The only school for the deaf in our state

is being closed. That's how much the governor cares. He also wants to turn 500 school districts in 100. Don't know how that would be possible. Yet, he will hand out money to professional sports arenas and others that does not benefit the citizens of the state.

So glad this is his last term and cannot be re-elected. Hopefully, there will be more qualified candidates (but doubt) running for governor next election.

P.S. Know his name is Barney Frank. I just like Barney Fife better.

• Is Obama losing support or winning support? - Sweet Grapes
  • I think it's too early to tell - Depends on who you ask
  • Statistically, he has lost some support - Truthseeker
  • I would say MAINTAINING support. - nm
    • Strongly agree.....I also am very skeptical of the bill, want it slowed down.....sm - Cyndiee
      • On the Other Hand - Truthseeker
        • I don't know what state you live in but in my state - Backwards typist
          • Reality - Truthseeker
            • The only school for the deaf in our state - Nonamefornow
            • With the state governments... - Zville MT
          • We need to overthrow the government.... - sm
            • I agree - Zville MT
              • I'd like to know WHY these incompetent CEOs - youwho
        • If they don't like spending....... - sm
          • Figure 2 billion a week for 5, going on 6, years on an illadvised war, - youwho

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Instead it's obvious you're just dumb.

Go to your own board.  You're not wanted here.

Many people were confined against their will just because someone wanted them "out of the way." These were normal people with no mental illness - that is why it is so difficult - don't blame the liberals. Blame your state.

CONFINING THE MENTALLY ILL


In the legal space between what a society should and should not do, taking action to restrict the liberty of people who are mentally ill sits in the grayest of gray areas.

Our notions about civil and constitutional rights flow from an assumption of "normalcy." Step beyond the boundaries and arrest and prison may legally follow. Short of that, government's ability to hold people against their will is severely and properly limited. Unusual behavior on the part of someone who is mentally ill is not illegal behavior. Freedom can't be snatched away on a whim, or on the thought that a person is hard to look at, hard to hear, hard to smell.

It was only a few decades ago that the promise of new medications and a change in attitude opened the doors of the mental hospitals and sent many patients into society. There, they would somehow "normalize" and join everyone else, supported by networks of out-patient facilities, job training, special living arrangements and regular, appropriate medication. But the transition has been imperfect, long and difficult.

In some parts of urban America there is little professional support for those with mental health problems. A new generation of drug and alcohol-fueled mental illness has come on the scene. People frequently end up on the street, un-medicated and exhibiting a full range of behaviors that are discomforting at the very least and threatening at their worst.

Written last Thanksgiving:  "Some would argue that two different nations actually celebrated: upright, moral, traditional red America and the dissolute, liberal blue states clustered on the periphery of the heartland. The truth, however, is much more complicated and interesting than that.

Take two iconic states: Texas and Massachusetts. In some ways, they were the two states competing in the last election. In the world's imagination, you couldn't have two starker opposites. One is the homeplace of Harvard, gay marriage, high taxes, and social permissiveness. The other is Bush country, solidly Republican, traditional, and gun-toting. Massachusetts voted for Kerry over Bush 62 to 37 percent; Texas voted for Bush over Kerry 61 to 38 percent.

So ask yourself a simple question: which state has the highest divorce rate? Marriage was a key issue in the last election, with Massachusetts' gay marriages becoming a symbol of alleged blue state decadence and moral decay. But in actual fact, Massachusetts has the lowest divorce rate in the country at 2.4 divorces per 1,000 inhabitants. Texas - which until recently made private gay sex a criminal offence - has a divorce rate of 4.1. A fluke? Not at all. The states with the highest divorce rates in the U.S. are Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas. And the states with the lowest divorce rates are: Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont. Every single one of the high divorce rate states went for Bush. Every single one of the low divorce rate states went for Kerry. The Bible Belt divorce rate, in fact, is roughly 50 percent higher than the national average.

Some of this discrepancy can be accounted for by the fact that couples tend to marry younger in the Bible Belt - and many clearly don't have the maturity to know what they're getting into. There's some correlation too between rates of college education and stable marriages, with the Bible Belt lagging a highly educated state like Massachusetts. But the irony still holds. Those parts of America that most fiercely uphold what they believe are traditional values are not those parts where traditional values are healthiest. Hypocrisy? Perhaps. A more insightful explanation is that these socially troubled communities cling onto absolutes in the abstract because they cannot live up to them in practice.

