Don’t hate the message

The cookout went great yesterday! We had a really nice time visiting and having Ken's family over. Jimmy and Paula had never been to our place, so it was nice to have some Nutwood Newbies. :) Ken fixed up the horseshoe pits, and the four of us played a round. I had never played horseshoes before, isn't that odd? I grew up around people playing horseshoes at family reunions and get-togethers, but had never played. I really enjoyed it, and did okay! (They were kind to me, though...just like in golf, they let me pitch from a closer spot. I was pitching from the “women's tees.”) I didn't get a ringer, but I got a couple of points. It was fun. Now if they'd only bring back Jarts! Nothin' says family fun like the flinging of steel-tipped projectiles!

The food was excellent. We made some adjustments on Ken's burger recipe; the last time he made them, they were moist...a little too moist. They started coming apart when they were on the grill. I suggested some bread crumbs, so we put some Italian ones in there, and voilá! Perfect! We have a couple of burgers and a couple of brats left over, but today is another nice day, so we'll take advantage of it and grill some steaks. (Back from the basement...I thought I'd better get them out of the freezer while I was thinking about it. We're slowly but surely getting the freezer emptied, because we've got another side of beef coming this fall. But I digress.)

I hope everyone is having a relaxing and fun holiday weekend! You can see a picture of yesterday's gang over at Ken's blog.

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It is with growing astonishment that I watch some people continuing to protest President Obama's 15-minute speech to school kids tomorrow.

The guy wants to talk to kids about studying hard and staying in school, but some are saying that he's trying to promote his "socialist agenda."

Really, people? Really?

This is beyond ludicrous. I'll say okay to the objection to the lesson wording about "helping the President." That was taken out of the lesson. I'll also give you that apparently some Democrats objected to a school feed from Bush the Elder several years ago. (Personally, I wouldn't have had a problem with him speaking to kids, either.) I'm willing to bet it was nothing like this hooraw, though, with people keeping their kids at home, or not allowing their kids to watch the broadcast. Yes, that's a very clever tactic: in order to keep your kids from hearing the President of the United States telling them about the importance of staying in school...keep your kids out of school! That's nothing short of brilliant! Way to go with passing your prejudices and ignorance on to your kids.

The fact of the matter is that while parents should ideally be the ones stressing the importance of school to their kids, sometimes an outside influence can have even more impact. President Obama is a perfect role model to show what kids can achieve if they work hard and stay in school: he came from humble circumstances, he worked hard...and I suppose you could say that it paid off for him, if you consider becoming the President some sort of, you know, achievement. To be completely honest, I believe that our President is even more of an inspiration to minorities or kids of mixed race; at some point in their lives, they have probably received the message, either explicit or subliminal, that they were a little bit "less than." I see absolutely nothing wrong with a role model such as our President reaching these kids who way too often believe that they are incapable of achieving great things.

It's not like he's planning on going in there and telling kids details about his health care plan. This is simply a message about the importance of staying in school. If you've got a problem with that...well, maybe you need to examine your reasoning. Sometimes we let our own biases stand in the way of what is obviously a positive thing. Believing that telling kids about the importance of education is somehow pushing a socialist agenda is...I hate to use the word crazy, so let's just say...you know what? It is crazy. I'm not going to spin it in any nicer way. It's dumb and it's crazy, and it makes these people sound like ill-tempered idiots.

One of our local districts, Penn-Harris-Madison, is allowing its teachers the option of showing the broadcast; I'm proud to say that the South Bend Community School Corporation will be showing it.

It's time to stop this fear of the message because of your hatred of the messenger. Knowledge is power, and that is all that the President wants to convey. Our education system is lagging behind much of the rest of the industrialized world, and it's time to stop the skid and turn this around. I believe it can be done, but this attitude that other opinions are to be avoided and other viewpoints are somehow bad is ridiculous, although it's a time-tested tactic of the reactionary right. It is avoidance of the worst sort. It is avoidance of exposure to other beliefs, orientations, cultures, and systems in the mistaken belief that such exposure will result in personal downfall and moral turpitude. Like it or not, he is our President; like it or not, he has something to say; and like it or not, there are plenty of people who want to, and plenty of kids that should, listen to what he has to say about staying in school. It's a simple--and important--message. Quit making such a big deal about it.

Update

Here is a link to the full text of Obama's speech to schoolkids tomorrow. Anyone got a problem with it? No? Good.