What separates us from the animals

Two days ago I left the house for the first time in months (I'm an agoraphobic wreck) to vote on a state budget override that would allow our public schools to continue being funded, despite the republican legislature's "fiscally responsible" attempts to de-fund the system. I'm fairly proud of my otherwise batshit insane right-wing state, the measure passed with a comfortable 58% majority. I didn't even really need to go out and vote, it turns out, though I am still pleased by the idea that I, an unemployed mentally ill pervert who had woken up that day without ever feeling like I'd woken up, was able to shuffle, zombie like, to the local polling station and cancel out the vote of some aerospace engineer libertarian in a hummer who thinks he's all for "fiscal responsibility" as if shutting down public schools isn't akin to tossing the state economy to chaos and chance.

In a lot of right-wing states education is the first thing to go and a nontrivial number of Arizona's representatives in the national legislature regularly enthusiastically voice their plans to try to abolish the department of education altogether. Their goal, I suppose, is to leave education to home-schooling parents and religious institutions.

I can't think of a more bedrock function for government, however, than providing education for it's people. When it comes to it I think this is even more important than defense, and of course America has a fairly offensive defense budget at the moment, even though we have somewhat of an education crisis in the nation.

My sister

My sister arrived in Korea today, where she will be staying for a year in a job as an assistant English teacher. She speaks no Korean ... well, a little more Korean than she did a few months ago, but still a negligible amount. I am excited for her. When she returns from that land of East-Asian bathroom technology she will regard our simple porcelain commodes as we would regard a fly swarmed hole in the ground in India.