Teaching

I used to think that teaching was an easy job until I did it.  Even without the threat of death, teachers face a formidable job.  They must engage each of their students on a moment-by-moment basis throughout the day.  While this is not a life-ending engagement, it is every bit as difficult to accomplish academically and psychologically, and occasionally just as terrifying.  Students bring their psychological problems into the classroom: bus or schoolyard fights, jealousies, home problems, resistance to education, prior failures or successes; racial, sexual or personal prejudices; anger, malice and rages or loves and crushes; unfinished homework; supported or unsupported study environment, etc.  Throughout the entire day, the teacher must engage all of these at the same time with several children at once and deliver an education package.  Then, they get to go home and grade papers.  Some teachers must also teach evening classes in sports and athletics: it’s called coaching.  Teachers have little time for their own families.  Teachers are grossly underappreciated, under respected, undervalued, and definitely underpaid.  Teachers accomplish all these undefined tasks while being self-administered and self-supervised.  They are highly trained professionals who know how to do their jobs, mostly by themselves.

 

The abuses in the system lie in the field of administration.  Much administration is simply unnecessary.  Much of it is also misguided.  Administrators pontificate about the job, but don’t have to do it.  Top-level administrators, the kind that spew out national-level education policy statements and theory, cannot know what they’re talking about; they are full of hot air.  Yet these administrators decide which books are used, what test standards are, tell us what good education is, and otherwise manipulate the education system.  Even at the principal level, it is relatively simple for an administrator to fire a teacher, in spite of union and other opposition.  Several of these do-nothing-constructive administrators are paid salaries in the multiple-millions of dollars.  They simply are unnecessary to a well-ordered education system, and equally unworthy of their wages.  Fire them all except for the local school principal.  Retain an administrative secretarial staff at secretarial wages to handle the paperwork.  Remove the power of principals to hire or fire and put it into the hands of a local teacher’s board established from the tenured teachers within the local school with outside members chosen from the PTA, the principal can serve as ex-officio chair.  Administrators are frequently the greedy moochers at the public trough, part of the problem, rather than part of the solution.

 

Fundamental to the education problem is that utopian dream of many Americans that this problem should be fixed at the national level.  That idea is simply insane.  It is a tactical problem, not a strategic problem, and it needs to be resolved at the tactical level.  A strategic commander who overrides a tactical commander is a colossal fool, who needs to be eliminated from the system.  The focus of the problem is engagement of students within the classroom.  The teacher is the on-scene tactical commander.  The problem cannot be fixed at the national, state, county, or even large community level.  The problem must be fixed at the classroom level.  We do this by hiring good teachers locally, by putting the books and tools they want and need into their hands, by insisting that they engage, and by helping, supporting them in every way possible.  Give the local teachers the pay and respect they deserve.

 

When schools fail, it is a local community issue.  If your school failed, it’s your fault.  Are you, as a parent, engaging and supporting your children’s teachers sufficiently?  Are you, as a teacher, engaging and supporting your children’s parents sufficiently?  Are we, as a local community, really engaging and supporting one another sufficiently?  Or, are we just going about business as usual?  It’s a village team effort.  Don’t look to Uncle Sam to fix it, he doesn’t know how.

Is Bethlehem Ready?

I just have to repost this.  It says what needs to be said.

Is Bethlehem Ready?

I am certainly not the only one who was more deeply moved than usual at the Christmas pageant this year.

 The faces of the young angels dressed in white and the fake-bearded shepherds seemed especially vulnerable and innocent. Those precious faces will surely elicit from any sensitive heart a great sigh of grief for the families of Sandy Hook Elementary School whose children were slain last Friday. That someone would slaughter such helpless children is unthinkable.

"Where was God?" It is a question that has been asked times past numbering, rising as it does out man's encounters with such evil. It surely arose long ago in Bethlehem, when soldiers carrying out the orders of Herod slaughtered the Holy Innocents. To us was born a Savior, but did it have to cost the lives of the infants of Bethlehem? Could there be no warning dream to the parents of these children? Bethlehem "makes ready" for Emmanuel, but for Herod, too?

