We know better. Why aren't we doing better?

It began with me complaining a bit. My dad said, you're a bit negative tonight. So I turned it around. I said, Dad, we know how to do better. Why aren't we? We have in the past. I grew up in the Fifties, in the decade following the Second World War. We had a Republican president, yet we managed to build the interstate highway system, and send all the returning veterans to college! Of course the top tax rate was above 90%, yet the rich were doing very well. And the average worker was doing well too, and unions were, not coincidentally, very healthy.

So I guess I got used to Stuff Getting Done. As I came to adulthood, I saw the war on poverty, the voting rights act, Medicare, cleaner air, cleaner water -- all efforts to fix big problems in American society. We saw problems, and made real efforts to fix them. What happened to that?

We know that global climate change is getting more extreme, faster and faster now. And we know what to do to slow down the destruction, and even turn things around. And we in the US do nothing, at least on the national level.

At one point, we saw poverty as a terrible national problem. Now we have more poor Americans than ever before, and it's barely mentioned. Half the food that we grow is thrown away, yet more people than ever before are hungry. We used to care about this, and made HUGE progress with the commodities food program, and food stamps, and various welfare schemes, but rather than expand these effective programs, we're shrinking them!

The US puts more people on prison than almost anywhere else on earth. Why? We know how to bring down crime. We've done wonderful pilot projects where young parents are given excellent help to learn to be good parents, and know that that brings down crime rates. We know that high-quality preschool helps kids all the way to college. But we haven't made preschool available for every American child. And many American kids get no sex education, and even more are never taught about how to handle relationships, and use birth control. The result is that American teens have babies at much greater rates than the rest of the Western world. We know what works, but we aren't doing it.

When we sent American GIs to college, the US vaulted into the future. We aren't we sending ALL American kids to college, who want to go? Why are we building more prisons, instead of more colleges?

I could provide many more examples, but they all illustrate the same point. We know what to do, and we're not doing that. Often we're doing the opposite, or rewarding "bad behavior" rather than what serves the country's progress, public health, economy, prosperity, job growth, and on and on.

Why aren't we doing better? My dad had no answer. I know the common answers -- money in politics, growing inequality, etc. But again, we know what we need to do, and we're not doing it. Why not?

German Sex-Ed Book for Pre-Schoolers

Translation of German sex-ed book for pre-schoolers:

"Here you see a baby. Do you know how it came into the world ?"

"Here you see a mother and father. They are going to have a baby together."

"Here Father and Mother have no clothes on. You can see Mother's breasts and Mother's * . People call it the vagina. {* word for female genital that a child would use}

"You can see Daddy's **. People call it the penis. You can also see the little sack that he has between his legs; it is named 'scrotum'." {** word for male genital that a child would use}

"Mother and Father love each other very much. They kiss each other. Father's penis is growing large. It sticks out rigidly."

"Mother and Father would like for Father's penis to go into Mother's vagina. That is really beautiful."

"Mother and Father lie down on the bed. They put the penis in the vagina. They play with each other. Father and Mother rock to and fro."

"That is what people call intercourse. That can be very nice. That's how Mother and Father create a child, if they want to."

"Mother and Father love each other very much. They would like to have a child. There are many little sperms in the Father's little sack. When Father and Mother sleep together, the sperm cells come out of the penis."

"The sperm cells swim into the Mother's vagina, and come to a cavity in Mother's belly."

"This cavity is called the uterus. Sometimes there is is a little egg in it."

"Many, many days are passing by. Nine months have passed, since the little sperm and the egg have found each other. Now the child is so large that is wants to get out."

"Mother's belly has become so big that she almost doesn't fit into a dress anymore. 'I can feel my uterus contracting,' says the Mother to the Father. 'Soon I will give birth to our child.' "

Father drives Mother to the hospital.

"Mother lies in the hospital in a bed. The doctor comes and talks to Mother and Father. The doctor will help Mother with the birth of the child."

"Then the Mother begins to give birth. First the head of the child comes out of Mother's vagina . Then the arms of the child come out."

"Now the child has come all the way out of the Mother. The doctor has cut the umbilical cord. Also the placenta has come out. "

"Mother and Child rest for a few days. Then they come back home. If the child is hungry , it drinks milk from Mother's breasts."

---------snip-------------------------------------------------

Mutterkuchen (lit. mother's cake) is really the german word for placenta as is Fruchtwasseer (lit. fruit water) for amniotic fluid.

From the responses to a post about the book on Boing-Boing.


"Abstinence-only sex education" is a little like "just hold it" potty training. - Roy Zimmerman, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPClWkEdES8

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