Governor Rendell?.....The Iggles are a team of wusses!

Sportsaholic

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philadelphia_eagles_cheerleaders-9253.jpg



They have cute cheerleaders though :shrug:
 

USCMD

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The governors comments were not directed toward the eagles, but to the youth of America in general.

The "can do" attitude of the generation that fought WWII, has been replaced by a generation (mine) that lost Americas 1st war. Saw large gains across the board by most of the non-3rd world. We are now, in the 50's or 60's or worse in science, math, prenatal mortality, etc etc etc.

Worse, instead of the John Wayne punch in the face can do attitude, we are a nation of Woody Allens, agonizing over our insecurities and self doubt. We are experts at excuses and rationalizing, meanwhile our infrastructure, slips further and further toward true 3rd world status.

Instead of ripping into our educational system, and throwing out the bottom few every year on some sort of competitive basis. We keep the tired and burned out teachers at bloated salaries that would pay for 2 or 3 young, hungry educators. Meanwhile, our scores on standardized tests, slide farther and farther. Down around Haiti and Somalia. 3/4ths of the high school graduates can't find Canada on a map. Half can't find the Atlantic Ocean.

The recent crap with the city government of a city called Bell, in California, where they paid themselves hundreds of thousands, in salary, millions in benefits. We are seeing a backlash against city after city, where people are questioning what these city officials do and what its worth. Hopefully that will expand to the fat cats in education, who no longer are worth what they are paid.

Time for some tough introspection, cutting away the excessive fat. So we can come closer to the ideal we all want for our America.

Lastly, when I was a kid, the axiom was ''football is played in all kinds of weather. The sole exception, lightning that might kill players or spectators. Football is g*d D*mn football not croquette, or badminton, golf or baseball.

Picture Vince Lombardi, bellowing out in his Basso profundo voice, "What in the hell is going on out there?" Rest easy Vince, we get the message...... desissyfy football.
 

USCMD

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Illiteracy Statistics

? 42 million American adults can't read at all; 50 million are unable to read at a higher level that is expected of a fourth grader.
? The number of adults that are classified as functionally illiterate increases by about 2.25 million each year.
? 20 percent of high school seniors can be classified as being functionally illiterate at the time they graduate.

Source: National Right to Read Foundation

Where Illiteracy Leads

? 70 percent of prisoners in state and federal systems can be classified as illiterate.
? 85 percent of all juvenile offenders rate as functionally or marginally illiterate.
? 43 percent of those whose literacy skills are lowest live in poverty.

Source: National Institute for Literacy

Yet, with those disturbing figures, our U.S. Congress, by their action and by their inaction, imports an added 2.5 million legal and illegal immigrants into this country every year. That equals over 200,000 every 30 days. AND THE FOLKS FROM THIRD-WORLD NATIONS HAVE HIGH BIRTH RATES. Their kids overwhelm our schools... subverting education for our own children. The immigrants themselves face daunting challenges as to culture, language and jobs.

In Denver, we suffer 85 languages and a 67 percent Denver Public Schools flunkout rate, as reported by the now defunct Rocky Mountain News in a story "What Happened?" Ironically, the 'Rocky' bankrupted in 2008 because not enough people could read! The same holds true for dozens of cities across our country.

Becoming a nation of dummies in the 21st Century

What happens when somebody cannot read, write or perform simple math?

If they cannot obtain a labor job, they pursue crime, drugs, alcohol, welfare, homelessness and worse. Such uneducated women usually become pregnant and their children become abused, live in poverty and become wards of the state. Over 13.4 million American children live below the poverty line according to Katie Couric in a recent telecast. An astounding 35 million Americans subsist on food stamps.

Massachusetts; A Glaring Example.

What happens when young adult women fail their educational pursuits? Let's use one state to show you the underbelly of what's happening to the United States:

Nearly nine of every 10 teen-agers who gave birth in Massachusetts were unmarried, the highest percentage of out-of-wedlock teen-age births of any state in the nation. According to the most recent data available from the National Center for Health Statistics, 86 percent of the 7,018 mothers under age 20 who gave birth in this state two years ago were not married.

