[PenultimateManStanding]

I went back to that school for crazy kids. There's something about me, probably because of my personal hearing disabilities, but I can relate to children with problems. I read them a story about a Chinese woman who had her feet bound as a child. She had her feet mangled for an obscene social prejudice. I read the story loudly and with emotional conviction. The kids loved it. There were 10 kids and 5 adults. The money they spend on troubled kids is astonishing. But the aides told me that they never listen when their teacher reads. They did listen to me. They were very quiet and I saw their faces. I don't know if it was the story or me, but I think it was both. That whole issue of Chinese women having their feet bound is pretty disgusting, isn't it?

[PenultimateManStanding]

I hear all this crap from Heinberg and Monte about how we are going to do this and we are going to do that. We aren't going to do anything. We're going to slide into the apocalypse is what we're going to do.

[SinisterBlueCat]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', ' ')We aren't going to do anything. We're going to slide into the apocalypse is what we're going to do.

[Eli]

Gosh, how do slide from reading to troubled kids to the apocalypse?

I am not criticizing just curious.

and I agree nothing is going to be organized in the coming years.

But dammit where is my apocalypse?

All this crap going on but everyone just keeps on trucking.

I can think of nothing as useless as all the people blathering on and on about global warming. If it burns we will burn it and all of it until every last drop is gone now shut the hell up about Kyoto.

[PenultimateManStanding]

I taught a summer school once. I spent the last two days drawing their portraits. They said to me "you were holding out on us". The kids loved that talent. I tried to tell them about amazing local geology, but they weren't interested. But they sure did like my drawing skills.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ferrelgiraffe', 'Y')ou have found what life is all about.

[jboogy]

PMS , the first sentence of your first post reminded me of something Dr. Hibbard said regarding Bart Simpson ----" he's too crazy for boys town and too much of a boy for crazy town ."

We're too late to change what's going to happen with global warming , our fate has been decided .The details of what the final outcome will be is the only thing not yet written. It is an impossibility to tell a couple billion people they cannot have a higher standard of living because the planet is getting warmer.Many will say something must be done but few will volunteer to be among the first to change.Why give up my Lexus sedan when a million chinese will buy one this year?Petroleum will be used ,and wasted, and fought over until the last drop is burned.And even before then we will attempt to forestall the day of reckoning by searching for and developing any snake-oil in a bottle that promises to keep the crank spinning . Half the planet is addicted to cheap and easy power , this is an addiction that cannot be broken or appeased by weaning onto a less harmful substance . It's too late for that and the jones is too powerful . Our elite , the smart ones we've chosen to make the big decisions for us , have failed to do what they know is right , they've sold our children's future so they can spend another two , or four , or twenty years ensconsed in our hallowed halls of pride and vanity. America is a noble but failed experiment . In spite of the best intentions and plans of our founding fathers we have descended into the abyss . Instead of providing a shining example for the rest of the world to follow , we have matched and occassionally exceeded the depths of depravity into which lesser nations have sometimes sunk. They would not now seek our leadership nor heed our guidance in this , even were we to have the wisdom and strength to offer it . They would be suspicious and wary , wondering what our secret agenda was . We have become no better than the vast number of nations that have arisen and then fallen before us. Crippled by avarice and arrogance we are destined to fail , another footnote in a future historians textbook.

[WildRose]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', ' ')I read the story loudly and with emotional conviction. The kids loved it. There were 10 kids and 5 adults. The money they spend on troubled kids is astonishing. But the aides told me that they never listen when their teacher reads. They did listen to me. They were very quiet and I saw their faces. I don't know if it was the story or me, but I think it was both.

[PenultimateManStanding]

I saw several of those students years later. They were never impressed with my stories of San Diego Geology. And those were some pretty impressive stories. It just goes to show, Art is King. They loved it. I'm pretty good with a pencil and paper.

[mercurygirl]

Wildrose, how funny, I'm feeling the same way...I've realized that all we have is the present, anyway. We never had anything else.

PMS, you are an artist, whether you know it or not. The kids are smarter than we know, ALWAYS, and respond to what is real and good and true. I see it every day with mine. Your respect for them is felt.

Love wins!

[jboogy]

Art transcends language and background barriers , your story about the bound feet was art in it's own way . I think the human element to the story is maybe what drew them , a point of referance to draw them in and then the art of telling the story kept them . Perhaps a few fanciful twists with the geology would have captured them ? Maybe intersperse the non-fiction science with anecdotes of ancient beliefs and superstitions that maybe touched on underground gods that historically had been attached to volcano's and earthquakes . Something to get those imagination synapsis firing.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jboogy', 'S')omething to get those imagination synapsis firing.

[jboogy]

PMS wrote
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'Y')eah, that's our job isn't it? To get those kids jazzed about it all? So what are we supposed to do about oil depletion? Man, I'm going to go buy some more wine, I can't handle this.

[mercurygirl]

Kids don't want entertainment, they want truth.

[jboogy]

mercurygirlwrote$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'k')ids don't want entertainment , they want the truth

[WildRose]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mercurygirl', 'W')ildrose, how funny, I'm feeling the same way...I've realized that all we have is the present, anyway. We never had anything else.

[WildRose]

PMS, speaking about Art being King...

We recently celebrated my parents' 50th wedding anniversary with a lovely party at our community hall. Lots of out-of-town guests were able to make it, including some of my dad's old Air Force buddies, one of whom was the best man at my parents' wedding. Anyway, most of us were unaware that one of these fellows sat with his sketch book through most of the party until near the end, when he presented several of the guests with caricatures. My cousin from Vancouver and my uncle from Ottawa were tickled with the sketches they got to take home. The fellow doing the drawings said he takes his sketch book just about everywhere.

[TommyJefferson]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', 'M')an, I'm going to go buy some more wine, I can't handle this.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TommyJefferson', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', 'M')an, I'm going to go buy some more wine, I can't handle this.