Talk for First Ward Sacrament Meeting 29 June 2008
Just a few degrees.
Let’s see, degrees are pretty small.
They can’t matter much, can they?
Christopher Columbus sailed from Spain in 1492 without knowing where he was going. When he arrived, he didn’t know where he was. (He was on a tiny island in the Caribbean Sea. He didn’t know from straight up about Caribbean.)
But he had kept detailed written records of all the distances and directions he sailed. He was able to sail back across the trackless “Ocean-Sea” to Spain, right back to the very port where he started.
Furthermore, because he was very careful about each and every degree, Columbus was able to sail those thousands of miles later, again and again, back to that very same tiny island.
President Uchdorf told us in General Conference that in 1979 an airplane headed toward the South Pole for sightseeing was a “mere” two degrees off course. Instead of flying over flat country, it crashed into a mountain that the navigator thought was 28 miles away.
Every single one of the 257 people on board that plane was killed in the wreck.
Two degrees. A mere two degrees.
Fliers might say: “Taking off is OPTIONAL. Landing is MANDATORY.” Attention to degrees will determine WHERE you land – and maybe also whether you live or die.
Elder Uchdorf said a little detail like having your computer right out in the living room instead of in a spare bedroom can steer you right instead of wrong:
You will not be as likely to cave in to the temptation to look at things that you must not look at – if the whole family can see what you see. This detail is very important.
Your moral compass gives you a warning that feels to you like, “Be ready to delete this if anyone turns the doorknob”. It is really saying, “Delete this RIGHT NOW.”
Our Heavenly Father knows what drifts us “a few degrees” off our moral course. “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”
The Atonement, the Commandments and the Holy Ghost are gifts to us so that we “shall not perish, but have everlasting life”. They not only show us the right course; they ARE the right course. They are the Way, the Truth and the Light.
Our Creator said, “Thou shalt not commit adultery” -- but, in addition He said,
“. . . nor do anything like it.” That points our way more precisely.
We might consider that He said, “Thou shalt not steal – nor do anything like it”.
And also, “Thou shalt not bear false witness – nor do anything like it”.
The ancient Mariner’s Compass had only eight degrees, or “points”. Navigators asked for more precision. Directions such as “Southeast by South” were invented.
Then, since there are 365 days in a year, the 360 degree circle was organized, giving us the modern compass.
You outdoor types will have noticed a circle of 6,400 “mils” surrounding the degree scale on your more advanced, more expensive compasses. That is because for certain operations you need more precision.
In the artillery, we need to shoot over the hills and hit targets miles away that we cannot see. We stand two sticks to the left-front of each howitzer. The people who do those calculations read us a “deflection” – and we turn the guns exactly that many mils to the right of those sticks.
That means we could have six cannons in the parking lot here, and they could all fire on the same enemy truck convoy at the same time – on the highway down by the power plant turnoff, or way up past Nelson Rez.
It also means that artillerymen have to believe the tiny voice in their ears – and DO it. (“Deflection: 781. Elevation: 276.”)
YOU also have to listen to the tiny voice in your soul – and believe it -- and OBEY it. (“Don’t DO that. Never mind why. Just DON’T.”)
But your moral compass is not so you can destroy an enemy. It is for your personal uplifting, improvement, protection and education.
Your moral compass just needs enough precision so that you know when you are off course. You might say that The Ten Commandments is a moral compass of ten degrees. Well, sort of.
My late philosopher-uncle, Eliseo Baca, taught us moral direction by pretending to have only a one-point moral compass: “I have faithfully kept one Commandment:
I have never, NEVER, made unto myself a graven image.”
Tattoos may or may not be evil in and of themselves. However, they are a blazing neon sign to the world that the wearer thereof wants everyone to believe he or she recognizes no moral code.
Let’s see: You spend the rent to have an “artist” put into your skin an image of a grinning skull with a knife in one eye and a rattlesnake slithering out of the other.
Then you go to your sweet intended’s father and ask for her hand in marriage, proclaiming your pure and honorable intentions.
N-a-a-a-a-a-a-ah!
Those beautiful pornographic pictures -- BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! You’re going the wrong way! You’re trading away your entire future happiness to fall in love with PICTURES.
Maybe your beliefs are only a few degrees different from the Church, but you’re headed for the fever swamps of heresy, false doctrine and apostasy.
Maybe your cravings are only a few degrees the wrong way, but you’re headed for life-long destructive addictions to tobacco, alcohol, chemicals and narcotics.
Maybe you are only a few degrees off of honesty, but you’re headed for a life of pilferage, theft, embezzlement, dishonesty, shame and guilt – with maybe some prison time thrown in for good measure.
Maybe only a few degrees off chastity, but you’re headed for divorce to live with someone who is headed for divorce in order to live with you.
You know what you get when you get someone who commits adultery with you? You get someone who commits adultery AGAINST you.
With any luck, who knows: You could even get yourself murdered.
Maybe only a few degrees the wrong way, but if you don’t repent, at the Last Judgment you will be among those praying for the rocks and the mountains to fall on you.
And rather than happily going to face your Maker, you will sneak off where you think you can hide from Him. You and your evil buddies will meet as far from God as y’all are able to get.
You will laughingly call your new residence “Hell, Incorporated” -- and stay there forever, of your own free will and choice, congratulating each other on how clever y’all are to be able to hide from God.
You start out making all efforts to be citizens of the Kingdom of God, and you bend your course by just a degree or two – and you end up separated from Him, and even, like Adam, trying to hide from Him.
Ships, planes and hikers correct their courses. You can do that, too. It is called “repentance”. It is made possible by Jesus Christ, and is called the Atonement.
There’s a lot more to this, but believing in Jesus and repenting are the first two course-corrections one can make. They are also the first two principles of the Everlasting Gospel.
Brothers and Sisters, you are saved by the Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus accomplished this for all of us at four in the afternoon on Friday, the fourth of April, in the year 34, on a rocky hill just outside the walls of Jerusalem.
It’s a done-deal. The devil cannot “un-save” you.
But he can wreck you. He can ruin you forever.
He can lure you onto the rocks, if you let him drift you off course just a degree or two.
In the Holy Name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
The idiocy of hating "the Jews"
Hating “the Jews”
Letter to the editor;
Three times in years past, men have come to my home to convert me to the proposition that I really should dedicate all my time, effort and money to hating “the Jews”. Each of these men said with missionary zeal that “the Jews” killed Jesus, and that their descendants are the blasphemous enemies of Christ.
What does the Bible say about going to all that trouble to hate “the Jews”?
My Bible says Jesus was Himself a Jew. His mother and step-father were Jews.
His brothers and sisters were Jews. His friends and neighbors were Jews.
When Jesus worked with his step-dad, their suppliers and customers were Jews.
When Jesus began his ministry, He went to a Jew to be baptized.
His Apostles and disciples were Jews. His hearers and hecklers were Jews.
Except for that lone Samaritan, all the characters in His parables were Jews.
Except for that Phoenician woman (and one leper) all those He healed were Jews.
When Jesus rode into Jerusalem, untold thousands of Jews threw Him a parade. They lay their coats down for Him to ride over. They called Him the Son of David. They did their best to make Him King. (Who knows? Maybe they DID.)
The faction of Jews that arranged His death was so small and powerless that it had to act in the dark, by stealth and treachery, and hold an unlawful night “trial” in order to have a “case” to present to Pontius Pilate first thing in the morning – before the word got out and thousands of Jews would come to rescue Jesus.
No. I don’t find grounds in the Christian Bible to hate Jews. In fact, Saint Paul (who wrote most of the New Testament) said it is his highest hope that Israel might be saved. Yes, the Bible has hard words for certain Jews, but it does not teach us to hate Jews in general.
Glenn Jacobs
Eagar, Arizona
Letter to the editor;
Three times in years past, men have come to my home to convert me to the proposition that I really should dedicate all my time, effort and money to hating “the Jews”. Each of these men said with missionary zeal that “the Jews” killed Jesus, and that their descendants are the blasphemous enemies of Christ.
What does the Bible say about going to all that trouble to hate “the Jews”?
My Bible says Jesus was Himself a Jew. His mother and step-father were Jews.
His brothers and sisters were Jews. His friends and neighbors were Jews.
When Jesus worked with his step-dad, their suppliers and customers were Jews.
When Jesus began his ministry, He went to a Jew to be baptized.
His Apostles and disciples were Jews. His hearers and hecklers were Jews.
Except for that lone Samaritan, all the characters in His parables were Jews.
Except for that Phoenician woman (and one leper) all those He healed were Jews.
When Jesus rode into Jerusalem, untold thousands of Jews threw Him a parade. They lay their coats down for Him to ride over. They called Him the Son of David. They did their best to make Him King. (Who knows? Maybe they DID.)
