Rand Paul: The Divinely Mandated President?

Senator Rand Paul is strongly in favor of mountaintop removal mining, saying it "isn't so bad" and the results actually enhance the value of the land, "because now you can build on it".* The impact on the environment is unimportant to him compared to the supposed economic advantages (meaning profits for the coal mining companies that supported his run for the Senate, and will likely put millions toward his run for president).

Known for his honesty, Sen. Paul recently revealed that after many prayerful nights, and consultation with other Republican Christians such as Paul Ryan, John Boehner and Sarah Palin, he has uncovered a message from God in the the Holy Bible that he says proves that all Christians should vote for him for president in 2016.

Rand Paul maintains that verses such as Genesis 22.14 "On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided"; Zechariah 14:4 "On that day his feet will stand upon the Mount of Olives...will split apart...for half the mountain will move toward the north and half toward the south."; Revelation 8:8 "...a great mountain of fire was thrown into the sea." and many others are part of a "secret Bible code" revealing that God favors him for his support of mountaintop mining.

"The Bible makes it clear that God likes to destroy mountains as a sign. It is a major sign of the return of the Messiah. I think I am in good standing for my support of mountaintop removal mining" said Sen. Paul.

The committee of Ryan, Boehner and Palin agrees. Sen. Paul chose these three individuals to research and validate his position because, as he put it, "each member of my research committee-Paul Ryan, John Boehner and Sarah Palin-is known not only for their unmatched intellects and reputations for accurate research, but their outstanding displays of Christian values. They approached researching my claim with the same level-headedness and unbiased objectivity as they do any other political issue they face. I wanted them to be completely, brutally honest with me, as I am with my colleagues and with voters"

When questioned about the qualifications of two senators and a former governor to investigate claims of a secret Bible code, Paul responded by saying "They are good Christian people. The First Amendment guarantees they can know as much about the Bible as any Theology professor or church pastor."

Sen. Paul feels this makes voting for him for president in 2016 an open and shut case. "For anyone claiming to be a Bible-believing Christian, the choice is obvious since Scripture makes it plain God favors me as the best candidate for President of the United States. Jews should probably vote for me too, but forget about Muslims".

Tea Party leaders were quick to rally in support of Rand Paul's allegations. "Jesus would have loved to have preached the Sermon on the Mount from a mountaintop leveled by coal mining", said Sarah Palin at a recent Tea Party rally. "His compassion for the people would have led him to say 'Hey, Peter, that mountain over there is flat and shorter than these other ones. It will be easier for everyone to climb and find a seat to watch me preach. It will be easier to pass out food as well.'"

When asked about how Jesus might feel about the environmental impact, such as the destruction of habitat for animals, Palin was quick to respond, "God was always commanding someone to sacrifice an animal on top of a mountain, so in fact Jesus would approve of killing or displacing a few critters in order to improve the lives of people."

What about issues of water supplies being contaminated by coal dust runoff? Palin has an answer for that too: "There's these verses, you know, where Jesus said that we will be able to drink poison and it won't hurt us. No faithful Christian should be afraid of a little coal sludge in their drinking water. Then you gotta consider that whole changing water into wine thing."

Many conservative Christian leaders were ecstatic. "Rand Paul has made telling our congregations how to vote in 2016 much easier. No longer do we have to use metaphors, innuendo or vague statements to tell our sheep who to vote for. Rand Paul has done it for us with no risk to our 5019(c)(3) status", said The Big Old Church That Rocks pastor Hannover DeLucre.

Not to be out done, New Jersey Governor and one time 2016 presidential hopeful John Christie has tried to salvage his chances of running for the highest office in the land by citing Bible verses as well. It hasn't been easy, as the only verse he has come up with yet has been Job 11:16: "You will forget your misery. It will all be gone like water under a bridge".


Remember, it IS April 1st.


