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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (212628)	12/25/2012 11:17:26 AM
From: Dale Baker	Respond to of 541299

It's an absolute disgrace.

To: epicure who wrote (212628)	12/25/2012 12:24:57 PM
From: T L Comiskey	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541299

An US Navy Seal commander in charge of an elite squad tasked with training Afghan police has died of an apparent suicide in Uruzgan Province. Cmdr. Job W. Price, 42, died Saturday of a gunshot wound to the head. The cause of death is still under investigation, but military officials speaking on condition of anonymity tell the press that Price is believed to have taken his own life. A native of Pottstown, Pennsylvania, Price’s LinkedIn profile suggests he joined the Department of Defense in 1989, making his tenure with the Pentagon one of over 23 years. "The Naval Special Warfare family is deeply saddened by the loss of our teammate," Capt. Robert Smith, Commander of Naval Special Warfare Group Two, said in a statement over the weekend. "We extend our condolences, thoughts and prayers to the family, friends, and NSW community during this time of grieving." An official commenting to the Associated Press claims that Cmdr. Price has most recently been in charge of a group that contained upwards of 30 troops, and did not believe he showed any signs of depression, “other than the stresses of deployment,” reports the AP. In June, the Pentagon admitted that more US soldiers were losing their lives to suicide than to enemy forces, with the rate of suicide clocking in at around one-per-day.

To: epicure who wrote (212628)	12/26/2012 10:18:58 AM
From: Metacomet	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541299

IN PRAISE OF TEACHERSJohn Leeds (in the wake of the Newtown tragedy): Sorry to write to you about so sad a subject. Although I’m a middle school teacher, I’ve had occasions to spend days in schools just like the one where the tragedy occurred. I’m not surprised the teachers and school personnel were out to save their students, even at risk of their own lives. Some in America portray teachers as looking to do less, as babysitters, as feckless workers who could not make it elsewhere in society-as people who aren’t dedicated to the ideal of work. But that’s not true for the majority of teachers, most of whom are scooped up by suburban systems as in Newtown, but who also find their way into the inner city and other poor areas. A friend who has taught at Hopi and Navajo says that teachers on reservations, the true third-world nations within the U.S, are either the best of the best or the worst of the worst. They come to poor areas to teach because they are either extremely dedicated, or, as society has stereotyped, because they truly can’t make it elsewhere. I think of that elementary school, a typical one, run and staffed by women, perhaps the lone male adult as a custodian. Sometimes the other male is the principal, though less so these days. The women tend to be young, as the system saves money hiring new teachers when retiring teachers leave. As baby boomers have been retiring in the past 7-10 years, the elementary schools are dominated more and more by women in their 20s. These are women with great talent, strengths and dedication. Women who could not imagine facing their own lives if they had not done their utmost to save the lives of the young innocents. What is strength? I know well as a male in our culture, I will impress few with my raw power by telling them I teach, especially when I explain I don’t teach high school or college. And yet we know that one can’t be stronger than those women were the day of the shooting. It is the kind of pure strength that is the height of human essence. And yet that strength was always there in the calm times, unrecognized, because it didn’t fit society’s concept of strength. I tell you I see that same strength in other teachers I know, at every level of teaching. One never knows until confronted with the choice, but I believe most, if not almost all, would lay down their lives in similar fashion if forced to by circumstances. Every time there is a shooting like this, and many times in between, I’ve thought about how I take my life in my hands at work in a way I never realized I would when I became a teacher. Sometimes on a fire drill, I wonder just what is waiting outside and say a little prayer. I wish I could say I look forward to going in this Monday, but I don’t. But I know that once class starts normally, we will begin anew, and the worst that will happen is a bored student or a tired teacher. Remember Saving Private Ryan? The platoon leader, savvy and shrewd, turns out to be a high school teacher. That’s what all the good teachers are made of: leadership, courage, sacrifice, the ability to motivate by example and with human understanding. So, I am so tired of hearing people dump on the profession. Everyone sees how brave these women were at the moment of crisis. When will they realize that this is truly the way of the teacher? I guarantee you the surviving teachers and staff – and in this let me mention school secretaries and custodians, who are just as brave and dedicated – will do whatever they can to help their students process the grief and horror and to move on, even as the teachers themselves attempt to process and grieve. For teachers like this, being a teacher is somewhat like being an older family member and a village elder rolled into one. Teaching students permeates the soul. Teaching surpasses a vocation and becomes a way of being. Long before the Sandy Hook staff was confronted by stark reality, the adults there were focused on protecting, saving and building lives, and they will continue to do so, as will teachers everywhere.