“If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop diggin'.

If you live in or near Sacramento, you just haf’ta be aware of the protestors at the Capital. Teachers ‘n students, all brought t’gether by union hacks to scream about the budget cuts. They interviewed a middle-aged teacher who certainly should have known better but who bragged about spending a night in gaol...’n it’s all about budget cuts ‘cuz there ain’t enuff money to go around... I swear t’Gawd, there just ain’t enuff money in the whole damn world to make t’days schools better...

Once upon a time, a very long time ago when the world was new, well when it was new for me anyway, teachers were underpaid but highly appreciated... They had standing in their communities, they were respected, their words carried weight....civic leaders sought them out, asked their advice...maybe didn’t follow their advice, civic leaders seldom ever actually lead, mostly they try to get in front of any parade so that spectators will think they’re actually leading.....well, heck....that’s the nature of politicians everywhere..sort’a bred in the bone, y’might say....

Now, I’m not saying that teachers back then didn’t sometimes teach things that weren’t exactly true...I recall when I was a boy, they taught about ancient mankind...Neanderthal Man, Cro Magnon Man and my all-time favorite, Piltsdown Man....Except Piltsdown man was a hoax...It was proven to be a hoax within a few weeks of it’s somewhat fanciful discovery,,,by that time, however, it had already made it into the newspapers ‘n it took a couple months for a retraction to make it into the ‘news’ media....’n guess what....that was sufficient time for the Piltsdown Man to find his way into the history books...’n there it stayed...for a lot of years..the hoax took place, I think, around 1947 ‘n it was still being taught as fact in 1955. Ah well, stuff happens!

There were far worse things that were taught (or not taught, which was more often)...State-sponsored historians routinely whitewashed historical events... for example, under Woodrow Wilson, school history books excluded almost all the contributions of African Americans in the building of the United States....they also left out most references to the genocide directed at aboriginal Americans...and government sponsored military action (expressly forbidden under the Constitution) against union personnel. Rather like air-brushing models ‘n movie stars t’day...we air-brushed the warts out of our history....Not a new thing, y’understand, all countries routinely do the same thing ‘n they all use the same excuse, “History is written by the winners.”..

Unfortunately, we humans never seem to learn from hist’ry...