How can this be?

Saturday morning I was awakened earlier than I wanted from a dream. My heart was racing. It wasn't really a nightmare, I didn't think. Yet there was no denying the racing heart. It took some putting the dream together to realize what had happened. The dream had combined together things I have been reading, thinking, experiencing, with a fictional event-- except how fictional was it?

The end of the dream, the place I awoke, was realizing that a group which I thought had been working to help inner city children and schools was in reality working to plant terrorism in the minds of these young people. In the dream I might have felt so upset because I was sending money for their work, but it's no group that I am supporting in my waking hours-- or am I? I think it came out of something I had heard Friday night on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher but couldn't believe until I did some online research.

Inner City Schools failing to graduate too many students. I'd use a curse right here but this is supposed to be a PG or even G rated blog; so I won't, but what the heck is that all about?

We are fighting a war in Iraq supposedly against terrorism in a country that never attacked us, wasn't training terrorists (although it might be now), putting billions into that effort as well as sending troops around the world to fight terrorism, and yet in our inner cities, we are not graduating even half of the students? Our educational system, which is us, is failing with all but 30% in some cities as 70% drop out. And you wonder what did the 30% learn?

What kind of job can anyone get without a high school diploma or even some advanced training? Think about that for a minute while considering something else that went along with my dream. What breeds the kind of people who are willing to blow themselves up for a religious or political goal. Could it be when you have 70% of the kids in Detroit's inner city, where they are not getting a high school degree, they have no real job future, that you are breeding potential terrorists in your own backyard?

It amazes me how people can think that other people's children are other people's problem. One of the things Obama (and I am sure Hillary also) is saying is that we have to do better on education and start with the little ones before school age, start with their parents if they don't know how to read; then in high school be sure if they don't have a chance to really go onto college that they get trade skills.

And the answer is not teaching them how to pass a test designed by somebody else to make money for themselves and supposedly leave no child behind. Well plenty are being left behind obviously.

When Obama was in Medford, my daughter said one of the things that impressed her most in his speech was when he said all children are our children.

If you are selfish. If you only care about your own life. If you blame the parents of dropouts for what is happening (which might be partly true but what good does a blame game do?) If you don't see it that all children are your concern, then what about terrorists? What about suicide bombers? Are they your concern? What has kept that from happening here? I think mostly it hasn't because our young people have had hope for something more in their lives than exploding their bodies. Yes, it might be they turned to crime, sold drugs, but they haven't blown themselves up-- yet. If we keep ignoring what has gone wrong in inner city schools, that might not last.

We know throwing money at problems doesn't cure them but neither does looking the other way and hoping it will go away. It might be that some of the answer is in private charter schools, if public schools simply can't do the job (although why can't they?) but no voucher or charter school will help our nation if it still leaves behind that 70%.

And here is where my dream comes in. If you think that it should be done by individual groups, by somebody else, what else might they be teaching those kids-- your kids?

(These photos are of a wild turkey in our yard Saturday morning. I always like seeing a flock of them, or even a loner like this one come strolling through the yard, but the photos made me think of something else. They were proposed by Benjamin Franklin to be our national bird instead of the bald eagle (who some don't respect very much for its negative traits.)

So I thought a bit about what traits turkeys have. They gather in flocks when there are enough. Males fight off other males. They are prey species not predators-- although they are opportunists. So what was it about them that led Franklin to see them as a good national bird? When I think of what I observe about them-- panic easily, run off without knowing where they are going, no ability to plan for the future, easy pickings for hunters or predators-- well I have to hope we in this nation aren't symbolized by the turkey...)