I was sitting in traffic the other morning, waiting for the school bus in the opposite lane to finish picking up these kids and get the hell out of the way. The bus was picking them up in front of their house. Finally, after an eternity of waiting for these simple ass kids to find a seat, the lights shut off and the bus started rolling again...for about 10 feet, before the lights came back on and picked up the kids who lived DIRECTLY NEXT DOOR.
Now, I'm not expert on kids, other than having been a child before and having known lots of people who are or have been children, so I can say that these kids, be they six or even as low as four, could have handled walking to the neighbor's house so they could reduce the number of bus stops from "absolutely unnecessary" to one. I don't know what kind of world these kids' parents think we live in, but I'm pretty sure that there's not a mine field or a botched drug deal happening in between their houses that they don't know about. If there was, I'd like to think that these kids would have been smart enough not to go over there.
See, it's bad enough that kids are getting picked up in front of their houses at all. Sure, this was a busy street, so I'll cut them some slack, but why can't all the kids on that side of the street meet in front of one kid's house? At the very least, these kids will learn a little respect for speeding cars. Now, if they learn this lesson, that's good. They'll have put the intelligence of American children back where it was 20 years ago. If they don't learn this messon, they're probably Rain Man and need those special drugs to keep them from acting out in public. You should know which one you have on your hands one or two times into this experience.
Since I was once a kid who's never been hit by a car, I think that makes me qualified to speak on the subject of what kids can and can't handle. When I was six years old, I was crossing five lane highways, so I don't understand why these kids couldn't be trusted to walk an extra 20 feet by themselves. If anything, letting kids experience a little danger is a good deterrent to the other kids. If they see one kid get hit by an 18-wheeler or mauled by a pitbull, they all fall in line. You won't even have to wait for the nightmares to stop before your problems with them playing chicken in the street or trying to take food from the neighbor's Doberman are solved. In my case, it only took one look at Bobby Joe's half-eaten rib cage before I learned that no one should own a dog hand-crafted by Satan himself and one look at the hole in O.J. Simpkins' leg where his bone broke through killed the discussion on whether or not I'd be following him off the roof.
Kids are a lot like dogs, in that dogs experience what's safe and what isn't safe by smelling it. Kids have a similar method, except they eat it or get hit by hit. If they throw it up or it leaves a pop knot on their head, they know not to try it again. And today's overly sensitive parents are taking these valuable teaching tools away from their kids. Time was, when a boy reached a certain age, his father would leave him in the woods just as the bears were waking up from hibernation. The distraught mother understood that if the boy lived, he would be a man when he hobbled back to the homestead. It's the same thing we should be doing with our kids now, except instead of facing down a bear, we should be forcing our kids to walk to the damn neighbor's house to catch the bus instead of making the bus hold up traffic for 15 minutes because you can't bear to watch your kid walk an extra 20 feet without having a nervous breakdown.
I really don't see how holding your kid's hand through everything that can possibly happen is going to help their development. Letting them walk down the street usassisted will do wonders for their realization that they're not indestructible. In their mind, they might be indestructible, but testing their theories on that subject suddenly isn't high on their list of priorities. The second degree burns on their palms will be a not-so-subtle reminder that playing in front of the oven isn't a good idea. From letting them play too close to the ant hill in the back yard to the possibility that they were almost kidnapped, these are the things that shape a kid and keep them from doing even stupider things when they get older, like stapling their nuts to their legs for money.
Of course, I'm not saying that all kids should fend for themselves as soon as they could walk, because that can only lead to an Time Magazine piece on the epidemic of kids killed by sticking forks into the electrical socket. The kids can't be blamed for that because it's not common knowledge ammonia burns, fresh out of the womb. Kids do need guidance from their parents, but these is such a thing as smothering your child. They need to learn to solve problems on their own and the only way to do that is by screwing up. Screwing up (or skinning my knees down to the white meat) is what ended a potentially disasterous skateboarding career before I could do some real damage to myself. If my parents were like today's parents, I would still believe that a fat black kid could compete at the X Games without having a YouTube-level incident. But thanks to my parents being at work when I tried skating, my unbroken ankles and I will never know if that's true.
Essentially, hurting myself brought my dreams that I could do anything crashing back down to earth, leaving the skin from my knees on that fresh asphalt. I spent the next eight years playing Nintendo.
