I got the emails, but my cats ate the pigeons…

“Better to live one day as a tiger than a thousand years as a sheep” Tipu Sahib

By portals, September 25 at 5:15 pm #

Folktruther,stcfarms:

Sounds good to me.  My email is .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

I already sent you an email, stcfarms.  You should get it in about three days.
(Keep in mind I’m dealing with verizon here.  They transport some of my
emails by carrier pidgeons I think. ?

Tom

Folktruther,stcfarms:

Sounds good to me.  My email is .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

I already sent you an email, stcfarms.  You should get it in about three days. (Keep in mind I’m dealing with verizon here.  They transport some of my emails by carrier pidgeons I think.

Tom

Tom.

  Perhaps you, Folktruther and I can continue this conversation on email. My
email is .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) if you are interested. I understand your
reluctance to put out too much information online. One of the people that
came to talk to me after the solarfunace became public knowledge was an Air
Force major that wanted to know if the prism could be used to blind enemy
pilots. Two years later I read a report that England had installed a similar
device in their aircraft.

I like the way that your mind works and what some may see as bragging I see
only as a way to understand you better. I did not drop out, I beat the living
crap out of a priest that wanted to beat the fear of the lord into me. The judge
wanted to sentence me to death but the most he could do was send me to war.
I was glad to get out of school because the least common denominator
principle of teaching was driving me nuts.

My current project is very low tech, islands built from trash to create land
where none now exists. I believe that Malthus was right as I grew up watching
the lynx/hare populations fluctuate wildly just as he predicted. Soon we will
not have enough water, food or energy for our exploding population and I
have seen first hand how people act when their kid is starving. I hope to create
enough land to offset global warming and buy us another 50 years to figure
things out.

A quick look at the NOAA atmospheric carbon chart shows that every
northern hemisphere summer there is a drop in the ppm of carbon. this can
only come from the greater amount of biomass grown in the northern
hemisphere. I want to build my islands in giant rings to create a Sargasso Sea
type environment in the center.

By portals, September 25 at 3:30 pm #

However, we shouldn’t be discussing this here, as it is off-topic and may be
against the comment policy of TruthDig.  I don’t want to alienate this blog.  I
like it, because it seems that it is one of the few blogs where people maintain
a free exchange of thoughts in a rational manner.  I’m so sick of the chaos on
most blogs that I don’t even bother with them.

I agree, the preconceive notions of science become dogma when taught that
they are the only possible solution to the facts. Innovation comes from not
accepting the status quo just because it is the status quo. The old saying
“Those that can, do, those that cannot, teach” seems to be the criteria in
selection of teachers. I have met one notable exception, a high school science
teacher named Douglass Firebaugh. He taught me that thinking outside the
box was the only thinking that mattered because the ‘box’ only exists in tiny
minds.

By Folktruther, September 25 at 3:08 pm #

Portals, stcFarms- I was very interested in your comments on Education.  It is
not generally realized that the function of learned truth is not to orginate new
ideas, but to elaborate old ones.  It is perfectly acceptable, indeed desirable,
for the Educated to innovate specialized truths and techniques, but it is not
Educated to innovate those truths that subvert the reigning mindset.

That is why the greatist exxayists in the English language in the 20th century-
Mark Twain, George Bernard Shaw, H. L. Menkin, James Baldwin, George
Orwell, etc did not attend college and many did not complete high school.

When a new truth was discovered on chemical absorbtion, it was attacked by
older scientists as Michal Polanya’s error.  The new theory however was
discovered to be true. 

When Polanya was invited to discuss why his truth discovered a half century
ago was rejected by science, he stated that science is a belief system like other
bodies of knowledge, and his truth was outside the system.

As Plank has stated, a new scientific theory becomes accepted not by scientists
changing their minds, but because they die off and the young succeed them.

stcfarms: ...I for one would be interested in seeing your theory and I understand the reaction by Gwo-Ching Wang, like most over educated people she apparently believes that nothing good can come from us uneducated louts because we dropped out….

I would like to share all of the principles of UED with you, but I can’t for reasons that I can’t discuss here. I trust you understand that I mean no disrespect, but like all theories, certain portions of it are not suitable topics for a public forum.

