Another rant

Two days in a row? What's going on here, anyway?!?

Well, I had the car radio on, that's what happened. Why was I in the car? Well, I took another set of customers to the airport, that's why.

All might have been OK if it hadn't been for the fact that all of the sports stations were discussing basketball, which is WAY down the totem pole on my list of interests. So, I started channel surfing and happened to catch the Laura Ingraham show.

A guest host, and what he had to say wasn't too obnoxious, so I thought, "What the hey! This might be semi-interesting, and perhaps not so mind-numbing that I would be tempted to take a nap while driving back to the house." I stayed tuned.

The main topic of conversation was, of course, the primaries being held today in North Carolina and Indiana. Some interviews were conducted, opinions expressed, etc., and then a commercial came on. (You know how the volume always seems to be louder during commercials? It not only 'seems to be', it IS!! Supposedly illegal, but everyone [and his/her proverbial aunt and uncle] does it.)


So what's got my dander up today?

The darned commercial, that's what!! (In retrospect, I guess I should have just listened to some good music -- I've got a bunch of my "Favorites" programmed in -- , but I didn't, and here we are.)


The commercial was about the school board elections coming up in Katy (a pretty good-sized city just west of Houston) this Saturday. "... ... if you vote for these three candidates, the Katy ISD will have a Republican majority for the first time in twenty years ... ... good old conservative values, against big government, lowering taxes ... ..."


NOwhere in this commercial did I hear anything about the candidates' qualifications other than their affiliation with a political party. Disgraceful, in my opinion!! I couldn't wait to get home to get started on this post.


Some 22-23 years ago, I was asked to run for the Alief (That's where I live. It's a MUCH smaller community just southwest of Houston.) ISD school board. I declined. I knew that I was fully-qualified, but I had so many other things going on in my life at that time that I didn't think I could handle one more.

I don't know if I would have had to declare a political affiliation to run. If that had been the case -- and, if I could not have stated 'Independent' on my application -- I would have declined simply out of principle.


It is my firm belief that politics -- as in 'Republican', 'Democrat', whatever -- should have absolutely NO role whatsoever in education!! I'll stand by that statement until I am unable to utter another word.


I cannot even begin to tell you how distressed I was by that commercial. It made me want to go out and run an ad! (And certainly, if I were a Katy voter, I would look at all of the candidates very carefully. The ad even makes me wonder if ANY of them are 'qualified'?!?)