Just imagine if birds believed in modern parenting techniques. Instead of throwing their kids out of the nest, whether they've picked up this flying business or not, birds would have to start driving bird cars, because they were too afraid that their kids wouldn't learn to fly before they hit the ground. See, the bird's method of teaching is a little harsh, but it has to be done: Learn on the way down or die trying. The bird is one of nature's stupidest animals and it's got parenting figured out. Their theories on pre-chewed food keep their kids from losing sleep over all those punk sanitation concerns. We don't need to go that far, but we should look at substituting "letting our kids walk to the bus stop" for "pushing our kids out of a three story window," and we're right back to cementing our claim to be on top of the food chain. As it stands right now, we're in danger of overtaking the goldfish on the list of animals with the least amount of balls.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Thursday, August 28, 2008
The Idiocy Embargo of Clayton County
If I tell you I want you to do a list of nine things or I'm gonna break your legs, logic would dictate that you get all nine things done and probably seven more things that aren't even on the list. But the Clayton County school board thinks that they can do three things, half-ass it on five, and flat out ignore the first and easiest one. It shouldn't even be a surprise that they lost their accreditation today. And for all their big talk, they actually failed eight out of nine mandates set by SACS, including firing themselves, which even a retard can manage without supervision.
Look, if someone told me that my job as a school board member was so bad that the district was going to lose its accreditation if I didn't quit, I'd have to finish cleaning out my desk from the parking lot because I'd be out the door so fast. That's pretty embarrassing, but clearly this wasn't the career choice that God had in mind for me. There's nothing wrong with telling the world, "Hey, I'm really fucking this up." What if Noah was building the Ark wrong but wouldn't quit, then made everybody get on whatever haphazard deathtrap his drunken little hands could conjure up? Fortunately for civilization, God spake unto Noah, "Dude, stop. I'll show you how to build it."
And there were people trying to show the Clayton County school board how to build their boat, too. They were called "the parents of the Clayton County students," who were screaming at the board to come out into the parking lot so they could be shown properly. The board resisted, though, and at the end of the day, their floating washtub of mismanagement capsized in a sea of...Hell, I don't know...justice? It really isn't that great of a metaphor. The point is, they screwed everything up and finally got fired. I guess they figured their work was done. And by "work," I mean, "hand-crafted tasks of destruction."
The only reason why anyone on that board wouldn't step down is because they had something to gain. One of the board members (I couldn't be bothered to learn her name because, well...fuck her) claimed that she was doing the best she could and if she was fired, only the kids would suffer. One, I hate when people try to politicize "the children." Don't act like you're doing this for "the children." You probably don't even know "the children," and if you were really concerned about them, you would have stepped down before you finished reading the list of mandates, seeing as how you leaving your job is first on the list. Two, I don't know how much more suffering "the children" could have done seeing as how this year's seniors have essentially wasted their last 12 years of schooling thanks to you and yours not being able to follow simple instructions. "Go the hell home." What's hard about that?
Really, I'm surprised that no one has run up on them in the streets. I've been all through Clayton County. It makes DeKalb County look like a nice place to live. All the rappers are shooting their videos there now for the authenticity. How are these board members still alive? Because they clearly don't care about "the children" who still live in Clayton County. Their education isn't worth a shot glass full of watered-down piss because nine supposed adults couldn't put 52,000 kids ahead of their own interests. Hell, there's no point in going to school now, so they might as well find the people who made their education worthless.
And all this does is open the door for Republicans to start screaming about school vouchers for private schools. That's their fucking solution to everything. "Free shit sucks," they say. "Pay for everything. It's the only way you'll appreciate it. Why, when my great-grandfather came here from Eatdirtistan, he had to save up to buy the bootstraps that he would pull himself up with. He bought his boots without them because he wouldn't accept anything for free." That's the free market for you, I guess. It's probably why Republican Governor Sonny Perdue had absolutely nothing to say about this until the last minute, because he's a capitalist to the very end, even in the face of reason.
Look, if someone told me that my job as a school board member was so bad that the district was going to lose its accreditation if I didn't quit, I'd have to finish cleaning out my desk from the parking lot because I'd be out the door so fast. That's pretty embarrassing, but clearly this wasn't the career choice that God had in mind for me. There's nothing wrong with telling the world, "Hey, I'm really fucking this up." What if Noah was building the Ark wrong but wouldn't quit, then made everybody get on whatever haphazard deathtrap his drunken little hands could conjure up? Fortunately for civilization, God spake unto Noah, "Dude, stop. I'll show you how to build it."