The faction of Jews that arranged His death was so small and powerless that it had to act in the dark, by stealth and treachery, and hold an unlawful night “trial” in order to have a “case” to present to Pontius Pilate first thing in the morning – before the word got out and thousands of Jews would come to rescue Jesus.
No. I don’t find grounds in the Christian Bible to hate Jews. In fact, Saint Paul (who wrote most of the New Testament) said it is his highest hope that Israel might be saved. Yes, the Bible has hard words for certain Jews, but it does not teach us to hate Jews in general.
Glenn Jacobs
Eagar, Arizona
The mechanics of conspiracy theories
T H E O P I N I O N P A P E R glenn3@frontiernet.net
Glenn Jacobs / 130 N. Poverty Flat / Box 954 / Eagar, Arizona 85925 / 928-333-3517
Permission is granted to edit, print and/or broadcast these weekly polemical essays.
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Mechanics of conspiracy theory
Letter to the editor;
Five seconds after the second plane hit, many government people thought, “Oh. The Right Wing Extremists are certainly going to blame the government for this.”
As if on cue, without a scrap of evidence, we Right Wing Extremists blamed the government.
This shows the polarized American “Them” and “Us” mindset. Circle the wagons!
Then, very shortly, without a scrap of evidence, the government makes a statement; a ridiculous, physically-impossible fairy-tale.
About that time, ten million Right Wing Extremists make ten million conflicting statements, giving as proof the fact that the government is sticking to its version.
Government people hear that we Right Wing Extremists are indeed accusing the government. As far as they are concerned, to accuse the government is almost as dangerous as to “disrupt the Space-Time Continuum”.
Government people go to great lengths to destroy evidence in an effort to protect the government – just in case. They are not in on any conspiracy. It’s just how they do.
We Right Wing Extremists say destroying evidence proves that the government people know the government did it. (It actually proves nothing. That’s just how instinctively protective of government those government people are.)
Government people say the fact that ten million Right Wing Extremists have ten million different Conspiracy Theories proves that we are evil, crazy or both.
Then, to confound things, many, many absolutely impossible Conspiracy Theories are invented (in the Government Conspiracy Theory Workshop? In tiny, garage-based private conspiracy theory workshops?) in order to discredit all Conspiracy Theories. (You wondered where all that amazing footage came from showing strange, altered, unknown aircraft and missiles hitting those buildings?)
(I say there was no conspiracy at all. One lone “mad scientist” type wired the buildings and flew the planes to their destruction by remote control. All by himself.)
Glenn Jacobs / Eagar, Arizona
Glenn Jacobs / 130 N. Poverty Flat / Box 954 / Eagar, Arizona 85925 / 928-333-3517
Permission is granted to edit, print and/or broadcast these weekly polemical essays.
(To subscribe -- for yourself or a friend – or to unsubscribe – send the e-address.)
Mechanics of conspiracy theory
Letter to the editor;
Five seconds after the second plane hit, many government people thought, “Oh. The Right Wing Extremists are certainly going to blame the government for this.”
As if on cue, without a scrap of evidence, we Right Wing Extremists blamed the government.
This shows the polarized American “Them” and “Us” mindset. Circle the wagons!
Then, very shortly, without a scrap of evidence, the government makes a statement; a ridiculous, physically-impossible fairy-tale.
About that time, ten million Right Wing Extremists make ten million conflicting statements, giving as proof the fact that the government is sticking to its version.
Government people hear that we Right Wing Extremists are indeed accusing the government. As far as they are concerned, to accuse the government is almost as dangerous as to “disrupt the Space-Time Continuum”.
Government people go to great lengths to destroy evidence in an effort to protect the government – just in case. They are not in on any conspiracy. It’s just how they do.
We Right Wing Extremists say destroying evidence proves that the government people know the government did it. (It actually proves nothing. That’s just how instinctively protective of government those government people are.)
Government people say the fact that ten million Right Wing Extremists have ten million different Conspiracy Theories proves that we are evil, crazy or both.
Then, to confound things, many, many absolutely impossible Conspiracy Theories are invented (in the Government Conspiracy Theory Workshop? In tiny, garage-based private conspiracy theory workshops?) in order to discredit all Conspiracy Theories. (You wondered where all that amazing footage came from showing strange, altered, unknown aircraft and missiles hitting those buildings?)
(I say there was no conspiracy at all. One lone “mad scientist” type wired the buildings and flew the planes to their destruction by remote control. All by himself.)
