Times-Union columnist Tonyaa Weathersbee is about to be roasted Shut Your Mouth-style, but in fairness, I -- wait, screw that, who said anything about fairness? I was going to link to a different column, which isn’t good but is about an interesting subject. But my dark side (88 percent of my psyche, according to Thursday’s brain scan) wouldn’t let me. Instead I’ll link to a big pile of for-the-children PC nonsense and get all analytically bitchy about it. It’s what I do down here in the basement. Let’s go to videotape:
You'd think that Florida would be an ideal place to grow up.
If you were born outside of the U.S., fine. Hiroshima in 1946, say, or Rwanda in the 1990s. Otherwise, good point. Much warmer than Fargo, for example.
It has Walt Disney World and Sea World. It has an abundance of beaches and outdoor amenities that should add an extra heaping of joy to the experience of being a child in the Sunshine State.
Disney was awesome the first time I went as a kid. But it’s not like you go to school at Disney -- as far as I know. Is there a Disney Elementary, where you walk in the Main Street parade and play tetherball with Pluto? Because that would be great. Also, ‘heaping’ should be ‘helping.’
But a lot of children never get to see Disney World. Some don't even get to go to the beach. And that's because far too many of them don't live long enough to experience those things, or they're so shackled by poverty, poor health and other associated pathologies until childhood becomes something to overcome rather than enjoy.
True. Also, you just totally ruined my vision of Disney Elementary.
So it's good to know that, finally, some adults are feeling their pain - and are screaming out on their behalf.
Uh oh. If adults, who have the vote, are screaming about The Children, I’m guarding my wallet.
The Florida Children's Movement, a nonpartisan group of citizens, is working to make the plight of the state's children an issue in the November elections.
On Monday at the Ritz Theater in LaVilla, the group will kick off its Milk Party Tour. Such rallies, which will feature milk and cookies will be held in 15 cities around the state.
You need a comma after cookies. You and your editor. You have one, right?
Movement organizers say that children have been an afterthought when it comes to the budget and to other state priorities.
They're right, too.
Here’s where you trot out some evidence, correct? No? You’re just going to cite a lack of outrage?
Where is, for example, the collective outrage at the fact that Florida regularly ranks in the bottom half of all the states in child health because so many of its babies are born underweight or die before turning 1?
Where is the collective outrage over the fact that the state, by most indicators, ranks next to last when it comes to the number of uninsured children?
I’m going to go way out on the twig of a limb and speculate that the number of uninsured kids has a lot to do with the number of illegal immigrants we have. I’m sure you’ll address that aspect of the problem.
Or that it has one of the highest rates of child abuse in the nation?
Or that just a few months ago, lawmakers slashed funding for Healthy Families, one of the most effective programs created to deal with that problem?
Most effective = argument by assertion = no evidence.
I'm sure there's some outrage. But because children can't vote,
As an over-18 big person, aka adult, I’m really cool with the fact that people who can’t read or control their bladders don’t have the vote. Now if we can just wrench the vote away from incontinent 90-year-olds, I’ll be satisfied.
or don't carry the cash and clout of corporations and other entities, any such outrage tends to be drowned out in the din of politics as usual.
Until now.
This sounds like a threat.
Organizers with the children's movement say their aim is not to push for a raise in taxes, but to raise enough awareness
Raising awareness is the epitome of ineffective Stuff White People Like.
among voters so that they force lawmakers to push children to the top of the priority list.
Among other things, they want better health care and improved pre-kindergarten education. They also want to expand mentoring programs and parental education.
And they have their work cut out for them.
Florida still has the nation's highest proportion of elderly, and it is, for the most part, still characterized as a state for retirees.
We should build some gas chambers, with lots of handicapped parking spaces outside. To encourage them to come on in!
Politicians clamor for their votes, and their priorities tend to revolve around how they're going to get through their golden years, not about how to help children have better lives.
Selfish, almost-dead bastards.
Then there are those misguided folks who believe that lawmakers should invest zilch in helping children build healthy and productive lives, but should invest plenty in building prisons for them when they mess up.
(raising my hand insistently like the nerd in algebra who knew the answer) That’s me! Not the zero-investing thing, but the build-prisons-and-put-away-bad-guys thing? I’m down with that.
It won't be long before that kind of shortsightedness will get too expensive.
For me?
For everyone.
Oh.
Truth is, no one should have to talk about dollars and cents when it comes to making a case for getting lawmakers to do better by the children in this state.
Dollars grow on trees. Cents simply sprout out of the ground like mushrooms after a soaking rain and an infestation of hippies. Let’s harvest this agricultural bounty and throw it at The Children.
But as the children's movement gains steam, its organizers ought to paint those concerns as a matter of humanity and common sense.
Not only is it costly to wait for children to wind up in the social welfare and criminal justice system before dealing with their issues, it's immoral, as well.
Drop the comma after ‘immoral.’ Seriously. DROP IT!
And it says to the world that while Florida may be a wonderland for tourists, it falls far short of that idyllic image when it comes to most of its kids.