And there were people trying to show the Clayton County school board how to build their boat, too. They were called "the parents of the Clayton County students," who were screaming at the board to come out into the parking lot so they could be shown properly. The board resisted, though, and at the end of the day, their floating washtub of mismanagement capsized in a sea of...Hell, I don't know...justice? It really isn't that great of a metaphor. The point is, they screwed everything up and finally got fired. I guess they figured their work was done. And by "work," I mean, "hand-crafted tasks of destruction."
The only reason why anyone on that board wouldn't step down is because they had something to gain. One of the board members (I couldn't be bothered to learn her name because, well...fuck her) claimed that she was doing the best she could and if she was fired, only the kids would suffer. One, I hate when people try to politicize "the children." Don't act like you're doing this for "the children." You probably don't even know "the children," and if you were really concerned about them, you would have stepped down before you finished reading the list of mandates, seeing as how you leaving your job is first on the list. Two, I don't know how much more suffering "the children" could have done seeing as how this year's seniors have essentially wasted their last 12 years of schooling thanks to you and yours not being able to follow simple instructions. "Go the hell home." What's hard about that?
Really, I'm surprised that no one has run up on them in the streets. I've been all through Clayton County. It makes DeKalb County look like a nice place to live. All the rappers are shooting their videos there now for the authenticity. How are these board members still alive? Because they clearly don't care about "the children" who still live in Clayton County. Their education isn't worth a shot glass full of watered-down piss because nine supposed adults couldn't put 52,000 kids ahead of their own interests. Hell, there's no point in going to school now, so they might as well find the people who made their education worthless.
And all this does is open the door for Republicans to start screaming about school vouchers for private schools. That's their fucking solution to everything. "Free shit sucks," they say. "Pay for everything. It's the only way you'll appreciate it. Why, when my great-grandfather came here from Eatdirtistan, he had to save up to buy the bootstraps that he would pull himself up with. He bought his boots without them because he wouldn't accept anything for free." That's the free market for you, I guess. It's probably why Republican Governor Sonny Perdue had absolutely nothing to say about this until the last minute, because he's a capitalist to the very end, even in the face of reason.
Tony Majestic vs. Russia
I'd be lying if I said I said I was an expert on Russia, because outside of "Goldeneye," "Strider," and Ronald Reagan being given entirely too much credit in the fall of the Soviet Union, I don't really know much. I do still wonder how they invented the technology to turn the Russian Parliament into a giant dragon when they can't run a nuclear power plant, though.
I do know quite a bit about the United States, and that's a good thing considering I've lived here about 86% of my life. I think it would be pretty embarrassing if I'd been here that long but couldn't tell you that President John F. Kennedy was the first man on the moon during the Great Spider-Alien Invasion of 1941.
And knowing what I do about the U.S., I can say that the notion of this country manipulating the events of foreign nations doesn't even shock me. After all, the U.S. Government is good for getting foreign leaders to die in horrific accidents involving lots of bullets if they're not too America-friendly. But for Russian Prime Minister/Real President/Mob Boss Vladimir Putin to accuse the U.S. of orchestrating the conflict between Russia and Georgia is completely illogical. If they were going to orchestrate anything, I'm sure it would involve a lot more of the "light, sweet, crude oil" that Russia is sitting on.
Kills me how they make crude oil sound delicious. It sounds like they're talking about a new pie crust. Try BP's new "rich and fluffy crude oil."
Anyway, the U.S. doesn't orchestrate. We flat out kill folks or sell you weapons so you can kill folks. Either way, we're a little more direct in our clearing out the competition. If we believed in subtlety, we wouldn't have invaded Iraq. It's not like our intelligence agencies didn't know where his house was. He's a dictator, so it probably looked like Thugnificent's house. We could have taken him out on his toilet and no one would have ever known, except for everyone who saw the cruise missle fly in. That's why we went in there like a bunch of cowboys, because subtlety wasn't going to send the right message. The message apparently being, "We're the swinging dicks around here, Iran."
So, with all due respect, Mr. Putin, you sound like a lunatic, and if it wasn't for the fact that we know that you're more like Tony Soprano than an actual President, you might actually have some credibility behind you. I know that our current President said you were a good dude, but I don't think that's an endorsement that holds much weight. He can't even tell someone that his favorite cake tastes good without us being critical, let alone judge another man's character. Which leads us right back to my initial statement: You sound like a lunatic.
You've always seemed to have this mob boss vibe around you anyway. All of the other neighboring countries are afraid that you might fire off on them at any given time and it's with good reason that we're setting up our missile defense system right on your border. You could be a really good guy, but being scary suits you so much more. Besides, you're Russian. For those of us who remember the 70s and 80s, that's always going to be synonymous with "the enemy."
