Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results. – Rita Mae Brown
As one would expect when considering a parent and child, the United Kingdom and United States are quite alike in many ways. But though one would generally expect a child to be more open to new ideas than its parent, recent events seem to indicate that, at least on the subject of prostitution, the opposite is true with these two countries. Aside from the fact that prostitution is technically legal in the UK but completely criminal in the US, the general treatment of whores in both countries is very similar: the police establishment tends to persecute us while the governments spread propaganda rationalizing the persecution. But while at least some British officials are beginning to admit that criminalization doesn’t work and that perhaps a rethinking of conventional policies is in order, American officials simply continue to apply the same heavy-handed, punitive, police-state tactics and merely alter their public rhetoric instead of making any real and substantive changes.
In the United States, it’s unthinkable that a high police official would ever advocate getting rid of bad laws and promoting more humane treatment of sex workers, but in Britain a police chief who openly supports exactly that was not only tolerated, but promoted. Simon Byrne (whom we’ve briefly mentioned before) was until recently deputy chief constable of the Greater Manchester Police, but has been appointed assistant commissioner at Scotland Yard. And as reported in the November 2nd Telegraph, he has repeated his previous call for prostitution law reform:
Simon Byrne, who will shortly start work as Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner, said the decriminalisation and regulation of brothels in Australia and New Zealand had enabled many of those involved in sex work to access health services while maintaining more personal security. Mr Byrne admitted there was ”no perfect solution”, but said he would welcome a debate about alternative approaches to policing prostitution and sexual exploitation. Writing on the Police Chiefs’ blog, Mr Byrne said the move could help bridge the gap between ”tackling neighbourhood nuisance and the exploitation of sex workers…I would very much welcome a debate about alternative policy approaches that could be taken in this area, which would better equip the service to protect its communities and its individuals,” he said. Academic research backed the merits of an alternative approach, Mr Bryne said…
Byrne is still a cop, and therefore tends to imagine that organized crime and “exploitation” are far more prevalent than they actually are. But he seems genuinely concerned with the rights, safety and quality of life of individual prostitutes, and his consultation of real academic research rather than the bogus propaganda studies so popular on this side of the Atlantic make him sound almost like an alien being in comparison with the “tough on crime” rhetoric constantly vomited out by American police officials. Contrast, for example, his proposed strategy with that employed in our nation’s capital:
Under current D.C. law, prostitution is illegal. Simple enough, right? Well, no. Prostitution still happens, so, in 2006, the D.C. Council gave the Metropolitan Police Department the power to designate “prostitution-free zones,” areas in which any two people gathering for allegedly engaging in prostitution-related activities can be asked to disperse and, if they don’t, face arrest. The zones can be designated for up to 240 hours, or 10 days…Now the one member of the Council is seeking to extend that policy…to add a new category of prostitution free zone: permanent…the change has come in response to what [the member] called an “epidemic” of prostitution in her ward…
…During the debate that established the District’s current ten-day prostitution zones, legislators had to balance tools to fight criminal activity and infringements upon civil liberties. A report from the Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary noted: “The Court has looked disfavorably [sic] on long periods where civil liberties are limited…” Civil libertarians have pointed out that the mere act of carrying multiple condoms in a designated area would be enough for police to ask an individual to disperse. In 1987, the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled against a D.C. law allowing arrests of prostitutes who merely beckoned possible clients, saying that simply acting or looking like a prostitute would not be enough to sustain a conviction.
Advocates for sex workers additionally argue that the zones merely push prostitution to other areas and marginalize those involved in it…[but the councilwoman claims that] the permanent zones [are] more akin to a restraining order, allowing police to more easily disperse individuals suspected of engaging in prostitution and arresting them if they return…it could help crack down on the prostitution that’s plagued parts of her ward.
What a difference! Instead of Byrne’s humane proposals and reliance on data, American “authorities” prefer to treat prostitution as a “plague” or “epidemic”, to indulge their inner Gestapo with repeated “crackdowns” and to respond to civil rights concerns by increasing the powers of police to violate citizens’ civil rights. While Britain seems poised to move forward to a more enlightened view on this issue, America seems bound and determined to continue retreating into barbaric authoritarianism.