It seems the answers to such questions remain opaque; the best we can do is respond simply with the word of the Christmas Gospel. Where was God in Bethlehem? He was speechless, lying in a Manger. Where was God when Herod's men came? He was held in the arms of his mother while they escaped Herod's soldiers by fleeing to Egypt.

Yes, he escaped for a reason. Years later he was scourged and nailed to a cross on Calvary; his body was placed in a new tomb. His mother, who saw him safely into Egypt, stood weeping at Golgotha. After the Sabbath, the women disciples made their way to God's grave on Easter morning, broken-hearted and without hope.

Yet this God, also a man, rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. Moreover, he has promised to be with us to the end of age. And so he is, in the breaking of the Bread. For we shall find God Incarnate when we come to be fed by him, the Bread of Life. He is the One whom the shepherds found in the feeding trough (manger) of Bethlehem, the "House of Bread."

The families of Newtown must bear their grief in ways most of us cannot grasp, mourning as did the bereaved parents of Herod's Bethlehem and as countless others over the course of centuries. To those who grieve, who feel what they take to be the absence of God, the Lord says, "This is my body, broken for you. Take, eat." We can become like children, comforted by being fed.

Thousands of young angels will continue to sing in their pageants and little robed shepherds will march to the manger to see Emmanuel, wrapped in swaddling cloths. As we ponder their sweet faces, our hearts should be troubled to think of anyone doing violence to any child, anywhere, at any time. Alas, our world has grown hardened to such love.

Like the myrrh-bearing women, on their grief-shrouded mission to the tomb, we must bear the weight of earthly sorrow and simply do what love and devotion demand of us. Our hearts break, but in their breaking we discover a path to another world where joy heals the broken heart and love wipes away every tear. We have heard the voice of the angel, greeting us with living words like lightning, "He is not here; he is risen. Come, and behold the place."

"Make ready, O Bethlehem; for Eden hath been opened for all. Prepare, O Ephratha; for the Tree of Life hath blossomed forth in the cave from the Virgin. For her womb did appear as a supernatural paradise, in which is planted the Divine Plant, whereof eating we shall live and not die as Adam. Verily, Christ shall be born, raising the image that fell of old." (Orthodox Hymn, Prefeast of the Nativity)

James M. Kushiner,
Executive Director, Fellowship of St. James

Suffering

We weep with those who weep.  In Christ, their sorrow is our sorrow, their suffering our suffering, as God provides, their joy will be our joy.  We look with thanksgiving to Almighty God who heals all our wounds, and comforts all our sadness.

“Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord.”

I pray to Almighty God that the lost sheep of this world might find Christ & live eternal, joyous, peace filled lives. Amen

Luther

Trust is such a strong word.  I don’t always trust what Luther says, he is an error prone human.  But, I always admire and respect what he has to say because I know that he is a pastor surrounded by death.  So yes, even when he makes a rare mistake, I’m confident that he knows about what he’s talking.  He is the real deal.

Soliloquies

“A good name is better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of one's birth.  It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart.  Sorrow is better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better.  The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning....”  Ecclesiastes 7:1-4

 

When driving in traffic on a high-speed interstate road, it is a good idea to look ahead to see where we are going, and to plan ahead to make the trip less tedious.  After incarnation comes crucifixion, but after crucifixion come resurrection, life, and victory.

Daniel's Gloves

Some stories are just too good not to pass along.  Here is one that qualifies.  It came via e-mail.  Sadly, the author was not identified.

Daniel's Gloves

I sat, with two friends, in the picture window of a quaint restaurant just off the corner of the town-square.  The food and the company were both especially good that day.  As we talked, my attention was drawn outside, across the street.  There, walking into town, was a man who appeared to be carrying all his worldly goods on his back.  He was carrying, a well-worn sign that read, 'I will work for food.'  My heart sank.

I brought him to the attention of my friends and noticed that others around us had stopped eating to focus on him.  Heads moved in a mixture of sadness and disbelief.  We continued with our meal, but his image lingered in my mind.  We finished our meal and went our separate ways.

I had errands to do and quickly set out to accomplish them.  I glanced toward the town square, looking somewhat halfheartedly for the strange visitor.  I was fearful, knowing that seeing him again would call some response.  I drove through town and saw nothing of him.  I made some purchases at a store and got back in my car.  Deep within me, the Spirit of God kept speaking to me: 'Don't go back to the office until you've at least driven once more around the square.'