As for the second part of your statement, I did drop out.  My action was premeditated.  I am an avid self-learner; one of those people who have a memory that can absorb complex concepts very easily.  I have studied many disciplines over the years besides computer science and theoretical physics, but my endeavor was for my own use until it started to spawn concepts that could adversely affect mankind as a whole.

My need to learn was not motivated by a desire to impress others with a string of degrees.  Besides, I was not about to pay upwards to $50,000 a year to listen to some pedagog preach something that I knew more about than he did.  That’s not ego speaking, although I know that it may sound like it is.

The truth of the matter is that I truly love to learn.  Being a scientist in my own right, I discovered many years ago that the greatest scientific instrument available to us is not found in a laboratory in some corporation or University. Rather, it can be found directly inside the cranium.

In my childhood days, using introspective investigation, it was easy to find phenomena far beyond the capability of most people.  For example, did you know that you don’t need an oscilloscope or frequency counter to detect signal oscillating waveforms when they are directly converted from electrical impulses to high speed optical stimuli? 

You only have to sweep your eyes from one side to another with a static source located in a fixed location, and you will see the waveform develop through the persistence of vision created by the human retina. The creation of high speed LED diodes substantially increased this capability.

You can do this yourself by simply viewing a digital clock made up of red led diode segments.  It works better in a dark environment. At first, you might only see a string of lights but, in time, and with practice, your mind can superimpose a graticule over the detected signal so you can get reasonably accurate amplitude and time measurements.

The maximum frequency response of this human analog oscilloscope is determined only by the rate at which you can ‘sweep’ your eyes from side to side.  In my case, it’s about 20KHz.  While elementary, to say the least, it is a single example of what most people are totally oblivious too, including college grads.

However, of all the phenomena I’ve ever discovered, only UED provides a unique postulate that unites us all in a universal manner.  To understand it, one must take a quantum leap into the unknown by being able to accept the notion that there is no such thing as SPACE or MASS in our universe, only ENERGY and TIME. 

By doing so, you will understand one of the fundamental postulates of UED.  That is, “All physical phenomena exists in the exact same place, being separated only by the expansion of dimensional TIME.”

Once you truly understand this, you will also realize that you are, in reality, a time traveler. Every single, physical movement you make moves you in TIME relative to your surroundings to the tune of 1 nanosecond for every 11.798” of movement within our universal time sphere.

However, we shouldn’t be discussing this here, as it is off-topic and may be against the comment policy of TruthDig.  I don’t want to alienate this blog.  I like it, because it seems that it is one of the few blogs where people maintain a free exchange of thoughts in a rational manner.  I’m so sick of the chaos on most blogs that I don’t even bother with them.

Portals, stcFarms- I was very interested in your comments on Education.  It is not generally realized that the function of learned truth is not to orginate new ideas, but to elaborate old ones.  It is perfectly acceptable, indeed desirable, for the Educated to innovate specialized truths and techniques, but it is not Educated to innovate those truths that subvert the reigning mindset.

That is why the greatist exxayists in the English language in the 20th century- Mark Twain, George Bernard Shaw, H. L. Menkin, James Baldwin, George Orwell, etc did not attend college and many did not complete high school.

When a new truth was discovered on chemical absorbtion, it was attacked by older scientists as Michal Polanya’s error.  The new theory however was discovered to be true. 

When Polanya was invited to discuss why his truth discovered a half century ago was rejected by science, he stated that science is a belief system like other bodies of knowledge, and his truth was outside the system.

As Plank has stated, a new scientific theory becomes accepted not by scientists changing their minds, but because they die off and the young succeed them.

Tom,

  I understood your meaning without making the assumption that all college
grads are idiots. The brightest person that I know graduated from Purdue
university near the top of her class. I was so impressed by her intellect that
she has been my girlfriend ever since. In the 40 years since then I have taught
her the Indian (Ojibwe) knowledge of how the world really works. She no
longer believes that wealth is fiat money and now understands that wealth is
food, water, energy, wisdom et cetera.