One Year Ago Today
“Plaçage” was the last officially-recognized system of concubinage in the West, and reached its most prevalent and structured form in New Orleans of the late 18th century; the institution was so widespread that it gave rise to an entire ethnic group which has only begun to vanish in the last few decades.
We don’t have the money to pay cops to enforce this kind of nonsense anymore.
I suppose the good thing about the “New World Order” … in which we’re all BROKE … is that perhaps there is a slim chance that this crap will be considered “low hanging fruit” when it comes to future budget cuts.
When are we going to see “Murder Free Zones” or “Burglary Free Zones”? Murder and burglary are illegal but they still occur. We need those zones to protect us from them!
See how well they’ve worked for prostitution and drugs!
There’s people who are doing stuff to prevent murder. 1 example is volunteering to spend time with kids who are at risk for committing violence. What’s wonderful about this is the people volunteering won’t be part of that WONDERFUL (eyeroll) mentality of defeatism: we can’t change anything; you can’t fight city hall; it does no good to try to prevent crimes, etc. There’s ways to do these things that have nothing to do with literally ordering people around which is another unfair charge when it comes to this stuff. These ways also don’t involve unfair laws against people. Another way besides helping at risk kids is for surviving family members/friends of violent crime victims to speak out and educate. Thanks for listening.
Maggie, do you look at comments on your old posts?
I’m not quite sure on some of the history on the plaçage post.
Yes, I get a notification every time some posts a comment.
Really, “prostitution free zone” is a misnomer. Prostitution is illegal in DC, and thus the entire city is a “prostitution free zone,” or at least that’s what they’re trying for. What this really is is a “non-prostitutes rights restricted zone” in which, in the name of fighting the epidemic of prostitution,* the rights of people are restricted whether they are prostitutes or not. As usual, oppression of one group of people spreads, and the rights of others, whether or not they have any connection to the oppressed group, get oppressed also.
I’m surprised it hasn’t been invoked to disperse Occupy protesters.
* It’s spread by the bacterium Mycobacterium Prostibula. This virulent pathogen is known to cause insanity in those not infected.
>Civil libertarians have pointed out that the mere act of carrying multiple condoms in a designated area would be enough for police to ask an individual to disperse.
How does an individual “disperse”? Dissolve into bits? seems this is what they really want, for hookers to just disappear. Until we’re wanted, of course.
The UK also has the influence of the EU, which, in it’s charter has a guarantee of a certain level of human rights. Any nation joining has to allow at least that level. The USA is more like a EU at the federal level, with the Bill of Rights, which seems to barely apply these days.
I too shook my head at the idea of an individual “dispersing”. We have now reached the level of “show me your papers!” police statism satirized in old movies. And the Bill of Rights, once so important in this country, is nothing but an historical curiosity unless future courts restore its power.
Better hope that terrorists don’t start building bombs with condoms.
Then hookers will be clubbed with the Patriot Act too!
Just wait till the run up to May 2015 (next general election) and we’ll be seeing a more “zero tolerance” approach to….well everything semi-legal. As the conservatives are wont to do.
I’m sure you mean “as politicians are wont to do”, because the self-proclaimed “liberals” are just as fond of “zero-tolerance” as the self-proclaimed “conservatives”, only on slightly different issues. The “left-right” myth itself is 80% of the problem because it distracts attention from the real issue, which is government intrusion into the lives of individuals.
Right … like their “zero tolerance” approach to gun ownership … or incandescent light bulb usage … or their transfat bans … or their sugary soda bans … or their smoking bans … or their attempts to ban circumcision … or their bans on the sale of goldfish, puppies, and kittens … or their attempts to ban fast food restaurants … or their attempts to drive Walmart out of business …
Wait … those are all LIBERAL’s trying to do those things.
Anyone who views this as a conservative / liberal issue is dilluding themselves. The enemy is on BOTH sides and no side is better than the other on these issues. Most of the neo-feminists reside almost exclusively on what most people refer to as the left which their religious allies are on the right.
Basically – the situation is like this … we’re surrounded so circle the wagons!
Liberals have given up on guns, so that’s bunk.
May God and the ghost of George Washington save the incandescent light bulb!! I saw a whole wall of them the last time I was at the supermarket.
I’m not up on the latest with transfats, so I can’t comment.
Sugary sodas are available all over the place. I drank one this past Sunday.
