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I can't help but marvel at Obama.  If I were in his shoes I'd probably be in a rubber room by now, freaked out by all the mega-crises heaped on my plate from Day One and the new ones that have popped up since then...exasperated by the bitching and moaning from the Left and the hatred and lies from the Right....and enraged by all the bad actors, domestic and foreign, actively working to defeat me at every turn for their own selfish agendas or just out of spite.  I'd be ready to pull a South Park Cartman and say, 'Screw you guys, I'm going home.'

But Obama seems unfazed by it all.  I can't help but marvel.  This is one cool, smart, and classy customer, and if anyone's up to the frightening tasks at hand, Obama is...no matter what the screaming ninnies of the world say. 

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I don't buy what the critics are saying, I think Obama's playing it smart by staying vague about what he wants in the health care bill.  "Must-have" specifics from the President would just give the Republicans and the special interests something more to target.   They might even mean the kiss of death.  Take the public option -- if it was the "Obamacare Public Option", I think it would be dead by now, because the opposition could have stirred the government-takeover pot even more than they have, with Obama's face on the proposal.  Instead, a public option (in some form or another) seems to be gaining traction as time goes on, bubbling up from various Congressional sources.  My sense is that Team Obama has made a smart decision to not try to lead the parade, at least publicly, until it's really rolling along and nearing the reviewing stand.   Don't lay your cards down until you have to.

And speaking of the existing public option for pre-retirement age folks, i.e., Medicaid and various state versions of it, don't you see a bunch more Americans headed there?   I don't see an end to the continuing losses of high-wage jobs in big corporations and manufacturing due to offshoring/globalization.  If those thrown out of work can find new jobs -- big "if" in many places in the U.S. -- chances are those jobs will pay far, far less, and may or may not come with health care coverage.  Meanwhile we're not nearly out of the home foreclosure woods, and the commercial real estate and consumer credit card default waves are coming.  We're in no position to spend our way out of recession, which will probably mean even more business closures and more job losses.   I don't care how many technical indicators point to recovery, it just doesn't look very good, does it?   I'd say we're on our way to having a lot more poor Americans who are going to get a public option for health care...the hard way. 

Last time things got really bad economically, it took a World War to turn it around.  I don't think we can handle another one, given all the WMDs on the planet these days.   The health care public option will seem small and quaint if we have to weigh the nuclear option.

I know I'm just kind of rambling here, free-associating worries...I'm not trying to a downer, but really, is there a light at the end of the tunnel that you can see?  I want to see one.  Show me the light! 

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An hour before President Obama’s live address to the nation’s K-12 students Tuesday morning, I found out our local school district had decided -- last week -- that the speech would not be shown in any of its K-6, K-8, or middle schools, nor to any High School students not currently taking either American History or American Government.

The school year has been underway since August 17 here in Phoenix’s Deer Valley Unified School District, and several notices have already been sent home with the kids: for school pictures, extra-curricular activities, the inevitable cookie dough fund-raiser, etc. But the DVUSD didn’t see fit to allow or direct its schools to send a note home to all parents informing us ahead of time that it planned to bar most students from hearing the Presidential stay-in-school-and-do-your-best message.

Instead, the district slipped a notice announcing the Presidential snub onto its web site sometime last Thursday.   The notice states that the district would provide advance notice – as in sending a note home, one presumes – but only to the few parents with children at risk for exposure to Obama, i.e., high-school kids taking American History or American Government this semester. This would give these parents a chance to "opt out" from the speech and have their children quarantined in a safe "alternate activity" for as long as it lasted.

Based on comments from a teacher last Wednesday -- before the district acted, as we now know -- my high-schooler hopped out of the mini-van Tuesday morning and headed off to homeroom fully expecting to be watching the President in another hour or so.  Upon returning home from the drop-off, I called my Fifth-Grader’s school office, just to make sure everything was a go on the elementary front. That’s when I found out the DVUSD Administration and Governing Board had decreed that neither of my children would be permitted to hear the President of the United States deliver the speech he prepared for them.  I could read about the decision on-line.

[I’ve cut-and-pasted the DVUSD web site notice below for your viewing displeasure. Read it and weep or shriek. I wanted to do both, and then some.  Sent the perps an email instead.  Also pasted below.]

I note in closing that the DVUSD high school my older child attends plays a recording of The Star Spangled Banner every morning. At the DVUSD K-8 school both my children have attended, the daily morning routine includes closed-circuit TV recitations of the Pledge of Allegiance and the Declaration of Independence, as well as the National Anthem. And yet on Tuesday morning, Sept. 8, 2009, the President of the United States of America was persona non grata in the latter, and mostly persona non grata in the former. The things they teach in school these days, huh?   I’m going to go be depressed now.   Ta-ta from the land of the lost.    --Norm

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https://www.dvusd.org/pages_news_achievements/obama_back_to_school_speech_090309.html

President Barack Obama will address students nationwide on September 8 at 9 a.m.(Arizona time). Deer Valley
School District high school students enrolled in American Government or American History classes may view the
broadcast. Advance notice will be given to parents and an alternate activity provided for students whose parents
choose to opt out of this classroom activity. Students in K-6, K-8, and middle schools will not be viewing the
President’s remarks.

Thoughtful consideration of students, parents, and employees was given in reaching this decision:

• Our primary and ultimate mission is classroom instruction.
• Viewing the President’s remarks should be within the context of curriculum and instruction.
• Traditionally, videos or CD’s and curriculum activities are viewed in advance and approved by the Governing Board.

Parents and children may view the President’s remarks and discuss the work sheet questions together as a family by
viewing the broadcast at www.whitehouse.gov or www.ed.gov.  It is also scheduled to air on CSPAN.
 

Deer Valley Unified School District • 20402 N. 15th Avenue, Phoenix, AZ 85027 • 623.445.5000

Sept. 8, 2009

To the Deer Valley Unified School District Administration and Governing Board:

We are deeply disappointed that our children were denied the opportunity to watch and listen to President Obama’s live address to America’s schoolchildren this morning. We are bothered greatly by the Deer Valley Unified School District Administration and Governing Board’s decision to snub the President and deprive most DVUSD students of the chance to be a part of such a positive educational experience.

The lack of judgment reflected in the decision is appalling and alarming. Barack Obama is not merely the duly-elected leader of the United States of America, he is a shining example of how far a kid can go and what he or she can achieve armed with an education. Yet you decided that a message from this President to the nation’s K-12 students about working hard and staying in school to achieve success in life was not one that should be heard by any DVUSD K-8 student, nor by any DVUSD high school student not studying American History or Government this semester.

We are stunned you decided not to actively notify all parents of your decision beforehand, choosing instead to slip something onto your web site and only providing advance notice to the few parents whose children were eligible to see and hear the speech, for purpose of "opting out". Where was our opportunity to "opt in"?

You have shortchanged our children and placed the Deer Valley Unified School District squarely in the lunatic fringe camp. You can’t re-create the excitement of a live, nationwide Presidential speech, but you can mitigate your embarrassing and shameful mistake by arranging a district-wide re-broadcast for the intended K-12 audience. We sincerely hope you do so, and soon.

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