Student Advocacy Day

I talked with my eldest after we had finished the day out. He was pointing out what he thought was most fascinating (and what he took notes on). The first is how much each county spends on each student to give them their education. It's a good thing he's interested in this as it will definitely affect him as he grows.

The second fact that he took away was something an unexpected speaker gave us. He was quoting facts/figures from the Fulton County Jail. I may have some of the numbers wrong, but they're approximately correct. One - approx. 89% of the inmates are african-american males. Of those, approx. 80% did not graduate high school. Of those approx. 70% read at a 3rd grade level or below. It reinforced in my son's mind the importance of a good education. The question it raised for ALL of the kids there, is WHY do they drop out? What can they do about it? Maybe one of these kids will be the one to figure it all out. Certainly the rest of the adults haven't been able to.

What pulled my son in to both of these, though, is that both had facts/figures/statistics to back them up. It was very interesting to see what he pulled out and what he will retain.

Early Voting

I already know who I'm voting for, do you? I can't see a reason why to wait until Nov. 4th to cast my ballot unless I want to wait in line for hours. If I wait until the 4th, the kids'll be out of school too and have to wait in line with me. So, I'm taking advantage of the fact that they're opening a polling place near home and going to vote today.

Offshore Oil

It's in the political speeches, you hear about it all over the news, you may even hear it in general discussion around town. With the rise in gasoline prices, everyone wants to point a finger. Right now, the finger is being pointed at the moratorium against offshore oil drilling. But consider that we sit on top of maybe 3 percent of the world's oil supply while we use upwards of 25 percent. So, even if we ramped up all capabilities and started drilling everywhere we possibly could, it MIGHT drop gas prices down about 10 cents.

I found a really good article that gives a lot more facts to consider. One is that oil companies are stockpiling more than 10,000 oil drilling permits on land that they already own but are not drilling on. Two is that even if we could drill in more places, all of our refineries are at capacity. We would have to add refineries in comparison to oil drilling. Third is that even if we do drill, it would take up to ten years to really feel any affect on prices.

So while, yes, we could lift the moratorium to drill, would it really do anything significant to help? No. This is all politics and finger pointing to get the public's attention. They're using the hardship we're all having with the sudden rise in gas prices to gain our sympathies. What they really need to focus on is an overall picture. Something none of them can seem to come up with.