When I was checking out at that supermarket, I saw cigarettes on sale right out in the open. I had to sign for my Sudafed and show ID, but if I smoked, I’d’ve been able to buy them right at the check-out stand. I’d have to show ID, but I wouldn’t have to sign anything.
Is there really any serious attempt to ban circumcision? I know it’s been suggested, but suggested isn’t the same as enacted.
Last I heard, people are still able to buy puppies, kittens, and yes, even the dreaded goldfish.
I typically eat at good old MikkiD’s just before doing my big grocery shopping. It’s easy walking distance from the supermarket. I’ve managed to avoid the raids so far.
I don’t do my big shopping at Wal*Mart, but I notice they’re still around.
I don’t go around saying that conservatives are trying to reinstate slavery. Can we limit the charges against liberals to their real sins as well?
Sailor, all those things are the targets of periodic ban campaigns, and the people behind such campaigns generally consider themselves “liberal”. Most of them haven’t succeeded 100% yet (though cigarettes inch closer every year), but not for lack of trying. 🙁
I know there are efforts to ban sugary sodas from school lunches, but that’s it. Occasionally the businesses in a town will try to get rid of Wal*Mart because they don’t like being undercut. There was an effort to get McD’s to put nutrition information on their food packages, but not to ban them. The incandescent light bulb probably will be banned eventually, and I do wish people would quit acting like it’s sacred and the soul of America. PETA has I think shouted something about pets being an atrocity, but PETA is to liberals what the people shouting about fluoride in water being a Communist plot are to conservatives: nutty.
I’m hoping soon to buy a book about smoking. http://www.amazon.com/Smoked-Camel-Still-Smiling-Resist/dp/1567511724/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1322197882&sr=8-6
Statistics show that MORE liberals have been buying guns since Obama became president. But, I thought all or even most liberals hate guns, hate those who use them, etc.? HHMM…thank you, Sailor B, for pointing out some real-life examples that are positive and show that not all freedom is dead in the US. Yes, there’s many problems and too much oppression, but it’s very nice to hear some real-life positives instead of the constant negativity like “cops are ###*** and are just waiting to arrest everyone for no reason” and “politicians are ###*** and hate all of us”, etc. Thank you again.
Looking at footage of Occupy events, I have to say the police often make themselves look back, when if they even gave half a damn about appearances (never mind realities) they’d act a little differently.
But yes, we’ve seen some good cops too. If departments would chase the bad cops out, people wanting to kick ass and be immune to decency wouldn’t seek out police work. Then only the good cops would be left, and crime would drop because regular people would work with police.
Hi Maggie – What I think you have put your finger on here is one of the disadvantages of the US system, under which (as I understand it) direct elections of persons controlling or at least directly influencing the local police operationally are common. Such a system, however democratic, is surely likely to put a premium on perceived popularity over the actual solving of actual crime problems, and is hitherto unknown in the UK. Although the Conservatives had promised direct elections of local police chiefs at the last UK election, nothing has been heard of this for ages and it has presumably (hopefully) been excluded from our current Coalition Government agreement.
The only thing I know about Washington DC’s crime is that it apparently has a huge homicide rate cf the average US state, so I guess those elected would be very determined to take public attention off it and onto something else.
What we do have in the UK is some excellent academics and practice managers whose work has done much to expose the counterproductive nature of our laws in this area in terms of sex workers’ safety and harm reduction. Our Home Office (who would do our inland security in the event of it ever waking up) keeps eulogising about the importance of ‘multi-agency working’ over prostitution and it must be frustrating for the police to discover at their ‘multi-agency’ sessions that they’re often considered by the other agencies to constitute more of the problem than the solution.
There are exceptions, such as the Merseyside force area, where the local police regard violence against sex workers as a hate crime and whose work on sex-worker-police relations deserve wider recognition on both sides of the pond. You might find it worth a column (if you haven’t already).
I did mention the Merseyside efforts in my column of last January 3rd, but it definitely bears repetition. 🙂
Wow, actually taking evidence and data into account when making decisions on laws. How quaint an idea.
One of the things that Western Europe benefits from is the continued dying out of religion.(At least, Christianity. The influx of Muslim immigrants may change the trend). Here in the USA, all the superstitious feel they have an obligation to monitor, and reform their fellow citizens.
I don’t drink soda, and don’t visit McD’s. I’m well under the standard level of American obesity and wish to stay that way.
