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Butch Furse
We couldn’t help but laugh when we read a headline where a parent urged the school to teach children to be more tolerant. In our viewpoint, it appears that is a parent’s job and not the school.
But, when we think a little deeper, in this day and age the role should be reversed. The teaching should begin at home. And in many of those cases the kids might be more capable teaching us adults to be more tolerant of each other.
Too often we ask schools to take over parental duties. Unfortunately, too often that trend has continued to grow. Now education of reading, writing and arithmetic has expanded to the need to teach what parents have failed to do. Tolerance, compromise and the acceptance of others has weakened over the years and now it’s time for us to be responsible citizens and parents.
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Not all speakers can introduce humor at the beginning of an address as spontaneous as George Bernard Shaw did when he appeared before an audience which has applauded him vociferously. He stepped to the front of the platform ready to give his speech. The crowd was calling wildly for him. As the roar subsided, and in that tense moment of silence just before he began, a voice from the balcony cried, “Blah!”
That would have finished many speakers, but not Shaw. He looked up and said calmly, “Brother, I agree with you fully, but what can two of us do against so many?”
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Tiny homes are big news in many metros where there’s a need for housing and to meet that housing need it may come in a nontraditional package. For example, in Duluth, Minn., a 32-unit development of one-bedroom tiny homes of 400 to 500 square feet is being planned. The price is about $200,000 each with a sweeping view of the Lake Superior Harbor. The price is below Duluth’s median home sale price of $236,000.
While I’m not in the market for a tiny home, downsizing does sound enticing. If the Betterhalf continues to have me with occasional help vacuuming, a move to a tiny home could even be more enticing. But on the other hand, that would mean us compromising viewing the same TV programs on a single set, one closet, and downsizing from the convenience of a 2500 sq. foot home. So much for wild thoughts!
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Nowadays a businessman is judged by the company he keeps solvent.
RL Furse is publisher emeritus of the News-Register
