The Stupidity that Is - Government Shutdown and Muroc School District

It's been a while since I wrote but I've still been lurking and watching. I figure its fine time for me to write a new blog and the perfect topic is what is on everyone's mind right now: Government Shutdown. Once that train reaches its stop, I think I'll also address the very poor communication the Muroc Independent School District has displayed lately as I am sure all parents on this base have that also in the front of their mind.

When it comes to the topic of the Government, I'm always cautious as to what I say. We all have our opinions, however, sometimes our opinion can get our military member in trouble with their command – nobody wants to be that loud mouth spouse who brings unwanted negative attention to their spouse. Part of me wanted to tread carefully – but you know what? I'm a voter!! I pay taxes!! I didn't give that right up when I signed on to be a military wife. Nobody attached to the US Armed Forces has instructed me as to how to vote and as a voter I have every right to speak my mind regarding the current events unfolding in this country. Regardless to how I vote or where my opinions lie, those opinions do not reflect towards the US Military nor the Command here at Edwards AFB and so anything I say should be safe when it comes to my husbands career. At least, that is my hope.

Let's get the bullshit out before I start. It should come to no surprise that I did not vote for the current President. Now, with that said, I don't put a whole lot of weight in the whole argument of whether or not he's a natural born US citizen or if he's holding office fraudulently. I've been eligible to vote in a number of elections since turning 18 years old and when it comes to picking my horse, I try to vote with some iota of intelligence. Obama never struck my fancy – but to be perfectly honest, there hasn't been a candidate who has fired me up in a while. If asked where I lean politically, I would consider myself a Conservative Republican but truth be told, I don't vote any particular party. I vote whom I believe is the best candidate. If a Democratic or Independent candidate where to emerge that I felt was the best option for this country, I would vote for that candidate over a Republican whom I feel is inadequate for the job. I also do not vote based on skin color. The fact that Barack Obama is of African American descent holds no bearings one way or another for me. He's black – big fucking deal. So are a large majority of the citizens of this country. No, my problem with Obama is not where he might possibly have been born or the color of his skin – my problem is that this man can't run a country for shit.

The last few weeks, military families along with DOD workers have been scrambling to figure out if they are going to get paid or not and how they will make it through this shutdown if they do not get paid. All the while, Congress and the President still continue to collect their pay. People all over this country live paycheck to paycheck on very little wages in order to support their families while those in office who honestly don't need the money continue to receive their pay for not doing their job. This should not be a Republican vs Democrat war – we elect these people to work together and get the job done. That's what they are paid the big bucks for, right? Well, any other job, if you don't do the work, you don't get paid. These asshats should not be getting paid to sit high on the hog and bitch back and forth, playing the blame game while the John Q Public suffers.

Today two news stories were released to the media. The first is very upsetting. During this shutdown (or slimdown as the Government wants to call it – as if changing the name to something lesser changes the facts) the Government is not paying death benefits for fallen soldiers killed overseas. Normally, when a soldier is killed, within 3 days the family is given $100K to help with burial expenses and to fly out to Dover AFB to collect their loved ones remains. This weekend, 4 soldiers were killed in Afghanistan, however the Pentagon has been given instructions that they are not authorized to pay due to the shutdown. However, a second story (which has not been given nearly as much media attention – surprise surprise) reports that the Obama Administration and the State Department approved (again, during shutdown) a 5 million dollar contract to a Vermont company to create more than 12,000 high-end custom crystals and barware for US embassies. Now, in what alternative fucking universe does that make any fucking sense? We can't afford $400K to bury our fallen men and women of the military but fuck if the fat cats are going to go without drinking from fine crystal. It's called PRIORITIES! Here's a news flash for the State Department – drink out of fucking red Solo cups. Rednecks have been doing it for years and they survive just fine.

Face it – the Government does not give a shit about you! But their not about to be put off by this shutdown – nope, they are going to continue to hit the taxpayers where it hurts yet continue to spend money on what they want.

Want another example? Want to visit a National park? Not going to happen. You can't even visit the website without a nice little message saying the site is shut down. Same thing with the USDA site, the Office of Justice Programs, NASA and the National Zoo. For a short period of time, the National Amber Alert website was also shut down but has now been reinstated after many people bitched.   Now I didn't study web design in school but it doesn't take a rocket scientist (which I didn't study either) to figure out that it costs just as much money to host a website to tell you the site is currently shut down as it does to keep the previous website on a server. Yet the “Let's Move” and “Drink up: Cheers to Water” websites, both the babies of First Lady Michelle Obama are alive and well. However, the White House did announce that the shutdown was going to result in Michelle Obama not being able to tweet? Now, last I knew, twitter was not Government owned, the website and app is absolutely free and it costs nothing to publish a tweet. But, the White House would have you believe that due to not having funds resulting in a Government shutdown, the First Lady will be suffering by not typing her precious 140 characters that nobody even gives a flying fuck about in the first damn place.

Unfortunately, the idiotic mentality doesn't just stem from the White House or Congress. No, one can find homegrown stupidity right here at Edwards AFB by browsing the various facebook groups. Plain and simple, some of you are some seriously selfish bitches. Up until a day ago, over 800K DOD workers were on furlough without pay and what was on everyone's mind? Soccer and the gym. I saw one facebook post from one lady bitching that the gym wasn't open and how pissed she was – the bitch hasn't stepped one damn foot in the gym since she moved here over a year ago. Here's an eye opener for you – people stayed in shape long before gyms were in existence. Bring your ass outside and walk – it's free. Kids won't get to pay soccer? Boo fucking hoo people. Your kids are disappointed, I understand that but there are so many more serious matters to be upset about – starting with why this damn shutdown occurred in the first damn place. Rather than sitting on facebook and whining about it why don't you sit down with your kids and explain it to them – explain to them that thousands of people might not get to eat next week or families might be homeless if they can't pay their rent. Instead of teaching your kids to be selfish brats, explain that while they might be disappointed, life does go on without a few games of soccer and things could be a lot worse. If telling them people might not eat or have a home doesn't phase them, try telling them those families with kids will have to cancel their smart phone plans if they can't pay their bills, I bet they fucking understand that.