My biggest fear when I was a kid was the Russians firing nuclear weapons at us and starting a war and I thought Yakov Smirnoff was merely an attempt to soften our perceptions of Russians so we'd lower our defenses. Well, it didn't work, comrade. And neither did your attempts to destroy Hollywood through the franchise-killing works of Dolph Lundgren. Nice try, Nikita.
But the Soviet Union eventually broke up and started getting pissy with all of its old republics for wanting to do their own thing. And that's what happened in Georgia. It said, "Hey, let's be like America." But there were some people in Georgia who said, "I dunno, dude, we might get gangs and rap music and border control problems. I think we should ride this 'Russia' thing out." And the Russians, from what I understand, were like "Hey, South Ossetia, here's some guns and passports. Tell Georgia to stop hating so you can ride out with us." Georgia went into South Ossetia to stop the separatists and Russia used that as an excuse to go into Georgia, because technically, the South Ossetians are Russian citizens (which is why they were given passports), even though South Ossetia is a part of Georgia. All of the this grief over a breakaway region about the size of Biloxi.
Now, no one made Russia get involved in Georgia's mess, except Vladimir Putin because even though he's the #2 guy, in reality, he'd kick Medvedev's ass and get Medvedev's mother to join in. I don't see how there's room for us to get involved in that. I guess we were whispering, "Yeah, Georgia, you can totally take on Russia. And you need to show that pimp hand to South Ossetia and Abhkazia." Now, how do we benefit from watching a nation the size of OUR Georgia take on essentially the rest of the United States by itself? It wasn't a slow news week or anything, because Aquaman was invading the surface world through the guise of Olympic competition.
This is why no one listens to Russia, especially when they're clearly making up stuff so punk countries like France will stop being upset with them. Not that America isn't above this sort of thing, it's that...dude, Russia's the one saying it. It'd be kind of like if Bush put his balls out in front of the world and said that it's unacceptable to invade other nations in the 21st Century. And he's way too intelligent to say something that fucking stupid.
I do know quite a bit about the United States, and that's a good thing considering I've lived here about 86% of my life. I think it would be pretty embarrassing if I'd been here that long but couldn't tell you that President John F. Kennedy was the first man on the moon during the Great Spider-Alien Invasion of 1941.
And knowing what I do about the U.S., I can say that the notion of this country manipulating the events of foreign nations doesn't even shock me. After all, the U.S. Government is good for getting foreign leaders to die in horrific accidents involving lots of bullets if they're not too America-friendly. But for Russian Prime Minister/Real President/Mob Boss Vladimir Putin to accuse the U.S. of orchestrating the conflict between Russia and Georgia is completely illogical. If they were going to orchestrate anything, I'm sure it would involve a lot more of the "light, sweet, crude oil" that Russia is sitting on.
Kills me how they make crude oil sound delicious. It sounds like they're talking about a new pie crust. Try BP's new "rich and fluffy crude oil."
Anyway, the U.S. doesn't orchestrate. We flat out kill folks or sell you weapons so you can kill folks. Either way, we're a little more direct in our clearing out the competition. If we believed in subtlety, we wouldn't have invaded Iraq. It's not like our intelligence agencies didn't know where his house was. He's a dictator, so it probably looked like Thugnificent's house. We could have taken him out on his toilet and no one would have ever known, except for everyone who saw the cruise missle fly in. That's why we went in there like a bunch of cowboys, because subtlety wasn't going to send the right message. The message apparently being, "We're the swinging dicks around here, Iran."
So, with all due respect, Mr. Putin, you sound like a lunatic, and if it wasn't for the fact that we know that you're more like Tony Soprano than an actual President, you might actually have some credibility behind you. I know that our current President said you were a good dude, but I don't think that's an endorsement that holds much weight. He can't even tell someone that his favorite cake tastes good without us being critical, let alone judge another man's character. Which leads us right back to my initial statement: You sound like a lunatic.
You've always seemed to have this mob boss vibe around you anyway. All of the other neighboring countries are afraid that you might fire off on them at any given time and it's with good reason that we're setting up our missile defense system right on your border. You could be a really good guy, but being scary suits you so much more. Besides, you're Russian. For those of us who remember the 70s and 80s, that's always going to be synonymous with "the enemy."
My biggest fear when I was a kid was the Russians firing nuclear weapons at us and starting a war and I thought Yakov Smirnoff was merely an attempt to soften our perceptions of Russians so we'd lower our defenses. Well, it didn't work, comrade. And neither did your attempts to destroy Hollywood through the franchise-killing works of Dolph Lundgren. Nice try, Nikita.