The percentage was higher in Boston, hitting 92 percent. In Springfield, 90 percent of teen-age mothers were unmarried. "It is staggeringly high," said state Health and Human Services Secretary Charles D. Baker Jr. Additionally, it is estimated that 80 percent of unwed teen mothers end up welfare.

The declining quality of the American work force.

In a penetrating article, Jared Taylor, "The Silent Catastrophe" October 12 2009, "One great, avoidable evil we face is the declining quality of the American work force. The Census Bureau tells us that if immigration continues at its current rate of some two million people a year, whites will become a minority of the under-18 child population in just 14 years- in 2023- and will become a minority of the working population just 16 years later.

The greatest increase will be in <http://www.city-journal.org/html/16_4_hispanic_family_values.html>Hispanics, who are now dropping out of high school at higher rates than blacks, doing little better than blacks when they manage to stay in school, and are the group least likely to go to college. Demographers are beginning to warn that as well-educated, white baby boomers retire and are replaced by poorly educated blacks and Hispanics, the productivity gains of the last several hundred years will be reversed, and the United States could go into a tailspin."

"We have the possibility of transforming the American dream into the American tragedy," <http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0206/p02s01-legn.html>says Irwin Kirsch, senior research director at the Educational Testing Service. He warns that our increasingly non-white and immigrant workforce threatens not only our standard of living, but the very survival of republican government (the U.S. is a Republic) based on an informed middle class.

"Here are <http://nces.ed.gov/PUBSEARCH/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2009064>some of the facts," said Taylor. "In 2007, 93.5 percent of white and 93.1 percent of Asian 18- to 24-year-olds had graduated from high school. The figures for blacks and Hispanics were 88.8 percent and 72.7 percent, meaning that Hispanics were more than four times more likely than whites... and 2.4 times more likely than blacks... to have failed to graduate from high school."

Painfully, as witnessed in Detroit, so many poor people shoplifted from grocery stores and retail merchants that the businesses bankrupted or vacated the inner city. Thus, the poor cannot find a place to buy their groceries... even with food stamps. On a national scale, shoplifters hoist $35 million a day in goods from retail stores. We all pay for that massive theft. Think of the implications of adding 70 million more immigrants (half of whom are illiterate) to our cities across America.

John Wayne said, "Life is tough, but it's even tougher if you're stupid!"



Pictures of sexy women.......a much prettier picture. But the truth is America is fatter and stupider then ever before. Someone has to raise the alarm. Tell a friend.
 

Coach Woody

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Most of the above stuff is probably true. I don't have all the stats in front of me but I can tell you as teacher in the educational system that things have changed over the years....I think the way America has changed is the I want it now and its not my fault attitude.

I blame the piss poor family structure of this country and low moral values along side of it. Parents don't teach their children anything anymore...taking the "not my fault attitude." No Child left Behind is a JOKE and we have wussafied our country becuase nobody wants to be responsible for anything.....

Also we must protect everybody from everything beacause nobody can think for themself. Try this sometime. get a group of kids 10-11 years old ask them to make up a game with two or three items...ball, tennis racquet, bowling pin. anything...they will look at each other and have no clue on what to do.....Kids don't know how to think .....

Crap enough of my rants.....
 

USCMD

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COACH, its not a rant, as much as its a cry for help. We love sports and gambling, but sounding the alarm on stupidity and obesity are every bit as important.

Watch a movie from the 50's and its extremely rare to see an obese person. Today, go to a mall and its the skinny person thats atypical.


American kids, dumber than dirt / Warning: The next generation might just be the biggest pile of idiots in U.S. history

October 24, 2007|By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist



I have this ongoing discussion with a longtime reader who also just so happens to be a longtime Oakland high school teacher, a wonderful guy who's seen generations of teens come and generations go and who has a delightful poetic sensibility and quirky outlook on his life and his family and his beloved teaching career.

And he often writes to me in response to something I might've written about the youth of today, anything where I comment on the various nefarious factors shaping their minds and their perspectives and whether or not, say, EMFs and junk food and cell phones are melting their brains and what can be done and just how bad it might all be.

His response: It is not bad at all. It's absolutely horrifying.