Glenn Jacobs / Eagar, Arizona
Friday, June 20, 2008
Violence and counter-violence
On violence
Letter to the editor;
“Violence does not solve everything.” (Authentic American proverb)
“Have we been told that ‘violence does not solve everything’ so often that we have come to believe that violence does not solve anything?” (The late Col. Jeff Cooper)
Generally, when no violence is offered, it is not a good thing to commit violence.
Generally, one must not commit violence. That is, if some “really bad dude” is saying bad words and moving in a manner suggestive of evil intentions, the best thing to do is to watch and wait.
However, if the bad guy goes from mere rhetoric to hurting people, it might be a good idea to hit him with a fist or a ball-bat or something. If he is killing people or making a really convincing show that he will kill someone in a second or two, it may be time “to initiate deadly force” – or maybe even shoot him.
The Arizona Legislature made it possible for responsible residents with clean records to carry concealed weapons: You and your predecessors knew violence.
Violence happens fairly often at schools. Mostly it is stopped by a school employee stepping in and saying words to the students involved.
But there is a kind of school violence that is beyond stopping with words and gestures. There is the dreaded “school-shooter,” who, driven by inner demons, comes prepared to kill as many children as possible. It takes the threat of deadly force, or perhaps even deadly force itself to stop such a disturbed man.
The fastest police force may be able to get there in a minute. (How many children will a school-shooter kill in a minute?) But every school can have a great number of responsible adults with guns in their hands IN ONE SECOND.
I recommend that the Arizona Legislature act to encourage Arizona schools to welcome those who have earned the Concealed Weapons Permit to carry their weapons on the school grounds – especially school employees.
Glenn Jacobs
Eagar, Arizona
Letter to the editor;
“Violence does not solve everything.” (Authentic American proverb)
“Have we been told that ‘violence does not solve everything’ so often that we have come to believe that violence does not solve anything?” (The late Col. Jeff Cooper)
Generally, when no violence is offered, it is not a good thing to commit violence.
Generally, one must not commit violence. That is, if some “really bad dude” is saying bad words and moving in a manner suggestive of evil intentions, the best thing to do is to watch and wait.
However, if the bad guy goes from mere rhetoric to hurting people, it might be a good idea to hit him with a fist or a ball-bat or something. If he is killing people or making a really convincing show that he will kill someone in a second or two, it may be time “to initiate deadly force” – or maybe even shoot him.
The Arizona Legislature made it possible for responsible residents with clean records to carry concealed weapons: You and your predecessors knew violence.
Violence happens fairly often at schools. Mostly it is stopped by a school employee stepping in and saying words to the students involved.
But there is a kind of school violence that is beyond stopping with words and gestures. There is the dreaded “school-shooter,” who, driven by inner demons, comes prepared to kill as many children as possible. It takes the threat of deadly force, or perhaps even deadly force itself to stop such a disturbed man.
The fastest police force may be able to get there in a minute. (How many children will a school-shooter kill in a minute?) But every school can have a great number of responsible adults with guns in their hands IN ONE SECOND.
I recommend that the Arizona Legislature act to encourage Arizona schools to welcome those who have earned the Concealed Weapons Permit to carry their weapons on the school grounds – especially school employees.
Glenn Jacobs
Eagar, Arizona
The "logic" of "Liberalism"
T H E O P I N I O N P A P E R glenn3@frontiernet.net
Glenn Jacobs / 130 N. Poverty Flat / Box 954 / Eagar, Arizona 85925 / 928-333-3517
Permission is granted to edit, print and/or broadcast these weekly polemical essays.
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Spoofing “Liberalism”
Letter to the editor;
LIBERAL: We need a giant government program to make war on illiteracy.
ME: “War . . . ”?!
LIBERAL: Certainly. We can put a tax on books and newspapers and use the money to fund a National Literacy Agency with local headquarters in each . . .
ME: How about just teaching children the sounds of letters and lending them interesting reading material?
LIBERAL: “Sounds”?! Phonics?! You troglodyte! Phonics has been discredited in a thousand studies. Why, California outlawed phonics forty years ago! Whole-word recognition is the modern way to go.
ME: We all read by whole-word recognition – after we get to recognize a word. A few hours’ study of the sounds of letters and letter-combinations gives a child the ability to “sound-out” an unfamiliar word. English is not all that phonetic, but most words can be sounded out, and even a child can learn the sounds and the principles.
LIBERAL (changing the subject): And you probably carry a gun, too.
