public school?

Arguably, the worst monster that ever lived was Joseph Stalin. But hundreds and even thousands of artists had devoted to him thousands of their musical compositions and songs, poems, paintings, sculptures, stories, .... And worst of all, small children were brainwashed into admiring Stalin, and reciting and singing those poems and songs.

Recently it has happened again, at least twice, in different states of the USA, except that on these occasions the brainwashing texts had President Obama's name in them in place of Stalin. The small children were singing a tribute to the leader Obama.

Such simplistic activities are wrong in at least one of the following ways (or both): either the message is false meritoriously, or its universal idea is right but the credit for the idea is given falsely to the leader--and that's very wrong. Possibly, the idea actually should be associated with the opponents of the leader.

The way to make a society sick is by brainwashing its children.

This shows how wrong it is for the government to be involved in the education. Government should stay completely away from the education. In particular, it should not collect any tax money on the account of education. More and more the phrase "public school" becomes a symbol of an oxymoron. Education should be done by people, like any other healthy business; it should not and cannot be done by bureaucrats.

ovations?

During the communism era the texts of so-called referats (reports) of the top apparatchics and autocrats were interspaced with the parenthetical comments "(ovations)", "(standing ovations)", "(long spontaneous standing ovations)", and similar. Ovations were shown on tv, and ovations also used to precede the referats delivered at the communist party meetings.

I like good natured ovations which honor artists and sportsmen.

Ovations for politicians worry me. They are a sure sign that things are wrong.

In the recent months I saw ovations for President Obama. The older folks, who got their hair gray and thin doing politics, get up on their old legs to thoughtlessly clap and clap and clap, standing but not tall for the youngish looking President, and they do it several times during his speeches, and it is a terrifying image.

I understand clapping when a man lands on the moon for the first time in the History, but clapping for the leader is a very different thing, is wrong. It breeds the wrong kind of culture and values.