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Politics : About that Cuban boy, Elian -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (5291)	5/14/2000 3:20:00 PM
From: Jon Tara	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 9127

It's amazing how people can make proclamations about situations they do not know. And equally amazing how people are influenced by prejudices. Detroit in the 60's was a dangerous place for a skinny white kid, and offered a sub-standard education, right? Well, I did have my bike stolen out from under me a few years later. (AFTER we moved to the "good" neighborhood.) But that's about the greatest danger I faced. And, actually, I got a better education that I could have gotten in any of the other places. In the 60's, the federal government was doing a lot to insure equal education, especially in the sciences, which I was interested in. (It is a shame that this has been discontinued.) Our science classroom had the same geiger-counter supplied to every other classroom in the nation. :) I had the opportunity to go to a special city-wide high school - one of three in the country that had an IBM 1620 computer. (The Bronx High School of Science was one of the other two.) There were probably no more than a few hundred high school kids in the country at the time who had had the opportunity to learn how to program a computer. Cass Tech was a wonderful, nationally-recognized high school, and the best that was available in any of the places I could have lived. Ironically, I have a friend that I met later who grew up in Milford (where my grandparents lived), and went to Milford High School. It was a liability when trying to get into college. More than 80% of Cass Tech graduates went on to college. Less than 50% of Milford High School students did. I had access to all of the amenities of a big city which helped me pursue my interests. I rode the bus all over the city, going to ham radio stores, devouring the computer shelf at the main library (they had nothing that interested in in the local branch) and at the local university. Did I know all this when I was 7? I'm sure I didn't. But I'm sure that I knew that I could thrive in the environment I was in. I liked where I was, and I liked the possibilities and opportunities. The fact, though, is that any of the other environments would have been limiting, given my interests. The fact that you feel compelled to go back 40 years, without knowing the situation, and pronounce judgement, and your prejudices regarding my environment at the time is telling. It colors your opinions about the case at hand, and explains a lot.