Tovalea vaka ka kawa!
En la educación hace la fuerza …
Katika elimu kuna nguvu …
في مجال التعليم هناك قوة …
在教育方面有实力的 …
בחינוך יש כוח …
Translation: “In education there is strength.”
Simply put, education is the effort to see beyond what is in front of us, to reason out problems, project into the future and build on what we have learned. It is the art of investigation, of discovering the truth. It is going further than our teachers and becoming teachers ourselves.
This in mind, I don’t know what the outcome will be in the upcoming election. I shudder at the thought that money alone will decide our next president, but it looks as if it will play a huge part in the results. I hope I’m wrong. The real key is whether we have learned anything in the past 20-some years.
For all his shortcomings, President Obama has done an admirable job. In the face of constant criticism and obstruction from the right and unrealistic expectations on the left, he has struggled to move forward. Has he fallen short at times? Yes. Could he have done a better job? Again, yes. But he deserves accolades for what he has accomplished.
If anything can be said against the president, it is that he has been too passive. He could have used his political clout a little more to the people’s advantage and kept more of his campaign promises. He could have “schmoozed,” though as he said in a recent interview, that would have come at the expense of his family, cutting into his role as father.
Having said that, it is in his defense that Republicans in Congress and the tea party have blocked whatever meaningful progress they could.
Critics have done everything they possibly could to discredit him, to tar him with the sins of others, to belittle him — from linking him to the outlandish rhetoric of his former pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, to creating what the president himself called a “fictional” Obama in books and, with the release of the poorly conceived and researched “2016,” movies. Pundits on the right, including those in this town, incessantly hammer the president with skewed facts and distorted history.
No president in memory has been so thoroughly investigated, and it’s hard to think of any who have been so completely reinvented as something they are not by their political opposition.
But in education there is strength, and we know it is nonsense to ask why our neighbor’s house is not on fire when our own house is burning down.
So, do we believe that a venture capitalist can lead our nation out of the hole we have dug for ourselves? If we have learned anything over the past year, it is that Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan do not have our best interests at heart. And it doesn’t matter if they believe they do; their actions say differently. It is what we have learned about both of them over time.
We tell our children all the time not to believe everything they read, to investigate and find answers on their own. Shouldn’t we do the same?
Roque Gutierrez is a Benicia resident. He teaches at a charter school in Vallejo.
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Interesting that you should pick up on the theme Francesca Biller has introduced. It’s regrettable, however, that you have chosen to politicize this topic by making such statements as: “If we have learned anything over the past year, it is that Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan do not have our best interests at heart.” If you are going to make such statements, perhaps you need to explain — specifically — what you mean by “our best interests.”
He can not and will not do it.
How do you know?
I agree with Roque, we can and will do it. Anyone saying we can’t is a barnacle without drive and/or ambition and/or imagination. Be a part of the problem or a part of the solution. Roque, count me in! Go Obama! Four more years! Romney and Ryan are short-term, non-credible soap bubbles; they like Bush and Cheney will eventually pass away. You can be the boat or a barnacle. It’s an easy choice. Peter Bray, Benicia, CA
from linking him to the outlandish rhetoric of his former pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright
It is curious that Rogue wants to deny this link or play it down. Obama attended the church for 20 years, Wright presided at Obama’s wedding, christened his children and was a person he consulted with.
Wrights beliefs are extreme as well as racist. One does not listen to such a person unless he agrees with the man.
Yes, better (for Obama-ites) to falsely deny the relationship than to subject the most open President in history to any level of scrutiny.
His name is Roque. Does this say something about your “level of scrutiny”?
That aside, is there anyone on this planet with whom you agree 100 percent? Or anywhere near that number?
And isn’t it tiring fighting a four-year-old battle you already lost? Are we going to hear about Bill Ayers next? Why don’t you just start asking to see the president’s “real” birth certificate, you know, the one that shows he’s from Kenya?
In the meantime there are actual issues in this, new election …
In the meantime there are actual issues in this, new election …
You mean real issues such as a dog on top of a car or a 40 year old high school prank?
Since you brought up Bill Ayers, you seem perfectly fine that an admitted ex-terrorist is a person Obama associated with in his younger days, not much of a “level of scrutiny” on his part.
Interesting to see you jump to such an erroneous conclusion. I brought up Ayers not because I’m “perfectly fine” with him but because the American voter is. In sports parlance, scoreboard.
And you can’t bemoan the other side taking the low road if you’re on that road yourself. Or are you just demonstrating that it’s impossible to avoid that route in politics today?
Mr. Lund I think you’re smart enough to be a Krauthammer but you sometimes display the instincts of a Savage. And we don’t need any more of those.
RA, Mr. Lund is a nice person, just look at his cherubic face, that is no savage
I brought up Ayers not because I’m “perfectly fine” with him but because the American voter is.
Which does not say much for the American voter’s for whom it is not an issue.
I have a concern that if Obama is re-elected it will mean four more years of gridlock with Republicans refusing to work with him.
RKJ — I would be more concerned if the Republican’s actually started working with this guy.
DDL, One thing that irritates me about Barack is the way he is trampling on states rights and sending federal agents after the medical marijauna community and busting the pot clubs. Whats with that? The weed alleviates pain for a lot of people. A lot of these people supported him.
All you need is Walter Winchell narrating, Nelson Riddle background music and Eliot Ness saying ” Rico, Younblood get those pot heads
Real American I am on the other side also. Now in your mind where does that put me? I would hope Fox News and also the very great Sir Charles K. I am certainly not MSNBC. We do not need any more of those.