Florida is one wacky state, agreed. Capital of South America down in Miami, hardcore conservatives in the north, a steamy atavism permeating the whole land mass, which is a sort of multi-ethnic sub-continent like India, but with better roads. But who, other than disastrous parents who send their kids to tennis academies, thinks Florida is idyllic for kids?
You'd think that Florida would be an ideal place to grow up.
If you were born outside of the U.S., fine. Hiroshima in 1946, say, or Rwanda in the 1990s. Otherwise, good point. Much warmer than Fargo, for example.
It has Walt Disney World and Sea World. It has an abundance of beaches and outdoor amenities that should add an extra heaping of joy to the experience of being a child in the Sunshine State.
Disney was awesome the first time I went as a kid. But it’s not like you go to school at Disney -- as far as I know. Is there a Disney Elementary, where you walk in the Main Street parade and play tetherball with Pluto? Because that would be great. Also, ‘heaping’ should be ‘helping.’
But a lot of children never get to see Disney World. Some don't even get to go to the beach. And that's because far too many of them don't live long enough to experience those things, or they're so shackled by poverty, poor health and other associated pathologies until childhood becomes something to overcome rather than enjoy.
True. Also, you just totally ruined my vision of Disney Elementary.
So it's good to know that, finally, some adults are feeling their pain - and are screaming out on their behalf.
Uh oh. If adults, who have the vote, are screaming about The Children, I’m guarding my wallet.
The Florida Children's Movement, a nonpartisan group of citizens, is working to make the plight of the state's children an issue in the November elections.
On Monday at the Ritz Theater in LaVilla, the group will kick off its Milk Party Tour. Such rallies, which will feature milk and cookies will be held in 15 cities around the state.
You need a comma after cookies. You and your editor. You have one, right?
Movement organizers say that children have been an afterthought when it comes to the budget and to other state priorities.
They're right, too.
Here’s where you trot out some evidence, correct? No? You’re just going to cite a lack of outrage?
Where is, for example, the collective outrage at the fact that Florida regularly ranks in the bottom half of all the states in child health because so many of its babies are born underweight or die before turning 1?
Where is the collective outrage over the fact that the state, by most indicators, ranks next to last when it comes to the number of uninsured children?
I’m going to go way out on the twig of a limb and speculate that the number of uninsured kids has a lot to do with the number of illegal immigrants we have. I’m sure you’ll address that aspect of the problem.
Or that it has one of the highest rates of child abuse in the nation?
Or that just a few months ago, lawmakers slashed funding for Healthy Families, one of the most effective programs created to deal with that problem?
Most effective = argument by assertion = no evidence.
I'm sure there's some outrage. But because children can't vote,
As an over-18 big person, aka adult, I’m really cool with the fact that people who can’t read or control their bladders don’t have the vote. Now if we can just wrench the vote away from incontinent 90-year-olds, I’ll be satisfied.
or don't carry the cash and clout of corporations and other entities, any such outrage tends to be drowned out in the din of politics as usual.
Until now.
This sounds like a threat.
Organizers with the children's movement say their aim is not to push for a raise in taxes, but to raise enough awareness
Raising awareness is the epitome of ineffective Stuff White People Like.
among voters so that they force lawmakers to push children to the top of the priority list.
Among other things, they want better health care and improved pre-kindergarten education. They also want to expand mentoring programs and parental education.
And they have their work cut out for them.
Florida still has the nation's highest proportion of elderly, and it is, for the most part, still characterized as a state for retirees.
We should build some gas chambers, with lots of handicapped parking spaces outside. To encourage them to come on in!
Politicians clamor for their votes, and their priorities tend to revolve around how they're going to get through their golden years, not about how to help children have better lives.
Selfish, almost-dead bastards.
Then there are those misguided folks who believe that lawmakers should invest zilch in helping children build healthy and productive lives, but should invest plenty in building prisons for them when they mess up.
(raising my hand insistently like the nerd in algebra who knew the answer) That’s me! Not the zero-investing thing, but the build-prisons-and-put-away-bad-guys thing? I’m down with that.
It won't be long before that kind of shortsightedness will get too expensive.
For me?
For everyone.
Oh.
Truth is, no one should have to talk about dollars and cents when it comes to making a case for getting lawmakers to do better by the children in this state.
Dollars grow on trees. Cents simply sprout out of the ground like mushrooms after a soaking rain and an infestation of hippies. Let’s harvest this agricultural bounty and throw it at The Children.
But as the children's movement gains steam, its organizers ought to paint those concerns as a matter of humanity and common sense.
Not only is it costly to wait for children to wind up in the social welfare and criminal justice system before dealing with their issues, it's immoral, as well.
Drop the comma after ‘immoral.’ Seriously. DROP IT!
And it says to the world that while Florida may be a wonderland for tourists, it falls far short of that idyllic image when it comes to most of its kids.
Florida is one wacky state, agreed. Capital of South America down in Miami, hardcore conservatives in the north, a steamy atavism permeating the whole land mass, which is a sort of multi-ethnic sub-continent like India, but with better roads. But who, other than disastrous parents who send their kids to tennis academies, thinks Florida is idyllic for kids?
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