Defying Fortune

Unraveling

((The Music))
Sevendust. Named after a pesticide - nice marketing campaign. "Unraveling" is a nice wind up and down. I've been trying to find my muse again, and Sevendust is helping me out a bit. I've really like them over the years. There are some low points, but for the most part they're a steady band.

((The Life))
I've committed a huge error. I forgot to mention that I have a Rising Star!

abandgreek

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High school students in my district have been posing protests in support of teachers being hit with large pay cuts. I feel like a blushing mother, I'm so proud. The protests, for the most part, were peaceful. What has me so happy is the fact that they're standing up for something they believe. No violence, no weirdness, just the desire to have their voices to be heard.

There's a protest on my campus being planned sometime before the Veterans' Memorial will be unveiled. It was first created at the attacks on 9/11 and the start of the war. I was taking a ceramics class from the professor designing the monument. It started as something small and grew into something huge.

The situation stands that the Veterans' Center at the college was created to help returning vets from all wars go back to school and get their degrees. It has been a successful program, they even planned on having a full-time counselor to deal with issues like PTSD and returning to civilian life.

For a few faculty and students, the memorial has gone a little out of proportion. Especially, now that the Board of Trustees approved the final construction supplies needed and have the decided that the need for a counselor is no fiscally responsible.

This is where I get angry.

Its not that veterans shouldn't be honored - they definitely should - but one has to wonder where honoring the ends, and helping the living should begin. Too many of my friends have come back from the war with issues that most of us don't even understand. They need help, and have the opportunity to help them, yet we (meaning the college) have throw that away.

People speak about supporting our troops. Let's support them. Let's give them what they need to get back to some semblance of being whole. A full-time counselor with experience of their own on a battlefield will help them talk about the horrors they've faced to protect their country.

I'm going to go to the protest. A couple of organizations from Los Angeles are coming out, including the Iraq Veterans Against The War (http://ivaw.org). This is a huge need right now. Even if it is a matter of one extra person, I want to do what I can to help. The Board needs to listen, and as the students proved earlier, sometimes that's what's needed for people to listen.