3rd in the nation? (Mobile: renting, house, move to)

[oscottscotto]

Originally Posted by bustaduke

All I can say is wow, you're an idiot

busta

I would love to know specifics of why you feel I am an idiot. Maybe you can show me and I can become a better person thanks to you.

[oscottscotto]

Originally Posted by TNTranspant

My point was simply that education is vital. The excuses are weak at best. Many of the "older" posters like me will remember the Carter years, gas lines, price controls, and 15% unemployment in my home town. The idea that kids face a tougher time now than ever in the past just doesn't hold water. Coddled babies is the problem. Japan has had the same financial problems as well, but their education system works and is TOUGH. It's a societal problem. Acceptance and understanding is good until it hurts the ones you are trying to help.
As for revisionist history, I am very well read. I'm not talking about the text books, but the works of history that are first hand accounts of those that lived during or made the history itself. What the children are taught today doesn't reflect the truth of "what happened" ,which is what history is, at least by Herodotus' standards.
At what point do we stop trying to make people "feel better" and start fixing the problems?
I know I sound haughty and holier-than-thou that is not my intent. I have real concerns and have watched our PC and "Progressive" systems drive us in reverse long enough. Real progress means moving forward, advancing the human condition, to me. None of that has happened in years. Crime is through the roof, education is through the floor and, society is in shambles in the name of progress.

I can whole-heartedly agree with most of this post.

[PortCity]

Originally Posted by oscottscotto

I would love to know specifics of why you feel I am an idiot. Maybe you can show me and I can become a better person thanks to you.

LOL... I think because our friend here is from the New Orleans metro area and I think he/she is offended by your previous post about New Orleans residents in Mobile.

[oscottscotto]

Originally Posted by PortCity

LOL... I think because our friend here is from the New Orleans metro area and I think he/she is offended by your previous post about New Orleans residents in Mobile.

Oh ok. Well if implying that there is way too much crime in New Orleans makes one an idiot, then I guess that's what I am.

[itsalladream]

Originally Posted by TNTranspant

Japan has had the same financial problems as well, but their education system works and is TOUGH.

Don't make me laugh...and don't believe this common misconception.

Through elementary/middle school, you don't have to turn in a single piece of homework or write a single word on a test to move on through the 9th grade (high school begins at 10th).

Perhaps they have good test scores in high school, but that is because high school is not compulsory; you only go if you are inclined to. Granted, most do go, but many do not.

Now, high school may be a little difficult, and getting into college may be difficult, but once in college, it is almost impossible to flunk out.

Now, there are reasons that things are different in Japan, but please, please, do not spread the lie that it it because up their "superior education," because it is not.

This is some of what I learned from my 3 years of teaching in a middle school there.

[enide2]

Originally Posted by wizzy_4556

I agree most of the trouble comes from Prichard and seems we got a lot of transplants from New Orleans. I would be curious how many of our crimes have been from transplants - they never tell. Prichard has its own police force and it looks like they are "trying" to clean it up? But, appears to have some corruption. The Grand Bay area is very rural but mostly that South area toward Dauphin Island and Tillmans Corner have rural meth labs and prostitution. The DI locals are very rural and just pretty rough. Most of the deadly crimes have been domestic.

