Maggie's Farm

In reference to VDH observations, anyone who was born in or near the Great Depression [I was born in 1928] has a great respect for gold as a medium for exchange, and probably also has a strong element of pragmatic peasant in his/her make-up.

American citizens had, classically, an ability to repair, re-use and mend things they owned until said things were completely worn out. When I was in grade school we had Home Economics classes every week, just as the boys had Shop/repair/woodworking classes and most boys emerged as good "shade-tree mechanics." We girls learned basic cooking skills; we learned to sew seams and cut cloth so we could make our own clothes; we learned to darn socks to repair holes in them; we learned to knit so we could create socks and sweaters -- in short, we became competent in homemaking skills, along with English grammar and literature, World history, American history -- you know, all the Good Stuff that the educational system no longer teaches to today's children.

You know, it fascinates me. Today's National Education Association feels perfectly competent to intrude on a family's private lives to instruct their children on all sorts of things which used to be the purview of the Mother and Father of the family ... things such as sex education and when to give it to the child, such things as instruction in politics [another area formerly reserved for parental instruction and considered one of the basic American freedoms]. In today's American schools, nothing is sacred to the family and what traditions they choose to impart to their very own children. The NEA has decided that the children are their responsibility and they can instill in them any darn thing they want, in the way of half-baked political ideas.

Cast your minds back to the early days of Obama's Presidency, when elementary school teachers were wasting classroom time on teaching little children to sing sappy songs in praise of Obama.

This is too damn close to the Hitler Jugend for my comfort.

Marianne