I am CuTRis

This morning, on the news, they reported a need for school resource officers. That struck me as interesting, because a few years ago, there was anger, and people wanted those officers removed from schools. This is proof that dumb exists on both the political left and the political right. A few years ago, George Floyd was in the news and now it's the Annunciation school shooting. Narrow views produce narrow results.

Saying that "prayer is not enough," when children get shot at school, is NOT being, "anti-prayer." It IS being "anti-do-nothing," like those who value living children less than they value guns (or unborn children). It's time to call-out the hypocrisy.

When I was a child, we went to school on election day. It was always interesting for us, to see all of those adults coming into our school to vote. Today, most students won't go to school on Election Day because it has become dangerous to have outsiders in the school. That isn't because of immigrants. The enemy from within that has been talked about so much by one of the candidates, is a burning hatred of others. It's not from across the borders. It's a hatred burning hot inside closed-minded paranoid people.

It is terrorism to shoot schoolchildren. It is the extreme of cowardice. For it to continue as it has year after year, shows a lack of (real) concern for our most valuable and most vulnerable citizens. I'm tired of the excuses, because there is no excuse.

Pay attention now those of you who thought it was a good idea to remove police liaison officers from schools...

Trying to make a point, someone recently said that if guns kill, then spoons make people fat. That's hilarious. What else if funny is that the USA has more civilian owned guns than any other country (also per capita), it leads the world in mass shootings, it also leads other high-income countries in gun homicides, and half of its citizens still care more about their guns than children being shot to death in their schools. How US gun culture compares with the world in five charts

A reoccurring theme in the news recently, involves violence in schools . The Ramsey County Attorney is involved as well as St. Paul Schools. In many ways, I feel like this is taking way too long to address—as I lived through these issues more than a decade ago. The issues I am referring to are about violence, bad behavior, racial accusations and the political backlash that prevents resolution to the core problems.    While working in county social services in Minneapolis, racial discrimination lawsuits were common and often the biggest trouble-makers used the political backlash to their advantage. Later, while working in the detention room of a south suburban school district and also in the ALC, I saw that indeed there was a disparity in discipline; because school administrators were terrified of racial discrimination allegations. I had access to all discipline data and noticed that a particular offence (i.e. telling a teacher to "F-off”) was handled based on the race of the...

Recently at a work related conference, I was given a Green Delicious apple with my lunch. Like the Red Delicious (variety of) apples, I've noticed the creators of this variety of fruit were savvy enough to put the color before the word "delicious," so as not to confuse it with a delicious green apple. I always think of these as "school apples;" since this is the kind most often served by educational institutions—due to the cheapness of price in comparison to better tasting apples. One interesting note is that schools do not allow students to possess knives of any kind, yet to eat one of these apples without peeling it is like eating an extra layer of cardboard around your fruit—since the peelings are rather "tough." As an adult, I had access to a knife so I peeled mine—only to find that indeed, it was more "green," than it was "delicious."

Fellow Americans, We cannot continue to lose our children to madmen with guns. We need to know that our schools are safe. We need to find a way to stop the violence. Oh my God! Kindergarten children killed at school! I am very sad right now. Sincerely, Kevin J. Curtis