Friday, September 11, 2009
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Obama's speech to our children
"Much ado about nothing" comes to mind when I think about the overreaction of some few, vocal parents who feel that children in public school shouldn't be listening to the President of our country when he addresses them directly.
We have a public school system because we cannot do it alone. Our children need to hear things over and over again from different sources to confirm the truth. These same parents, who won't let their children listen to this man because they disagree with him on some few subjects, complain that our public school system doesn't teach values, doesn't teach character. I listen to this and say, "Yes, friends and neighbors, it does, but you won't let your children be taught."
Too often, we dictate to our teachers and education administrators that this subject needs to be emphasized while that is off-limits. What does this teach our children? That some things are too "dangerous" to know? I'm not too old to know that those are the subjects our children will seek out, without our help, and because they can't be taught in the safety of our schools, they will be taught "the hard way" on our streets.
I don't throw my support behind Mr. Obama because he's a black man from Chicago with a touching story and a prestigious university degree. I throw my support behind him because, as he demonstrates here now, he supports me, as a father and a citizen concerned about the welfare of our children, the future of our country. I didn't wade into the debate about whether our children should be allowed to listen to the President of our country give a talk to them about the importance of them taking responsibility for their education. There is no debate. There are only children who heard this speech, hopefully hearing echoes of what parents like me have been telling them for years, and children whose parents simply don't understand that good parenting requires the help of the community, and there is no greater figure in our community than the President of the United States. I pity those parents, and I cry for their children, for they have rejected the hope embraced in "Yes, we can" and cling to the failure of "No, we can't," not just today, but throughout their lives.
Our country is founded on hope. To take that away from our children is to deny them the very heart of citizenship and every right and blessing given by God to our nation. Thank you, Mr. President, for your leadership and inspiring words today, and may God plant those words into my sons' hearts and minds, inspiring them to be good students, productive citizens, and great leaders in the years to come.
We have a public school system because we cannot do it alone. Our children need to hear things over and over again from different sources to confirm the truth. These same parents, who won't let their children listen to this man because they disagree with him on some few subjects, complain that our public school system doesn't teach values, doesn't teach character. I listen to this and say, "Yes, friends and neighbors, it does, but you won't let your children be taught."
Too often, we dictate to our teachers and education administrators that this subject needs to be emphasized while that is off-limits. What does this teach our children? That some things are too "dangerous" to know? I'm not too old to know that those are the subjects our children will seek out, without our help, and because they can't be taught in the safety of our schools, they will be taught "the hard way" on our streets.
I don't throw my support behind Mr. Obama because he's a black man from Chicago with a touching story and a prestigious university degree. I throw my support behind him because, as he demonstrates here now, he supports me, as a father and a citizen concerned about the welfare of our children, the future of our country. I didn't wade into the debate about whether our children should be allowed to listen to the President of our country give a talk to them about the importance of them taking responsibility for their education. There is no debate. There are only children who heard this speech, hopefully hearing echoes of what parents like me have been telling them for years, and children whose parents simply don't understand that good parenting requires the help of the community, and there is no greater figure in our community than the President of the United States. I pity those parents, and I cry for their children, for they have rejected the hope embraced in "Yes, we can" and cling to the failure of "No, we can't," not just today, but throughout their lives.
Our country is founded on hope. To take that away from our children is to deny them the very heart of citizenship and every right and blessing given by God to our nation. Thank you, Mr. President, for your leadership and inspiring words today, and may God plant those words into my sons' hearts and minds, inspiring them to be good students, productive citizens, and great leaders in the years to come.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Labor Day, More Than Just a Day Off
reprinted from the Salt Lake Tribune, 9/7/09
Tribune Editorial
Labor Day: a day of leisure, one more three-day weekend, summer's last blast.
Though sometimes forgotten in the rush to the beach, lake, mountains and amusement parks, the day holds a far greater significance. It's a celebration of the industriousness of the American worker, who built a nation, won World War II and continues to set productivity records to this day.
It's a holiday born of the labor movement in the Gilded Age, when industrialists lived opulent lives and amassed great fortunes at the expense of an underpaid, uneducated and overworked work force.
At the end of the 19th century, many Americans, including children, labored 12 hours a day, seven days a week in sweatshops, unsafe mines, dangerous factories. Their reward? Enough money to live in squalor.
By the 1880s, they were ready to fight for their rights, for a fair share of the wealth, and for a much-deserved day off.
"There is no wealth without labor," early labor organizers argued. "Eight hours of work, eight hours of rest, eight hours of recreation," they demanded.
The day off came first. Labor Day was first observed in New York City in 1882 with parades, picnics, speeches and demonstrations. By 1894, when Congress approved the holiday for the District of Columbia and federal territories including Utah, 23 states had followed suit.
Today, despite rising joblessness, stagnant wages and a wide gap between rich and poor, Labor Day is less about activism, more about activities. And the movement that brought the holiday about -- organized labor -- has fallen on hard times. In 2008, just 12.4 percent of American workers belonged to a labor union, up a tick (.3 percent) from 2007, but down from 20 percent from 1983.
