Merit based opportunity

 What if we let people get training in the field they were interested in and let them progress as they showed competency?  How many Doctors and Lawyers would have chosen to get that training if the paycheck had been merely two times the average income?  When you have people training to be Doctors because they will make 5-10 times the average income, and you make it so expensive to get the training, are you getting the best doctors?

Some jobs are nasty and nobody wants to do them.  But some jobs are nasty and require skill.  Would anyone really study Urology if the financial incentive wasn't so steep?  Maybe if interest was the deciding factor, you would only get creepy people studying Gynecology, but what's to keep creepy people out of the field now?

If we had more dentists, would they have to lower their costs and more of the population would get dental care?  If we paid teachers more, would more talented men and women choose to do what they love?  

I'm reading "The thread that runs so true".  Jesse Stuart teaches in rural schools and is able to have a tremendous impact on the children, families and community.  Teaching is awesome.  Teaching is also incredibly undervalued in America.  

A child spends 86,400 hours in the care of a teacher up to age 18.  They hopefully spend 0 hours in the care of police, lawyer, or military personnel.   Over the span of our lives maybe we spend 3 hours with doctors or dentists per year, 300 hours total if we're lucky.  I've been pretty lucky so far. 

Sometimes I hear people claim that teachers have to be low paid so only people who love it will do it.  Shouldn't that be true of Police, doctors, and any field where you work with people?  If teachers made more money, there might be people who tried to go into the field for the money, but there would be competition from people who were good teachers, who hadn't left the field to support their families, that would drive bad teachers out of the field.

We need a lot of teachers, because children spend more time with them than any other professional.  But we don't have to lower the standards to get more teachers.  Increase the incentive, and you will get more teachers, and the competition to be part of a great work, that supports a family, will drive the profession to excellence.  I believe almost anyone can teach, and if they don't teach well, they loose the job.

Neighborhood drama

 We live in a gated community and the drama with the board is ongoing.  There is always a group of people against what the board wants to do.  A few years after we moved in there was a campaign to recall the president.  I got drawn into that and made calls to neighbors encouraging people to get involved and let their voice be heard.  For a few years we had a board that was really friendly and then someone was nasty to our neighbor F.  So F didn't continue on the board, and now the person who was nasty to F is involved in the new board that ran on a platform of transparency.  They have held 2 meetings in the last year and didn't publish their budget. 

There are some things about the neighborhood that make it harder to get things done.  When the neighborhood was built, they did covenants for each road, so there isn't a unified covenant document for the whole neighborhood.  The boards keep trying to get the documents united, but they can never get 60% of residents to turn in a ballot.  Also, the neighborhood is 46 years old and has private roads, so certain conflicts over roads, budgets, speed bumps keeps coming up.

I like to attend the meetings when I can.  I served on the board at our old condo.  I try to be a good neighbor.

Family Treasures

 My parents owned some fine carved, Chinese furniture.  A screen and coffee table were kept by my mother after they divorced and are owned by my brothers now.  A bar like the one shown below was kept by my father.  Unfortunately it was stolen from the house he left vacant, with the roof falling in and raccoons taking over.  There is something so symbolic in the situation.  

I came across a similar bar at a friends house today.  It was a similar design, but not carved on the whole panels.  I wanted to post about it because it's a memory I wanted to share with my children.  

Scooter fun

 Back when I was so busy with my dad's situation we didn't have a birthday party for M.  This was the beginning of the "no birthday parties for anyone" phase of our life.  So I got her a very nice scooter with 8 inch wheels.  It was prized and coveted.  Now 3 years later after many conflicts over the scooter, and flattened wheels by negligent siblings, I decided to get the wheels fixed, and another scooter.  The new scooter was to be lP's since she never got a 10th birthday either.  I had put the scooter away but today it was left on the porch again.  M said lP did it and lP's response was "It's your scooter."  So after some deliberation I decided the new scooter won't be lP's.  It will be mine.  It will be our Family's big scooter.  M will have hers and everyone else, who is willing to take care of it, can use the new one.

I'm trying to teach the children to be responsible and respectful.  They are children.

Beautiful park we don't go to often enough

G had a match today for Academic Bowl so I took the 3 peas to the park.  We don't go often and they are a great group.  They stick together and play well.  I just loved how the climbed this tree together.  I hope to get a picture of the whole family with this glorious crepe myrtle.  It looks like several trees, but they unite at the base. 

It's so nice having everyone old enough to not fall in the water!  We have survived 16 years of parenting and never had anyone fall in the water.

They collected leaf samples and explored this woods.  The floor of the woods is covered in pine needles.  It was so different from our back yard woods.  It felt like we were transported to California or something.

 Our quest for leaves took us to the skate park where they got to run around.  They had so much fun and I loved spending this time with them.

Spring is beautiful

 Tonight I sat on the back porch, on my fancy $20 adirondack chair and listened to the RS Devotional.  It was a tiny bit on the cold side but that's ok.  I'd rather have cold instead of moist or hot!  It is so incredibly beautiful on our back porch.  I've painted half of the deck and I feel like we're reclaiming something precious by using that space and not letting it go to rot.  The back yard is so beautiful with the birds and sunlight flitting through the leaves.

Wrong is wrong

 There is a movement right now to hold police to reasonable standards of behavior.  This movement also seeks to have equal levels of force used regardless of race.  In May 2020 George Floyd was buying something and gave the cashier a fake $20.  The cashier called the police and Mr. Floyd died after a police officer knelt on his neck for 9 minutes.  The police told a version of events that was later contradicted by a video taken by a teenager on site.  The police officer who knelt on Mr. Floyd's neck was convicted of 2nd degree murder and manslaughter.

A friend of mine suggested he died from drug use, and a bad heart.  I have a friend who has MS and if someone knelt on her and she died, I would consider it the fault of the kneeling, not the MS.

Police have an incredibly difficult and stressful job of enforcing the law in a heavily armed population.  So they treat every situation as though it could be lethal.  This creates fear in the population, particularly the black and brown population, who have experienced lethal force from police.  When a black person is pulled over, they fear for their lives because so many black people have been shot by police and not been held accountable.  So a black person, afraid for their life, might run, and the police shoot and kill them.  A black person, afraid for their life, might not stop until they are in a safe place, and the police threaten and pepper spray them.  

Time and time again, police are shooting people who are not shooting at them.  I pray the conviction of the officer who knelt on Mr. Floyd's neck will make officers slow down and de-escalate their interactions with the public.

There are 2 men on trial for chasing Ahmaud Arbery, who was running in their neighborhood, in their trucks.  They cornered him and jumped out of the truck with a gun.  Mr. Arbery felt threatened because they were threatening him.  Mr. Arbery tried to grab the gun he was being threatened with, and was shot.  Mr. Arbery died because these men chased him and threatened him with a gun.  I pray these men are charged with murder.  They caused the death of Mr. Arbery.

A few years ago a black teenager was walking home and a man thought he was a thief.  The man, George Zimmerman, called the police who told him to stay home.  Mr. Zimmerman took a gun and stalked the teen through the neighborhood.  The teen, Travon Martin felt threatened and hid, then jumped out at Mr. Zimmerman.  Mr. Zimmerman, who chose to stalk the teen felt threatened so he shot Travon.  The court said Mr. Zimmerman was innocent of murder because Florida has a "stand your ground" law that allows people to shoot if they feel threatened.  I completely disagree with the verdict.  Travon was not doing anything wrong, and citizens should not be going out to enforce the law.  Again in this case, if Mr. Zimmerman had stayed home, or not brought a gun, Travon would not have been killed.