Herman Badillo's American Dream

Herman Badillo, the first Puerto Rico born U.S. congressman, is simply sounding to the hispanic community the same cry that Bill Cosby raised in the black community a few years ago. You have to rise up and take responsibility for climbing out of poverty.

This reminds me of a book I read on treating the chronically mentally ill. It advised social workers to listen to us and not always just assume that everything we said was just more evidence of whatever disturbance they'd diagnosed us with. From this article, Stalled in America in http://www.opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=110009450, it sounds like hispanics and others are getting the same treatment by overworked social workers. Social workers like to pigeonhole people. That can be helpful for getting us help, but it's a model that doesn't allow for growth. I imagine that it is those same workers, with lots of education, but little idea for what actually works that are influencing educational policy that Mr. Badillo objects to. Social workers are not bad. To some extent, I think we need to listen to them more. But, "you shall know them by their fruits." Take advice from social workers in the trenches that you see honestly making changes and advocating for their clients, not from silly lobbyists.

Gettin' Whooped

Well, I'm a Republican; and we got whooped pretty soundly last election. I guess, though I voted a pretty straight Republican ticket, I wasn't really that concerned about winning. It just seems like we already said what we had to say. There is a quiet-spoken moral majority that will vote as a block when it, like a sleeping giant, is aroused. It is not fooled by pretenders with bright smiles and false words. We're not stupid. We've seen salesmen before. We are less concerned with how slick someone seems on camera than how genuine he seems, how true. Not a pretense at "Aw, shucks," folksy charm, a sense that there's something true about a person. We'll be true to such a man through a lot of mistakes.

We're begging for an honest to goodness LEADER, not just another politician. A Churchill would be nice, but we'll take whatever genuine leadership we can find. We are a country of fatherless children and husbandless wives and men who want a strong example set for them. That is as important as all the politics in the world. Bureaucrats run the country. We need a strong father figure to lead the country. Does that sound really wacked out? Am I just bein' nutty 'cause it's too early in the morning to be talkin' politics?