Stardog,

Don't mention it about the compassionate words, I don't see anything wrong with a person admitting to an emotional response that they get from reminders of past memories, in fact, that's what makes us all humans, so please don't ever feel the need to apologize for behaving like one...even if your username does contain the word "dog"

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And as for not turning this into a political thread, I can't agree with you more. fromabove, what, did you follow me from the other thread to this one just to start the old tired debate up again? I told you before that I refuse to get into it further, and I'm standing my ground here. I thought that we had come to some sort of compromise on the medical malpractice suit debate, but if that's what this thread is going to turn into, then I want nothing more to do with it.

As for James Steele, from my experience with his writings, he was doing a series of articles about the state of childcare at the time, and I wrote an editorial response to one of the articles he had written about how childcare workers in general were overworked, underpaid and just generally underestimated in the importance of their role in Early Childhood Education. My editorial got published, which I was shocked about, to be honest, because the article I was responding to had nothing to do with childcare workers at all.

What he wrote about had more to do with subsidized programs and the tax dollars that were being spent on them and how it was effecting the economy. I figured that since no one had come forward as yet to speak from the childcare worker's point of view, that somebody needed to speak on our behalf, so I wrote the editorial and was completely caught off guard when I got a phone call from the editorial staff at the Inquirer asking if I would give my permission to publish the editorial I had written.

I agree with Stardog about Mr. Steele and his political views not so much being biased against either party, but he did point out a lot of valid points in his article about how the state of welfare in the city of Philadelphia and the reforms that were happening at the time and how it affected childcare by sucking up taxpayer dollars towards subsidy programs for former welfare mothers who were returning to work.

That's what I remember about the particular article I responded to, so I wouldn't go as far as to say that he was siding with the Dems on that issue, because at the time, the Democrats in this city were, for the most part, not happy campers about the subject of welfare reform in general.

But since I agreed not to turn this into a political debate, I'll just end this post by saying that I was very grateful at the time to get the chance to speak my mind about how the issue of childcare workers should have their own place in the debate about childcare programs, and I believe it eventually was addressed, just not by James Steele. And IMO, that article wasn't thorough enough in regards to just how important the profession is in general and the serious neglect that the average childcare worker experiences for the amount of work that they do. But that's a completely different issue entirely, and like I said, I don't want this to turn into a political debate. I'll save that speech for another time on another forum somewhere else.

Eeyore