I HAVE YET TO MASTER THE TECHNIQUE FOR USE OF MICROSOFT WORD PROGRAM, (OFFERING LARGER TYPE FOR MY OLD EYES AND SPELL CHECK), THEN ‘PASTING’ THE THING ONTO THE BLOG. ANG EEDITOR OFFERED HELP BUT HER SUGGESTION FAILS THE TEST. MOVING FROM WORKS TO TO WORD MIGHT HELP, BUT AS AN AGING SKINFLINT IN THESE DAYS OF ECONOMIC DECLINE, IT SEEMS UNWISE……. i WILL VOTE AGAINST THE NOVEMBER BALLOT MEASURE IF THE PREVIOUS SEEMS NEBULOUS ON THAT MATTER.

What Leslie should think about is the lack of a course of teaching, based upon ‘Ethics’ at public schools.

While the Constitution remains one of the world’s great thought processes put to paper. It was not perfect when initially brought forward, ( it ommitted discussion of slavery ),and it remains imperfect today.

There are those who would remove the expression “under God” from our commonly expressed Pledge of Allegiance
at City Council and School Board meetings. There are also those who express desire for removal of the expression “In God we trust” from appearance upon our currency and coinage. Yet I do not recall seeing provision in the Constitution for that recognition of Deity expressed upon currency. I favor continuing the practice if for no othewr reason than the fact it does no harm to sensibilties.

Will that Medical Doctor who also has passed the California Bar exam, living in the Sacramemto area, win out with his thought that his daughter ought not be exposed to thoughts of God within the pledge of Allegiance? I imagine great public uproar will occur when a slim majority siting upon some State Court Bench decrees that it is unconstitutional to mention God within the pledge or upon the currency and coinage.

Do we understand that prior to reaching voting age that very few children receive formal classroon discussion of ethics unless affilliated with a private school and/or “Sunday School” lessons. Civics classes are pretty much restricted to desceription of the mechanics of government and the right to expression in the voting booth.

During Ronald Regan’s term in office he closed much of the State’s Hospitals dealing with Pyschiatric and physical conditions involving the poor. As he did so he made the comment that we ought depend more on ‘Churches’ to meet those problems. I can only wonder if he was implying that if they did a better job of ‘selling religion’ we would also see vast reduction of mental illness.

One fact avoided by Regan and those who think like him is that less than 50% of our citizens are formally affiliated with a church. Recently, Mr. Obama made a similar remark that ‘we must depend more on churches’.

The subject of “vouchers” to those who pay tuition for children attending private schools is a ‘hot button item’ for public school teachers. Teachers commonly see nothing harmful to the public good when taxing private school parents, as a means of support for public schools, where the idea of ‘free’ permeates all thought. Good citizenship is never performed without some cost.

Does the idea of providing an ethics course, taught as such, violate the Constitution which disavows identification with specific faiths? I do not believe that ‘ethics’ espouses any particular religion, rather,a good course expresses values, found in the Constitution and which are broadly drawn from that same source which Churches generally follow i.e. ‘the inspired word of God’. Where those so inspired not teaching ethics?

It is the lack of an ethics course which sees, in the present day, much involvment with teen pregnancy. Teen pregnacy is a subject much discussed even to the extent that use of contraceptives is promulgated as a substitute for deep thought in continuous formal teaching of life style necessary to becoming a responsible voter at age 18.

An acceptable form for conducting ethics classes does not espouse any particular faith but draws from the pool of common knowledge on teachings within most faiths which guide comportmant leading to a more enthisiastic involvment in ‘Civics’ classrooms.

Youngsters living lives of involvment with gangs, graffitti etc, are led to felonious acts and eventual habitat within over crowded prisons. An extremely high oercentage rates of those ‘dropping out’are,in my mind, a direct result of failing to teach ethics continually from an early age.

As to the subject of ‘marriage’ between couples of the same sex, I doubt that ‘marriage’ was the original goal of acquiring the right to inherit, make medical decisions for those disabled by coma, etc. I recall reading of instances where injustice was done to same sex couples because of gaps in the law defending their transfer of proprty rights. If ‘marriage’ resolves those problems without creating additional problems, so be it.

‘Marriage’bewteen couples of the same sex does create some problems which I do not think have been resolved by the Califorbia courta.

In the instance of narriage bewtween two women where one is artificially inseminated, the resultant child is denied knowledge of ‘daddy’ and thus’ serious conflict develops in later life for several reasons which I do not bring into this writing.

In the case of male couples, I question the wisdom of allowing adoption of female children, particularly at infancy; for reasons I leave to imagination.

As to the ballot measure facing us in November, I am presently inclined to vote against it for the simple reason that it does not find full acceptance in all 50 states. Here I again I see problems which will, as one thought, lead to possible congressional discrimination against California; a result of subliminal rather than expressed political ideas suspected ( or thought actually) to exist on a national basis.

Although I have no intention of continuing with this subect I would be interested in reading a response from Leslie or any other teacher on the subject of formal ethics classes within Public Schools system.

J.W. Kyle “argues” we can just tell kids principles in the Constitution are only guaranteed when we can afford them. They come and go, year to year, according to state and local budgets. Democracy is defined by what we can afford.

The paper in those voter ballots for women? Too many, too expensive to print and count.

The paper in those notices about equal rights in law regarding gender, race, age, disability, RELIGION? Cost too much to print and distribute. Moves jobs off-shore.

Revision of history books to reflect changes in any of these laws? Leave them out until the state and local boards have money to print them – here at home.

What an impoverished way of debating.

Dictionaries change over time to reflect the use and understanding of words in a culture and society. With learning augmented today via computer and internet, the change to the definition of “marriage” has already taken place, almost effortlessly for schools.

J.W. Kyle would rather my kids learn the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

No thanks.

In SF, we have the city attempting to run foreign policy; in San Leandro, a city with a serious school dropout problem, the school board decides to focus on state level issues and ignore education.

It doesn’t matter how one feels on the proposition; we need to question why our elected officials use their positions to dabble in issues outside their jurisdiction instead of doing their jobs.

I guess I’ll have to vote for passage of the item in November ! I’m sorry if that disturbs folks in San Leandro but you see, I’m a preservation nut and I do not understand why we will need to toss out all those nice dictionaries so that the children of California can have corrected dictionaries printed, just for use in California’s schools which do not contain those offensive words found in the definition of marriage …

I dare not say the words, I will just refer all those interested in expurgation of Merriam Webster’s assertion on the content of the ballot matter which San Leandro finds degrading to some folks.

Lord, forgive us if we continue to confuse children in same sex unions. But you see lord, California’s budget problem assures us that new dictioaries in lieu of those on shelves in all schools,just isn’t possible at the moment, unless San Francisco’s Mayor with help from the San Leandro Council, can devise something such as a seat use fee for all K-12 public school students, as well as those in State supported Community Colleges and Universities.

Thanks to San Leandro, our need for paper will take another swipe at the forests. On the other hand, it will ensure jobs in Japan where much book printing positions are open to Japamnese printers in need of that work!

The school seat use fee is our only solution !!!