Article: Thank you, GWB: To put my daughter through college, I'm selling the family china!

"Mom, I'm in total burn-out!" my youngest daughter told me last night. "My college loan people are sending me nasty letters saying I have to start paying them back NOW -- but I'm still only a freshman. And pay them with what? The money I make at my minimum-wage part-time job? Yeah right. Mom, I can't go to school, pay my car insurance, buy gas, pay commute fares, pay my rent and buy food on $90 a week. I live like a hermit. I never go to movies or buy CDs. My computer is broken. I only have one pair of jeans. I go to school in $5 pajama bottoms that I buy from Walgreens. I'm already living on peanut butter and Kraft Dinner. I don't know what else I can do."

"I'm sorry, sweetheart," I replied sadly. "I'll do what I can to help out but I'm in between jobs right now and living on Kraft Dinner too." Oh boy. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Who knows what lies ahead. That billionaire who lives in the White House has just slashed Congressional subsidies to the college student loan programs. And his "War on the Working Stiff" program is costing America how many millions of jobs? Plus his mis-managing of the nation's treasury is about to lead to a major depression where no one will be able to afford ANYTHING -- let alone Kraft dinner. "I'm sorry, dear, but I haven't a clue what to do."

My motto is, "If in doubt, avoid cleaning house." I do my best thinking while avoiding cleaning house. "Let's see. I could avoid moving this box into the closet.... Wonder what's in it? Oops, it's what's left of the family china!" In 1959, my mother had given me some Heirloom Royal Albert china for my hope chest when I was a teenager. She bought it on a trip to Great Britain. It's all gold and decadent and hand-painted. There were seven dessert plates, two saucers and five salad plates left. Hummmm.

I e-mailed eBay. They came to my rescue and listed my ad. Here it is: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/ebayisapi.dll?viewitem&item=7388330333.

But instead of being reduced to selling the family heirlooms on eBay to get my poor sweet daughter through college, wouldn't it be easier to just to start pumping money into our college system instead of spending trillions of dollars on war?

To quote Robert Fisk, "War is primarily about death and the infliction of death -- and represents the total failure of the human spirit" -- to say nothing of a total failure to educate a whole generation of American children.

PS: Someone just wrote me that it was not up to George Bush -- or anyone else for that matter -- to put my daughter through school. Well! It is not up to George Bush, or anyone else for that matter, to hit up every single person in America for one million dollars so the Bush buddy system can make profits off our dying troops. College education is better.

If America is to be a leading nation, we HAVE to have an educated population. It is in the common good to send as many people as possible to college FREE in order to once again become a great manufacturing nation instead of some has-been grandpa with big guns.