David Triguiero's Idaho

Why Joe Biden is Not President

2009-12-14T14:28:17-07:00

Mrs. Redford was right. I will never be president of the United States. Neither, for all I know, will anyone who spent a year studying eighth grade history under her unrelenting gaze. All were at some point either caught cheating or suspected of it.

Each time a “wandering eye” was caught dallying over a neighbor’s paper or casting secretive glances at a carefully hidden crib sheet during a test, Mrs. Redford would announce to the class that “No cheater will ever be president of the United States.”

A couple of elections ago Vice-President Joe Biden proved her right. The then Delaware senator dropped out of the presidential nomination race when he was accused of cheating in law school. He has since redeemed himself enough to make Vice President, but the top job will probably ever elude him.

This got me wondering what would have happened to Dennis Johnson’s political ambitions if he ever had any. He was one of the few boys never so much as suspected of cheating, even by the ever-vigilant Mrs. Redford. At that time cheating by girls was unknown. They were the ones who supplied the material for us to copy.

But even Dennis was not perfect. His undoing came suddenly and without explanation one sunny spring afternoon. We were bent over our desks writing out from memory, as best we could, Abraham Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg address. The best seats were one row over from and one seat behind either side of Carla Hennings. She was dignified as well as smart and always sat upright offering the casual observer a full view of her round and readable Palmer hand. That may be why Mrs. Redford placed girls in those seats.

I was sitting directly in front of Carla. I had devised a foolproof hiding place for my crib sheet. I had stolen my father’s loafers and placed a carefully printed miniature of the Gettysburg address inside the shoe under my left heel. All I had to do was hunch over my desk in deep concentration while pulling my feet under my seat. This would automatically slide my heel out of the shoe and I would glance casually down to view my crib sheet. If Mrs. Redford approached, I had only to sit back stretching my legs out in front of me and my heel would slide over the evidence.

My plan went wrong from the beginning. I had trouble seeing the bottom of my shoe and the sweat from my foot had blurred the tiny writing on my crib. I had to almost put my face in my lap to read it. I was in this position when I suddenly spied Mrs. Redford’s high-heeled shoes making a beeline for my desk. I jerked my head up banging it against the desktop when she suddenly stopped two seats ahead staring in disbelief at Dennis’s lap.

“Dennis, I’m surprised at you,” Mrs. Redford announced, icicles hanging from every word. Reaching into his lap, she snatched a piece of plain white paper on which was typed the Gettysburg address. Holding it aloft between index finger and thumb, she led Dennis, beet red, to the cloak closet. It was the only time she failed to give her warning about cheaters and the presidency.

Nobody knows what got into Dennis that day. He wouldn’t talk about it and brushed off my thanks for saving me. He went on to be a very successful engineer, but never went into politics.

Meddling Mary Took Back the Night

2009-12-07T12:45:19-07:00

Long before women marched through the dark streets of American cities challenging rapists and muggers, Mary Sutton took back the night in tiny Weiser, Idaho, population 4,208.

She was the wife of Arthur Sutton, district judge, a pillar of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, an insufferable snob and a meddlesome prude. On weekend nights after last movie and at end of dances Mary would set out with her flashlight for an evening walk. She walked from her grand craftsman bungalow on West Main Street north one block to Court Street then east to Kiwanis Park, a favorite “parking place” for teens lucky enough to own cars or borrow those of their parents.

This was long before the days of two cars in every garage. In fact, many families in Weiser did not own a single car. Nonetheless there were always a few cars parked along the streets surrounding the block-sized park. Mary shined her flashlight into the windows of each parked car. If there was a couple cuddling in the front or back seat, Mary mentally registered the girl’s name. When she returned home she called each of their mothers and reported her sightings.

I don’t know how many “date rapes” Mary’s unsolicited inquiries prevented, but I strongly suspect it was as many as all the take-back-the-night marches, college tribunals on sexual assault and criminal rape court cases combined.