Your examples are great but will they impress the college grads that could
learn from them, I think not. I for one would be interested in seeing your
theory and I understand the reaction by Gwo-Ching Wang, like most over
educated people she apparently believes that nothing good can come from us
uneducated louts because we dropped out. When my invention of an orbital
solar furnace was sent to the NSF in 1963 I was praised as a wunderkind, you
can see it at the URL http://www.foolquest.com/solar_furnace.htm  There were
some flaws in the design (it was my eighth grade science project) but nothing
that would be fatal to the theory. A few years ago I sent it to Michael
Oppenheimer, he said that it would reverse global warming but would cost too
much to build (about $2,000,000,000,000). I guess that the bankers are more
important than life on earth.

By portals, September 25 at 12:49 pm #

I made certain remarks in my comments that seem to reflect a notion that I.
somehow, hold all college grads to be bumbling idiots, but such is not the
case and I would like to clear that up.  I have always had a difficult time using
implied absolutes in my writing and this is one of those cases.

There are some disciplined people that did take their education goals very
seriously during their course of studies. Unfortunately, the number of them
seem to be few and far between today.  After reading the article, my original
reason for writing in this blog was to air a very different viewpoint from that of
the ‘Chronicle of Higher Education.’

I am so sick and tired of degreed professionals overstating their worth while
degrading all those whose formal educational pursuits fall below their’s.

In my personal opinion, small communities like mine are far better off for the
educational void being created by our current economic fiasco.  Perhaps, in
time, local governments will learn to use what they have, instead of relying on
what they ‘think’ they have, but that is a dream that will not happen as long as
they view their own constituency as little more than a petri dish of single
celled morons.

However, it will be very difficult to overcome this problem, given that people
like Gwo-Ching Wang, Head of RPI’s Advanced Physics Department, cannot
even have the common decency to say thank you for an entirely new theory in
Theoretical Physics called Universal Expansion Dynamics.  I know, because I
sent it to her; six months ago.

I made certain remarks in my comments that seem to reflect a notion that I. somehow, hold all college grads to be bumbling idiots, but such is not the case and I would like to clear that up.  I have always had a difficult time using implied absolutes in my writing and this is one of those cases.

There are some disciplined people that did take their education goals very seriously during their course of studies. Unfortunately, the number of them seem to be few and far between today.  After reading the article, my original reason for writing in this blog was to air a very different viewpoint from that of the ‘Chronicle of Higher Education.’

The article states that there is a severe loss of brain power in rural areas of the country because of the exodus of its young college grads.  I disagree wholeheartedly.

You see, the ‘Chronicle of Higher Education’ is a biased outlet.  To the people who create it, who are all graduates of College or University I might add, live under the impression that the presence of college graduates in society is so important that the world cannot function without them.

They have a very difficult time accepting the fact that most of the wonderful technology we have today was not fostered by individuals holding an advanced degree from some Ivy League University, they were created from the fertile minds of just plain, rural, imaginative people.  During the period from two hundred years ago to one hundred years ago, every single place in the United State was rural by today’s standards, even Boston and New York.

Thus, the electricity used to power this forum was created by machines conceived by Thomas Edison, a non-college graduate, a man whose foresight also gave us motion pictures, and phonograph records, the forerunners of current CD and DVD recording technology; the only difference between the two being that records use scratches in a moving vinyl media, whereas CD and DVD use digital values etched into an aluminum substrate affixed to a moving clear plastic carrier.

The only reason our entire society is able to transport millions of people per day via air travel is not because of any University.  It was because two bicycle mechanics name Wilbur and Orville Wright took a vision from their minds and turned it into a wondrous new advancement in human aspiration.  Take the discoveries, developments, or creations made by simple folk out of our society, and within a single hour, you will see exactly what our so-called brilliant collegiate set has contributed to our social chemistry in the last two hundred years; very little of value. 

Even what they did contribute is being ruined by other degreed people in the name of profits.  Antibiotic resistant bacteria, much of it created by genetically modified DNA, is now undoing the miraculous development of penicillin and tetracycline. 

I am so sick and tired of degreed professionals overstating their worth while degrading all those whose formal educational pursuits fall below their’s.