Then with some hesitancy, I headed back into town.  As I turned the square's third corner, I saw him.  He was standing on the steps of the storefront church, going through his sack.  I stopped and looked; feeling both compelled to speak to him, yet wanting to drive on.  The empty parking space on the corner seemed to be a sign from God: an invitation to park.  I pulled in, got out and approached the town's newest visitor.

'Looking for the pastor?' I asked.

'Not really,' he replied, 'just resting.'

'Have you eaten today?'

'Oh, I ate something early this morning.'

'Would you like to have lunch with me?'

'Do you have some work I could do for you?'

'No work,' I replied 'I commute here to work from the city, but I would like to take you to lunch.'

'Sure,' he replied with a smile.

As he began to gather his things, I asked some surface questions.  Where you headed?'

' St.  Louis '

'Where you from?'

'Oh, all over; mostly Florida ....'

'How long you been walking?'

'Fourteen years,' came the reply.

I knew I had met someone unusual.  We sat across from each other in the same restaurant I had left earlier.  His face was weathered slightly beyond his 38 years.  His eyes were dark yet clear, and he spoke with an eloquence and articulation that was startling.  He removed his jacket to reveal a bright red T-shirt that said, 'Jesus is The Never Ending Story.'

Then Daniel's story began to unfold.  He had seen rough times early in life.  He'd made some wrong choices and reaped the consequences.  Fourteen years earlier, while backpacking across the country, he had stopped on the beach in Daytona...  He tried to hire on with some men who were putting up a large tent and some equipment.  A concert, he thought.

He was hired, but the tent would not house a concert but revival services, and in those services, he saw life more clearly.  He gave his life over to God.

'Nothing's been the same since,' he said, 'I felt the Lord telling me to keep walking, and so I did, some 14 years now.'

'Ever think of stopping?' I asked.

'Oh, once in a while, when it seems to get the best of me, but God has given me this calling.  I give out Bibles.  That's what's in my sack.  I work to buy food and Bibles, and I give them out when His Spirit leads.'

I sat amazed.  My homeless friend was not homeless.  He was on a mission and lived this way by choice.  The question burned inside for a moment and then I asked: 'What's it like?'

'What?'

'To walk into a town carrying all your things on your back and to show your sign?'

'Oh, it was humiliating at first.  People would stare and make comments.  Once someone tossed a piece of half-eaten bread and made a gesture that certainly didn't make me feel welcome.  But then it became humbling to realize that God was using me to touch lives and change people's concepts of other folks like me.'

My concept was changing, too.  We finished our dessert and gathered his things.  Just outside the door, he paused He turned to me and said, 'Come Ye blessed of my Father and inherit the kingdom I've prepared for you.  For when I was hungry you gave me food, when I was thirsty you gave me drink, a stranger and you took me in.'

I felt as if we were on holy ground.  'Could you use another Bible?' I asked.

He said he preferred a certain translation.  It traveled well and was not too heavy.  It was also his personal favorite..  'I've read through it 14 times,' he said.

'I'm not sure we've got one of those, but let's stop by our church and see.'  I was able to find my new friend a Bible that would do well, and he seemed very grateful.

'Where are you headed from here?' I asked.

'Well, I found this little map on the back of this amusement park coupon.'

'Are you hoping to hire on there for a while?'

'No, I just figure I should go there.  I figure someone under that star, right there needs a Bible, so that's where I'm going next.'

He smiled, and the warmth of his spirit radiated the sincerity of his mission.  I drove him back to the town-square where we'd met two hours earlier, and as we drove, it started raining.  We parked and unloaded his things.

'Would you sign my autograph book?' he asked...  'I like to keep messages from folks I meet.'

I wrote in his little book that his commitment to his calling had touched my life.  I encouraged him to stay strong.  And I left him with a verse of scripture from Jeremiah, 'I know the plans I have for you, declared the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you; Plans to give you a future and a hope.'

'Thanks, man,' he said.  'I know we just met and we're really just strangers, but I love you.'

'I know,' I said, 'I love you, too.' 'The Lord is good!'