* From The Huffington Post August 2010

The War on Our Children, Part 1: Making Mothers Second Class Citizens

It's important to understand that what I am going to discuss is derived from a North American Indigenous world view. More specifically, a Mohawk world view, admittedly subject to the unavoidable influence of the Western society which has colonized the Mohawk along with every other indigenous group on the continent. This means there are going to be some inevitable dissonances between what I speak of as normal and what is accepted as normal by those with the Western, Colonist world view.

Modern American Society's war on our children starts long before they are even born. Various factors have combined to create a status quo in which couples feel compelled to bring children into a family in which both parents are working outside the home. In such couples, career success is often a higher priority than a successful family. For some this is because they have been convinced that to properly raise and provide for children, they must have successful careers in order to provide the “good things” in life.

For middle class and lower income families, the pressure to adopt a “working parents” model is almost insurmountable. For some people, it is the siren's song of material possessions: we are indoctrinated into the idea that our happiness depends on better houses, cars, clothes, appliances etc. For others, the “good life” is out of reach and both parents must work simply to provide basic necessities. In either case, it has become not just normal for both parents to work outside the home, it's developed into something of a sociological imperative.

Many years ago, then First Lady Hilary Clinton raised the ire of many conservative-minded people with a comment about how she could have stayed home and baked cookies, but decided to pursue a career instead. The implication of her words were that women who chose to focus their efforts on raising children and providing a good household for their husbands were somehow inferior to women who pursued a career.

While this may seem like a feminist position, I view it as just the opposite: this attitude of career being superior to raising children is imposed upon women and society by patriarchy. It's stating quite plainly that “man's work” (managing a bank or fighting fires or being a surgeon) is of more intrinsic value than nurturing children. This is not to say I don't think women should have the right to pursue any career they want, and earn equal pay for equal work. Rather, it is pointing out that a patriarchal-influenced set of values has been imposed upon what sort of work a woman does to be considered a success.

The result is that during the most important period of our children's lives, they are handed over to day care workers and schools for 50% or more of their waking hours.

It's ironic that in many wealthy families where the woman has no pressure to pursue a career outside the home, she does stay at home, yet hires a nanny or au pair to care for her own children. As such, the mother becomes an adjunct to her own role as mother/nurturer/comforter/educator. This isn't the case with all wealthy people, of course, but it is considered a normal family situation by those who do engage in this practice out of choice, rather than necessity.

All this is not to say that the situation regarding working mothers is the sole shortcoming of modern family structures. The role of fathers or other male figures in a child's life has also been dramatically altered in the past couple of centuries.

For the first hundred years or so of U.S. history, the majority of families worked farms, crafts shops, small stores or other means of support which allowed the family to remain together the majority of time. Fathers worked within the homestead, or close by. At an early age children became involved in the family trade, as it was expected they would at some point inherit and sustain the family farm or business. As such, children had a great deal more contact with their fathers than is the case for most today. Not only that, but the contact with their fathers was directly involved in teaching and demonstrating to the children skills needed to prosper in life.

As well as having more contact with fathers, and that contact being in a cooperative, instructional context, grandparents often shared the homestead and so were directly involved in the process of raising children. In some cases, aunts and uncles who shared in maintaining the family farm or business also contributed to raising children. The result was that most children had several adults who shared in raising them, and served as a variety of role models for the children to learn from and develop life long skills and habits (both good and bad).

Even when children were sent to schools, the scheduling of classes revolved around tending the farm, or helping to work the shop or store. It was understood that a school education was an adjunct to what the children learned at home, not a replacement or substitute for it. It was also intended to offer opportunities for vocations apart from working the family business. Not all businesses lent themselves to being inherited by more than one child. Also, it was simply a matter of social fairness to facilitate a person choosing to become a doctor or teacher or accountant rather than a farmer or cooper.

In the U.S. the combination of immigration and the Industrial Revolution led to drastic changes in the family structure. For various reasons, people chose to work in factors or related vocations rather than farms or family businesses. Cities grew to the point where eventually the urban population exceeded the non-urban population for the first time in history. To support a growing population that did not provide itself with food and other goods directly, industries were created and expanded. This accelerated the loss of self-sufficiency which contributed directly to the drastic changes in family structure.

