Lets not even pretend a politician is not a politician. Lets not act surprised when politics come into play in the political process.

When the politicking nastiness is said and done and one or another is in office, lets work on getting them to perform their duty, which is, to serve us.

@Kim: Maybe I’m looking at all the wrong places, since I tend to check out Obama In ‘08 communities for my news sources, but the whole problem seems fairly manufactured to me anyway. Sure, the TV news is talking about it, but every editorial I’ve read about the subject – most of them from PA – seems to say “Yes, people are bitter, duh. The whole country is bitter and Pennsylvania has it worse than most.” And a bunch of newspapers are endorsing him over there.

I wonder about the reality of the “outrage”, too.

Maybe I’m looking at all the wrong places, since I tend to check out Obama In ’08 communities for my news sources, but the whole problem seems fairly manufactured to me anyway. Sure, the TV news is talking about it, but every editorial I’ve read about the subject – most of them from PA – seems to say “Yes, people are bitter, duh. The whole country is bitter and Pennsylvania has it worse than most.” And a bunch of newspapers are endorsing him over there.

This election makes me so hopeful and so nervous at the same time. If Obama loses, I have no doubt he could win later with more experience. But we need a president like him right now.

Good and thoughtful post…as usual.

I do not know exactly what population/cross-section we have who make entries on this forum, but I suspect many are under the age 40.

I am not prone to giving advice to anyone unless asked and I am not prone to preaching…but…being in my early 30′s, married nearly 13 years, aising three children, and 8 years into the corporate world has taught me a few things. Please permit me to offer this:

No matter what your profession or line of work you are in… ALWAYS, ALWAYS work to upgrade your skills or work to develop another set of skills altogether. You can do it incrementally – this could take the form of one college class per semester, a professional certification program of some type, or gradually learning another language. Consider yourself a life long student.

I was in downstate Indiana last week and I noticed a fairly clean and newer looking GE plant. I inquired about it and the locals told me it closed down a month ago. As everyone well knows the days of screwing in a widget on a assembly line for 30 years are long gone.

Blessing and Prosperity….

Adam

And those of us who are atheists can just go screw ourselves? Thanks.

It’s funny, but if you take a look, atheist kids do not in fact cause any more trouble in school than the religious, and atheist parents are citizens who have a right to be able to send their kids to public schools without having them preached at. Public schools are public–they are accountable to everybody, and that includes atheists as well as those religious folk who recognize the importance of separating church and state.

One thing I take issue with is your statement, “’put the Bible back in schools’ (and take out decent education in math and the sciences that might keep us competitive in the global marketplace)”.

I believe if the Bible and Godly principles are put back in schools, teachers and administrators would spend less time trying to maintain order and spend more time in decent math and science education.

Unfortunately, we haven’t seen this to be true in practice. When the Kansas public school system mandated teaching evolution, effectively putting the Bible back in schools, the entire school system was humiliated on the global stage. The teachers, administrators, students, and parents in that school system spent a lot of time that year either defending or debating the school board’s policy. I have to wonder where that time came from, and what parts of the kids’ education got sacrificed to allow it. I also have to wonder how many kids were turned off school altogether, or off religion, by being tarred and feathered as stupid hicks.

In principle I agree with you. My best friend went to a Catholic school, and when she tells me about her Religion class, I’m always amazed to realize that it wasn’t 150 hours of proselytizing — she learned history and facts about multiple religions, and was taught to examine them all critically, including Catholicism. If religion could be brought into public schools like that, I wouldn’t object. But I don’t think it can be. For one thing, there wouldn’t be time to cover more than the Abrahamic religions — so does everybody else get left out in the cold? Even then it would be a fairly superficial treatment, unless one spent years on it — and our kids already don’t get enough time devoted to math and science as it is.

For another thing, I don’t think the main proponents of religion in our public schools, fundamentalist Christians, would allow it to be anything other than their religion. Again, critical thinking is not high on these folks’ list of things to teach; too many of them are just hoping to put together an unthinking, world-conquering army supported by a totalitarian theocracy, which I find just a little scary.

With all these hidden agendas at play, it has become impossible to bring God into public schools in a fair and sane way.

Like Hannah, I live in a small town. My experience here, as a woman of color who walks to the beat of her own drum, has been difficult and eye-opening. Until I move (which I plan to do in the next couple of years) I’ve made lemons into lemonade. Living here is tolerable.

Because of my rude awakening to the nuances of small town living, I believe Obama showed honesty and guts in saying what he did about small town, rural America.

Let’s play devil’s advocate and say Obama’s comments are “demeaning and insulting” – they are still true. Look, I’m not voting for Obama or Hillary because I disagree with them regarding political and moral issues on so many levels. If it wasn’t for that, I would definitely vote for Obama.

One thing I take issue with is your statement, “’put the Bible back in schools’ (and take out decent education in math and the sciences that might keep us competitive in the global marketplace)”.

I believe if the Bible and Godly principles are put back in schools, teachers and administrators would spend less time trying to maintain order and spend more time in decent math and science education.

One thing I take issue with you is the statement, “