In general, I think it’s fine for groups to advocate for their beliefs, to try to convince numbers of the public not to smoke, or eat this or drink that. The danger is when they see that they are failing, and so attempt to legislate a victory.
We are physical primates. We like to eat good tasting things, alter our consciousness, and screw. Religion has always fought a battle against our animal side. Thus far they’ve been notably unsuccessful in changing what we are. I hope that continues.
“Here in the USA, ALL the superstitious feel they have an obligation to monitor, and reform their fellow citizens.”-I capitalized “ALL” to make a point. This is plain wrong. NOT ALL of the religious are “out to get” everyone else and those of us who ARE believers are sick and tired of this charge being put on all. The truth is there’s many who aren’t literally ordering anyone around and don’t want political power. Free speech is for EVERYONE and if even 1 group is told to shut up then it’s as bad as telling all to. People have the right to preach their beliefs and if they get asked about their beliefs also have the right to share them. If you don’t want to hear from religious people, then it’s as easy as not going into a church, mosque, etc. The truth is that many Christians and Muslims have made the world a better place all through time. The truth is not all of Christianity is against physical pleasures and we Christians are tired of hearing it is. 1 Scripture that’s barely ever mentioned is the 1 in the New Testament where St. Paul wrote that married couples are never to use sex as a weapon against each other, i.e., women saying they won’t have sex with the husband to either punish him or hold back sex until they get something they want. The same message was given to men also. But, I thought the Bible is a completely woman hating book? Actually in the Old Testament Law the women were treated way better than many other groups of women in the world at that time. Not everyone who has a cause they’re educating about is automatically ordering people around and wanting political power. I’m proof of this along with many others. Yes, there ARE some like this, but many aren’t. I say why not talk about the many who aren’t this way? Some positives instead of constant negativity and blanket statements. Thanks for listening.
Altering conciousness can also come from not using any substance. Many religious people know this and have all through time.
When the mushrooms became scarce or oppressed, religious people did find other ways to alter consciousness.
And yeah, when somebody says ALL it’s a fine thing to point out exceptions.
Watched an Ancient Aliens ep today. I think I still have some hair left.
Dear Sailor B, you’re not completely right on this 1. From day 1, there’s been religious people who want no part of abusing any alcohol and/or using any drug for reasons outside of having a true health problem. Altered states of conciousness can be gotten through prayer, meditation as described in the Bible, etc. I’ve experienced some of these states without any alcohol and/or drugs. I’m pretty sure I told you about the 1st 1 I had years ago in high school during and after a concert by Christian singers/groups. Remember I told you “Ancient Aliens” has controlled information? By controlled I mean stuff the people who are on it say is taken OUT. I learned this on the wonderful Christian podcast I listen to.
How can we possibly know that? Even if it’s true, how can we know? There are pictures of psilocybe mushrooms on cave walls. There are no scriptures that old; writing hadn’t been invented yet.
It could well be that Cro-Magnon Man was meditating and praying, achieving altered states of consciousness that way, and only used the ‘shrooms in very low doses to improve visual acuity while hunting, but we don’t know that. They could also have been tripping balls and wouldn’t invent prayer for another twenty generations, but then we can’t know that either.
Comixchick wrote: “One of the things that Western Europe benefits from is the continued dying out of religion.(At least, Christianity. The influx of Muslim immigrants may change the trend).”
Indigenous Western European populations are dying out in large part because of their broad rejection of Christianity. So many of them have become atheist materialists who no longer care about the future beyond their own lifetimes and therefor no longer bother to reproduce. Yes, I know the world is overpopulated, but that’s not a reason to let any group of people die out altogether. From my perspective as a non-Western person who grew up in and lives in America, I see a huge contrast between white Americans and white Europeans in terms of how much they actually take pride in their own cultures and care about their own long-term survival.
“We are physical primates. We like to eat good tasting things, alter our consciousness, and screw. Religion has always fought a battle against our animal side.”
For MOST of the history of religion, there was little or no “battle against our animal side.” Maggie’s posts about the history of pre-Christian non-Jewish religions describes this in detail.
Christianity doesn’t forbid eating good tasting foods, or altering our consciousness with alcohol in moderation, or having sex within certain boundaries (marriage).
Our animal natures are not our whole selves. Christianity engages the part of us that needs more than physical sustenance and physical pleasure.