Coupled with these natural changes to the socio-economic structure in the U.S. (the shift from rural, agrarian based economy to urban, industrial based economy) was a determined effort by those same industries to create a “Consumerist Society” in which a growing emphasis was placed on materialism as a source of happiness and proof of success. The image of the Ideal American Family came to involve houses, clothes, cars, and other “stuff” that was much more than a family actually needed to flourish in life. As the relationships within the family began to suffer due to less time spent functioning as a family, consumerist goals were set in place to fill the “contentment gap”.

It's difficult enough to maintain an optimal family structure when a father may be forced to spend the majority of his children's waking hours at his job. It becomes even more problematic if the mother, too, is in the same situation. As noted earlier, in a growing number of situations, this is not by choice of the parents, but by necessity. Still, we also need to consider how many working mothers do so not because their families can't have a decent life without the second income, but merely because the mother has been conditioned by society to think that being a stay-at-home mom is somehow failing to find fulfillment as a human being. Both parents need to consider whether their individual career pursuits are going to be worth the potential costs to raising their children (assuming they have thought through the idea that raising children is not for their own fulfillment as parents alone, but more on that in Part 2).

All of which brought us to the place in history where our society treats children as objects of affection, potential consumers and exploitable resources, but rarely as the young human beings they actually are. As a society we have been conditioned to think that it is normal for the average child to have spent a third of his life under the direct supervision and nurture of strangers, non-family members who may or may not share the same spiritual, moral and ethical views as the family. We have even created a situation in which teachers or social workers can use their own subjective views of what constitutes a “stable family environment” to determine if a child is at risk.

By creating a socio-economic structure in which a majority of parents are forced to work outside the home, thus spending less time with their children than they should, we have brought about a mixed blessing. Yes, we have achieved unprecedented economic growth and opportunity. Children who might otherwise have not considered pursuing certain careers do so thanks to experiences in the educational system. Yet the price we pay for these successes is a growth in dysfunctional families as well as adults who have a skewed understanding of parenting as well as values that don't necessarily correlate to raising future generations to be wholly functioning human beings.

Next: War on Our Children, Part 2: Little Grown Ups

Who Pays Wal-Mart's Employees?

Does this make sense to you?

Wal-Mart, McDonald’s and many other corporations readily admit that they don't pay enough and/or offer enough hours for the majority of their employees to get by without public assistance. Capitalistic thinkers say this is just good business practice that helps boost profits.

Depending on an outside entity to pay employees so the company can increase profits isn't Capitalism. It's a form of Socialism some call Corporatism. An aspect of socialism is that a portion of revenue is used by the government to provide benefits for all members of the society. Some use the negative sounding term "redistribution of wealth", implying that rich people have their supposedly hard earned money taken from them by the government and given to undeserving poor people as some sort of free ride.

Right now, here is what we have: Wal-Mart, as an example, posted yearly profits of $17.6 billion. At the same time, Wal-Mart employees collected $2.66 billion in public assistance last year. What that means that American tax payers gave Wal-Mart $2.66 billion towards that $17.6 billion in profits, WITHOUT HAVING ANY MERCHANDISE TO SHOW FOR IT. That's right, everyone who pays taxes is giving FREE MONEY to Wal-Mart, along with McDonald's, and every other corporation which reaps big profits while most of its employees collect assistance.

As I understand it, in Capitalism, the idea is that a company survives and profits based on its own ability to compete in the marketplace. If the government is subsidizing over 15% of Wal-Mart's or McDonald's or Starbucks's profits, how does that qualify as Capitalism? It doesn't. The government giving money to corporations in order for them to operate is Socialism, plain and simple.

Yet the response of many Americans (a response programmed into them by the corporate controlled media and equally corporate controlled Republican party) is to blame the workers. “If they don't like working at Wal-Mart (or fill in the blank) they should just find another job”. This is one of the most inane statements I can think of on this subject.

First it infers that those working at places which underpay aren't trying to find better paying jobs. Or, worse, it carries a mentality that the employees of these places are second rate citizens who deserve the jobs they have due to lack of training or motivation to get better jobs. Consider the millions of people who work at these jobs, such an assumption is statistically unsupportable.