ME: Certainly. Does that disqualify me from the human race?
LIBERAL: Uncivilized! Uncouth! Murderer! Do you think this is the Wild West?
ME: None of the above. What’s your point?
LIBERAL: People in a proper civilized society shouldn’t have to worry about guns.
ME: People in a proper civilized society shouldn’t have to worry about kitchen fires, either, but I see that you keep a fire extinguisher by each door.
LIBERAL (changing the subject again): And you’re a Sunday-school teacher!
Glenn Jacobs
Eagar, Arizona
Glenn Jacobs / 130 N. Poverty Flat / Box 954 / Eagar, Arizona 85925 / 928-333-3517
Permission is granted to edit, print and/or broadcast these weekly polemical essays.
(To subscribe -- for yourself or a friend – or to unsubscribe – send the e-address.)
Spoofing “Liberalism”
Letter to the editor;
LIBERAL: We need a giant government program to make war on illiteracy.
ME: “War . . . ”?!
LIBERAL: Certainly. We can put a tax on books and newspapers and use the money to fund a National Literacy Agency with local headquarters in each . . .
ME: How about just teaching children the sounds of letters and lending them interesting reading material?
LIBERAL: “Sounds”?! Phonics?! You troglodyte! Phonics has been discredited in a thousand studies. Why, California outlawed phonics forty years ago! Whole-word recognition is the modern way to go.
ME: We all read by whole-word recognition – after we get to recognize a word. A few hours’ study of the sounds of letters and letter-combinations gives a child the ability to “sound-out” an unfamiliar word. English is not all that phonetic, but most words can be sounded out, and even a child can learn the sounds and the principles.
LIBERAL (changing the subject): And you probably carry a gun, too.
ME: Certainly. Does that disqualify me from the human race?
LIBERAL: Uncivilized! Uncouth! Murderer! Do you think this is the Wild West?
ME: None of the above. What’s your point?
LIBERAL: People in a proper civilized society shouldn’t have to worry about guns.
ME: People in a proper civilized society shouldn’t have to worry about kitchen fires, either, but I see that you keep a fire extinguisher by each door.
LIBERAL (changing the subject again): And you’re a Sunday-school teacher!
Glenn Jacobs
Eagar, Arizona
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Home production of food
T H E O P I N I O N P A P E R glenn3@frontiernet.net
Glenn Jacobs / 130 N. Poverty Flat / Box 954 / Eagar, Arizona 85925 / 928-333-3517
Permission is granted to edit, print and/or broadcast these weekly polemical essays.
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Victory gardens
Letter to the editor;
Anybody remember the yard-gardens during World War Two? (Slogan: “We will win the war with food!”) Many American women took part in the war by digging up their lawns and planting corn and peas and beans and squash from the street to the front door. (Others worked long hours at defense plants.)
Every bushel of produce they grew potentially released truck-and-tractor fuel from the farms to the battle front. Every door-garden potentially released farm-raised food to feed the troops. Every dollar not spent at the grocery stores was potentially available to buy war bonds to finance the war.
We have a different sort of war going on now, and we cannot even tell who the enemy is. There does not seem to be trouble feeding the fighters. But somehow that I cannot tell, this war is tangled up with the constantly rising prices of food and fuel. We may need to follow the sterling example of out mothers and grandmothers, raising a significant part of our food right on our private premises.
Every dollar we don’t spend on commercial groceries is at least potentially available toward paying off our obscene credit card debts. Every trip we don’t make to the store is a gallon or a quart of gasoline not bought and burned. And, who knows? It might even benefit our children and grandchildren to bring food into existence from earth, water, seeds and labor.
Glenn Jacobs
Eagar, Arizona
Glenn Jacobs / 130 N. Poverty Flat / Box 954 / Eagar, Arizona 85925 / 928-333-3517
Permission is granted to edit, print and/or broadcast these weekly polemical essays.
(To subscribe -- for yourself or a friend – or to unsubscribe – send the e-address.)
Victory gardens
Letter to the editor;
Anybody remember the yard-gardens during World War Two? (Slogan: “We will win the war with food!”) Many American women took part in the war by digging up their lawns and planting corn and peas and beans and squash from the street to the front door. (Others worked long hours at defense plants.)
Every bushel of produce they grew potentially released truck-and-tractor fuel from the farms to the battle front. Every door-garden potentially released farm-raised food to feed the troops. Every dollar not spent at the grocery stores was potentially available to buy war bonds to finance the war.
