A home is not a school

I stopped by Juanita Jean's (the world's most dangerous beauty parlor) for a quick comb-out, and the chairs were buzzing about the late Benjamin Morrow.  This one definitely slipped under the national radar, what with porn actresses and the staggering stock market and such.  Mr. Morrow blew himself up in his Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, apartment last month while attempting to build a bomb.  The building was contaminated with toxic materials and had to be demolished, leaving ten families homeless, but first authorities found the usual collection of guns, ammunition, bulletproof clothing and white nationalist literature.  So he wasn't a terrorist in the current definition of the word, just a very troubled graduate of a bible college in Florida.  In other words, nothing to see here.

But the regulars noticed that prior to Pensacola Christian College, the late Mr. Morrow graduated from "Morrow Home School" (according to the obituary).  And they recalled that Mark Conditt, who spent the last month leaving bombs around Austin, was similarly home-schooled; his activities ended when the police closed in and he blew his mind out in a car.  Unlike Morrow, this troubled individual had already killed two people and injured several more.  Connection?

Home-schooling in and of itself is not bad, depending on who does the schooling and why.  If your school district lacks the funds for special education for the gifted or the challenged -- and increasingly this is the case -- the child may benefit from a specialized course of study.  Most states have at least some standards which have to be met by home-schoolers.  But much of the time, parents who choose this method want to isolate their children from a world they see as corrupt and irreligious, and to indoctrinate them into the kind of people who think building bombs and collecting weapons is a reasonable way of life.   A shortened life, to be sure, but proof against the evils of tolerance, multiculturalism and the "Democrat Party."

I didn't much like school, for a lot of reasons -- and this was back in the middle of the last century, you understand, when there was still money for art and music, and the teachers didn't have to shop at the local food bank.  (Did we even have a food bank?)  But looking back, I'm glad I went.  Where else are you going to learn the three basic rules essential for a woke life?  (We definitely didn't have the word "woke" in this context.)

1.  Nobody is on your side.
2.  All authority is arbitrary and self-serving.
3.  Athletes will always be rewarded far above their actual value.

You may have been taught Latin and Greek at age six, like John Stuart Mill, but your parents never taught you those things.  High school teaches you.  I went to a high school with three gymnasiums and a library the size of my first (studio) apartment.  OK, got it.  The vice-principal in charge of discipline was a rancid little shit who didn't care what you did as long as he didn't see it or have to do anything about it.  "Ignore it," was his advice to the bullied and taunted -- I can't remember why we never came to school with guns.  Maybe the AR-15 hadn't been invented.  Looking back, I guess it wasn't that bad, but it wasn't good.  It could have been better.  It should have been.  Sorry, it's only been half a century and I'm still a little...angry.

As I say, it's not the curriculum, it's what you need to know.  As George Ade said, "There are at least two kinds of Education."

And so the Buttermilk Sky Organization proudly supports public school teachers who are fed up with starvation wages, collapsing schools, scarce resources, and the tax-cutters who cause all these conditions in the name of ignorance, superstition, fear and Republican votes.  The public is with you. Organize.  Strike.  You are the last line of defense for the old, democratic America.