Homestead mailing list

["Lynda" <lurine AT softcom.net>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Gene GeRue" <genegerue AT ruralize.com>
> Walking is a physical skill. Most any primate learns on its own.
> Talking may well be learned without instruction but the result may be
> unnaccepatable. To talk with acceptable grammar we need to either hear
> it or read it or be taught it.
***But they don't need it given to them.  As I said, they need some help or 
guidance.  *Some* being the operative word.
> To what does this relate?
"How shall we do that?"
> Great. What if the parents don't have or can't afford the tools?
***Sorry, the "can't afford" argument carries no weight.  Absolutely 
everything and its uncle is available FREE!  Plus, factor in the amount of 
money it takes to get a kid to school.  New school clothes, transportation, 
meals, supplies.  Just put that money to use in the home.
> All levels of society? Seems to me that parents who make the choice to
> homeschool are above average.
***What?  You seriously think that only the "above average" are successfully 
homeschooling?  And by whose yardstick are you messuring "above average"? 
Sorry, it doesn't take Einstein or a millionaire to homeschool.  It takes 
determination.

> So, just turn them free and believe and hope for the best.
***Not what I said.

> AFTER we have become mature.
>
> I don't find it incomprehensible. I find it questionable that all
> parents can do it successfully.
***Yet you are perfectly comfortable with the public school system which is 
a dismal failure at everything education and only really successful in its 
real goal -- sheople and consumerism.
> How many examples do you need? Walk through any housing project for
> starters. Then walk through the barrios. Then observe the home lives
> of children whose parents are working minimum-wage jobs. All children
> deserve the opportunity to rise above their beginnings.
***O.K., so?  I'm sure at some point when you lived in the Bay Area, you 
must have driven through or by Richmond and Point Richmond.  Would that be 
one of those examples you'd like me to walk through?

Well, surprise, that's where I grew up!  The projects, W. 16th Street, 
Richmond, CA.  Went to Nystrom Elementary.  Biggest elementary school in the 
U.S. in the 50s.  Four city blocks, each building 3 stories, full basements. 
AND, one of the guinea pigs schools of the polio vaccine!

Guards, chainlink fencing.  About 80% black.  Me the lone "red" child who 
was routinely pounded into the ground and called a spic, a wetback and told 
to go back where I came from cause they hadn't a clue what an American 
Indian looked like.  Black hair and a deep tan made me a "greaser."

Three of my aunts and uncles were rounded up by the government and hauled 
off to one of the boarding schools where my uncle was killed by those good 
and kind Shakers.   My grandfather didn't have a high school diploma.  It 
wasn't considered a good use of taxpayers money to allow a heathen in a 
school.  So he worked the woods and then got himself a job on a tramp 
steamer and worked his way up to working for the local millionaire (Carson).

Grampa Charlie walked out of the hills in Tennessee.  Road the rails to 
California.  Taught himself to read.  Worked his tail off in the woods and 
bought a boat and made a pretty good life for himself.

My dad didn't graudate from high school.  He went to Oregon with a phony 
birth certificate to join the Navy and fight in the war.

My mother smoked like a furnace and died from complications of COPD.  She 
was also an alcoholic.  That was her escape from what was done to the kids 
and relatives by the government.

Did we stay in the ghetto?  NO!  Did we have opportunities handed to us on a 
platter?  NO!  We all made our opportunities.

My dad worked his hiney off to get the education to become a regional 
supervisor with P.G. & E.  Being a wise man, he worked there until he had a 
good retirement (well it was until that idiot Wilson screwed him out of it), 
then went on to be the go-to federal electrical trouble-shooter for 
contractors on the West Coast.  He also put in his 20 as a reserve in the 
Navy.  So, he's a triple dipper who owns quite a bit of property.

My mother, with her high school education, became the manager of a string of 
tire shops from Oakland to San Jose and points east.  She became good 
friends with the owners of the A's, the Raiders and quite a few other makers 
and shakers in the Bay Area.

I own property, all my vehicles are paid for, I've traveled almost every 
state, Canada, Mexico, the Bahamas and GB and I've hobnobbed with royality, 
millionaires, movie stars and presidents.

Sorry, Gene, I'm one of *those* people you use as an example of why all 
these programs are needed.  Just ain't so!  It is called free-will!  Making 
choices and personal responsibility.  It is called not buying into the nanny 
state.  It is called not believing the garbage out there that tells people 
they can't.

We need a whole bunch less government and a whole bunch more personal 
responsibility!

Lynda