Do I have the answers for this government shutdown? No but I wish I did. I can tell you that having the House and the Senate bitching back and forth isn't accomplishing anything. I can tell you that having a President who refuses to compromise on his Health Care Act when this country is in financial crisis doesn't help either. Nor does it help that this same President does nothing but cast blame on everyone but himself – its Bush's fault, its the Republican's fault, ect. But I can tell you that this hogwash about there being no money to pay death benefits or to keep parks and monuments open is absolute hogwash. It's nothing more than a tactic to make the American people suffer in hopes that they contact their Representatives and Congressmen and tell them to give in.

Anyway - on to other things.

Another topic that has a lot of people talking lately is the school on base. Seems that a lot of us received a recorded phone call in regards to a threat at the school. Now, what that threat was, nobody knows. However, parents are upset that they were not notified until nearly a month after the threat was made or that the threat was not reported in a timely manner, resulting in the stepping down of the districts Super Attendant. Truth be told, parents should be upset, both with the entire situation and with the school district itself. Not sure what exactly is going on with Muroc school district but things are not right over there. The district has a revolving door policy when it comes to Principals, the STAR test scores are pitiful and thus results in underfunding of the district, there's a shortage of teachers which resulted in classrooms of various grades being merged together. Now there's this latest situation which sounds as if a teacher (I will not name names because a.) I have no legitimate proof this teacher was involved and b.) our judicial system says innocent until proven guilty) made threatening remarks in regards to other teachers and their families. The rumor is these threats involved speaking of gun violence and I'm a bit inclined to believe it – it's not unusual for there to be disagreements in a workplace and usually a criminal investigation is not initiated just because someone says “I'm going to kick your ass”. In the wake of several shootings across the country in recent, such threats are taken seriously. Unfortunately, it sounds like the school district dropped that ball.

When parents are contacted within hours that a bobcat was spotted in the playground, one would think that a threat of violence by an employee at the school would be taken just as serious and that parents would be contacted. I'm not saying give out all the details and put the teacher out there for a public lynching, however, parents should have at least been told there was a threat made. Parents should have the option of making a decision whether or not they want to take the risk of sending their kids back to school knowing a threat was made or maybe deciding to pull their kids out of the school and placing them somewhere else. At the very least, the school should have told parents a threat was made however actions were taken to ensure safety of both staff and students alike. This did not happen. Why? Because actions were not taken to begin with. The threat was not reported to authorities in a timely manner to begin with. Administration waited days before reporting the threat to the authorities. UNACCEPTABLE! To add insult to injury, administration then waited almost a month to inform parents the threat was made. Again UNACCEPTABLE! Rumor has it that the teacher was even allowed to keep his gate access card after being placed on administrative leave, allowing him to enter the base and have access to the school basically after being fired. (This is rumored and I do not know if it is indeed correct). 

The way I see it, the school failed our children and as a result any sense of security of sending our children to school here on base has been destroyed. The “good faith” we place in the school district has proven to be bullshit – the school isn't going to tell us shit it it might give them a black eye. Why might this be? Well, at the beginning of the year the school sent all parents letters stating that the school failed the STAR test for the second year in a row – a test that determines how much funds the state gives the school. Parents were given the option of transferring their children to another school district who had passing STAR grades, at the expense of Muroc school district. Those parents who opted to do this resulted in less money for the district – less students equals less money. The elementary school then pissed parents off further by combining classrooms (K with 1^st, 2^nd with 3^rd, ect) resulting in some parents opting to pull their children out of the school and homeschooling them – less money for Muroc. Had the school contacted parents back in September and told them there was a threat of violence made you know damn well more parents would have kept their children out of the classroom resulting in even less money. That's right people – our children are nothing more than dollar signs and their safety has a price tag.

Of course, there's those parents who come out of the woodwork and give their glowing commendations of how great the teacher is. Their kids love the teacher, they miss having the teacher every day. Seriously? Can you be any more fucking stupid? You hear this stupid type of shit every time a teacher or coach gets in some sort of trouble. A teacher is accused of molesting a student? Well, he never acted inappropriately with my child so it didn't happen. I hate hearing that type of shit – maybe your kid is too fucking ugly to molest – ever think of that? Just because it didn't happen to your kid doesn't mean it didn't happen to someone else's kid. There are plenty of people out there who thought Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer and Adolf Hitler were great guys. 

Don't get me wrong – the teacher in question should by all means be given due process and shouldn't be crucified without the benefit of an investigation. However, a threat of any caliber should have been taken seriously. This situation could have been very bad. Instead of sitting on facebook bitching while our kids are playing on their Ipads, we could all be crying our eyes out. Because of the schools lack of action, this teacher could have easily gone home after being removed from their position, grabbed a few handguns and returned the next day pissed as all hell. A few weeks ago, you could have been burying your kid because of a begrudged employee and then having to relive the hell as story after story air on National tv networks as they show your kid being rolled out in a body bag at every news airing. But hey, the teacher was always great with your kid right? And if you think I'm just being a fear monger then take a moment to google the name Shane Schumerth.

Until next time...