The second inanity of the statement is that it's simply a, selfish, cowardly response to an age old problem. From the moment the first “king” who used force of arms started claiming that all the land belonged to him so everyone who worked it had to give him money, there have been self-serving people who have supported such acts for their own benefit.

The “Gentry” has always benefited from supporting the class system which funnels a disproportionate amount of wealth to the aristocracy. If Wal-Mart, McDonald's et al raised wages, people would have to pay a little more for Levi's, Big Macs and their morning lattes, and “Gentrified” people certainly don't what to have to do that. They work hard for their money (or so they say), apparently harder than the underpaid employees who stock the shelves with Levi's, make the Big Macs and serve the lattes, so they are entitled to lower prices more than the employees are entitled to a decent wage.

The irony is these same people will complain about how high their taxes are and how their tax dollars are being squandered on helping lazy, poor people buy steak with food stamps and get free cell phones. They don't stop to think that their tax dollars are also helping the Walton family buy race horses and multimillion dollar mansions, or McDonald's or Starbucks pay their CEOs over $9200.00 an hour.

So, it doesn't make sense to me that not only do so many corporations depend on the government (meaning the rest of us) to pay their workers with nothing to show for it in return. It also doesn't make sense to me how readily people will come to the defense of the situation. Not that I don't comprehend how and why people do that. I'm just saying it doesn't make sense.

Does it make sense to you?

Thanks to Huffington Post Business Insider  and Daily Kos for information regarding salaries and profits.

The Visitor's Question

The Visitor asked, "Who are the wealthiest of your world?"

The answer was easy. "Mostly bankers and Wall Street broker types" I said. "Many of them have more wealth than tens of thousands of other people combined."

The Visitor nodded appreciatively. "They must do something of priceless value to your people. Are they the best healers? Do they produce the most food? Do they build shelters and make clothing and other items that make life better for all? Are they the protectors who risk their lives for the sake of others? Do they create music or art or literature that brings beauty into everyone's lives? Are they your best educators? On my world, those we reward the most do the most for the rest of us. Yet, no one is nearly as wealthy as you say these people are. Tell me what they do that is so valuable?"

I thought for a moment, then answered, "Well...for the most part they just use other people's money..." The Visitor looked perplexed. "By that I mean they take money and invest it in things that you mention. They might give loans to farmers or builders. They may find people to invest in a business that makes clothing, or medicine, or even in schools. Then they make a profit off of the loan interest or the investment."

The Visitor's eyes lit up in understanding: "Ah...so they donate money to good causes, ones that benefit the People, and in return they receive a modest reward! Excellent!"

I frowned, his naivete regarding our ways both encouraging and discouraging at once.

"Not exactly. They charge a lot of interest on the loans. If it's an investment, they expect the company to do everything possible to reap the highest profits, including paying workers the least amount possible, using the lowest quality materials they can get away with, cutting corners at every turn: profit matters the most. In a lot of cases, the banks and investors actually end up making more money than those they loan money to or invest in."

Now it was the Visitor's turn to frown."So, what you are saying is that those without any genuinely useful Gifts make more from the efforts of those with Gifts that serve the People, simply because these bankers and investors let them use money? Furthermore, that money doesn't even belong to the bankers and investors to begin with?

"Um...yeah, that's one way to put it".

The Visitor made a noise that sounded like a combination of a toilet flushing and an old truck backfiring.

"That makes no sense whatsoever, that those who have nothing of real value to contribute to People, other than convincing someone to let them use their money, make more than your farmers, teachers, healers, builders, tailors, poets, musicians, artists. protectors...they make more than those who actually DO SOMETHING good? They simply profit off of what those with real Gifts do?"

I sheepishly nodded.

"On my world, we have a name for such creatures, but I am too much of a gentlebeing to repeat it to you now. I can only wonder why a People who would let such a system exist call themselves Homo Sapiens (Wise Man).?"

In a flash of scintillating light and a breeze that smelled like ginger, the Visitor was gone.