We have a different sort of war going on now, and we cannot even tell who the enemy is. There does not seem to be trouble feeding the fighters. But somehow that I cannot tell, this war is tangled up with the constantly rising prices of food and fuel. We may need to follow the sterling example of out mothers and grandmothers, raising a significant part of our food right on our private premises.
Every dollar we don’t spend on commercial groceries is at least potentially available toward paying off our obscene credit card debts. Every trip we don’t make to the store is a gallon or a quart of gasoline not bought and burned. And, who knows? It might even benefit our children and grandchildren to bring food into existence from earth, water, seeds and labor.
Glenn Jacobs
Eagar, Arizona
When reading hurts
T H E O P I N I O N P A P E R glenn3@frontiernet.net
Glenn Jacobs / 130 N. Poverty Flat / Box 954 / Eagar, Arizona 85925 / 928-333-3517
Permission is granted to edit, print and/or broadcast these weekly polemical essays.
(To subscribe -- for yourself or a friend – or to unsubscribe – send the e-address.)
Dis-education
Letter to the editor;
The most basic part of education is to learn to read. Reading is the key to a lifetime of self-education and enjoyment. What a shock it was, therefore, to hear that there exists a scientific method to teach school-children to dislike reading.
Aldus Huxley’s memorable book, Brave New World, depicts giving selected children electrical shocks when they touched beautiful, bright, illustrated books. The idea was to keep them from being attracted to books, getting educated on their own and therefore becoming unsatisfied with their assigned low-grade lot in life.
We can only speculate on what evil motives and/or stupidity might drive modern American school administrators to purchase “readers” deliberately designed to inflict emotional pain on children who read them.
Remember the “readers” of generations a-gone, with illustrated stories of pioneer families, victorious children, brave and assertive children, and young inventors?
The sad news I hear now is that these have been replaced to some degree by pitiful stories of losers, mocked and discouraged and forever failing in valueless endeavors. The stories are especially hard on children who make an individual effort on self-chosen projects.
The suspicion is that such emotional pain is inflicted deliberately on children who read this stuff so that they quit reading – except when forced to read by overwhelming authority. That is, they would not read for fun or information or inspiration.
Now, someone is going to respond that, why, um, these stories are furnished to prepare children for modern life. What? Prepare them for un-ending failure? How about a few shining examples to prepare them to detect problems, make corrections, push forward despite the obstacles, and succeed?
There are thousands of really good children’s books available. They can be borrowed for free from libraries or purchased outright. There is no reason to inflict emotional pain on children because of the choices of “educational” bureaucrats.
Glenn Jacobs
Eagar, Arizona
Glenn Jacobs / 130 N. Poverty Flat / Box 954 / Eagar, Arizona 85925 / 928-333-3517
Permission is granted to edit, print and/or broadcast these weekly polemical essays.
(To subscribe -- for yourself or a friend – or to unsubscribe – send the e-address.)
Dis-education
Letter to the editor;
The most basic part of education is to learn to read. Reading is the key to a lifetime of self-education and enjoyment. What a shock it was, therefore, to hear that there exists a scientific method to teach school-children to dislike reading.
Aldus Huxley’s memorable book, Brave New World, depicts giving selected children electrical shocks when they touched beautiful, bright, illustrated books. The idea was to keep them from being attracted to books, getting educated on their own and therefore becoming unsatisfied with their assigned low-grade lot in life.
We can only speculate on what evil motives and/or stupidity might drive modern American school administrators to purchase “readers” deliberately designed to inflict emotional pain on children who read them.
Remember the “readers” of generations a-gone, with illustrated stories of pioneer families, victorious children, brave and assertive children, and young inventors?
The sad news I hear now is that these have been replaced to some degree by pitiful stories of losers, mocked and discouraged and forever failing in valueless endeavors. The stories are especially hard on children who make an individual effort on self-chosen projects.
The suspicion is that such emotional pain is inflicted deliberately on children who read this stuff so that they quit reading – except when forced to read by overwhelming authority. That is, they would not read for fun or information or inspiration.
Now, someone is going to respond that, why, um, these stories are furnished to prepare children for modern life. What? Prepare them for un-ending failure? How about a few shining examples to prepare them to detect problems, make corrections, push forward despite the obstacles, and succeed?
There are thousands of really good children’s books available. They can be borrowed for free from libraries or purchased outright. There is no reason to inflict emotional pain on children because of the choices of “educational” bureaucrats.
Glenn Jacobs
Eagar, Arizona
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