, a growing constituency. But because phonics is associated with behaviorism and with conservatives, and because the Current Occupant has spoken on the subject, my fellow liberals are opposed.

Liberal dogma says that each child is inherently gifted and will read if only he is read to. This was true of my grandson; it is demonstrably not true of many kids, including my sandy-haired, gap-toothed daughter.

The No Child Left Behind initiative has plenty of flaws, but the Democrats who are trashing it should take another look at the Reading First program. It is morally disgusting if Democrats throw out Republican programs that are good for children. Life is not a scrimmage.

Watch this man talk about all the candidates who dropped out of this race for President. Check out the archives here.

Is this trouble in “paradise”. Might the black community’s undying support of Bill Clinton going by the wayside here. Well I’ve been reading the chatter for a while in the “Afro-Sphere” but check out this column. As an aside, Obama’s response to Hillary at last night’s State of the Union address…

Democrats have been known to employ identity politics on occasion — but rarely on each other.

Recently, a CNN news segment focused on a group of black women working at a hair salon. The participants were asked if they felt torn between leading Democratic Party presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. It was titled: “Gender or race: Black women voters face tough choices in S.C.”

It is possible, you know, for black women to come to their political verdicts based on policy rather than only race and gender.

And since Hillary and Obama share virtually identical policy views, why would an African- American woman feel torn supporting, not only a black man, but a gifted liberal politician she can be proud of?

Frankly, there is little to admire when it comes to Billary. Unless you admire ruthlessness. And after the couple began using code and innuendo to make race an issue in South Carolina, the African-American community reacted by voting in huge numbers for Obama.

The Clintons continued to play the game, though, as Bill dismissed Obama’s victory by pointing out that “Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in ’84 and ’88.”

Color me skeptical, but it sounds like Bill is trying to connect Jackson and Obama in the mind of white voters. It won’t be easy. Because while Jackson is busy shaking down corporations in a conflict-ridden and marginal political existence, Obama keeps sounding so, I don’t know, inclusive.

In his victory speech, Obama attempted to distance himself from racial politics, claiming that he did not see “a white South Carolina and a black South Carolina. I saw South Carolina.” The crowd chanted, “Race doesn’t matter! Race doesn’t matter!”

But, of course, race does matter. It mattered months ago when perpetual Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said that, in Obama, we have “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.” It continued when the co-chair of Hillary’s campaign, William Shaheen, said that Obama would have to answer questions like: ” ‘Did you ever give drugs to anyone? Did you sell them to anyone?’ There are so many openings for Republican dirty tricks.” (Yeah. Republican dirty tricks.)

It persists with former Democratic Atlanta mayor and Clinton supporter Andrew Young, saying, according to a New York Times columnist, that “Bill is every bit as black as Barack. He’s probably gone with more black women than Barack.”

You know, these are the sorts of comments that any good liberal will tell you are utterly racist and misogynistic — especially when they come from the mouth of a Republican.