'Yes, He is.  How long has it been since someone hugged you?' I asked.

A long time,' he replied

And so on the busy street corner in the drizzling rain, my new friend and I embraced, and I felt deep inside that I had been changed..  He put his things on his back, smiled his winning smile and said, 'See you in the New Jerusalem.'

'I'll be there!' was my reply.

He began his journey again.  He headed away with his sign dangling from his bedroll and pack of Bibles.  He stopped, turned and said, 'When you see something that makes you think of me, will you pray for me?'

'You bet,' I shouted back, 'God bless.'

'God bless.' And that was the last I saw of him.

Late that evening as I left my office, the wind blew strong.  The cold front had settled hard upon the town.  I bundled up and hurried to my car.  As I sat back and reached for the emergency brake, I saw them...  a pair of well-worn brown work gloves neatly laid over the length of the handle.  I picked them up, thought of my friend, and wondered if his hands would stay warm that night without them.

Then I remembered his words: 'If you see something that makes you think of me, will you pray for me?'

Today his gloves lie on my desk in my office..  They help me to see the world and its people in a new way, and they help me remember those two hours with my unique friend and to pray for his ministry.  'See you in the New Jerusalem,' he said.  Yes, Daniel, I know I will...

'I shall pass this way but once.  Therefore, any good that I can do or any kindness that I can show, let me do it now, for I shall not pass this way again.'

Fiscal Cliff 1

I’m trying to check out the following as I write.

http://nationalseniorscouncil.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=89:obama-begins-push-for-new-national-retirement-system&catid=34:social-security&Itemid=62

So far, I have no confirming or denying information.  The report, as written, contains some errors or misconceptions.

“This scheme mirrors what I expect the President will try to do with Social Security.  He wants to turn that program into a welfare program, too.”  National Seniors Council National Director Robert Crone

Crone’s statement errs in that Social Security is already a welfare program.  As nearly everyone knows, that is its fundamental problem: S/S never was a savings program; it always depended on the donations of dependents to support the aging.  Payouts are only loosely tied to, and never funded by the deposits of the same generation.  However, at its inception S/S was 1% and relatively harmless.[1]  In 1990, that number grew to 6.2% plus an additional 1.45% for health insurance.

Matching numbers were paid by employers from the inception of the program.  However, this is patently deceptive.  OASDI and HI paid by employers are costs of doing business.  No businessperson in his right mind is going to pay these fees without recovering them.  The obvious methods of recovering them are to suppress salaries or to increase cost of sales.  Since increases in cost of sales are limited by the market, and are reflected immediately as cost of living, all of these costs are reflected to the wage earner.  The real cost to the wage earner ranged from 2% in 1937 (still harmless) to 15.3% in 1990.  This is now clearly a toxic load.[2]

According to SSA the rates for 2012 are:[3]

·       S/S 4.2% for employees

·       S/S 6.2% for employers

·       Medicare 1.45% for both employees and employers

This is a net drop of 2% to 13.3% overall which is still a toxic load.  Evidently, the 2% drop took place in 2011.[4]

Individuals making $24,000 a year or less (no wife, no children, no other dependents) cannot afford to forfeit 13.3% of budget, pay taxes, and survive.  Even after mortgage-free home ownership is achieved in retirement, a married couple cannot survive on less than $36,000 a year.[5]

To add insult to injury, Medicare victims are taxed an additional:[6]

·       $1,156 annual hospital deductable

·       $99.90 monthly Part B

·       $145 annual Part B deductable

·       20% Part B coinsurance

·       1990 Medicaid was introduced, which is a purely welfare program[7]

As the NNRS[8] overture is explained, it basically turns extant retirement programs into S/S programs.  That these can be juggled into increased-welfare emphasis is no mystery.  That this proposal is going in the wrong direction is also fairly obvious: it supposes that money grows on trees and that those who refuse to work have a right to eat.  The answer to both of these questions is obviously, NO!