Economic Recovery According to 3 John 1

In 3 John 1:2, the "Beloved Disciple" writes:

"Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers."

It seems to me these tender words sum up what other parts of the bible say, that our physical prosperity and health are interdependent with our spiritual prosperity and health.

Right now we have millions of people arguing, with good reason, about the economy: what and who broke it, how to fix it, etc. Still in my opinion something important is being overlooked, a spiritual reality many have neglected to include in the debate on the economy. As I see it, what is being overlooked is the "leanness of soul" we have been experiencing as a nation for many years. (Ps. 106:15 And he gave them their request; but sent leanness into their soul ).

We have prospered greatly as a nation over the centuries, leading the world for decades in nearly all economic, technological and quality of life indicators. Despite a darker side of our growth as a nation (slavery, abuse of Native Americans, colonialism abroad) for the most part the people embraced solid values of compassion, altruism, generosity and benevolence. Somewhere along the way, we lost track of these virtues as being vital to our spiritual, and therefore physical, prosperity and health.

Sadly, this started with the Church, when we began to focus too much on using our resources and our politics to try to make life more comfortable for ourselves instead of reaching out properly to the world. Instead of offering the Light of Christ for people to embrace as a walk of faith, we resorted to using political tactics to try to get people to behave in ways we found acceptable. We forgot that achieving Christ's stated goals for his followers, to nurture and bring up disciples from out off all nations-meaning all cultures, ethnic groups and world views.Instead, we tried to convert them to our own world view as American Christians.

This is something Jesus never intended when he mandated the “Great Commission”. He constantly pointed out that the ways of thinking of the world were at odds with the Great Commandments of loving the Father with all our being, and loving others as we love ourselves. Yet now, if we look at what is being expressed by Conservative, Republican Christians, we see a frightening example of modern Pharasaism.

We have entire political parties, and millions of people who support those parties, preaching that the poor are to blame for their plight and must be forced to find jobs by cutting off benefits. In doing so, we demonstrate the "leanness of soul" through our lack of compassion for the poor, and our stiff-necked unwillingness to obey one of the primary mandates given us as part of spreading the Gospel.

We have allowed our health care system to be reduced to a pure profit-oriented, corporation controlled industry that literally holds the health of the entire nation hostage in order to increase profits. We are commanded to heal the sick, as a gift. Yet, again we speak and act in direct contradiction of Christ when we favor corporatist health care that favors those with the means to pay, and disenfranchises the poor to the point of allowing them to die for lack of adequate care.

We view the earth as an exploitable source of profit, mistakenly thinking Creator God has handed it over to us to use as we want. We think the earth is meant to serve us, when not only the Bible, but common sense makes it clear that we must live in harmony with the earth and understand that, as with all creatures, we serve each other by being integral parts of a global ecosystem that humans have, tragically, thrown far out of balance. We are supposed to be stewards who care for Creator's earth to His glory, not disreputable servants who misuse what is not ours for our own satisfaction.

We resort to violence as a solution for far too many things. We have a military far larger and more powerful than we need. We spend more money on going to war than the next 10 nations combined. How can we reconcile with Jesus expecting us to spread peace to the corners of the earth in His Name. We are told “blessed are the peacemakers” and we toss that aside to favor violence as our way of ensuring we can get what we want from the rest of the world.

We treat our most precious gift, our children, as though they are property that we can use and manipulate to continue the consumerist, violently competitive and destructive System which leads to the behaviors described above. As Jesus said of the Pharisees, we are making our children twice as fit for damnation as we are.

We have even abandoned the honest, humble and critical use of the gift of Intellect. We are blessed with a capacity for critical, abstract thought and reasoning that even the most sophisticated artificial intelligence can barely mimic. The one thing that proves we are created in God's image is our ability to reason, as Homo Sapiens in ways far beyond that of any other creature. Creator says “come let us reason together”, yet we do the opposite, surrendering our God-given ability, right, and privilege to use our reason in favor of letting others tell us how to think, act, speak. What we like, even what we believe, is handed to us in ways that discourage thinking for ourselves. We accept this willingly, because it's easier to let others tell us how to think than to develop our own opinions and world view.