In my personal opinion, small communities like mine are far better off for the educational void being created by our current economic fiasco.  Perhaps, in time, local governments will learn to use what they have, instead of relying on what they ‘think’ they have, but that is a dream that will not happen as long as they view their own constituency as little more than a petri dish of single celled morons.

However, it will be very difficult to overcome this problem, given that people like Gwo-Ching Wang, Head of RPI’s Advanced Physics Department, cannot even have the common decency to say thank you for an entirely new theory in Theoretical Physics called Universal Expansion Dynamics.  I know, because I sent it to her; six months ago.

As a tool maker at Jet Aire I had occasion to see first hand what you are
saying. I was making a part from a print drawn up by one of the company
engineers when I noticed that it called for drilling a 5/16” hole and then it
called for 1/4-20 threads in the hole. When I brought it to his attention he
told me to just follow the print and not to bother him again. As I have never
made a bad part I chose the only path that I could live with, I loaded my tool
boxes on my truck and left.

My brother Jon graduated from Arizona State as an electrical engineer. One
day I was building an inverter and I could not remember the formula for Ohm’s
law, when I asked Jon for the formula he said that he had never heard of it.

By portals, September 25 at 6:45 am #

Unfortunately, having a degree today does not infer any special characteristics
upon these people.  Quite the opposite.  It is becoming a label of
irresponsibility and incompetence. 

stcfarms: Sorry about the mistake about your education.  I was in a hurry when I wrote my response.  I just registered for this site.  It wouldn’t let me use my real name ‘Tom’, so I had to use the screen name of ‘portals’.

The fact is, when I worked in engineering labs, we used to have an axiom that said it all.  It a called the ‘Peter’ principle.  It states that the level of incompetency rises to its own level’.  In other words, the more incompetent a person is, the higher on the ladder of success they climb.  This is not an untruth.

Many times in my working career I have, personally, witnessed the act of an imbecile being promoted to a higher position of authority within a company for no other purpose but to get rid of him from the immediate area.  Such promotions are granted only if that individual agrees to move to another department. 

This action is not limited to small, insignificant companies.  The last company I worked for as an engineer was the second largest computer manufacturer in the entire world during the 1980’s, seconded only by IBM.  One of those being offered these advancement ‘opportunities’ eventually worked himself, by way of his inability to understand his chosen field of study, all the way up to President of the company; an act that caused it to shut down its entire North American operations within a year later.  He was a womanizer, and a drunk as well, coming to work at times in such a stupor he had difficulty walking to his office.  However, College Grads watch out for their own, don’t they?

I suspect this same principle works in other major companies like Dow, Monsanto, DuPont, and many, many others.  As a result, the companies I mentioned have become the majority polluters of this world with their chemical revelations like Dioxin, Agent Orange, DDT, RoundUp, and the GMO abominations that are currently threatening the viability of the world’s food supply.

Over the years, I have witnessed a division of humanity that causes a prejudice just as large, and just as devastating as species sub-class racism.  A person with a doctorate sees themselves as being superior to their underlings having only a Masters or BS/BA degree. The same holds true for those with Masters, and those with BS/BA degrees are the worst, being stuck in between their so-called mentors, and the lowly rabble who were, at one time, the backbone of this once great nation.

Unfortunately, having a degree today does not infer any special characteristics upon these people.  Quite the opposite.  It is becoming a label of irresponsibility and incompetence. 

In my area’s local community college, many of its senior students are totally oblivious to the fact that their level of education is at, or below that of our area’s high school students.  Why?  Because college to them is nothing more than an unbroken four year drunken binge, full of young, eager men and women, and lots of booze.  Studies are a secondary issue, if they even reach that level of respectability, yet these young men and women are supposed to be the future leaders of this nation, and its companies?

God help us all if this situation doesn’t change shortly.

Zeke,

As long as you see the right as the enemy and support the criminal enterprise
called government, as long as it is run by democrats, you will be a slave. You
need to learn that both sides are wrong. If you cannot find common ground
then the criminals win. Honest politicians are an urban myth.

