Shutting the barn doors and all that jazz...

Unless you have been under a rock lately, you are probably aware that Penn State University has undergone a scandal of epic, one might even say Vatican sized, proportions.  Too bad they didn't pay a little more attention to how that whole "deny and ignore the problem and hope it goes away" thing worked out for the Catholic Church.  Perhaps if they had fine tuned a little more closely, they might have made some better decisions for themselves and the children entrusted to their care.

Party of One...

When I was growing up, I wanted to be Mary Richards. Mary Tyler Moore portrayed her single, working woman character as beautiful, fun and interesting. She led an exciting life filled with friends, cute furniture, glamorous clothing and people around whenever she wanted. But she had solitude when that was desired, as well. It was, in a word, a perfect life.

There are no winners in this reality show...

For the past several weeks, we in the Kansas City metro area have been the focus of the nation for all the wrong reasons once again. [I am telling you here and now, the vast majority of people who live here are wonderful, down to earth, truly decent human beings with great hearts who would do anything to help someone in need. Just because we have some real wackos around here doesn't mean we are all like that. Seriously.] We are in the news this time because a sweet little baby with a cherubic face and a smile that lights up the room is missing, and we all want her found and back with her family where she belongs. So the entire city is obsessing about the situation, while we scan the faces of every baby we see, looking for the answer to what happened in the eyes of strangers.

Decisions, decisions....

Life is full of decisions. Little decisions, big decisions, we are all making decisions every moment of every day. We don't normally think about it in those terms, of course. Should we stop at the stop sign or run right through it? That doesn't seem like a real decision, but in fact, it is a choice. Other people's lives, not to mention our own, depend upon our being willing to make the decision to follow the rules, and society is better for it.

Thinking about critical thinking...

I read three items in the news this morning, which at first glance, may seem disconnected. But for me, they are all part of the whole picture, grainy and blurred, a reflection of a country embracing mediocrity at our peril.

The first article discussed the state of critical thinking in college graduates who are coming into the job market, and their lack of required skills to perform higher order thinking tasks. The second was an article on the trend in entertainment to "remake" films and television programs which were popular 30 or 40 years ago, updating them to entertain today's youth. The third was yet another discussion about the new Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial, which has a quote engraved upon it which was taken so far out of context it changes the meaning entirely, and which has caused controversy to rage between those who were associated with the man versus those who know only of the legend.