Re:Village Voice fails to get it (Score 2)

It seems to me the point that people are generally driving toward, but never seem to quite hit, is this:

There are major flaws within the American educational institution (note that word well) that are not being addressed. Low teacher pay, poor quality of teaching, low standards and expectations, lack of funding, even a cultural lack of respect for all things intellectual, and a cult of vapidity that worships celebrity and beauty. Addressing these problems would lead to places of education where the Trenchcoat Mafia would be transformed into the President of Student Council. (In my wildest dreams, whatever. :/) Or at least places where these teens could live a semblance of a normal, happy life.

If you don't live a happy childhood, how can you expect to live a happy adulthood? The baggage we form in these years creates assumptions, attitudes, and memories that haunt us for the rest of our lives. It's not physical starvation, true.
It's emotional. And that, on some level, is every bit as painful and worthy of compassion and relief.

Children are suffering. Regardless of whether their pain is equal to that of a starving Ethiopian child, think of this: They're still so young. Can you really expect them to have a "sense of perspective" at such a tender age, in such conditions? Can you, in the face of such massive cultural dysfunctions as anorexia, prom night hysteria, oversexualization, and Ally McBeal? I don't think the reality our teens ingest is really indicative of the reality adults live.

Or perhaps it is -- which would be truly frightening indeed.