USA! USA! USA! WE'RE NUMBER 48!!!

USA TODAY united states is fattest among advanced countries.
USA TODAY united states students ranks 48th in math and science.
USA TODAY 49% of americans don't know how long it takes the earth to circle the sun.

‎"if the usa's students matched finland analysis suggests the us economy would grow 9-16 percent"

so, it turns out that our problems are what i have always feared: we are fat and stupid.

on cnn this morning they had a piece about farm workers in california's grape orchards, the workers, who are all mexicans, make 8 dollars per hour but they take taxes out though most of the workers are illegal. they asked the farm's labor manager how many 'americans' have ever applied for the work. answer.. NONE. so many we can add lazy to fat and stupid.

those statistics should stun and dismay all of you. we are going to end up a second rate country if we don't a. improve our educational system (and i don't have the slightest idea of how to do that since, i feel, the real problem lies with the parents who do not get involved in their childrens education .. oh the schools could be better, the teachers better trained but if parents aren't involved then kids will continue to fall way behind the rest of the world) and at the same time b. get americans off their fat asses and take some of the shit jobs that are out there. hey go pick some grapes for three months and you will lose some weight..

over the years on my blogs and in private letters to various people i have espoused the idea that americans don't really want to get rich because that requires way too much work, they just want to live like they are. during boom times, americans buy more and bigger STUFF. a bigger car, though they don't need it, a bigger house, though they don't need it, new furniture, though they don't need it, another tv, another gaget or gizmo and at the same time, save nothing. facts bear me out: during the bush years we went on a shopping spree but wages remained FLAT. so, we weren't earning more, we were just buying more. and, of course, eating more.

the jobs of the future are going to require specialized knowledge and our kids aren't getting that. you know where more people speak english than any other country? CHINA. how many of our kids are learning chinese? people in europe speak 5 or more languages and here we don't even speak english properly much less be fluent in others.

fat, stupid, lazy and poorly educated. dat's us.

life in city

Ron Shock according to a study by pbs there are somewhere between 2.3 and 3.5 homeless people in america. (3 million would be TEN PERCENT OF OUR TOTAL POPULATION!!!). according to a 2009 study on any given day 200,000 veterans are homeless. to think that 200k of men and women who served their country, risked their lives, left their families behing to go fight one of our non-stop wars in some far away place are now living in the streets is a national disgrace.

i have a very dear friend who is quite active in social work (especially battered women) and has a lot of contact with the homeless and the people who work with them. i asked her what percentage of the homeless are there because of mental problems and she said probably 75%. this is, of course, thanks to that great patriot, ronald reagan, who stopped funding for federal mental health hospitals which then put 3 quarters of million people on the streets back in 83 (i think) and the figure has risen with each passing year. now, even middle class people of untold numbers are facing homelessness because of the continuing recession.

we, and that includes me, have a tendency to overlook (or not look at all) the thousands of homeless in our cities. we see them, not as our fellow citizens or our brothers and sisters, but as bums or addicts and some of them surely are bums or addicts but the vast majority are not in those catagories and study after study shows that to be true. i, for one, cannot, in good conscious, continue to do that.

i know that what ever little i do will have only a tiny, tiny bit of difference or no difference at all but if i don't do it, who will?

so, now i am asking you to do a little something to help. volunteer one day a month at a shelter or at a food kitchen or as a driver to get people to medical care. if you can't do that, go to the store and buy a big bag of rice and a big bag of beans (cost, what? 5 dollars??) and donate them to some organization which feeds the hungry. buy some school clothes and donate them. take some of the clothes you no longer wear and donate them. if you won't do it..who will?

i, for one, have sat on my ass and not done what my christian upbringing commands me to do and i really don't want to meet my maker and have to explain how i was just too busy to help my fellow man.