Theme Thursday: Temptation

I'll never forget that day back in the seventh grade when my classmate placed a cheat sheet under a desk during a test. Although the scrap of paper was in my clear view, I told myself I wouldn't look at it, but oh, the temptation when I came to that one question I didn't know. I took a quick peek before writing the answer. Next came the guilt. No one knew I cheated but God and myself; however, I was so bothered by this one event, that I never cheated on another test again.

Unfortunately, my college classmates did not resist the cheating temptation. The professor broke us into teams and had each group write five test questions to go along with his questions. I studied for that test only to find myself totally shocked when I learned about rampant cheating throughout my class. Apparently, many of my classmates, in helping people professions, passed questions from group to group. My faith in humanity was shattered.

Looking back, maybe I should be glad I broke temptation in that seventh grade class for if I hadn't, perhaps I'd never know how awful feeding into temptation feels.

I know of two people who have misread my actions and believed me to not be of high moral character. How does one convince another that they are totally wrong once the mind is made up? Being one who has always prided herself on having a strong moral character, this is one of the most frustrating and offensive things in my life; however, sometimes people believe what they want to believe whether it's reality or not.

Lunar War?

When I heard about two news stories covering papers and televisions this week-end, I wondered if they were somehow related. I'm referring to the enormous size of our moon that is closer than it's been in nineteen years and the Allies striking hard at Gadhafi. Two seemingly unrelated stories, but maybe not.

Last night a bright and enormous moon shown unlike anything observed in the past nineteen years. It was a Bruce Almighty moon without the Hollywood special effects. As I gazed at that moon, I wondered, how many cranky women menstruated a week early? The moon historically has a way of bringing out "lunacy" in the world and creating "lunatics."

Which brings us to the headline news. A disturbing headline, Allies strike hard and a photo of a plane on fire, covered most of the Commercial Appeal's front page. It appears that during the phase of this gigantic full moon French planes attacked ground forces in Libya while Britain and the U.S. fired 112 missiles at air defenses. Albeit, it's clearly Gadhafi's fault as he defied UN orders, but is there lunacy in the start of yet another military offensive?

What causes humans to act like lunatics? So out of curiosity, I googled "1992" + "war." This was the last time our moon shown so bright. Sure enough, the page was covered in historical wars. Early in 1992, civil wars erupted in Bosnia and Georgia; Kabul was at war as was Transnistria; and of course our American Gulf War.

Was all this coincidence or does the moon affect us more than we like to believe? Hmm.

Teacher's Unions

When I was a little girl, a teamster broke my uncle's leg and caused him to carry a cane for the rest of his life. Note I said, "Carry a cane," since he rarely leaned on it as he'd race through the family furniture store. See Uncle Melvin was in business with my father, and he made the mistake of crossing a picket line. As a result, I grew up surrounded with tales about how horrible unions were and how much trouble they caused.

As a child hearing about the cursed unions, it never dawned on me to ask, "Why were they picketing?" or "What did they want?" These were adult type issues that weren't discussed with kids. Of course I have no doubt that these men were not "nice" people. After all, the picketer attacked a business owner, but I'd like to hear his side of the story. Today all the players are gone, and I'm suddenly left to wonder what exactly happened. Especially when I find myself in a union that is being unfairly targeted by politicians out for pay back.

Tennessee Education Association (TEA) has consistently funded those who support our concerns, mostly Democrats but not all. Now that Tennessee has been taken over by the Republican party, congressmen are out to destroy teachers with highly punitive measures.

For example:

House Bill 130/Senate Bill 113 would repeal the Education Professional Negotiations Act and make any bargaining by teachers in the state illegal.

House Bill 159/Senate Bill 136 would prohibit payroll dues deduction for public employees thereby making it more difficult for teachers to maintain membership in their chosen professional organization.

Senate Bill 102 would prevent the election of the teacher representatives on the Tennessee Consolidated Retirement System Board of Trustees and instead make them political appointments by the Speakers of the House and Senate. I think this bill has already passed. :(

House Bill 160/Senate Bill 139 would make it illegal for the Association's political action committee to make contributions to any candidate, thus prohibiting teachers from helping to elect/re-elect legislators who have worked to improve and protect public education.

This is just a sampling of the bills floating through Nashville; there are more. As someone with an anti-union upbringing, I'm finally seeing the other side of the coin and wondering what caused the Teamsters to picket. I plan to march too.

I promise I'm not going to break a congressman's leg, but I will wear red and head to Nashville come March 5th to rally the capital. We'll be meeting at the Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park and marching at noon. If you are able, please join us. We will be less violent than the Teamsters of the 1960s, but we will not stand quietly.

Rude Behaviors: Blame TV?

Back in ancient Rome, spectators went to see gladiators fight to the death for the sake of entertainment. We may cringe at the cruelty of this, but are we really that different today? We may not be publicly murdering people, but we are practicing rude behavior to shame folks in front of the television audience.

Once again, I see an article about Simon Cowell harassing some kid on American Idol for the sake of entertainment. If it's not Simon, it's a reality TV show kicking a person off the island or publicly stating how much one dislikes another, but why?

These shows, for the sake of entertainment, are sending a scary and real message to our youngsters: it's okay to be rude to one another. As someone who works with children, I see that they are getting this message loud and clear.

But, it's not just our children. Society in general has become overly rude. Just the other day, I stepped into my vet's office to fill a prescription for my dog. The woman quickly took my order and handed me the pills. All she had to do was get me to sign the receipt, and I'd be on my way. Instead, she stopped to talk to the vet and help a young co-worker who didn't understand how to perform a function on a computer. After I stood in wait for several minutes, she handed me my receipt without so much as an apology for wasting my time. As so many other times, it became obvious that I--the customer--am not the most important person.

We may not be killing each other with swords, but there are other ways to bring harm.