While mothers in general and society at large did not go to the lengths Mary Sutton did, restrictions abounded on teen couples. Signs of affection during school hours were restricted to holding hands; dances were resolutely chaperoned; in virtually every home visits by members of the opposite sex were permitted only when parents were present. Couples who managed to slip through the net and become pregnant got married, no ifs ands or buts. Why? Because they knew abstinence had to be strictly enforced.

Like everything else it didn’t work especially well. Men like sex and women like sex. They’re supposed to like sex; that’s how they evolved or were created if you prefer. Many continue to ignore this causing great suffering.

In this country they are mostly Republicans who also call themselves Christians. When these Repubtians controlled Congress and the Presidency they sanctimoniously granted $15 billion to fight AIDS in Africa. Virtually every dollar was designated for abstinence education with only a widow’s mite left over for condoms and worthwhile sex education. Meanwhile, Repubtian missionaries headed to already heavily missionaried Africa with their own brand of “Christianity” – sex outside of marriage and, especially gay sex, are a one-way-ticket to hell.

Little wonder then that Uganda’s Parliament is currently considering a bill establishing the death penalty for engaging in gay sex or even talking about it. The Anglican (Episcopal) Archbishop of Uganda has criticized the bill saying punishment should be limited to life in prison. Some US Episcopal parishes, angry their church has consecrated two gay bishops, have placed themselves under his jurisdiction splitting the American church.

What would Jesus say? All we know for certain is that the Bible contains no record of him ever mentioning homosexuality. Adultery, yes, he was against it as a betrayal of trust and said so; as to homosexuality, never a word, even though it was widely practiced among Greek and Roman gentiles whom he welcomed into his church.

some may call itgenocide but

Life's No Pop Quiz

2009-11-25T15:49:21-07:00

The Republicans are once again in opposition and working hard to destroy everything on the Democratic agenda including health care and education reform – the very issues they struggled to resolve during their eight years in power. Apparently, the only thing worse than not resolving a vital issue is for the Democrats to resolve it.

That’s party politics as the say; or is it? In the old days the Democrats worked within the Taft-Hartley Act passed soon after the war even though it gutted the power of unions, one of their base constituencies. The Republicans accepted Medicare and continued it despite their yells of “socialism” when a Democratic Congress and president passed it in the 1960s.

So, when did the Republicans become the negative party of permanent opposition. I don’t know, but soon before George W. Bush became president, a Republican pollster said the party’s objective was to “sow doubt.” Keep the public thinking that there is constant danger lurking on the horizon. There are always terrorist plotting to blow Americans up, tax and spend liberals courting national bankruptcy and American students who “can’t read and write.”

Ignoring the fact that the U.S. leads the world in all fields of education, especially creative technology, the Republicans and their cohort traditionalists harp continuously that American students in general lag behind other countries on geography, math and history tests. It’s pretty hard to argue with them if you believe the purpose of education is to prepare contestants for Jeopardy.

However, life is not a pop quiz, even in today’s modern high-tech world. Knowing how to use information is far more important than the information itself. This requires thinking and reasoning, neither of which are measurable in the back-to-basics quizzes that are the foundation of traditionalist theory.

No one is certain how people acquire the ability to think rationally, probably it is a byproduct of students’ relationships with committed teachers, many of whom may not know how to parse a sentence or spell chrysanthemum, but do know how to learn and to teach. This much is certain: this relationship cannot be achieved when one teacher is thrown in front of a classroom with 35 or 40 small children. More important, children in overcrowded situations do not learn the social skills, which, in today’s complex society, are more important than ever in building a successful life.

The Republican traditionalists say there is no evidence correlating student performance with class size and I can’t argue with them. They also say teachers’ salaries and working conditions have no effect on how students do on tests. Maybe they are right, but that is not the point. The point is there is a lot more to school and education than getting all the answers right.