Yee-Haw, Boys! Gotta Big Patch of ‘Seng Here!
This is the first draft of an article I'm writing. Constructive criticism is welcome.I had a dream that I was in a school for gifted children. I am not gifted nor am I a child, but that’s okay. I can be anything in my dreams. There was a problem with the school, though. Instead of teaching the children academics, the teachers were teaching them how to hunt for ginseng. Ginseng is a root that is a natural stimulant and I think it has other medicinal properties. It is very valuable in today’s market, going for up to $900 a pound.
The dream probably has its origins in a show my wife and I have been watching, lately. It’s called Filthy Riches. It’s about people who have found novel ways to make a living off the land. There are mushroom hunters, burl hunters, an eel fisherman, worm harvesters, and a family from Kentucky who make their living buying, selling, and hunting for ginseng. The patriarch of the ginseng hunters is a shrewd business man, but neither he nor anyone else in his family is exactly a Rhodes Scholar.
I’m not sure exactly what my dream means, but I have an interpretation in mind. I think our schools, and our universities in particular, are no longer particularly concerned about the intellectual development of their students. It’s all about money now. The results are lower standards that allow students to attain degrees without really growing very much intellectually. I just earned a degree where I took many online classes. I could see what other students were writing as it was required to read and comment on their assignments. I ran across a lot students who were juniors in college who wrote like 9th graders. I have no idea how they made it out of freshman composition let alone to more advanced classes.
I don’t mean to sound elitist. That’s not where I’m coming from at all. I think everyone who wants to go to college should be able to go, free of charge. That would take the money out of the game and would allow schools to truly focus on developing students’ intelligence instead of just herding everyone through there like it was a diploma factory.
The most important thing about America has become how well you can make money. Those of you who have any illusions about freedom, democracy, religion, family, apple pie, and rock and roll can forget about it. It’s all about the mighty dollar here. The sooner we all come to the realization about what we’ve become, the sooner we can come to make the changes we need to make to become a more enlightened society.
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Not "Rhodes." 
I'm no Rhodes Scholar either. 
On Edit: Actually I've got it right in the article. I just looked it up.
As to money being the measure of success in the U.S.?
Absolutely.
I recently had correspondence with a single Irish friend working in Dubai.
She had just celebrated her 50th birthday.
Charted a cruise boat in the bay for the celebration.
She is a dispatcher for a middle eastern airline.
She is raking in the cash.
I congratulated her or being so successful.
She said (paraphrase) "Successful? I'm fifty and single. I know I'll probably never marry. I'd really like to have what you do. A spouse, life mate.. Children, grandchildren. I'm pretty sure that will never happen for me. You're the fortunate one."
I replied "You're right. In the U.S. we judge 'success' by how much you accumulate."