But the reforms these activists and organizers helped engineer -- safer work places, better wages, the eight-hour workday, child labor laws, regulatory agencies, workers compensation, etc. -- are a lasting legacy from which we all benefit.
The following observations are a tribute to their efforts:
"Labor was the first price, the original purchase-money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labor, that all wealth of the world was originally purchased."
- Adam Smith, 18th century economist
"We have been enjoined by the courts, assaulted by thugs, charged by the militia, traduced by the press, frowned upon in public opinion and deceived by politicians. But notwithstanding all this and all these, labor is today the most vital and potential power this planet has ever known, and its historic mission is as certain of ultimate realization as is the setting of the sun."
- Eugene Debs, 1894, American union leader
"We should so live and labor in our times that what came to us as seed may go to the next generation as blossom, and what came to us as blossom may go to them as fruit."
- Henry Ward Beecher, 19th century American orator and abolitionist
"The man who doesn't relax and hoot a few hoots voluntarily, now and then, is in great danger of hooting hoots and standing on his head for the edification of the pathologist and trained nurse, a little later on."
- Elbert Hubbard, 19th century American philosopher
"Many times a day I realize how much my outer and inner life is built upon the labors of people, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received."
- Albert Einstein
"Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop."
- Ovid, ancient Roman poet and philosopher
"The end of labor is to gain leisure."
- Aristotle, ancient Greek philosopher
"Constant labor of one uniform kind destroys the intensity and flow of a man's animal spirits, which find recreation and delight in mere change of activity."
- Karl Marx
"One cannot properly appreciate the human realities so long as one labors under the adolescent delusion that people get the fates they deserve."
- Nicholas Rescher, American philosopher
"Few can be induced to labor exclusively for posterity. Posterity has done nothing for us."
- Abraham Lincoln
"All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence."
- Martin Luther King Jr.
"The Labor Movement: the folks who brought you the weekend."
- From a bumper sticker, 1995
Tribune Editorial
Labor Day: a day of leisure, one more three-day weekend, summer's last blast.
Though sometimes forgotten in the rush to the beach, lake, mountains and amusement parks, the day holds a far greater significance. It's a celebration of the industriousness of the American worker, who built a nation, won World War II and continues to set productivity records to this day.
It's a holiday born of the labor movement in the Gilded Age, when industrialists lived opulent lives and amassed great fortunes at the expense of an underpaid, uneducated and overworked work force.
At the end of the 19th century, many Americans, including children, labored 12 hours a day, seven days a week in sweatshops, unsafe mines, dangerous factories. Their reward? Enough money to live in squalor.
By the 1880s, they were ready to fight for their rights, for a fair share of the wealth, and for a much-deserved day off.
"There is no wealth without labor," early labor organizers argued. "Eight hours of work, eight hours of rest, eight hours of recreation," they demanded.
The day off came first. Labor Day was first observed in New York City in 1882 with parades, picnics, speeches and demonstrations. By 1894, when Congress approved the holiday for the District of Columbia and federal territories including Utah, 23 states had followed suit.
Today, despite rising joblessness, stagnant wages and a wide gap between rich and poor, Labor Day is less about activism, more about activities. And the movement that brought the holiday about -- organized labor -- has fallen on hard times. In 2008, just 12.4 percent of American workers belonged to a labor union, up a tick (.3 percent) from 2007, but down from 20 percent from 1983.
But the reforms these activists and organizers helped engineer -- safer work places, better wages, the eight-hour workday, child labor laws, regulatory agencies, workers compensation, etc. -- are a lasting legacy from which we all benefit.
The following observations are a tribute to their efforts:
"Labor was the first price, the original purchase-money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labor, that all wealth of the world was originally purchased."
- Adam Smith, 18th century economist
"We have been enjoined by the courts, assaulted by thugs, charged by the militia, traduced by the press, frowned upon in public opinion and deceived by politicians. But notwithstanding all this and all these, labor is today the most vital and potential power this planet has ever known, and its historic mission is as certain of ultimate realization as is the setting of the sun."
- Eugene Debs, 1894, American union leader
"We should so live and labor in our times that what came to us as seed may go to the next generation as blossom, and what came to us as blossom may go to them as fruit."
- Henry Ward Beecher, 19th century American orator and abolitionist
"The man who doesn't relax and hoot a few hoots voluntarily, now and then, is in great danger of hooting hoots and standing on his head for the edification of the pathologist and trained nurse, a little later on."
- Elbert Hubbard, 19th century American philosopher
"Many times a day I realize how much my outer and inner life is built upon the labors of people, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received."
- Albert Einstein
"Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop."
- Ovid, ancient Roman poet and philosopher
"The end of labor is to gain leisure."
- Aristotle, ancient Greek philosopher
"Constant labor of one uniform kind destroys the intensity and flow of a man's animal spirits, which find recreation and delight in mere change of activity."
- Karl Marx
"One cannot properly appreciate the human realities so long as one labors under the adolescent delusion that people get the fates they deserve."
- Nicholas Rescher, American philosopher
"Few can be induced to labor exclusively for posterity. Posterity has done nothing for us."
- Abraham Lincoln
"All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence."
- Martin Luther King Jr.
"The Labor Movement: the folks who brought you the weekend."
- From a bumper sticker, 1995