THANK YOU, my friend! Thank you for speaking up for LIFE! How valuable EACH life is! Like you say NO group should ever die completely out. Also for saying not every person wants to live a life of complete physical indulgence. There’s people who WANT to be celibate and are very happy and also don’t order anyone else around and don’t want political power either. As a recovering alcoholic (12 years sober as of October 16th) I know 1st hand how devastating indulging physically can be. Anyone who wants confirmation of this just go to any Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous meeting. I also saw when I had sex only friends the devastation that CAN come from sexual indulgence. I’ve also seen it with other friends and through reading about this type of thing. Yes, we ARE mammals, but that isn’t all there is to life. There’s also the spiritual. There’s also caring about OTHERS. Yes, this fundamentalist (the horror…eyeroll) Christian just said humans ARE mammals! I get sick and tired of that wonderful blanket statement that Christians won’t admit people ARE mammals. What I get tired of with that is that it’s used constantly to rationalize horrible treatment of others, i.e., “well, that’s just how I am. We humans are animals. I can’t help myself because of that…that’s just how it is…I can’t change and no one else can either”. It’s also used to justify all kinds of self-centeredness. Based on my experience with past alcoholism ALONE, if I’m going to be too strong on 1 side of the issue, I’ll take the side that uses some restraint instead of the 1 that says have no and/or little restraint. In the Bible, God didn’t just order believers to never get drunk and also not use any drugs unless it’s for true health problems because He’s a sick control freak and wants us to never have fun. It’s because He knows the very high risk you take with this stuff when you touch it to begin with. It’s like a parent telling their child to never walk into the street without looking.
Maybe He doesn’t like the competition. Or rather, maybe the priests don’t like competing with mushrooms, cacti, toads, and so on. After all, if you can eat something and experience God directly, what do you need a priest for? Nope, can’t be allowing that.
Sailor Barsoom, have you ever done drugs? Not just an alcohol buzz, but a real high? I’ve been high on marijuana and nitrous oxide, and trust me, being high did NOT make me “experience God directly”. That’s an over-romanticized view of drug use believed by people who haven’t used drugs. I was a social drug user and I’ve never had a drug addiction, so I can see drugs through the eyes of someone who has real-life experience with them and also is not enslaved by them. Being high is fun as hell, but it doesn’t bring you closer to heaven.
My own experience is very limited. I’ve been higher than a kite on stuff the dentist gave me, but that was for pain, not for either pleasure or for spiritual growth. I did the thing with nutmeg, and that was interesting, but it hardly counts, because I did it twice and it was too little both times. One time I hardly had any effects at all.
So I’m going by what people who have done psychedelics say about it. They don’t call them “entheogens” for nothing. The word means “creates God within.” Shamans from the rain forests of South America and Africa, the plains of North America, and the Egyptians of Pharaoh days all had these substances as an important part of their faith. Some people in the industrialized Information Age Western world still do.
And this is what’s said by people who have done an oracle-load of entheogens, not people with even less experience than I have.
Nutmeg didn’t give me a religious experience, and marijuana didn’t give you one. But others have had experiences with the aid of a little chemistry (or botany, or mycology).
I don’t dispute that some people THINK they have experienced closeness to God by using drugs, but that’s only because drugs create illusions. Various drugs can also make a person think he’s a sexual superman, omnipotent, or able to fly, or various other illusory feelings.
Actually getting close to God requires openness to the holy spirit, and it comes to you without the need for any drug to induce fake feelings.
Ah, but that’s the thing, isn’t it? What is illusion and what is real, in the realms of the supernatural?
I’ll let you in on a little secret: I suspect that the nearness to God, the becoming one with God, the melting into the Godhead experienced by users of entheogens are in fact illusions.
But then, there are plenty of people who, without the use of drugs, have thought that they were sexual supermen, that they were omnipotent, that they could fly, or various other illusory feelings. They’ve also felt a nearness to Kali, to Astarte, to Jesus, to the Spirits of Nature, all without taking in special molecules.
Now many people (you?) want to tell me that feelings of omnipotence are invalid, with or without drugs.
Feelings of nearness to Zeus are invalid, with or without drugs.
Feelings of communing with the minds of trees are invalid, with or without drugs.
Feelings of closeness to Jesus are invalid with drugs, but are valid without drugs.
And there’s really no reason for me to accept that, unless it just happens to be what I want to believe. It may be true, you may be right, but how can I or anybody else really know? Maybe the only religious experiences which are true are the ones gained by the use of a certain plant, but not other plants. Maybe that’s why God put that one plant on Earth, but the Devil put the others. Or maybe not.
But I can have my suspicions, and I suspect that the origin of religion is to be found in the consuming of psychoactive plants and mushrooms in the ages before writing, nation-states, and organized religion. Can I utterly prove it? No. But then, nobody can prove that her faith is the right one, either.
That’s why they call it faith.
> So many of them have become atheist materialists who no longer care about the future beyond their own lifetimes and therefor no longer bother to reproduce.
… non sequitur. I’m an atheist materialist (in the philosophical and economic sense, not that I think an active internal life is unimportant) and I care a whole lot about the future. I have 2 kids. I can barely understand how someone could be so selfish as to not care about the future beyond themselves – and I don’t see in the least how this question depends on whether or not they think there’s some god or mystical force out there.
I think the decline in children is due to economic and other social factors – the effort to raise viable offspring in the environment grows too great – the judgements you see yourself as facing from everyone who can now see every nitty detail of what you’re doing and going to say how wrong wrong wrong you are about it – we all became hyper-aware of the horrible things that happen occasionally and weight them beyond their true risks – and so on.
Simply pinning birth rates on atheism… well, I’d want to see statistics with a bunch of possible confounding factors included, not some unsupported claim from the outside.
I live in a suburb of Washington, DC and I can shed some light on these ridiculous “prostitution-free zones”. Washington, DC’s basic problem, which causes the horrendously high crime rate on the East side, is mass illiteracy. ONE IN THREE adults in Washington, DC cannot read. The other two in three live mostly in the relatively affluent West side. The Southeast quarter of DC is notoriously crime-ridden because the majority of the people who live there cannot read well enough to get any job that requires even minimal literacy such as being a store cashier.
Washington DC’s illiteracy problem is the direct result of horrifically destructive public school policy. The problem is not lack of funding; DC has among the highest per-student budgets and teacher salary averages in the whole country. The problem is the teacher’s union has made it more or less impossible to fire bad teachers, or to grant pay raises and tenure on the basis of anything other than seniority. There is no meritocracy for Washington DC teachers, and hence they have no incentive to care about helping their students achieve merit. See the movie “Waiting for ‘Superman'” for a portrayal of how Washington DC teachers reacted to former Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s attempts to judge and reward them on the basis of whether they were actually good at their jobs; the union fought her tooth and nail.
Because the Washington DC political establishment refuses to allow any real reform of the broken public school system, they can’t lower the crime rate, so they PRETEND to fight crime with ridiculous idiocy like crusades against streetwalker prostitutes – most of whom are streetwalkers because their terrible Washington DC public school education left them totally unequipped to enter the job market.
I’ll second your recommendation of Waiting for “Superman”. Davis Guggenheim, the director, is no stereotype of the union-bashing ultra-conservative. His last film before Waiting was An Inconvenient Truth, with Al Gore.
One thing, though: the teachers’ union is everywhere, so why is it worse in DC?
Public school quality depends heavily on the wealth and education level of the parents. Educated parents know how to create a home environment, routine, and lifestyle that is conducive to high-level learning. Most uneducated parents don’t know how to do that. Washington DC’s East Side is at a huge disadvantage because the impoverished, illiterate parents do not know how to do basic things like read a book to the child, check the child’s homework, or take the child to a museum or a science exhibit.
Better, more qualified teachers usually seek jobs in affluent areas because the pay is higher and the students are easier to teach. Good teachers generally don’t want to teach in bad schools – where they are most sorely needed.
I went to a public magnet school with an entrance exam and an exclusive admissions policy, and high teacher salaries; it’s a racially and economically diverse school with black kids and white kids, rich kids and poor kids, and 99 percent go on to universities and it’s one of the best high schools in America. Giving poor kids and nonwhite kids a great education CAN be done but only if you have brilliant, dedicated, caring teachers.
“Waiting for ‘Superman'” portrays the Harlem Success Academy, where great teachers give a good education to kids from the worst possible neighborhoods. It can be done – but only if you have good teachers who really CARE.