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Elbow Licking and Starvation
By Ken Byler
After having dug to a depth of 10 feet in upper Manhattan, construction workers found traces of copper cable which proved to be more than 100 years old. Officials concluded that New York may have had a city wide telephone system more than 100 years ago.
A month later, sewer workers digging a trench in Los Angeles found traces of 200 year old copper cable at a depth of 20 feet. The finding points to the possibility that L.A. had a working telecommunications system a hundred years earlier than New York.
A week later, the Dallas Times Herald reported that Dwayne Ray Doofuss, a self taught geologist holding a mail order degree in water witching, had dug to a depth of 30 feet, found water but no copper cable. The evidence suggests that Texas had already gone wireless long before either New York or L.A. had a working telephone system.
A wordsmith can spin the old into new and improved and make simple complicated. Is there a real difference between a replica and a fake? Is a pre-owned automobile a used car? Is Pre School... school? Add "gate" as in Watergate and conspiracy comes to mind. Add "thon" as in marathon and long running comes to mind. Say "underserved" and discrimination pops up.
Concern can be created by spinning only that which supports an agenda. Recent headlines in the Washington Examiner read "Global Warming will kill more than 150,000 by the year 2099." The headline failed to mention that all 7,999,850,000 of us on the planet not killed by global warming will die from something else.
A lot of folks are getting their news via Tweets, Facebook, Comedy Central and the Five at Fox.
Accepting, without question, edicts as facts and opinions as research is leaving the citizenry confused and misinformed. For example, it was reported that luxury car sales are improving therefore the recession is over.
An article in the Daily Mail reported that a research study linked unpopularity in school with obesity. Wow! Imagine that. And this from the State Board of Education "Research has shown the more words children know the more likely they are to achieve academic success at school." Well duh! I wonder what that study cost taxpayers.
Though the term "people of color" affects me like fingernails on a blackboard, a recent study showed that women and people of color lagged behind in all socio/economic situations. Behind whom? Since women and people of color constitute the majority wouldn't the socio/economic situation they're in be the norm? And wouldn't those out in front be the exception rather than the rule?
According to Professor of Education Patricia Gandara, "Latino youth begin kindergarten far behind their peers." Which begs the question of why do they begin behind if kindergarten is also where their peers begin?
When I was a kid there were few edicts that went unquestioned. A couple of them were it's impossible to lick your own elbow and you should eat everything on your plate cause kids in China are starving.
Averaging is where folks really get confused. Average has nothing to do with reality. If you consider yourself of average intelligence then half the people you know are geniuses. The other half are idiots. The average human being on earth is a 28-year-old right handed man of Chinese ancestry with a mobile phone and no bank account.
Reality is our government is printing every pamphlet, brochure and ballot in Spanish to better serve the underserved at a time when there's more students in China learning English than the total population of a country where English is the native tongue, the USA.
Reality is we're a nation of mostly over weight people who can't lick their elbows, with more than half the workforce employed in tax supported service jobs while those starving "kids" in China are eating our lunch.
Ken Byler is a Star Columnist, author and artist. Email at kbyler@tx.rr.com
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