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education” Mark Twain

By zeke12, September 24 at 2:04 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Finding a conversation is difficult unless you are a devout Fox watcher. 
Education is looked at with suspicion.  Opinions have changed little since I
grew up nearby in the 1940s.  Change is threatening.  Government is evil and
“out to get you” unless, of course, the program benefits you.  All of the racism,
welfare biases, anti immigrant jargon and pro war concepts that America is
famous for prevail.  Any comment made to discuss issues is met with anger/
hostility. 

Tom,

  Actually I only got as far as ninth grade. You and I obviously followed similar
paths through life with similar results. I hope that your warning to the young
folks does not fall on deaf ears, they have so little time left to save themselves.

By Tom, September 24 at 7:41 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Like STCFarms, I too, am a high school grad.  I have no debt, my house and
car are both paid in full by earning obtained through honest work.  35 years
ago I worked my way up to a position of computer test engineer, but had to
abandon my career 20 years later because CEO’s didn’t want to hire people
anymore who did not have a college degree.  Three years later, their decision
caused the entire computer industry of this nation to totally collapse. 

At 61, I really don’t care anymore as there’s little I can do about it, but you
young people should care.  These ego-maniac college grads are going to ruin,
not only your life, but the lives of your children, and your children’s children. 

Tom

Educate yourself, you can learn more by reading the Encyclopaedia Britannica
than you can ever learn at Harvard. If you make your own job no one can fire
you or ship your job overseas. Everyone has a different set of skills so the job
that you would create will not be like a job that I might create. I have made my
own jobs since 1977 and it has worked very well.

If you let the government and corporations dictate how and where you live
they will take advantage of it. If you stand up to them by joining the under
ground economy you can legally use the barter system to avoid the high taxes
that fund stupid wars. Sure the government is a criminal organization but you
do not have to feed them.

“You can always spot an honest politician, six feet above his
head is a large granite stone with his name on it”

By sharonsj, September 24 at 11:50 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

I left New York City and moved to rural Pennsylvania.  People are nicer, the
pace is slower, and the landscape is beautiful.  That said, education sucks
everywhere in this country, not just smaller communities.  But that’s not why
people are leaving.  It’s the lack of jobs.  Jobs have been outsourced and they
are not coming back, and our own Congress has encouraged this migration
with tax cuts and lax regulations for the last twenty years.  They’ve let the
country be flooded with illegal aliens who work for less and are in no position
to complain. Congress is nothing now but corporate whores and the rest of
the country is completely screwed.

It does not have to be a calm area, the islands will ride the waves rather than
fight them, waves are free energy. Calm areas get less rainfall and pure rain
water (sweet water) will soon be the most valuable commodity on earth. I do
not care for the limelight and with modern cell phones there should be a
record on You tube anyway.

By Folktruther, September 24 at 12:51 am #

An interesting post, stc farms.  Mexico city was governed by the Aztecs which
had a lake.  the indians made rafts and put soil on them and actually grew
stuff on the top of the lake.  If that is the case, it may be possible do the
ssame with oceans in calm areas.  You may be a pioneer of future centuries of
ocean agrarians.  Be sure to keep a journal.

An interesting post, stc farms.  Mexico city was governed by the Aztecs which had a lake.  the indians made rafts and put soil on them and actually grew stuff on the top of the lake.  If that is the case, it may be possible do the ssame with oceans in calm areas.  You may be a pioneer of future centuries of ocean agrarians.  Be sure to keep a journal.

Kay, at the Tete Gallery in London a few years ago, they had films of city people growing vegtables for their own use instead of lawns.  I don’t see any reason why neighborhoods couldn’t do this and trade off vegtables.  Home grown ones are much better than store bought ones and the water could be put to better use.

Kay,

  You can still buy farmland, it is currently about $1,800 an acre. One way to
defeat agribusiness is to buy back the land through co-ops and divide it up
into garden parcels. When one local farmers became surrounded by Milan
Illinois he started renting out garden parcels and it is profitable enough so
that he can pay the high taxes in town. The people benefit from fresh produce
and the farmer gets to keep his land.

Jerry.

“We have met the enemy and he is us” Pogo

By Kay Johnson, September 23 at 3:51 pm #

The loss of smaller family farms has definitely played a role in the
disintegration of rural communities.