The real question is, "Will it happen?"  Yes, of course it will happen, perhaps not in this form, but it will happen in some form.  It does not make any difference which party is in power, it will still happen.  Here’s the math.  The government, along with nearly everybody else, has overspent its income.  All levels of government, business, and private individuals are seriously in debt.  One way or another, the debt must be served.  The federal government will eventually come after any money or appearance of money that exists anywhere including your savings.  If and when these funds are exhausted, and taxes cannot be increased anymore, more money will be printed (inflation).  In any case it is fairly obvious that the citizenry will be bled to death and the system will collapse.  It’s inevitable.  No one will have a dime left, and we will be in Greece’s shoes, total default.  It’s inevitable.

The illusion is that there is a way out of this box.  People want to believe that some politician or other offers a way out.  There is no way out.  The damage was done years ago.  The only recovery plan that makes any sense is to wipe out the whole system today, start over from scratch, and do it right this time.  Instead, everybody is jockeying for power, and everybody will lose.

There are names for this sort of statistical game.  This is more complicated than 2 x 2 games, but the idea is the same.  In 2 x 2 games, these are called coordination, battle of sexes, chicken, and prisoner’s dilemma.[9]

We are now obviously playing the chicken game; you know how that’s played: the only way to win is to face a head on collision, but winning results in obvious death.  The only way to live is not to play, but that is not a Nash equilibrium,[10] so nobody is willing to do that.  Either side can find a better position by playing the game (more prestige, more power, more money).  As a result, given the present value system, both sides will play, and both sides will die: because, jumping in the ditch represents an enormous loss of prestige, power, money, and face.  Nobody will be willing to go in the ditch and yield victory to the other side.  A Schelling point[11] must be found and/or the game must be changed.

As the level of crime (federal theft) increases this could transition into the prisoner’s dilemma.  Each prisoner improves his position by ratting the other guy out.  Consequently, both prisoners turn rat, and both lose.

As far as I know, there is only one solution, which is Moses' solution.  Kill off all the debt and never let it happen again.  All loans are 0% interest loans and short-term payback (7 years).  A strict division is drawn between lending and business risk investing.  Business risk investing may share its predetermined proportion of profits of any magnitude for any time, but must also accept total loss as a risk (no bailouts under any circumstances).  Job loss is not a real consideration; it is a smokescreen that covers up the problem.  The reality is that all jobs are lost as soon as the business becomes unprofitable; we just want to live in denial of the facts.

The objection is frequently raised that this is nothing more than defaulting on loans, which is a vicious social evil.  I would agree except for the fact the the loans were established under fraudulent conditions to begin with.  This always was a Dutch book.[12]  We have always played with loaded dice.  High risks were always sheltered, but jobs were never ever really sheltered.[13]  The system was dishonest from square one.

To get out of the box we are going to have to obey Moses and Christ, and write off all the debts.  We need to do this in an orderly fashion if at all possible.  Otherwise it will be done to us, as it is being done to Greece right now.  Controlled or uncontrolled, orderly or disorderly, the game always ends the same way.

Is the federal government coming after your savings?  Yer darn tootin, they are.  It’s just a matter of when and how.

Yours in Christ,

Herb aka Augie

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[1] http://www.ssa.gov/oact/progdata/taxRates.html

[2] http://www.ssa.gov/oact/progdata/taxRates.html

[3] http://ssa-custhelp.ssa.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/240/~/2012-social-security-tax-rate-and-maximum-taxable-earnings

[4] http://www1.umn.edu/ohr/payroll/tax/wagelimits/index.html  See also http://taxes.about.com/od/payroll/qt/payroll_basics.htm.

[5] my estimates of survival living

[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_(United_States

[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicaid

[8] New National Retirement System

[9] Stevens, Scott P., Games People Play: Game Theory in Life, Business, and Beyond (The Teaching Company, Chantilly, Virginia, 2008) 219 pages, 2 CDs

[10] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium  John Forbes Nash, Jr. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Forbes_Nash,_Jr.)

[11] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focal_point_(game_theory)  It would be folly to believe that anyone is communicating or is even able to communicate in the current game.  The current game tends to render communication impossible.

[12] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_book

[13] When your boss goes broke, your job is gone, and a bailout doesn’t really solve the problem; it simply redefines who went broke.  In this case instead of mega-companies going broke the debt is transferred to the backs of the populace, and the populace goes broke.  Since the populace is also the workers, jobs no longer exist.