A Wednesday Rant

Several things of interest happened yesterday. The dollar posted the largest 2 day gain since 2005. This is good.

This helps to drive speculators out of the commdities market and lets oil futures drop. Another great thing is that the Senate GOP was able to block new higher taxes on Big Oil. This is good.Many Democrats believe that Big Oil is making obscene profits and therefore should be taxed (read punished) for this. Often times many in the Democratic camp complain that Big Oil is not doing enough to ensure America's energy independence and reliance upon foreign oil. Now the last time I looked Big Oil has been the only ones working to make sure that we have oil. In fact, Russia has just lowered their taxes on their oil companies. They apparently want to spur growth and keep profits at home. Yet the Democrats, Liberals, and Conservationists have worked to block most new oil exploration and recovery within the US. And as mentioned earlier, they want to take more of their money through taxes which will discourage growth, exploration, and will cause more American dollars to flow overseas. So much for energy independence and not relying on foreign governments.

Now who are these governments that we rely on so heavily? Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Venezuela; hmmmm....That really says national security.

Sorry for rambling. I just paid $70.00 to fill up the truck and I'm not happy.The Russian oil company Gazprom has just predicted that oil will soon reach $250 per barrel. Of course their prediction will encourage more speculation and drive prices higher which means they will make more money and higher profits since their taxes have been lowered and will then explore for more oil with the profits they get and then sell it and make even more money and son and so on and so on. WHEW!!!

© 2008 Barry T Horst


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Let's Go Down The Road Again

Chris and I were running errands yesterday. As we were driving to and from we began discussing the various bond elections that area school districts had over the weekend. Waco ISD, where I work, passed a large bond election to build new schools and remodel aging facilities. This has been needed and will certainly be appreciated by all staff, students, parents, and community members. It is always nice to be proud of your local schools and your place of employment. Over the course of several years the district will build new schools, remodel some, and combine others in an effort to bring more cost efficiency to the district. I look forward to this time as an exciting time to be with the district.

Now back to the conversation I had with Chris. Chris asked about University High School and I told her that they would build a new University High at another location and then University Junior High would relocate to the old high school. I then stopped and corrected myself saying, "I guess it is University Middle School now. They don't call them junior highs anymore, they're all middle schools."

This prompted me to recall how the names of schools and other institutions change with time and our perceptions of the older names. For instance, "Grammar Schools". I'm sure they taught more than just grammar, yet they were called 'grammar school" and not math or social studies schools. Another term from long ago was having a "liberal education". Nowadays that would upset many conservatives because you would expect someone is being indoctrinated with a socially and politically liberal ideas. But years ago it simply meant getting a "well rounded" education.

Another good old fashioned name was "sanitarium" which denoted a health retreat or hospital. Nowadays I think of a sanitarium as being an "insane asylum". Of course the "insane asylum" was ubiquitous many years years ago. Now we have "psychiatric hospitals" or other less offensive terms.

Again, this is just another example of how I can start down the road to school and end up at the insane asylum.

© 2008 Barry T Horst


This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Please visit the Giveaway of the Day near the bottom of the left sidebar for free software downloads daily.