Folktruther: Thanks for your very thoughtful post in response to mine!

When I was back in the Midwest in 2003, I traveled across Iowa on Interstate 80, and the stench of the corporate hog farms was stifling along some parts of the road. When I was a kid, we used to pass a few cows, giggle and hold our noses, but the current mega-farms have surpassed the stink of the days when I lived there. This time, too, I couldn’t help but wonder about the safety of the water tables, etc., and if the rivers and creeks were contaminated with chemicals and other toxins from the massive numbers of animals contained on the farms. 

During the spring, fall and summer months, when I was growing up, I remember that the Red Oak merchants always looked forward to a few rainy days, because the farmers would come to town and spend their money in the stores. Otherwise, the farmers were always hard at work, and didn’t have time for shopping. On those rainy days, they gave a much needed boost to the economy of our town.

The loss of smaller family farms has definitely played a role in the disintegration of rural communities.

What you say is true, as crazy as my islands sound they would be a place
where family farms could thrive. There are no insects on the ocean, there are
no weeds on the ocean so pesticides and herbicides are not needed. There is
no drought on the ocean because you can make all of the water that you need.
GM pollen can only travel a few miles at best so there will be no cross
pollination from their poisonous crops. Our bees will have hundreds of plants
to take pollen from so they will not get the colony collapse disease so
prevalent in the GM monoculture crop areas. The secret to reversing global
warming is to create arable land where none now exists, you could use the
deserts but even deserts are claimed by someone, the deep ocean is by treaty
open to all. Does something have to be institutionalized to work? I think not.
The old saying “If you want something done right, do it yourself” is still true.

By Folktruther, September 23 at 2:58 pm #

The age of the family farm is drawing to a close.  But no adequate
replacement has yet been institutionalized.

The family farm is dying all over the world as capitalism replaces traditional agriculture.  For the first time in history, the majority of earthpeople live in cities rather than on farms. And the cities are getting bigger and there are more of them.  the US has 9 cities over a million population.  the Chinese have over 200, and they are increasing by a few each month.

the 21st century is a century of cities.  They currently mostly slum cities, less so under centrailized capitalism. The age of the family farm is drawing to a close.  But no adequate replacement has yet been institutionalized.

The corporate farms, Monsanto and ADM are protected by the government just
as all corporate bottom feeders are. The solution is in the Declaration of
Independence and democrats and republicans understanding that their party is
half the problem, the other party is the other half of the problem. If the two
sides can cut through the bullshit spouted by their respective heros (Obama,
Limbaugh et cetera) and agree to fire them we could prosecute the criminals
that brought us to ruin. 

Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the
consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes
destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,
and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and
organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect
their Safety and Happiness.

By anaman51, September 22 at 7:32 pm #

If there is a solution to this, I don’t know what it is, but some kind of common
meeting ground is needed if we are to expect to buy in our grocery stores
what we need to continue a decent lifestyle.

I can certainly understand why kids want out of small town, farming-oriented America. For their entire lives they’ve watched their parents suffer at the hands of the climate, unpredictable weather, the bank, the economy, insects, fungus, and their own government, to name a few.

They’ve seen their parents work until they dropped so they could barely break even, if they were lucky. They’ve seen their friends and neighbors forced into bankruptcy by shrinking crop prices and higher costs across the board for equipment and materials. They have seen their future if they remain on the farm, and it is bleak.

In a population center, an education can be had that will take them out of what they see as a losing proposition. Can we blame them for this? America’s shameful treatment of independent farmers and what they produce is reprehensible. The public’s demand for lower food costs are taking the food off the farmer’s tables. If there is a solution to this, I don’t know what it is, but some kind of common meeting ground is needed if we are to expect to buy in our grocery stores what we need to continue a decent lifestyle.

These people work hard and get little for it, and as a result we are becoming the inheritors of corporate farming. The small American farm is dying rapidly, and with it goes that small-town culture. I’m sorry to say that the agrarian lifestyle is evaporating in this country, and that bodes ill for all of us.

Thank your for your intersting post, Kay.  It bears out why the media is concerned about the emmigration from small towns.  The town institutions are Conservative.  As the piece states, that is where presidents are elected and the soldiers come from.  And where bright women like you, Kay, are discouraged and oppressed.

