rumitoid

Slashing money for the Special Olympics to fund privatized Charter Schools. Really? This is what Devos, long time proponent, wants to cut to better fund Charter Schools whose benefits are wide open for debate? Here's a note:
While Michigan has one of the largest networks of charter schools in the country, in charge of 80% of that program in that state, public education in the state has continued to struggle. A study published last year by the University of Michigan found that students in the state have consistently had the least improved test scores on the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) since 2003. A 2016 Education Trust-Midwest report also found that Michigan ranked among the bottom 10 states in several subjects and is continuing to fall behind.

Yet whether or not Charter Schools are good or a viable solution to our Education problem in this country is,to me, not the point.

Have you ever been to the Special Olympics? I went to one many years ago in Taos. The single most loving, warm, touching, and wonderful experience in my life. The overwhelming joy at seeing one of them coming in last with their arms up in triumph and a huge smile of glee while their team and competitors both rushed to give hugs. I am crying now at the sight of such pure goodness. The unfettered innocence of these angels is heartbreaking and spirit uplifting. Heartbreaking because of the world as we know it: cynical and cruel, no real place for them. Spirit uplifting for what we wish our soul to be: tender and embracing, where they would get the higest honors.

slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

I'm with you 100% on this, Rumi. I have a cousin, one month older than I, who used to compete in Special Olympics. My experiences of watching those participants was everything you described above.

rumitoid

Thank you slat, it is like being in God's personal nursery. I had a second cousin, Frances, with downs syndrome. I rarely got to see her. On one of those times we did visit, we went to the playground together near her house. I was six or seven, not sure. No real idea of how old she was chronologically, maybe in her late teens, but we were companions. I liked her, she really made me laugh, yet if someone saw me laughing they may have thought me cruel. It was the odd things she would say and do--and I was totally delighted by it. I was not making fun of her.

An older boy in this playground, where I was new, kept giving me a hard time, calling me names and finally pushing me to the ground. I was crying. She rushed over to me and threw her arms around me. "That's not nice. That's not nice. That's not nice" she kept repeating. A bunch of that boy's friends stood around us, mocking "the r****d" and her "r****d boyfriend." I really didn't know then what "r****d" meant but knew it to be unkind. Finally, some adults came by and took those boys away.

What happened afterwards is a blur. Did I thank her and make her my best friend? I don't think so. I have the vague recollections of wondering what did "r****d" mean and why did they call her that? Not very noble or kind. It is one of those memories where a person really wants to be the epitome compassion and understanding, and the reality especially hurts. One of those things that could almost vindicate a life of wrong...if one had acted well. Frances became later in my teenage years sort of litmus test for how I need to treat those in society that are on the fringes, disenfranchised, unpopular, and so forth. "R****ds" are here to make us, by God's design, better people.

vernon

This sounds very pitiful but some grinch has to call a halt. The federal government is not here to hold the Olympics,build stadiums or even finance a kids college education.now just look at the responsibilities
that are listed in a very old paper that lives in Washington DC.

rumitoid

Call a halt to the highest ideals of governing to favor the private sector to profit over disabled citizens?

slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas