>The question that
>nags me, which I cannot get tied down, is why do I feel I have to be
>defensive?

It's our american caste system, is all.  It's because we do not value
_people_, but perceptions.  In my own environment, I am god.  In another
environment, I am an idiot.  As an egghead, I can spout many smarts.  In
the street, I have no smarts, I can spout blood.

We want our children to go to school, learn many smarts, we complain about
the public schools, we won't pay taxes to provide a living wage to a
teacher.  We do not therefore value teachers.  We want police officers to
protect us on the street from the folks with street smarts that want to
make us spout, but we don't pay them a living wage.  We do not therefore
value police officers.

But if we valued people and did not rush to judgement and instead tried to
engage ourselves with them, we would find out many things we do not know.
Except that we are all know-it-alls.

Or something like that.

_________________________________________________

Dan Becker, Exec. Dir.,                   "What's this?  Fan mail
Raleigh Historic Districts Comm.      from some flounder?"
[log in to unmask]                           --Bullwinkle J. Moose