Stc Farms, I strongly agree with you that Education stifles conceptual crreativity, and for precisely the reason you say, to create docile employees.  And docile voters as well.

Education and success are over-rated.  The best businessmen are “plodders”.  They “farm” the market and are very patient and not innovative.  Most small businesses in the USA are providing mundane services to the general market.
The very few people who make it in hi-tech generally do not run the company, they hire MBA titled managers who run everything by formula.
American business is very conservative and you don’t need an education to be a success.  You probably need more education to be a successful farmer these days than you do to be a fast food owner/manager.

The author places a lot of stock in a ‘higher’ education. Most of the people that
I know that have a higher education are in debt, unemployed and rather dull
witted. Armed only with a ninth grade education I created my own job, paid
cash for my house and owe nothing. It is my contention that higher education
stifles conceptual thought so that the corporations can have a compliant work
force.

I grew up in a small, very conservative, very religious white community in southwest Iowa—and I will name that community—Red Oak. Luckily, during those years I grew up, Red Oak was a bustling town of 6500 people with vibrant businesses that surrounded the town square which was a gathering place for the people who lived there. During the summers, every Wednesday evening, the high school band gave free concerts. The school system was consolidated so that the students from smaller towns in Montgomery County were bused into Red Oak for their junior high and high school years.

At this time, the businesses are closed, and even the small mall that the town elites determined would serve the community better than the town square, located out on Highway 48, sits empty. Or, it was the last time I was there in 2003. To my surprise, I discovered that the 2000 census stated that the population remains the same—6500 people, but you wouldn’t know that if you drove through the town. No one walks on the sidewalks, and I was just about the only car on the streets, too. So, where were the people? Factories have closed. Once upon a time, the Murphy Calendar Factory, in Red Oak, was the largest calendar factory in the world. Union Carbide had a factory, too, and those jobs were highly sought by people. When I attended school in Red Oak, the high school boys used to cruise the square—I remember Larry Hier in his new burgundy GTO, pristine 57 Chevys, etc. The sidewalks were crowded with people shopping, and I recall that we had a drug store/pharmacy on every side of the square, as well as men’s and women’s clothing stores and “dime” stores, like Woolworth’s. Today, I doubt that a man can even buy a nice white shirt in Red Oak. 

However, beyond all of the fuss of business, there were other realities that shaped Red Oak. Children were judged by what church they attended, or if they attended; whether their mother was a divorced woman, where they lived, and I’m not talking about the railroad track division; who their parents were, etc. Oh, and when I was going to school, being a girl was not exactly a plus. In fact, for me, it was demoralizing to live in that town. Even today, many of the churches still teach submission of women. But, I will admit, without the churches, Red Oak would have very little to offer to anyone.

Continental Trailways used to stop in Red Oak on its way to Omaha which is about fifty miles. Once in a while, on a Saturday, my friends and I would get up very early, and walk to the bus stop, buy a ticket and make that trip—leaving Red Oak behind. That’s where I saw my first foreign film.

For the most part, I was discouraged by my teachers—from elementary school through high school—from folllowing my own inclinations. For instance, I liked math. Mr. McKie, my 9th grade math teacher, though, when I held up my hand (which I often did), told me that I shouldn’t raise my hand so often. At the end of my sophomore year, after taking two years of Latin, and loving it, I signed up for the third year. However, my teacher, Miss Young took me to the guidance counselor who told me, “You are over-stepping your place.” Needless to say, I was humiliated, and unable to respond. BTW, I am very envious of people who tell stories about teachers who encouraged them and told them they were smart. That, though, did not happen in my case! No doubt, many Red Oak students could tell stories similar to mine.

For me, the best part of Red Oak was the public library, and that’s where I spent most of my time. At the library, I could read and learn anything I wanted—if the book was on the shelf. Like Ray Bradbury says, “The library is the brain of the community.” I completely agree. I have no idea what I would have done if Red Oak hadn’t had such a wonderful social-leveling institution called The Red Oak Public Library.

And you wonder why people leave these communities? I don’t!