Ynnatchkah: Loved yours too; sick to death of almost all things California, but there are more important things in life.

Submitted by mariana (United States), Mar 6, 2007 at 15:07

California is probably beyond help. Most businesses of consequence, including large parts of Silicon Valley, have left or are leaving the state for friendlier climes like Texas, N.Carolina, Florida, Arizona, Colorado, where the taxes are lower, unions are unwanted; where life is better, requires less struggle, and which have not [yet] reached the status of "People's Republic of......"

While most of what you say warms my heart, gives me hope and elicits strong agreement from me, I do disagree, respectfully, with some. Much of what you say, of course, is fundamentally based in a sense of personal responsibility, patriotism, love of country, and self respect. This is something that one has or has not; it can be taught, of course, but our PC society and institutions have defined such instruction, these days, as "oppression."

While teaching at the college level, I found that many of the children of Baby Boomers and "60's" hippies and hippy-wannabes, had no training in ethics, morality, the difference between right and wrong [even the possibility that such difference existed or was "relevant"] or frankly, even such basics as how to properly clean and manage their own bodies. The craven, cowardly school administrators were loath to provide courses to fill these gaps, and intervention by individual faculty members was ersatz and sporatic and, well, we've already gone there.

The things you say are reminiscent of the things my grandparents and parents said, felt, believed and practiced. I do appreciate your stress on English, since this is your chosen country, and your child's correcting your grammar brings back happy memories, is wonderful and fun. Unfortunately, after age 2-3, my parents [like most of their generation] enforced an "English only" regimen in our home, and unfortunately, I had to take formal classes in Italian [available only at the college level] when I was older. Having "heard" and "spoken" Italian as a very young child, my accent when speaking is pretty "Italian." Fluency and mastery [which I have not achieved], would have been considerably easier, had my parents done what my daughter is doing.

I took my daughter, when 3-5 to my Russian, Fr. & Sp. classes, daily [and while occupied with her drawing or reading, she unthinkingly participated in the oral responses, aloud, with the rest of the class {charming and pleasing all of my instructors}]; later, when she was in Jr. Hi., I enrolled us both in Italian night classes at UC Berk. Extension. She "forgot" everything through elementary and Jr Hi., but when she began with languages in HS and University, it all came easily, and it became her major. The only fundamental disagreement I have with you is your enforced exclusion of your native and other languages your family use with ease [Russian, Portuguese, Spanish[?].

Most parents underestimate the learning capacity of children. Forging the pathways and synaptic connections in their young brains is all to the good; classical, jazz and various ethnic music as background music, naturally available also expands the paths in the brain [and there will never again be a time when they can learn so much so easily]. Since you obviously have an educated knowledge of languages, there should be no problem with your child learning more than one at a time, with perfect accents in each [and no run-over]. My son-in-law speaks to my grandson in Farsi and English; daughter in English mostly, also Farsi and French. He sings in Portugese, and English. And he has an enormous scientific lexicon, but his parents are not forcing the learning.

Having the availability and natural use around a child just makes this kind of learning "status quo." It's what being alive is for this child...no pressure, just excitement and happiness at learning more and more new things, and learning things he knows more deeply. Exposure in a positive, un-pressured way is crucial to development. [Starting elementary school, I used to ask her to think about what field she'd like for her PhD...not, are you going to college?]. Grandson says he's going to be an archaeologist, paleo-zoologist, and/or Egyptologist. Of course, you know your child best and should absolutely have the absolute, final say on any and all issues.

I just posit this experience for you to ponder and consider. We've gotten far afield from the lunatic, barbarian, evangelical Muslim taxi driver, but maybe not. Raising, guiding and educating a child is, as you know, a sacred trust, and the more well rounded, intelligent and able to think and analyse your child is, the safer we all will be in the future. We're faced with 2 or 3 generations of indoctrinated people who were never permitted to learn how to think, and did not have to study serious [non sandbox] history of civilizations or serious American history, ethics, civics, government, sciences, math or languages to secure their Bachelors, Masters or Doctoral degrees. Sufficient to take "touchy-feely-feel-good and sensitivity-training rap session" classes where they could "express themselves;" meanwhile, State Teachers' Colleges curricula consist in "how to teach," without teaching "teachers" how to think, read, write, and not bothering to give them anything worth teaching or thinking about -hence propaganda indoctrination. The "CO2 as pollutant" and "Global Warming" lunacy, is a direct result of the ignorance and pc indoctrination of the masses and, alas, the elites.

When I was in HS, they caused us nightmares by insisting we were entering another "Ice Age" and that we were all going to die of either starvation or freezing. This probably issued from the parents of the left wing nuts who are pushing "Global Death by Warming" today. Watching our Congress and our 5th column "4th Estate," running the ultra-liberal Dem party which runs their 3-ring circuses around "7 US Attorneys being fired" [while ignoring that Clinton's first act - after having fired the entire White House Travel Office, was to fire all 93 of 93 U.S. Attorneys]; one small veteran's housing facility [scheduled for destruction since 2001] not being up to acceptable standards; and all the rest of their twisted partisan foolishness..... all the while DENYING that we're fighting a World War against lunatic Evangelical Muslim barbarians, explicitly intent on conquering and returning the entire world to the 8th Century, is extremely depressing. The reflexive, institutional response to this insufferable Taxi Cab charade, is a classic example of the feckless, craven, "PC" stupidity, cynicism and ignorance of our elected officials and the voting public who return them to office again and again. I am terrified. Woe unto us. ma

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