So, we have “leanness of soul”: lack of compassion, lack of humility, we're violent and competitive, we lust for material things, disobedient to the very God we claim to honor, lacking in common sense and sensibility, having become hard-hearted to the point that we think the things we do which are the opposite of Christ's teaching and example are acceptable. Spiritually we are living a delusion of righteousness where none really exists. We twist His Word to prove our self-delusion, and those who don't buy it are dismissed as being lost sinners, enemies of God who are not worth consideration.

Our delusion has reached that point that when those outside our Churches and/or our Nation tell us they see the truth of who we are and are not willing to participate in our delusion, we declare they are saying so simply because they are jealous of what we have. Then we pat ourselves on our collective religious, nationalist backs for being something and someone other nations reject, despise and in some cases pity.

If we want to fix the economy, we need to start with the source of our poverty: our own spiritual lives, both individually and collectively. We do have many people in the various walks of faith who are abundantly rich spiritually. Sadly, they are often rejected by the mainstream. They're called names such as “hippy” or “socialist” or “bleeding heart liberal”, as though actively encouraging people to follow the teachings and example of Jesus Christ (or others who have taught love, harmony and respect for all creation) is a bad thing.

Instead of dismissing them we should be electing them to office.

One last thing about “leanness of soul”: it's related directly to living in fear. The reason the Israelites demanded so much from YHWH that he gave it to them, but also allowed the leanness of their souls to come into being, was because they were afraid of not being like other nations. They were afraid they would not get what they truly wanted, that they would be taken advantage of by others. They were afraid that living life as Creator intended them to live wasn't good enough. They were ungrateful for what YHWH had given them.

Therein lies the secret of a prosperous soul (and therefore physical prosperity). It is understanding that spiritual, and physical, prosperity are not a matter of getting what we want. Rather, it's a matter of recognizing that what Creator gives us is always the best thing for us in the long run. It's called “contentment” and “gratefulness”, and we are told that godliness (right living) with contentment is great gain, or true wealth.

When we, as the Church and as a Nation, reacquaint ourselves with lives of contentment and gratefulness, we will find we naturally want to help the poor, heal the sick, make peace, reject greed and consumerism, respect the earth and bring up children who are likewise content and grateful. Until that happens, no politically based solutions will rescue our economy.

Do You Believe in Music?

Members of the Washington High School Orchestra join Matuto on stage at the 2013 Landfall Festival of World Music, CSPS Hall, Cedar Rapids, IA.

I started my formal music education in the fifth grade, when I signed up to learn cornet through the music program at my elementary school. It was free, and my parents didn't mind spending the $60 they spent on a used cornet. Mr Shaffer, the teacher, came to the school once a week to teach the various instruments. An hour each was devoted to woodwinds, brass and percussion. After the first semester of learning the basic instruments, we all met together in a real, honest to goodness band.

OK, I'm not so sure about the “good”, but we enjoyed it. Strains of out of tune “Go Tell Aunt Rodie” still waft through my mind from time to time.

In addition, my fifth grade teacher taught the entire class to play the recorder. So, I was hooked on music from then on. I begged my parents for a guitar as well and started taking lessons from the older brother of my friend who lived across the street. By 11 I was a multi-instrumentalist!

I continued in band throughout high school, eventually joining the Symphonic Chorale as well. In my junior year, I was so inspired by our band director, Claiborne T Richardson II, that I changed my goal of majoring in Anthropology/Archeology to Music Education. An outstanding teacher can have that effect on a student, leading some to want to follow in his footsteps. Dr. Richardson was that sort of teacher. His passion for music was obvious in the care he took to not just get us to play music well enough to perform, but to explore music: it's very nature, history and impact on society. The closest friends I had in high school were my band mates. Yes, I was a band geek and do have interesting stories to tell about band camp (none of them sexual though).

Circumstances drew me away from completing my degree and becoming a music teacher, but I have continued my involvement in music in various ways all my life. Perhaps, in some ways, it's good that I didn't go into the field of Music Education.