But doesn't being born again help bring down divorce rates? Jesus, after all, was mum on the subject of homosexuality, but was very clear about divorce, declaring it a sin unless adultery was involved. A recent study, however, found no measurable difference in divorce rates between those who are "born again" and those who are not. 29 percent of Baptists have been divorced, compared to 21 percent of Catholics. Moreover, a staggering 23 percent of married born-agains have been divorced twice or more. Teen births? Again, the contrast is striking. In a state like Texas, where the religious right is extremely strong and the rhetoric against teenage sex is gale-force strong, the teen births as a percentage of all births is 16.1 percent. In liberal, secular, gay-friendly Massachusetts, it's 7.4, almost half. Marriage itself is less popular in Texas than in Massachusetts. In Texas, the percent of people unmarried is 32.4 percent; in Massachusetts, it's 26.8 percent. So even with a higher marriage rate, Massachusetts manages a divorce rate almost half of its "conservative" rival.

Or take abortion. America is one of the few Western countries where the legality of abortion is still ferociously disputed. It's a country where the religious right is arguably the strongest single voting bloc, and in which abortion is a constant feature of cultural politics. Compare it to a country like Holland, perhaps the epitome of socially liberal, relativist liberalism. So which country has the highest rate of abortion? It's not even close. America has an abortion rate of 21 abortions per 1,000 women aged between 15 and 44. Holland has a rate of 6.8. Americans, in other words, have three times as many abortions as the Dutch. Remind me again: which country is the most socially conservative?

Even a cursory look at the leading members of the forces of social conservatism in America reveals the same pattern. The top conservative talk-radio host, Rush Limbaugh, has had three divorces and an addiction to pain-killers. The most popular conservative television personality, Bill O'Reilly, just settled a sex harassment suit that indicated a highly active adulterous sex life. Bill Bennett, the guru of the social right, was for many years a gambling addict. Karl Rove's chief outreach manager to conservative Catholics for the last four years, Deal Hudson, also turned out to be a man with a history of sexual harassment. Bob Barr, the conservative Georgian congressman who wrote the "Defense of Marriage Act," has had three wives so far. The states which register the highest ratings for the hot new television show, "Desperate Housewives," are all Bush-states.

The complicated truth is that America truly is a divided and conflicted country. But it's a grotesque exaggeration to say that the split is geographical, or correlated with blue and red states. Many of America's biggest "sinners" are those most intent on upholding virtue. In fact, it may be partly because they know sin so close-up that they want to prevent its occurrence among others. And some of those states which have the most liberal legal climate - the Northeast and parts of the upper MidWest - are also, in practice, among the most socially conservative. To ascribe all this to "hypocrisy" seems to me too crude an explanation. America is simply a far more complicated and diverse place than crude red and blue divisions can explain.

they are adding police and only in the big cities do they have paid firemen. The rest are volunteers.

I look at it this way: If a state can't stay in the black, then they have to cut spending some place that wouldn't jeopardize the safety of the citizens. Threats of cutting essential services like Barney Fife stated today are unjustified. Cut the non-essential services first.

Our governor talks about cutting back on services, laying off government workers, which I think is a good idea because government is too big anyway, but then he turns around and spends more money on non-essential items. Doesn't make sense.  

told to treat others as we would have them treat us. 

We didn't get pulled aside and have everything listed out.  You can't make fun of fat kids, ugly kids, sissy kids, kids with pimples, kids with body odor.  We were told to treat others as we would want to be treated.  That is all that needed to be said. 

If you want acceptance taught in school then you are going to have to list sex, color, sexual orientation, and all religions.  It is much simpler just to say....and always remember the Golden Rule.....treat others as you would have them treat you because bullying and teasing will not be accepted.  End of story.

I think everyone knows that he had prescriptions from more than a couple of docs.

No one on your side of the fence has answered my question posed above. If MJF had aired an ad against stem cell research, would you have had the same reaction? Would Rush have had the same reaction? I think not. I think you would have applauded him for his courage and his willingness to do such a thing especially in light of the seriousness of his disease.  Another question, what do you think about Nancy Reagan and her son Ron being pro stem cell research openly?

Most high school kids don't get a chance to see a presidential until they are of voting age.

I don't put any faith in anything MSNBC writes or talks about. They are are for the O.

for 20 years know it's 'twice as well to be thought half as good"?  And besides, that slogan was stolen from the feminist movement.  A woman has to work twice as hard and do twice as well to be thought half as good as a man." 

No points for originality.  Minus 1 point for grammar.

Throughout high school.  I'm not saying I would never put my children there, but at this point they have a good school and I am happy with it.  BTW, at their school they actually pray still, say the blessing, pledge the flag, etc.  Not sure how they get away with it, but yea they do it.

''Just don't do it in the street an scare the horses.''  

I don't particularly care about who's doing what with whom either, except I do think that the sneaking and the lying are still indicative of basic character.  There's this whole alpha-male thing where guys with a little power (businessmen, politicians, doctors, cops, lawyers, soldiers, etc.) seem to be irresistable to some women, especially the guys who would attract little female attention without the trappings of power.  I think they actually begin to believe they are mega-hunks and act accordingly. 

So it's only okay when you do it?