Is it Monday?

Monday it is…and I just realized that with both of us now being retired, there is no one in this house that cares which day of the week it is. Oh, sure, there are calendars and I can always look down at the lower right hand corner of the monitor screen; Microsoft will tell me what day it is. But the importance accorded to certain days of the week is gone.

What is in the news? I found this piece of news yesterday afternoon. “3 million students who will graduate from American high schools this year… this number should embarrass us…nearly a third of students who began as freshmen four years ago dropped out of high school and will not receive a traditional diploma.” And the news from the urban areas of our country isn’t better; as usual, it’s worse…“According to a Manhattan Institute analysis of government data from 2003, at least 40 percent of students failed to graduate from the nation's 10 largest public districts.” It gets worse for minority students, especially boys. “Less than half of black and Hispanic males will earn a high school diploma at the current graduation rate.”

Think about it; over one million students who dropped out this year. They join the million that dropped out the year before. And how about those from three years ago? Four? How many have jobs or even a chance of getting one? Did you know that if you never had a job, you will not show up as part of the statistical number of unemployed? Yes, you had to have been employed and then lost that job before you can become a statistic. And it couldn’t be just any job; it had to be one where your employer paid into an unemployment fund. Jobs that pay cash only won’t allow you to become a statistic either. (Out of sight…out of mind)

What will it take for society to see this as a real problem and begin to do something about it? Uneducated and jobless; this huge number of citizens is a very real threat to democracy.  

Other news; “One of the Guantánamo detainees who committed suicide had been cleared for transfer to another country, a second allegedly was involved in an Afghanistan prison uprising in which a CIA agent died, and a third had ties to al-Qaida.” But why would I believe any of that?

Now locally; our acting governor is about to fire up the Humvee once more, roll it out of the Capitol garage and begin doing what he knows best; acting. Last, of course, is weather news…it looks like we have a good chance of seeing a wet and rainy marathon in Anchorage this coming weekend. “Friday Night...Mostly cloudy with a chance of showers. Lows in the upper 40s to mid 50s. Highs in the mid 60s to lower 70s.
Saturday...Mostly cloudy with a chance of showers. Lows in the upper 40s to mid 50s. Highs in the mid 60s to lower 70s.”