Whenever you hear a politician carry on about what a mess the schools are, be aware that you are looking at the culprit.
Interpretation
Politicians often criticize schools, but they are often part of the problem.
Molly Ivins highlights the hypocrisy of politicians who blame schools for educational failures while neglecting their own responsibility in creating and maintaining the system. By pointing out that those who criticize education are often the ones contributing to its challenges, she calls for accountability and introspection regarding the state of education.
In practice
In a discussion on education policy, this quote could be used to emphasize the need for politicians to take responsibility.
Racists seem obsessed by the idea that illegal workers - the hardest-working, poorest people in America - are somehow getting away with something, sneaking goodies that should be for Americans. You can always avoid this problem by having no social services. This is the refreshing Texas model, and it works a treat.
Populism is the simple premise that markets need to be restrained by society and by a democratic political system. We are not socialists or communists, we are proponents of regulated capitalism and, I might add, people who have read American history.
We should all laugh more at our elected officials - it's good for us and good for them.
Although it is true that only about 20 percent of American workers are in unions, that 20 percent sets the standards across the board in salaries, benefits and working conditions. If you are making a decent salary in a non-union company, you owe that to the unions. One thing that corporations do not do is give out money out of the goodness of their hearts.
Imagine wasting all that perfectly good anger on paranoid fantasies. Not since Emily Litella got upset about "Soviet jewelry" has there been such a waste of anger. You will notice a certain theme to these Emily Litella Moments. Behind them all is a touching faith that someone, somewhere is actually in charge of what's happening - a proposition I beg leave to doubt.
All anyone needs to enjoy the state legislature is a strong stomach and a complete insensitivity to the needs of the people. As long as you don't think about what that peculiar body should be doing and what it actually is doing to the quality of life in Texas, then it's all marvelous fun.
Words are alive--when I've found a story that I love, I read it again and again, like playing a favorite song over and over. Reading isn't passive--I enter the story with the characters, breathe their air, feel their frustrations, scream at them to stop when they're about to do something stupid, cry with them, laugh with them. Reading for me, is spending time with a friend. A book is a friend. You can never have too many.
Knowledge of the world in only to be acquired in the world, and not in a closet.
Books are not made for furniture, but there is nothing else that so beautifully furnishes a house.
Exactly for the sake of what is new and revolutionary in every child, education must be conservative; it must preserve this newness and introduce it as a new thing into an old world.
A book is completed only when it is finished by a reader.
There should be a class on apartheid. There should be a class on why people are hungry, but there are not. There are classes on...gym. Physical Education.
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