Someone asked for ideas
POLICE everywhere spend an awful lot of time doing traffic stops for tail lights out and other non sense. Speeding I can understand as the driver is putting others lives at risk (but how about an officer speeding to meet his fellow officer for lunch are the streets any safer because the speeding is being done by a police cruiser?). Maybe the judges could start by making part of the young offenders sentences be that they do ride alongs with the officers and learn a trade or what the job entails.
18-25 age range= nowadays it's more like 15-25 you hear of so many being tried as adults. (In FL a mother was gang raped by 10 boys ages 10-18, beaten and then forced to have sex with her then 11 year son she refused and they threatened to kill them both her son told her to go ahead and do it so they could live. Household cleaning solutions were poured into the sons eyes. Only two of the 10 have been arrested). I blame all of this on the babies having babies epidemic.
BIRTH CONTROL I say start handing out condoms in elementary school and start sex education in 3rd grade. What does a teen mother do with her child when the child comes from school it's easier for her to let the child "play" outside or zombie out in front of the tv. We need more after school activities. Not pointing a finger at the Boys and Girls Clubs but I've witnessed them hiring teenage counselors to "watch" the children after school and by watching them their only duties were to play games with the kids, take them out to the playground or pop in a movie until there parents picked them up around 6pm oh yeah and hand out th snacks. So something more like the hands on training by 10th grade like someone suggested is much, much better.
CHURCHES= could help with the after school activities too. Alot of blame and expectation is being placed on the schools and teachers. Which brings me to the working single mothers (a woman was arrested a few months ago for allowing her 14 year old son to balloon to 500 pounds). Her excuse: she works the 3-11pm shift and was not home to watch him after school. Imagine if, instead of getting into the fridge he had joined a gang. I heard someone ask on the radio the other day: where are the uncles? A long time ago if a father was absent for one reason or another an uncle or grandpa stood in and guiding the young man in the family. Do things like that happen anymore? Speaking of grandfathers,
GRANDPARENTS= Yes, I blaming cooking baking grandma. I blame some of the grandparents for the outcome of these kids because sometimes when the parents are trying to straighten the kids out here they come to the rescue and allow the kids to move in with them (knowing or not knowing they'll never be able to control the kids).
SCARED STRAIGHT= I saw this program on tv once or twice where some inner city students are taken to prisons and scared straight by the somewhat "changed" inmates' stories of life in prison (and juvenile detention centers) and what got them there. I vote that field trip a couple of times during a young person middle and high school career be incorporated into the curriculum. A trip to the cemetery, morgue and hospitals and nursing homes to see gang members with gunshot wounds and disabilities could probably help too. Mandatory candy stripers. Summer programs working at the old folks homes.
MENTORING PROGRAMS= where you get to live with a doctor or teacher or police officer for 1 week. Instead of take your kids to work day 9which is really a free day for the employee to show off their kid, take a long lunch break and leave early after having little Billy play with the stapler and copying machine all day.These same professionals could have a group of 5 teens work with them for a week during the summer or let them intern for the summer (it would be cheap fun and free labor in appropriate areas of course).
This is not the world we grew up in and we will not get the same results with these kids doing what was done with us.

[TNTranspant]

You might be interested in this. I'm not sure how big the iPhone crowd is around here but there is an app called LETHAL. It allows you to search your current location for it's place in the "Most Dangerous" categories like Crime, Disasters, Wildlife, etc ... And guess what Mobile made top the list in one category. No it's not crime now calm down and have a laugh.

We were all surprised to discover the location in the United States with the greatest number of deadly animals.
One might think that somewhere in Alaska with polar bears, grizzly bears, AND great white sharks would take the prize, but no. (Even though the possibility of meeting up with all three of those fearsome beasts does make Alaska pretty exciting. But you’ll read later what keeps Alaska from being all around completely awesome.)
Or maybe the Everglades, the only place in the world where crocodiles and alligators are both native (in addition to bears, panthers, and poisonous snakes! Seriously, think about that, they’re one tiger away from being able to say “Oh my!”)? But again, no. The Everglades aren’t it either.
Instead, welcome to Mobile, Alabama, the home of 19 – yes, nineteen - deadly animal species. It’s like the Baskin Robbins of blood-thirsty predators. Whether you are on the land or the sea, something here can kill you. The sheer number of creatures you have to watch out for is impressive. A day at the beach near Mobile may sound pleasant, but you should be prepared to wind up fleeing the shark infested waters only to find yourself in a land crawling with more kinds of poisonous snakes and spiders than anywhere else in the country.
But I’m sure you’re wondering what the most BORING place is when it comes to Wildlife? I know we were. Well, if you don’t like the idea of being offed by something that you thought was lower on the food chain, make immediate plans to move to North or South Dakota or Nebraska. There, the only thing you’d have to watch out for would be a couple of lame standbys that are just about everywhere else, too – Dogs, Hornets, Black Widow Spiders, and Mosquitoes. Yawn!

For the full article here's the link:
iphone app – Neatorama

Now lighten up.

[oscottscotto]

That's pretty interesting ... never knew.

[Croye22]

Damn me for throwing my iPhone across the room.

Oh hell no. I HATE spiders. I scream like a girl(no offense) if I see a spider.

[PortCity]

Sorry for moving off topic but I saw 2 different black and yellow colored spiders the other day. One seemed like the normal Banana Spider and the other was about 2 or 2 1/2 inches long and about a little over an inch wide. Both had legs that spread out like the hands of an 8 year old.Most of these exotic/tropical poisonous creatures come through the PORT. Just as the fire ants made there way into America through the Port of Mobile from South America years ago !!