by John

HOMELESS ARE WHOM

Details: Published: Tuesday, October 01, 2019 14:50; by John Campbell; Hits: 1753

Back in the 1960s, the courts made it very difficult to put a person in a mental care facility, which in most cases were run as state hospitals. Most of those who were interned were released, and if they had no family they became the first of the homeless who lived on the streets. Many of these people were sane enough to live within our society but were not able to take care of themselves. We saw the first evidence of homelessness in the larger cities, and it soon became a problem that has been growing ever since.

WHO'S A RACIST

Details: Published: Friday, August 30, 2019 14:45; by John Campbell; Hits: 1755

It was 1943, and on my way home from the first grade I was attacked by three other kids from my class. I was a newcomer as we had moved closer to my parents’ work because of the gas rationing. I had been in a one-room school with three grades and now was in a city school with a room and teacher for each grade. I was an outsider, and some of my new classmates were not about to welcome me as part of their group. I was being bullied. This was new to me at six years old and coming from a small town proud of being part of the Underground Railroad with a third of the community being Black. My schoolmates were all considered friends. I was bullied again, in 1989, when l received a new project at work involving changing to a new computer system and software. The people who had been in charge of the IT system asked me out to lunch and proceeded to ask me to tell my boss that I was not capable of handling the new task, and it should be returned to them. I declined their offer and went on to complete the task on time and under budget. Their interference and refusal to aid in the project caused a lot of extra work and cost, but my team worked through it and provided the company with its first MRP system.

HIGH TECH/ OLD AGE

Details: Published: Monday, July 22, 2019 15:55; by John Campbell; Hits: 1000

A few years ago a friend asked if I would present a seminar to his engineering grad students. All were PhD candidates and beyond me in education. After a little thought I said yes and went to the presentation with my slide rule that I had used when in college. We had a good time when I asked the students to set aside all of their electronic instruments including their cell phones. They would have to use the slide rule as their professor and I did. There was a lot of laughter, and only one of them had ever seen or heard of a slide rule. We had a good time discussing technology and its rapid advance.

EDUCATION IS WHAT?

Details: Published: Wednesday, June 26, 2019 16:26; by John Campbell; Hits: 2281

The West Virginia legislature has passed an education bill after stewing over it for a long time. The teachers and their unions have been dead set against it and fought hard to keep it from passing. It may be one of the most important bills passed in a long time in West Virginia and hopefully so. After being in the lower end of the education quality, with WV ranked at between 48 and 46 out of 50 states, something had to happen. While the teachers and their unions fought to keep the status quo, the majority of the legislature fought to change education in West Virginia to something better than it has been for some time.

HOLLYWOOD MORALITY

Details: Published: Thursday, May 09, 2019 12:35; by John Campbell; Hits: 1709

My wife and I used to go to a movie now and then but recently there have been no movies worth seeing. The last movie that we thought was a family friendly show turned out to be worse than what used to be X-rated movies, so we usually do not go to any movies with an R rating. This past weekend my brother-in-law and his wife were visiting, and he and I went to a movie to pass some time while the wives were at a baby shower. The movie was billed as a romantic comedy, but we were in for far more than romance and comedy. The F-word was used in every scene with accompanying descriptions of positions and other sexually oriented material. There were scenes depicting sex acts and one showing male masturbation and ejaculation. While not all of the act was visible, it was enough to make you sick. Along with the sex and language was the use of drugs as a routine thing with no consequences and, of course, some alcohol use. The movie, which had a good storyline and tried to address some of the political and social problems we see today, was just filthy and detracted from anything that it was trying to show. It ended up being a lesson in filthy language, sex and drug use.

Commentary by John Campbell

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HOMELESS ARE WHOM

WHO'S A RACIST

HIGH TECH/ OLD AGE

EDUCATION IS WHAT?

HOLLYWOOD MORALITY

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