I was going to try to focus on fun topics for the next week or so leading up to the holidays, but recent news items are just begging for a rant. Actually not a rant, just an expression of dismay and perhaps a discussion about the absurdities of human nature, which is one of the reasons I write this blog. I think we all need to express our frustration with some of mankind or we might explode from trying to hold it all in.
One of the stories I read today was about a south Texas couple who put an aborted 7-month-old fetus in a gift box under a Christmas tree after they were unable to flush the remains down a toilet. The couple has been charged with abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence. Police believe the woman used pills to induce an abortion last week, then called an ambulance after she began bleeding and told doctors she didn’t know where the fetus was.
This is so absurd, I don’t even know what to say. What were they thinking? Or were they even thinking?
A story I read yesterday also made me shake my head in disbelief. Apparently some parents in Detroit are so unhappy about the students there doing poorly on standardized tests that they want the teachers and administrators to go to jail.
That’s right. Jail.
After release of a report showing fourth and eighth-grade students with the lowest math scores in the nation, Sharlonda Buckman of the Detroit Parent Network is reportedly pushing for prison time and civil lawsuits against teachers and officials in the school district who are not doing enough to educate the city’s youth. She is reported to have said that someone needs to go to jail for this and it shouldn’t be the kids.
I agree that educators need to be held accountable for their work, but this is a bit extreme, don’t you think? Especially since the educator is only one third of a whole that makes for successful learning. The other two-thirds are parents and the student. And they all need to work together in harmony, not be setting up adversarial positions on something so vitally important as education.
And if any authority or court acts on this absurd request, I will really lose all hope in humanity.
What are your thoughts?
On the kids and education, I would ask, where were the parents and what were they doing to help their kids and how involved were they in the school? Look first to yourself before you attack others.
To the fetus…that woman may have a good plea of temporary insanity. Put it in a box under a Christmas tree??? That’s pretty wacko, I think.
Helen
Straight From Hel
I’m sure the woman will use an insanity defense. No doubt about that. But the whole scenario is just disgusting. I suspect that there were drugs and/or alcohol involved in the mistakes that started with her getting pregnant in the first place, then waiting until she was so far along in the pregnancy to decide to abort. Then to hide the baby from the doctor. ?????
As for the parents versus teachers…it’s always so easy to blame someone else. What I wonder if when did everything become the responsibility of the teachers and school and the parents do nothing? I’ve seen this happen for years. Parents with a lack of interest in helping their children at home, or setting up a homework regime are always the first to complain about the schools. In my opinion, teachers should earn as much as NFL players.
As for the people with the newborn…I think the commandment, “Do unto other as you would have done unto you,” applies. Put them in a box, seal it tight, and if they survive the lack of oxygen, ask them how they liked it?
There are no consequences to actions that deter people from stupid things. Most have already been to jail, so it’s not a big deal. How about following the example of some of the European countries….steal…lop of the offending hand. Might make people take a minute and consider before they act. But then again…maybe not.
LOL, Ginger. I am getting like you in thinking we have been too soft on people for too long and that has contributed to many of the problems. If there are no serious consequences for bad behavior where is the incentive to stop?
I’m with you, Maryann. Both stories are just plain wacky. I feel especially sorry for the teachers, but have to chuckle when I think of how my country grade school teachers and principal (late 1940s and early 1950s) would have reacted to this nonsense.
You are so right, Patricia. There was more respect for teachers then and they had more authority. I remember about 20 years ago a good friend left teaching because he said he no longer had control over his classroom or his students. And if he disciplined a student the parents would come and threaten to sue him and the school. And we wonder why the education system is in such a mess.
Some of the kids were so rowdy in this old school that parents were always getting called in and bawled out by the teachers. Then the kids got a second round of discipline at home for embarrassing their parents. Times sure have changed.
I think certain sections of Detroit need to ne razed and rebuilt. Instead of giving stimulus money to Wall Street and GM, let them die and use the money to rebuild inner cities and the schools. Isn’t this what liberals are supposed to do with our tax dollars anyway? BTW, I’m not a liberal, but even I can see the money would be better spent in this manner.
Stephen Tremp
Thanks for the comments, Steve. I hate the labels of liberal and conservative. If we think outside the parameters of either label then we are suddenly in the “other” camp. Why can’t we just be called concerned citizens?
People are crazy, that’s for sure. There’s a great song named that, but the lyrics are not horrific like the examples you just gave.
Makes me wonder if these people were malnourished as kids or are drug addicts.
Morgan Mandel
http://morganmandel.blogspot.com