Mike Knutson: One Man’s Family

One Man’s Family

To the Editor:

The second paragraph is right on the money. “Just wait until 2014, when all students must perform at their grade level or above for an education program that is designed for the 20th century assembly line worker.” [Ed Raymond, “What Does the Heart Have to Do With It?” HPR Vol. 16, Iss. 38, June 10, 2010, p. 4]  Assembly line workers and consumers of Chinese-made junk, junk food, and fads. Took the words right out of my mouth. I wish the three teachers I had in grades 1-6 had lived forever and taught my kids and grandkids. They have been short-changed. They are not dumb but there is a hell of a lot I had learned by 6th grade that is foreign to them.

On another note, one grandson has Tourette’s. Not coprolalia but tics. Sometimes the poor kid can’t even talk. He is brilliant in some areas. He can order stuff from ebay on his folks’ credit cards no sweat. In other areas he is deficient. He does not understand “no.”

“Al Gore said Tipper was someone ‘I’ve loved with my whole heart since the night of my senior high prom.’ Would their lives have been different if Al had used his brain instead?” [Ed Raymond, “What Does the Heart Have to Do With It?” HPR Vol. 16, Iss. 38, June 10, 2010, p. 5]  Al Gore’s quote is ironic, isn’t it? There must be something aphrodisiac in that Potomac water.

-Mike Knutson
Mayville, N.D.