Why do I say that? I'll start that answer with a question: have you ever seen the movie “Mr. Hollands Opus”? If you haven't the synopsis involves a budding composer who takes a job as a high school band director to pay his bills. His intention is to only work the job until his symphony is finished and published. However, he soon finds himself becoming as passionate about teaching and his students as he is about music itself. Various events result in what was meant to be only for a year or two becoming a lifelong career. The movie follows his life as he touches the lives of thousands of young people who come under his tutelage over the course of several decades.

Meanwhile, between his work and dealing with family issues (his son is born deaf, imagine being a musician with that to deal with.) he has less and less time to work on his symphony. He laments of ever completing it and at least hearing it performed, and more or less resigns himself to being remembers not as a great composer of the modern age, but as a humble high school band director.

Then budget cuts force the school to eliminate the band program altogether. Mr. Opus is put out to pasture with a modest pension and a “thanks for your years of service, but we can't afford to keep music education in our schools anymore” hard line response from the school board.

Therein lies the problem, and the main point of this essay:

We can't afford to not teach music, and the other arts, to our young people.

Study after study, as well as a simple examination of our society, demonstrate how enriching music is to our lives, as well as how much an education in music, especially learning to play an instrument, enriches the life of those who do learn to play, or are trained to sing (or dance or paint or write poetry for that matter). Fortunately there are still many schools which support music and the arts. Interestingly enough,these schools often report higher overall grades and fewer discipline and attendance problems than schools which have severely cut back or eliminated education in the arts.

Despite evidence that music and arts education programs in public schools can offer benefits to the greatest number of students, when it comes to budget decisions, sports almost always wins out.

Why is that?

Part of the answer is because our school system embraces a male-dominated world view. It is all about competitiveness and winning, being better than the next guy, being “manly” and aggressive and goal oriented. Sports embodies these qualities, when testosterone influenced views of success make people think that a football team winning a trophy is more important than the band winning a trophy. Most “jocks” think band, orchestra and chorus people are wimps, nerds, etc. We are, for the most part. We are also far more creative and capable of independent thinking and cooperation than most jocks.

Therein lies the problem: music and arts education encourages independent, critical thinking together with cooperation rather than competitiveness. (I don't want to go into music programs which only strive to have the students win competitions. As far as I'm concerned, music teachers who focus their efforts on winning trophies are hacks.) Yet we have an educational system designed to get students to fit into the status quo, follow the rules, toe the line and be as competitive with “the other guys” (and with each other) as possible while conforming to expectations regarding acceptable behavior and life goals. I'm not saying there is a conscious conspiracy against education in the arts. It's just that given the mindset of many people, music, drama, dance, and the other arts are not what we want our children to learn and consider as a way of earning a living. It's a nice children's activity, but except for those parents who push their kids to win competitions in music, dance etc. most parents assume it's all something just to keep their kids occupied and out of the house. The parents that actively encourage a child who wants to become a professional musician, actor, writer, dancer, photographer or artist of any sort are rare gems.

Which is really strange, considering the huge amount of money we spend on music, movies and TV, things to read, and things to hang on our walls or decorate our homes or even wear. We idolize musicians and actors, and to a lesser extent great dancers. Successful authors can become millionaires and the occasional billionaire. Photographers and artists can produce images that become icons. We follow the lives of our creative people as closely as if they are our own family. Most of us cannot imagine a life without music, drama, books and art.

Yet we, as a society and within our educational system, are reluctant to teach our children the very thing we value so much. Perhaps it's the thinking that it's so hard to become a major success in the arts (by that reach the point the average non-arts person assumes is success, which is big paychecks and an article in People magazine). Why bother teaching and encouraging young people to learn something that they may never earn a decent living doing? That was my father's attitude: I really wanted to play professionally more than teach, but my father said I would “never earn a living tooting a horn”. He would only pay tuition for music school if I majored in Music Education, because he viewed teaching as a respectable profession.

