The other day I was listening to Les Brown on The Skype Files, when he joked, "I get hives when I don't have enough money." Another funny line was, "when there's no finance, there's no romance." I totally understand.
One late night coming home from the classroom recently, I was listening to Danny Rouhier with Bill Rohland on 106.7 The Fan, just before they went off the air. Bill had some breaking news that Ryan Seacrest had just signed a $60,000,000 radio deal. The guys working the late shift in radio are at the bottom of the food chain, and the guys often joke about their relatively low pay. Danny had just been doing some brilliant impersonations and the two had been leading a brainstorming discussion for how the fans of Cleveland could roast Lebron on his return home. Very funny stuff. After the news of the $60,000,000 contract broke, Danny went on one of the funniest rants I've ever heard on radio. Danny's rant was about how someone who he felt had far less talent than he could be paid such an ungodly amount of money. I laughed so hard I cried.
What does money and the Federal Reserve have to do with Education? Consider the book Swimmy by Leo Lionni.
All of Swimmy's brothers and sisters are eaten in a single gulp by a giant tuna. Swimmy survives, ventures out into new waters, and finds another school, but the school refuses to leave their hideout because they are afraid of being eaten, so Swimmy teaches his new friends how to swim in formation to create the appearance of being a big fish, with Swimmy as the eye. Swimming in formation allows the little fish to swim with the big fish without fear of being eaten. Swimmy is a metaphor for social justice, the theme of Russell Crowe's latest interpretation of Robin Hood and many other children's stories. After I read Swimmy to my Kindergarten students, they cheered spontaneously.
There are a number of groups who want to destroy the Federal Reserve. My father, on the other hand, has an idea for transforming the Fed so that its powers could be used to finance the vision of Buckminster Fuller, Louis Kelso, and William Ferree, and create a new generation of owners, who would become the owners of the new technological frontier, without taking anything away from existing owners. Today, as Jon Stewart jokes, the only thing standing behind the dollar is government debt. What my father and others are proposing is to put the productive capacity of Americans behind our currency while building a nation of owners. That is the essence of The Capital Homestead Act, which my father hopes to have passed on the 150th anniversary of Lincoln's Homestead Act.
I have a simple idea that would use inexpensive technology to vastly improve reading fluency and comprehension. With help from an infusion of capital credit, I believe that my very simple, obvious, and inexpensive idea could transform reading instruction.
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