My friend often summarizes for me what he sees, firsthand, every day and every month, year in and year out, in his classroom. He speaks not merely of the sad decline in overall intellectual acumen among students over the years, not merely of the astonishing spread of lazy slackerhood, or the fact that cell phones and iPods and excess TV exposure are, absolutely and without reservation, short-circuiting the minds of the upcoming generations. Of this, he says, there is zero doubt.

Nor does he speak merely of the notion that kids these days are overprotected and wussified and don't spend enough time outdoors and don't get any real exercise and therefore can't, say, identify basic plants, or handle a tool, or build, well, anything at all. Again, these things are a given. Widely reported, tragically ignored, nothing new.

No, my friend takes it all a full step ? or rather, leap ? further. It is not merely a sad slide. It is not just a general dumbing down. It is far uglier than that.

We are, as far as urban public education is concerned, essentially at rock bottom. We are now at a point where we are essentially churning out ignorant teens who are becoming ignorant adults and society as a whole will pay dearly, very soon, and if you think the hordes of easily terrified, mindless fundamentalist evangelical Christian lemmings have been bad for the soul of this country, just wait.


I'm done. People will say, this isn't the place for this type of talk. And they are right.

But the alarm has to be sounded. Before med school in 1970 I tutored algebra in college. And over 2 years you get a pretty good feel for what the norm is. In 2008 I did some volunteer stuff at the health center of a local college. It was night and day. Kids marking time, hanging out so their parents would continue to pay the bills. No ambition, and even less curiosity. Video games, getting wasted and getting laid. Period.

And people wonder why we are losing our status as a super power.

BOL to all. If any of this piques your curiosity, google "why are Americas kids stupid?" or the like.
 

Coach Woody

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I like I said I see it and agree with you...its the truth..are kids are wasting away...i am scared for the future...I know not all are this way but majority are...FAT,LAZY,STUPID and again I blame that IT MUST BE SOMEONE ELSE TO BLAME attitude.

People, need to open their eyes...as a teacher I agree with how bad it is getting...I see it everyday...
 

Auto Soldier

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USCMD and Coach I must agree with everything you say here. The dumbing down of America is rampant and noticed on an everyday level.

In addition to the failing family structure in the United States, I believe the teachers' union is the reason that the bottom tier of educators are promoted year after year with no regard for the results of their students. Government must take a business like approach to this situation and put someone in charge with a vested interest in this and think about busting up this good ol boy regimine that's permeated the school systems for years
 

yyz

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I like I said I see it and agree with you...its the truth..are kids are wasting away...i am scared for the future...I know not all are this way but majority are...FAT,LAZY,STUPID and again I blame that IT MUST BE SOMEONE ELSE TO BLAME attitude.

People, need to open their eyes...as a teacher I agree with how bad it is getting...I see it everyday...

As a teacher, what are you doing to fix it?
 

Coach Woody

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as a teacher????? I educate and challenge my students everyday. I don't let them make excuses. As far as weight, I educate and encourge to exercise. My school will not let me talk to parents or students about weight issues but can promote healthy life styles. (being active).

We can tell students to not smoke but heaven forbid we tell them not to drink pop or each Mc Donalds......

As far as parents go......I don't have an answer....so I don't do much there...you have ideas I would love to hear them
 

gardenweasel

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USCMD and Coach I must agree with everything you say here. The dumbing down of America is rampant and noticed on an everyday level.

In addition to the failing family structure in the United States, I believe the teachers' union is the reason that the bottom tier of educators are promoted year after year with no regard for the results of their students. Government must take a business like approach to this situation and put someone in charge with a vested interest in this and think about busting up this good ol boy regimine that's permeated the school systems for years

dude...where have you been all my life?....:hail
 

Gags

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dude...where have you been all my life?....:hail

Do we really think unions are to blame here and not parenting or poverty? All teachers unions do is provide fair representation to ensure that an accurate decision is made before taking away a worker's job. If a bad teacher gets promoted it's management's fault not the unions.

Most teachers in rural areas have difficulty teaching kids that show NO respect or even understand the importance of an education. It all starts at home, poor parents equals poor young people. JMO...
 
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