No This Is Not The Drudge Report

I live in a small town on the edge of a VERY large city in a state that borders another country. When we moved here there was one gas station in our little town.

Until today. And now we have this:

I am so excited to have a new gas station. Yes my life it that pathetic.

This is the other gas station:

It doesn't look that bad. Right?

Well except for these guys:

and these guys:

and these guys (sorry for the blurry picture. I took it while I was driving.)

They are all around the old gas station just looking for day jobs. As I drove by this morning I did a rough count and finally stopped at 50. I have never gone to that old gas station because of these guys. Am I racist? Nope. I don't like being around criminals. And as far as I am concerned as soon as they stepped one foot over the border they broke the law. We aren't suppose to call them illegal immigrants any more. They are undocumented immigrants. We don't want to hurt their feelings.

Well I don't really care about their feelings anymore. Yesterday I found out that the ELP (Enhanced Learning Program for Gifted Children) Program is going to lose most of its funding. But the ELL (English Language Learners) will retain most of their budget. WHAT?!? Then today I found out that the state-funded program that furnishes Ham therapy is totally cut. As of March 1st he will no longer be qualified to receive therapy. Not that he doesn't need it anymore, the money isn't in the state budget to pay for it. I am very well aware of the economic crisis that we face as a world, and country, and state, and county, and city, and school district, as well as individual people. But I don't understand where the priority got so messed up. How as a country we feel that it is more important to subsidize a multi-million dollar corporation that has shown it doesn't know how to handle money. That fat-cat CEO's are given more money to waste. And yet education and early childhood intervention isn't important. This affects everyone of my children in one way or another. I am so frustrated. I know enough about building something that I know that the foundation must be strong. The basic bottom level has to be built correctly. And then you can go from there. You can't have a shaky or cheap foundation and build greatness upon it. How do expect this great land of ours to return to the prosperity and leadership we once enjoyed if we are short-changing our future leadership. How can a university president come out and say that programs have to be cut and students will suffer and still get paid a $750,000 salary, over $1,000,000 with perks. How can we justify spending so much money to teach children to speak English yet our brightest children are not as important. How can we expect greatness if we teach mediocrity.

I am sad for my children and I am sad for our future.