Sunday a.m. brain droppings. I'm reacting to a couple of topics from Michael Smerconish. [View all]

The first is about opportunity to achieve the "American Dream.' --- work hard, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps (what da fuck are bootstraps?) and you will success. This is the advice to youngsters that was offered in Horatio Alger's stories. These books were popular in the 19th century and were stories about underprivileged boys who were hard working at menial tasks and their diligence was rewarded with the prospect of a prosperous future. The implied message of these "rags to riches" stories was that hard work and honesty will be rewarded.

The problem is, that all of these boys were rewarded by work, honesty AND LUCK. For example, one boy supported himself and his widowed mother by selling newspapers on a city street corner. He was a "newsboy." One day, he saves a girl from being injured by a run-away horse. The girl's father is so thankful that he invites the newsboy to his office to talk about a future career in banking. Work and honesty are evident qualities in the lad but luck - right place at the right time and an appreciative father are what seal the deal.

Luck plays similar parts in other Alger books and the Neo-Calvinist approach to life is what leads to the conclusion that the Dream is available to anyone who gets off their couch...... And if you're poor, well you have bad genes (Social Darwinism) or just used your time making love to your couch instead of getting off of it and making something of yourself.

Alger died in 1899 an even though no-one on D.U. ('cept maybe me) ever read any of his masterpieces, the message still carries on. Except maybe there is a change beginning in our societal feelings that hard work is not going to do it. The game is rigged.

Carlin: ".... It's a big club except you and I ain't in it."

The second is about free range kids. Based on the story of the NYC mother who let her 9 year old ride the NY subway by himself. I would suspect that at least half of the people on D.U. were raised "free range." -- out of the house by yourself after school, weekends and summers. Walking into town, walking to school by yourself - in my town, you can't walk to school by yourself until you are 10 years old. Da Fuck?

In many or probably most cases, the kid is never out of control of the parent, usually the mother. There are play meetings, scouts, trips, after school sports or art classes. But there is no time for a kid to sit on the porch with their friends and discuss life as it appears to a 12 year old.

My youth - I was out of the house as soon as I got home from school and changed my clothes. We had "sand lot" games to play, bikes to ride throughout the neighborhood and even about 300 acres of wooded area with a stream running through, to play in.

And this brings me to my teaching job in a N.J. urban school. We were encouraged to answer questions about our personal interests, family life and so forth... as much as we were comfortable sharing. This, so as to make teachers feel "human," Contrast this with the suburban district I taught in where talking about person life was to be avoided. "You are not their friends. You are their teacher."

And I recall at the urban district where I was asked by a kid, about what do I do on weekends.

"I go hiking in the woods in western New Jersey."

"What do you see?" So I brought in photos of some of the scenes from my hikes.

"Can you take us on a hike some Saturday?" And so I got to figuring, why not? So I went to the principal.

Principal: "What dangers might there be? What animals are there?" Now keep in mind that this is an area where gangs control some of the streets. Occasionally, a student would come to school with bruises from being attacked for being in the wrong neighborhood. There was even gunfire IN the schools.

I answered the principal with the possibility of a kid tripping on a trail, there are Black Bears, rattlesnakes and copperheads. But in 20 years of hiking in New Jersey, I have seen only two bears, two rattlesnakes and one copperhead.

Principal: "I don't think we can take the chance to take any kids to go hiking." We were able to plan trip sand activities anywhere in the district. That was never a problem. The principal's reality was that the school's neighborhood was less dangerous than being in the woods.

My reality was that the school neighborhood was more dangerous than being in the woods.

And so it goes.