Broken Brix is a winery & cidery in St. Charles.  The two of us stopped in for a few minutes of conversation, to relax in the comfortable atmosphere, the bar displaying hints of the infinite possibilities of taste inherent in the art of brewing.  Almost always Steve, the owner warmly greets us from behind the bar.  After my first taste of Mead, a few months ago I became a fan of the beverage.  With each visit to Broken Brix I am working my way down the menu selections of mead..  Pictured here is a glass of sparkling mead, along side a ribbon awarded Broken Brix for the quality of their mead.

Seated at Broken Brix in company with Josh, tasting the beneficence of the brew master’s art, how can I not conclude that: Life Is Good.

On the other hand…

As to our relationship with children, even if one has not experienced the responsibility of parenting, each of us once was a child.  The residue of years of childhood remains as the foundation, the substrate of the adult we have become.  A quote from Theodore Roszak describes the nature of the adult-child relationship in all too many cases.  Children progress from a state of artlessness and ignorance, looking to the adults at hand for support and instruction.  Roszak paints a picture of how this responsibility is typically handled.

Our relations with children
are political through and through:
relations governed by power,
by an invidious protocol of dominance and submission.
We confront these small, dependent humans
in the full arrogance of our egoism:
our chance to play God.

And behind our ego,
working through it to process the next generation
into its proper allegiance and deference
are the dominant forces of society:
state and corporation, governing party and privileged class.

They are our parental ego against the young
as the conduit of their purposes.

-excerpt, Person/Planet by Theodore Roszak

To this depicted scenario, this riposte seems balanced, reasonable enough.

Students should be allowed
to explore their own interests.
The end result of education should be
thinking, feeling, concerned human beings
who are skilled at pursuing personal fulfillment.
If this means we might have people walking around
who can’t read or solve algebraic equations,
so be it.

-anonymous