A Small Rant on Action (OK, It's Fairly Long)

While I get pretty aggravated at the state of the world and my country sometimes, particularly when I see children going without supper or clean clothes, old people who have to decide between gas bills and medicine, people with learning disabilities struggling to read--don't get me started!!--I have to say that there's a small special place of ire in my heart for people who like to bitch about it but do nothing to stop it.

I'm thinking in particular about a board member or two that I have, but some of it applies to people I know and have discussions with as well. Or people who look the other way. Or people who in general are not kind to children.

It doesn't take much out of life to make the world a marginally better place. Not much at all. You'd be surprised. Honestly. And once you start to give a care, you may start digging deeper. And then you may be surprised at what you find.

For instance, I don't understand why some of the graduate students at my university continue to run the Prison Book Project. This is a place where people can drop off used books that will then be donated to the local maximum security prison. Small problem with that is, 70% of prisoners (nationally) are functionally illiterate. So your books do them no damn good except to beat someone else over the head with. How much time would it take to figure that out? On the other hand, when education is introduced to the prison population (as in reading tutors or getting your GED) the recidivism rate goes down. Consistently. But it's easier to drop off your books and then bitch about the prison system, I guess.

The worst has to be knowing that a child is being abused, seeing the dirty clothes and bruises, the hints about not having had anything to eat since school let out, and doing nothing to stop it. I don't care how you feel about Social Services. No kid deserves to be smacked around (or worse) all the time. I'm not saying people need to have itchy fingers just waiting to dial the phone. But ask. Investigate. Get involved. Try to figure out what's going on.

Another thing that aggravates me, while we're on the subject. There are (around the year 2000, anyway) about 218 million eligible voters in the USA. 111 million of them voted. Part of the reason for the low turnout of eligible voters is that over 30% of people in the USA are functionally illiterate. (See my pattern here?) They can't read the registration forms and they can't read the information on the voting machine, so they won't go vote. I don't know what the problem is for registered voters who for whatever reason just decide not to vote. But why not start talking about politics in a real way again? Why not go to your townhall meetings, or talk with your mayor, your city council, the people who can make a real difference in your town now, instead of waiting for some nebulous November senator to magically fix everything? Why not start forming coalitions with your neighbors, the same ones who have to live next to the polluted creek just like you do? Or go register people to vote instead of bitching about why they don't. Or teach someone to read so they can go register to vote.

Don't bitch about how Washington (or the governor or whoever) spends the money and wastes it. Quit calling each other "conservatards" and "liberal scum". And above all, don't bitch to me about people pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. I'll drive you out to a few places here and in my home state, and you can explain it to me over a strip mine. Just stop it already. Roll your sleeves up and go to work. Pick up the damn trash on the road or clean out your section of the creek. Go to somebody's fundraiser, if you don't have the time to pick up the trash yourself. Give them a little bit of money to buy school supplies for needy kids or cheap medicines for poor people.

Just do something.