This dichotomy, in which we value music and the arts so much, yet do so little to nurture and support them in our children, is especially frustrating for those who are involved in music, drama, dance, photography, writing and other arts. Nowadays, in certain locales, young people wishing to learn the arts have to go it practically alone, or depend on private instruction or the local dance academy. How many potential masters of music, drama, poetry, art, dance et al are going unnoticed and un-nurtured because school systems would rather spend money on new team uniforms or a bigger paycheck for the football coach than on educating children in the arts.

There is great hope in the fact that even when school boards cut funding, many parents rally together to form booster clubs and other groups to raise funds to continue to support education in the arts. There are professionals who offer time and resources to teach others. There are communities which recognize the value of the arts, with city leaders who make sure that funds become available to support music, drama, dance and other events. We need to do all we can to support these various endeavors, because our society needs as a many musicians, actors, dancers, writers, poets, artists etc. as we can get. Our creative people offer something to the world that goes beyond the music, drama, dance, prose and poetry and art that enriches our lives.

They offer hope in the form of showing us the road less traveled. They are the beacons of independent and critical thinking that question the status quo and invite us to think outside the box. They are the spice in what would otherwise be a very mundane existence. They embody the fearlessness we claim we admire. They understand what it means that a person's reach should always exceed his or her grasp.

The ending to “Mr. Holland's Opus” tells the real tale of it all. Many of his former students, including a state governor, successful business people, teachers, lawyers and others-all of whom cite Mr. Holland as the inspiration for reaching for the goals they have achieved-get together and perform his symphony with him conducting. That ending, as bittersweet as it is, is also a celebration of the fact music changed the lives of these people for the better, as does education in any of the arts. Therein lies the real meaning of Mr. Holland's Opus: the lives of thousands of people enriched by his instruction.

That alone is reason to support arts education for our children as much as we can.

Color Blind?

Whenever a majority culture person says "I don't see other people's color or ethnicity. I just see them as people"

I cringe. 

Why is that, you may ask? 

Because many of us embrace the culture inherent within our ethnic group. Many have experienced bias based on their skin color or appearance. In both positive and negative ways, our skin color or cultural ethnicity is part of our individual identities. 

I take pride in both my Mohawk and Lebanese heritage and culture. I work as best I can both to preserve my Mohawk heritage and to be an advocate for the Mohawk people. Dismissing that from the equation of a relationship with me is dismissing a fundamental part of my individuality. The same goes with any person of color or member of a specific ethnic or cultural group.

It's more than recognizing the individual though. Often, when people say they don't recognize the color or ethnicity of others, they are unwittingly saying that as long as the person acts in a way that conforms to majority, "white" society, they are comfortable with them. Conform to a set of behaviors that align with majority culture expectations and you are accepted ("white by adoption"?). Express distinctly cultural/ethnic behaviors and you create discomfort which some try to deal with by pretending those distinctives don't matter. Or worse, declare that they are some sort of "reverse discrimination" on the part of the minority individual.

The same person then crosses the street to avoid a group of "thug looking" black men standing on a corner. 

The same person then tells Native Americans who express our experiences and issues to "let go of the past" and "get over it".

The same person then gets nervous if a LGBT coworker gets too close or compliments his wardrobe.

The same person then declares a strong woman to be a bitch or an effeminate man to be gay.

The same person then complains of reverse discrimination if a minority talks about the reality of "white privilege".

This isn't always the case of course. Many people say they don't see others according to race or ethnicity as a valid statement of their genuine sense of equality. Still, for the sake of relationship it might be good to not throw out the baby of celebrating someone's culture with the bathwater of avoiding prejudice. The key is to listen,watch and, believe it or not ask questions. Yes, if the relationship is growing, it's ok to ask a person about details of their ethnic culture and how they, as an individual, embrace and celebrate it. If someone were to ask me about my perspective as a Mohawk I would gladly share it, without attempting to turn it into a contest as to whose culture or ethnicity is best.

Try it. Try listening and learning about, and from, minority friends and coworkers. You may find that seeing their ethnicity and color in a positive way is better than not seeing it at all