But the Soviet Union eventually broke up and started getting pissy with all of its old republics for wanting to do their own thing. And that's what happened in Georgia. It said, "Hey, let's be like America." But there were some people in Georgia who said, "I dunno, dude, we might get gangs and rap music and border control problems. I think we should ride this 'Russia' thing out." And the Russians, from what I understand, were like "Hey, South Ossetia, here's some guns and passports. Tell Georgia to stop hating so you can ride out with us." Georgia went into South Ossetia to stop the separatists and Russia used that as an excuse to go into Georgia, because technically, the South Ossetians are Russian citizens (which is why they were given passports), even though South Ossetia is a part of Georgia. All of the this grief over a breakaway region about the size of Biloxi.
Now, no one made Russia get involved in Georgia's mess, except Vladimir Putin because even though he's the #2 guy, in reality, he'd kick Medvedev's ass and get Medvedev's mother to join in. I don't see how there's room for us to get involved in that. I guess we were whispering, "Yeah, Georgia, you can totally take on Russia. And you need to show that pimp hand to South Ossetia and Abhkazia." Now, how do we benefit from watching a nation the size of OUR Georgia take on essentially the rest of the United States by itself? It wasn't a slow news week or anything, because Aquaman was invading the surface world through the guise of Olympic competition.
This is why no one listens to Russia, especially when they're clearly making up stuff so punk countries like France will stop being upset with them. Not that America isn't above this sort of thing, it's that...dude, Russia's the one saying it. It'd be kind of like if Bush put his balls out in front of the world and said that it's unacceptable to invade other nations in the 21st Century. And he's way too intelligent to say something that fucking stupid.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
The One Where I Talk About Capitalism and Socialism
I don't know about you, but I hate paying for shit. Gas, food, clothes (admittedly, i probably don't spend enough on clothes), you name it, I hate paying for it. That was the best part about being in elementary school; I thought everything was free, and to a degree it was. Sure, tax dollars paid for my books but that's like saying that the Education Fairy brought it. It was just a given that the stuff was gonna be there, water stains, torn pages, outdated facts, and all.
But those givens are well on their way out the door if things keep going the way they're going. School funding is getting cut every day, usually in favor of things like the troops who are defending our freedoms, more roads, keeping other countries swimming in their champagne pools. Eventually, school funding is going to reach a point where they can only afford to teach from books that still have Jimmy Carter listed as the last President, sitting outside of an abandoned warehouse, where they have to whisper so the wolves can't find them.
The only way out at that point is going to be for the free market to step in and bail out American schools. Yes, that free market. The free market that so many Americans swear by that should be completely unleashed to solve all of our problems. The free market that is going to abolish AIDS and cancer. The free market that is going to render the Federal Government obsolete. The free market where absolutely nothing is free, except for maybe ketchup packets at Burger King.
Could you imagine a school that was completely run by the free market? Yeah, all of the books and desks in the school would be new (The LeBron James Social Studies Book, 2008 Edition...collect them all!), but they'd have ads for the latest Hannah Montana concert in between the math problems. Channel One would become the continuous commercial that we always believed it was. Vending machines would be in individual classrooms, where they could be easily accessed before nap time. They'd probably bring recess back, so the kids could work up a hearty appetite before their McDonald's lunches, but all of the good stuff on the playground would have pay turnstiles on it, installed by MARTA to simulate the real-life experience of a morning commute.
This is what I fear the free market would bring us and this is why the free market isn't trusted to run anything necessary. It couldn't even control itself to run a deregulated cable industry, let alone a healthcare industry where people have to choose between paying their rent or getting their latest cancer treatment. A healthcare industry where Medicare supplements are needed because Medicare just isn't enough. A healthcare industry where people only ride in ambulances when they're too bloody or too unconscious because a 12 block ride costs $700. Way to instill faith in America, free market. You probably found a cure of AIDS the week after it came out, but you won't let it out because you can't keep it from entirely killing the virus. It works a little TOO well.
The entire focus of the free market is to separate you from your money. Goal number one: To make a profit. Goal number two: To come up with more ways to get their hand back in your pocket. Goal number three: To leverage those properties in synergistic ways to increase market share. Goal number four: To invent more corporate buzzwords, like "urban" or "sports entertainment." That's the whole list and "To look out for your best interests" is nowhere on it. If that was the case, they probably would have never invented daylights or the diamond-encrusted two-way pager.
