racially biased press?

Another tremendous act of violence in an American school. Why is this happening to our youth? Will this generation grow up reflecting back on their high school days as a time when they had to always be on alert for the "Trenchcoat Mafia" or "loners wearing black clothes"? I just wonder how long it is going to take some school district to start offering classes in "How To Avoid Being Shot in School" or "Ways to Disarm Your Psychotic Classmate(s)".

Columbine. Santee. Red Lake. There are others but we all know the pattern. Disgruntled kids get guns, shoot to get revenge, and then turn the gun on themselves. And then the media swarms all over the community and wants to know what happened, what went wrong.

Or do they?

I lived in the US for both Columbine and Santee and the press coverage was unbelievable. It was non-stop for days on end. Talking with kids, interviews with teachers, footage taken from afar. You couldn't escape the blitz of the aftermath.

But now I am living in Europe and the recent events at Red Lake are being treated much differently in the press. CNN International (based in Atlanta) has been sparse with its coverage and the rest of the European press seems to be somewhat on the same page. The great debate over Terri Schiavo and how to let her die takes huge precedent over the senseless slaughter of innocent Native American children. Since when????

And the Bush family is rallying around the Schiavo case (enter Jeb today) without much being said about this horrific act of violence. What a sad day indeed. Forgive me for sounding unsympathetic to the Schiavo family but Terri is going to die sooner or later - let her wish be granted and let her go. But shame on Congress and the Bush family for making this woman's plight such a priority instead of focusing on how to save the lives of people who aren't about to die - our youth.

What about the press? Why aren't they screaming more about this? Why is it that CNN made it the third story last night, behind the Schiavo case and the Arab countries meeting? Is the killing of Native American children not as devastating as the killing of white suburbanites?

As of last week I had seriously considered returning to the US to teach. Now, I don't think so. I used to think that the most dangerous job was a) working on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier or b) being a postal clerk. After the recent events in American public schools, I have come to appreciate that teaching is by far the most dangerous profession. Don't think so? Well, have you got the balls to fail someone if you think that they'll come after you with a semi-automatic weapon loaded with armor-piercing rounds?

If the Bush administration really wants to make its mark in history, I offer this advice. Scrap the current US public education system and start with something new. Something certainly isn't going right with what we've got and its only gonna get worse UNLESS something dramatic happens.

Better yet, here's a different idea - split the country. Maybe when the blue and red states officially become separate nations THEN a new education system will be put into place. But what do I know, I'm just some wacked-out expat complaining about the system instead of trying to fix it.