>IMHO, even though the FLAP grant was awarded to only five school districts across the country, another place to cut federal spending (paid for by federal grant):
>
>http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2011/02/07/mandatory-arabic-classes-coming-to-mansfield/
>
>It's not a bad idea if completely voluntary, but we don't have extra money in the coffers - this is something that could be cut without harming lower (or no) income folks.

There is no doubt there are budget items we could do without. Fine with me.

I got a little torqued up the other day after reading an article in The New Yorker. It was about a mom who lost two sons to muscular dystrophy -- which I learned is a group term for five separate but similar afflictions -- and through sheer tenacity succeeded in getting federal funding for research. Before her no one wanted to touch it because it was (and still is) regarded as an invariably fatal disease. The basic pattern is by the age of 10 you can no longer walk and by the age of 20 you're dead. Which is exactly what happened to both of her sons. She kept fighting, which the article said is not typical after the child dies. She said there are other families who will have to go through this until we find a cure. The major research centers were not interested because there was no funding and no plausible hope for a happy ending. Still she kept on. It created major problems with her husband, a doctor who played football at Notre Dame. (Their two daughters are healthy). She kept at it, getting well known researchers to attend conferences and talking to the right people in Washington. And she succeeded. It's like a movie story. There is now serious MD research going on. Pat Furlong is my heroine.

The part that torqued me off is I would bet dollars to donuts that research program will be slashed in the new budget. Stupid wars abroad, that's protected. Tax cuts for the rich, sure. But medical research that might save American lives, eh, not so sure. Grrrrr.