Another Cloud on “Home Education” Clarity Campaign Horizon?

And it’s not clearing up for the weekend, folks! Here’s my latest boating advisory for Home Education Clarity Speak: Take your paddle.

Minnesota is the Land of 10,000 Lakes and School Choices, so could this be a corporate-government plot to profit from the misuse of the phrase there?

Of the 225 graduates of the city of Mankato’s First Home education classes, 48 have bought homes and none have foreclosed. Twenty-four of those purchases come from single parents. It’s a worthwhile investment to help employees make a significant improvement in their lives that will ultimately mean a stronger, more stable workforce. . . ISJ is helping its employees get over that hump so it can offer stability, as well as peace of mind and a place to call home, to its people.

Mankato’s a cool power of story town in classic kids’ books so I am feeling all sunny and warm now.

But oh dear, do I hear resurgent thunder threatening, that this program’s publicity could cloud the pure absolute meaning of “home education”?

Let’s just chase that storm down, shall we, see if we can get a clear look at it by flying ourselves into its eye . . .

The name Minnesota LITERALLY means “somewhat cloudy water!”

A Dakota word as it happens, which confuses itself right off the bat with our official names for two other states, you know, the Dakotas?

Muddy Water of Dakota would be clear if muddy water CAN be clear, but wait, the Sioux arguably had more to do with MN’s history than the Dakota, and “Muddy Water” means Boston and the Red Sox, doesn’t it? — a song not sung, oddly enough, by Muddy Waters himself, who was in fact born in a (Mississippi, not Minnesota) town with a tribal name — Issaqueena Falls — but redefined himself as a native of Rolling Fork instead and then changed his name and birthdate to suit his public persona . . . and oops, I just confused Muddy Waters and Dirty Water!

Muddy Waters was not this man’s real name, but those who know and love his music wouldn’t know or love his real name, McKinley Morganfield.

Dirty Water is played after every HOME Red Sox victory (if you have season tickets, could you then “homeschool” at Fenway, or is that really worship?)

. . .and btw, thinking of sports reminds me of Muddy Waters the football coach for Michigan State, which takes us back to Minnesota’s neck of the woods and all that cloudy lake water . . .Shouldn’t we unschoolers object when a State claims to embrace education choice, yet brazenly counts Henry SCHOOLCRAFT among its early influentials, mapping everything out for them and killing the freeform view?

[We don't need no steenkin' schoolcraft, no wait, that was Treasure of the Sierra Madre, not Pink Floyd's Wall, although come to think of it, in another cloudy connection that song was co-penned by Roger WATERS!]

And you gotta admit, it would be funny to demand clear public definition in a state whose name was graphically translated for Europeans by the natives — who we call some pretty mixed-up and often offensive names to this day — by mixing milk into water to cloud it! Making the cloudiness clear.

“Many ha-ha” we might say — a joke itself built on linguistic ignorance.
Minne means water, not several.
Haha means falls, not funny.
(Which means Minnehaha Falls is not only misunderstood, but redundant to boot.)

So here’s my extended forecast:
I don’t think the original tribal leaders will have any more luck reclaiming for their own exclusive territory, Minnesota OR the Dakotas nor the words once used to describe them simply and clearly, than the heap big tribal leaders of Home Education have had or can hope for . . .It’s quite clear even when it’s cloudy, that going on the warpath over words ends badly, and leaves behind a populace no more enlightened than it ever was, much less than it could have been. . .

Glad we cleared that up! Have a bright week and clear sailing, whoever and wherever you really are . . .