The American Scorecard so far

I am learning a lot this election cycle about what it is to be a "real" American.

First, I learned that this country was founded as a Christian nation, and that the Founding Fathers thought that you were not entitled to be a full American (with full legal protections) unless you were a Christian.

I also learned that I am poorly educated because this is not what I have been taught in college. And I am so poorly educated that I cannot find proof of this when I read the primary documents (their actual letters and essays), so I am forced to believe my professors when they say that the Founding Fathers were Deists.

And today, I learned that the Founding Fathers were also capitalists. I guess all the warnings about the evils of banks were planted by time-traveling Democrats.

Herman Cain, who is not going to get my vote, says that the current Wall Street protests are anti-American, and "to protest Wall Street and the bankers is saying that you're anti-capitalism."

Newt Gingrich, who is not going to get my vote, said that the protests are "a natural product of Obama's class warfare." Furthermore, the education system is to blame. "We have had a strain of hostility to free enterprise and frankly, a strain of hostility to classic America starting in our academic institutions and spreading across this country. And I regard the Wall Street protesters as a natural outcome of a bad education system teaching them really dumb ideas."

So lets' see, I am losing points for going to college, not being taught that America is a Christian nation, being a member of a non-Christian religion; and believing that despite the fact that I would like to become wealthy myself someday, that Wall Street and the banks went too far. Oh, and for believing that most of economic problems were actually created by the last President and not the current one.

I presume that I will be seeing some of my readers in Canada when I get deported for my unAmerican beliefs.

Shooting people over lack of tenure

I will admit that I am a little shocked over the fact that a professor, Amy Bishop, decided to shot several of her fellow teachers in Alabama. And over tenure, to boot.

I am not shocked that another shooting has happened at a college. Shootings at universities, colleges, and high schools, just seem to be part of our modern life. I am not sure whether to blame the easy availability of guns, the lack of medication (or theraphy), or our society's overwhelming exposure to violence (video games and movies) for most of it.

But tenure? Ok, this worries me. Sort of.

I live in Colorado, a state that has abandoned the concept of funding for higher education.

(I jest---we are either 49th or 50th in higher education funding depending upon who you ask. That is not an abandonment of college funding; this is merely voters, tax payers, and politicans deciding that anyone standing outside of Starbucks with a tin can is capable of paying for their own education.)

Now I am not too worried about the campus where I go to school. I have heard several professors joke about the possibility of their checks shrinking. I figure as long as they can joke about having to sell pencils to the passerbys on Colfax that none of them are going to go postal.

Besides, we do not have any importance tied to our campus. Auraria Campus may serve forty percent of the college population of Colorado; but let's be honest, we are not known for anything else.

And most of the professors are adjunct professors, part timers, as far as I can determine.

It is the other colleges in Colorado that I worry about. But not too much. C'mon, can you think of any college that anyone would want the respect that goes along with being tenured at them?

And it was the respect that Amy Bishop wanted if I am reading the news reports correctly. Then again, she did shoot her own brother...decide for yourself what that might mean.

Zero Tolerance

As an example of zero tolerance and how far away it is from common sense, I present the case of the third grader who was suspended last week for using a permanent marker of his jacket, and then snuffing the jacket. Three days suspension for this major offense.

The school before this point had no policy of what type of markers the kids were allowed to bring to school. But snuffing markers, for those of us who failed to learn this in art class, is a gateway to heavier drugs.

(Much like fortune telling is a gateway to heavier crimes, like prostitution and drug use, or so the Denver police say).

What next? Locking magic markers in stores behind security glass, like they do spray paint? (Ok, completely different, but you get the idea.)