I’m grateful that one of my readers has taken up my offer to send me an email (which can be accessed from the “talk back” button to the right. He felt a recent post was unfair to Dr. Dixon and (in my words) akin to blaming the Gulf Oil spill on Barrack Obama who patently had nothing to do with the drilling off the coast.
Here’s his email in toto followed by my reply:
Harry,
I want to start off by telling you that I respect your energy and your obvious intelligence. I also must admit that I frequently read your blog even though much of what you write I totally disagree with and think that you spend too much
time on topics that are beyond their lifespan.Now with that introduction let me also add that I seldom feel that a response to your blogs and your opinions is warranted however your recent blog on the school bomb threats crossed my threshold and I felt I needed to, if not make you change
your mind, at least share with you where I think you are completely out of bounds.You are trying to tie bomb threats into the Red Plan and Dixon and also trying to compare your time on the school board (hell the biggest problem that the schools had to deal with in my time, and I am the same age as you, was smoking on school grounds). None of those comparison are fair or correct. On top of that you lay blame for the bomb threats on the schools, and I quote, “I suspect it is indicative of a breakdown in our schools trust and morale which always has a negative impact on students.” I would suggest it is caused by the breakdown of families and positive role models NOT school trust. I think you
are reaching way, way to far to attempt that correlation.Attempts to persuade people lose all posiblity of sucess when supporting your case is based on far reaching arguments that even people who agree with you see as too far of a stretch.
Thanks for taking the time to read my email.
My reply:
Thanks A___________,
You may be correct that I’ve reached too far in this instance.
I do think teacher morale is low and I suspect that this has had negative consequences. Certainly five years ago Dr. Dixon was not regarded as threatening and any bomb threats at that time would have had no relationship with the Red Plan. I don’t know if the bomb threats were spread out evenly over the last five years or if they are a fad of the present.
These things do happen in clusters because of copy catting. Suicides are one example of of a tragedy that happens in clusters. In fact, such a suicide cluster happened in the Duluth when I was on the school board. I’d certainly have reacted to the charge that this was my doing in the same way you have found fault with my suggesting the bomb threats are a result of the Dixon
Administration.Whatever their cause its a sad situation.
Harry
