Odds And Ends From Maui

Had our first full day on Maui yesterday. Visited two of our favorite snorkel spots, Ulua Beach and Cape Kinau. The trade winds picked up early, so visibility was poor and the water got rough. I didn't bring my GoPro as I haven't used it in a year and need this morning to sort it out. I'm really hoping to get some good videos from our snorkeling.

Coming back from Cape Kinau on the south end of the island, we stopped at Makena Beach. The surf was up, but it was all shore breaks. The dude below was catching some waves, but his rides were 5 seconds at most. Boogie boarders were catching waves and getting slammed into the sand 1-2 seconds later. In San Diego, the waves break much, much farther from shore so the rides are longer and you don't eat sand afterwards.

More thoughts from yesterday's post on the education apocalypse in Baltimore

Here's the post. Short version: 4 Baltimore high schools and 1 middle school have no one, repeat no one who tested as proficient in English or Math. To reinforce the point that politics and Draconian budget cuts aren't the problem, recall that from Grade 4 to high school graduation, these kids lived under the compassionate and enlightened policies of the Obama Administration, not the savage, dog-eat-dog social Darwinism of George W. Bush. I suppose you could claim that the damage was done in the K-3 time period, but that seems like a bit of a stretch.

Also, at no time did any Republicans wield any significant power in local politics where these schools are managed.

Since 97% of scientists agree that the presence of Confederate war memorials cause mumble mumble mumble, I propose we take the statue of Robert E. Lee that was just removed from New Orleans and erect it with great pomp and ceremony in downtown Baltimore. Then, after a week of sit-ins and marches, we tear it down with even greater pomp and ceremony, confirming our devotion to eliminating the scourge of white supremacism. That's got to work, right?

Finally, in all seriousness, now what? One presumes that this year was not a wild outlier. What do you do with graduating class after graduating class coming out functionally illiterate and unemployable for everything save night watchman jobs? Ignoring the emotional and psychological scars these kids have piled up on them from the dystopian social structure where no traditional families exist, the violence of their neighborhoods and the gut-wrenching knowledge that they know practically nothing, but the schools promoted them anyway, what now?

If you ask me, tearing down Confederate statues won't be enough. This problem isn't going to be solved with anything short of digging up the graves of the entire Army of Virginia and desecrating their bones.