Happy Monday, All!
Top o’ the morning to you! How was your sleep last night. Here in the USA, we moved our clocks “back” one hour to adjust for the Fall season’s time changes and hours of daylight. Can you feel a difference yet? I woke up early this morning not only because of the time change that occurred Saturday night/Sunday morning but because I need to go get a duplicate of my driver’s license! Yes, it seems that where there is a will, and kind understanding people around who really know you, there is a way. Carpe diem … seize the day!
We are about to experience an incredible presidential election with two obviously different and distinct approaches to re-defining “America”. From where I sit, it seems that over the years, the “people” were out of touch with what government was doing. It was seldom, if ever, that a campaign slogan focused on “medicare” or “how much money we had borrowed” and “how much was owed”. It is even a bigger issue now of being “politically correct” as a measure of a person’s ability to represent a state or a nation appropriately and accurately. There are more gays and lesbians who have come out of the closet, so to speak, so the times are clearly changing. Laws that have been passed like “Roe vs. Wade” are being reconsidered as the nation attempts to create a national consciousness on when and where abortion is the proper procedure for an “unwanted” pregnancy. New energy sources has become an issue and the “job market” here in America as well as “outsourcing” jobs for tax breaks. So many issues are unclear and the exact statistics on anything are hard to come by and even harder to believe. I recall a course book I read at Princeton when studying statistics for Sociology called “How to Lie With Statistics”, so ….
The last election, I was working for the controversial A.C.O.R.N. (The Association for Community Reform Now) and had trained in Miami first, then Nashville, TN. During the election, I was in Orlando, FL completing an assignment organizing a community there into an A.C.O.R.N. Chapter and we focused on community improvement issues ranging from speed bumps in areas where many people had been killed to foreclosure prevention and getting banks to consider modifying or restructuring a person’s home mortgage. It was exciting to get our and work at the “grass roots level” though one really had to be a certain kind of person. My assignment culminated in Orlando right after the 2008 Election. The organization itself was responsible for getting over 3 million “first time voters” registered and out to vote for that election. Mission accomplished.
Consider this election one of where you want Our America to go, how we want to be represented at home . . . ” … from sea to shining sea!”, and, abroad. How you wish things to be handled … more on a state level as one party’s candidate proposes versus government “overseeing”, if you will, of what is taking place on the state and community governmental levels. May we each carefully consider our choices … and VOTE!
Peace,
John I. Cook, Director
Educational Excellence 