The State of Texas, in its infinitely unique shit-kicker wisdom, has opted to drive its youth back to the Middle Ages, or it would drive them if it believed there actually were Middle Ages and if it had any idea when those Ages occurred.  (Does anyone else marvel at a State that proudly represents itself as the Lone Star, you know, like a hotel or restaurant that no one would go to?)  If their intention of rewriting public school history books is to widen the developmental gene pool to fester the creation of more W’s or Dr. Phil’s…well done!  For the rest of us, who have a choice not to interact with such nonsense, it would seem that we could chose to keep our children properly informed.  Not so fast, Buckeroo!  The commitment to education in the United States has been in free fall for years and the eyes of Texas are on us all.  Texas prints most of the public school books for the rest of the country and, in the latest editions, has conveniently reinterpreted history, offering creationism as fact, slavery as fiction and deep fried anything as nutritionally yummy.  The ‘new wisdom’ is already being disseminated to appear in a classroom near you.

Of all the woes we face in this country, there is none more hazardous to our existence than the lack of vibrant, equitable, public education.  The fact that it has become a matter of privilege and subject to the whims of states like Texas, speak volumes, (which must be spoken because they can’t be read), to our violent culture, our low global standing in math and science, and increasingly, our inability to appeal logically to the masses.

There are certainly exceptions, but those are more and more the result of parents and neighborhoods taking matters into their own hands.  We need to Nationally raise the bar.  A ‘smarter’ nation would have begun the transition to sustainable energy in the 70‘s after standing in odd/even lines for hours to fill our tanks.  We would have already developed the technologies that would have minimized Global Warming, (sorry, Texas, you won’t know what I’m talking about), eliminated oil dependency, (no Al Qaeda, no oil spills), made us healthier, flown us to Mars, (where we could be sipping little green martinis at my chain of Mars Bars®), and allowed us to represent the greatest experiment in human governance as it was intended rather than the bullshit, greedy, stupid mess we’ve become.  Whatever became of being embarrassed to wear a dunce cap?