Not all right, Hamilton!

It's one thing to go around claiming accomplishments that one has not quite accomplished, but I'm quirky about it...I think of a whole 'nother angle to it.

Talking about this fellow Anthony A. Hamilton here.  I don't know what the facts are; I can't say he's guilty of anything, but the SUN paper and WBAL TV say that he, let's say it this way, inflated his educational background, resulting in a short-lived appointment to the Baltimore city school board.  For one thing, they say that Hamilton claimed to have a Master's Degree from Johns Hopkins University.  Over at the illustrious Homewood campus of JHU, one of the finest schools of higher education in the whole wide world, they can't find any record of his being awarded so much as a campus parking ticket.  As you'll see in the article, there are other inconsistencies between what he said he has in his curriculum vitae and the good old truth, at least, according to the paper and the tv station.

That's a problem for the city, and if having problems makes a town good at handling problems, then Baltimore city leads the league, because from police trainees being shot in the head during an unauthorized training exercise to a middle school changing grades for a passel of eighth graders in order to get them out and onto high school, the city is jammed up with problems.

What's on my mind?  Two things.  First, I think of teachers who actually teach, standing in a class full of kids whose interest in J. Alfred Prufrock is a distant second to their interest in R. Griffin III.  Then, after a day on their feet, they race home for a quick sandwich and then off to night classes to get that Master's in Education.  The real kind.  The earned kind.

And something else...how do you face your friends and family when this sort of thing lands you in the paper and on TV?  This is not like an error in judgement made in the heat of an argument one day; this is part of ongoing mass deception.

I once worked with a guy - a supervisor, no less - who stole a very valuable piece of county property in order to use it at a part time job he had at some fried chicken stand.  He got caught and was fired posthaste.  He had a wife and children. How, how do you go home and tell them you just got a can tied to you because you stole stuff from work?

I need to stop looking so deeply into everything.  I wonder why I do that.  I need to look into why I do that.