And none of this is to say that i think socialism is the answer, but I do think there are some benefits to some of its ideas, and being a rich nation like we are, we can afford to do socialism the right way. After all, the free market doesn't have all of the answers, because in all those years, it never occurred to them to come up with child labor laws or vacation days. I'm not saying that everyone should throw their money into the pot and split it evenly, but I am saying that instead of letting our homeless sleep in a refrigerator box, we could at least let them sleep in a dorm shower or the back row at the movie theater. Or maybe we could let people live in their storage units. Come on, have a heart.
Instead of socialism OR capitalism, why can't we just agree on a happy medium? They both have their benefits, but a pure form of either one will not work. Pure socialism just leads to swollen-headed Republicans claiming that Reagan single-handedly destroyed the Soviet Union and pure capitalism just leads to the Bush Administration and oil prices jumping from $15 a barrel to $130 in just seven years. Neither is perfect, but socialism can continue to give us, for better or worse, our public school education and capitalism can continue to give us, for better or worse, the five-dollar DVD bin at Wal-Mart and $160 dollar Nikes.
But those givens are well on their way out the door if things keep going the way they're going. School funding is getting cut every day, usually in favor of things like the troops who are defending our freedoms, more roads, keeping other countries swimming in their champagne pools. Eventually, school funding is going to reach a point where they can only afford to teach from books that still have Jimmy Carter listed as the last President, sitting outside of an abandoned warehouse, where they have to whisper so the wolves can't find them.
The only way out at that point is going to be for the free market to step in and bail out American schools. Yes, that free market. The free market that so many Americans swear by that should be completely unleashed to solve all of our problems. The free market that is going to abolish AIDS and cancer. The free market that is going to render the Federal Government obsolete. The free market where absolutely nothing is free, except for maybe ketchup packets at Burger King.
Could you imagine a school that was completely run by the free market? Yeah, all of the books and desks in the school would be new (The LeBron James Social Studies Book, 2008 Edition...collect them all!), but they'd have ads for the latest Hannah Montana concert in between the math problems. Channel One would become the continuous commercial that we always believed it was. Vending machines would be in individual classrooms, where they could be easily accessed before nap time. They'd probably bring recess back, so the kids could work up a hearty appetite before their McDonald's lunches, but all of the good stuff on the playground would have pay turnstiles on it, installed by MARTA to simulate the real-life experience of a morning commute.
This is what I fear the free market would bring us and this is why the free market isn't trusted to run anything necessary. It couldn't even control itself to run a deregulated cable industry, let alone a healthcare industry where people have to choose between paying their rent or getting their latest cancer treatment. A healthcare industry where Medicare supplements are needed because Medicare just isn't enough. A healthcare industry where people only ride in ambulances when they're too bloody or too unconscious because a 12 block ride costs $700. Way to instill faith in America, free market. You probably found a cure of AIDS the week after it came out, but you won't let it out because you can't keep it from entirely killing the virus. It works a little TOO well.
The entire focus of the free market is to separate you from your money. Goal number one: To make a profit. Goal number two: To come up with more ways to get their hand back in your pocket. Goal number three: To leverage those properties in synergistic ways to increase market share. Goal number four: To invent more corporate buzzwords, like "urban" or "sports entertainment." That's the whole list and "To look out for your best interests" is nowhere on it. If that was the case, they probably would have never invented daylights or the diamond-encrusted two-way pager.
And none of this is to say that i think socialism is the answer, but I do think there are some benefits to some of its ideas, and being a rich nation like we are, we can afford to do socialism the right way. After all, the free market doesn't have all of the answers, because in all those years, it never occurred to them to come up with child labor laws or vacation days. I'm not saying that everyone should throw their money into the pot and split it evenly, but I am saying that instead of letting our homeless sleep in a refrigerator box, we could at least let them sleep in a dorm shower or the back row at the movie theater. Or maybe we could let people live in their storage units. Come on, have a heart.
Instead of socialism OR capitalism, why can't we just agree on a happy medium? They both have their benefits, but a pure form of either one will not work. Pure socialism just leads to swollen-headed Republicans claiming that Reagan single-handedly destroyed the Soviet Union and pure capitalism just leads to the Bush Administration and oil prices jumping from $15 a barrel to $130 in just seven years. Neither is perfect, but socialism can continue to give us, for better or worse, our public school education and capitalism can continue to give us, for better or worse, the five-dollar DVD bin at Wal-Mart and $160 dollar Nikes.
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