Hello,

The last few days I’ve been spending time updating my social media pages. I still don’t have a Twitter (X) account or an Instagram account. I’m not tick-tocking or whatever else. If this is stuff going on in these social media spheres that's fine, but I don't know about it and so far that's been fine.  Maybe I’ll get in that social media universe and some point,  but so far just my campaign website and FB page have been enough for me to communicate and I've made a lot of progress in a pretty short time, I've only been at this since I think the end of November, about 3 weeks ago this coming Sunday, November 19 when I decided I wanted to fun for political office.

I’ve updated my FB work experience page significantly over the last 24-48 hours so folks can see my work experience and sort of track my life’s career with its challenges and its accomplishments - rather,  a few challenges I think if you take a look. Some accomplishments, but rather a lot of frustrations and disappointments I should say. Hopefully, that has prepared me well for a life in politics where a lot of people who don't know my intentions, challenge my integrity and the like. I know who I am and I think that's really, important for anyone and everyone - especially for someone or anything who is about to enter public life. This might be my last significant entry before my public life status goes from a few people more than my friends and family have heard of me to maybe a lot of people who I don't know and will never meet have heard of me. That's I think the true challenge of being in politics. How to keep your focus, maintain your dignity, purpose, and calm while others are throwing sticks and stones at you even when they don't know who you, really are.  Maybe they will be taking out their life frustrations and disappointments on you, at the bar cruising your (I should say now - my name when they see it on the TV thinking ah just another politician, they’re all the same,  everyone's a liar and a scumbag just like the rest of them. Care? care? They don't care about anyone or anything other than themselves. Why don't they get a real job instead of living off us hard-working folks?  Government, it'd be better if we just shut the whole thing down, right? And then everyone in this private area shows how courageous they are and says, Yeah yeah god gamut, If we were in power that'd be different. We'll show them a thing or two. We’d just give all of the tax money back to everyone and things would just be perfect. Well, something like that.  So that is my contribution to the X or whatever for the night. Maybe someone can cut and paste that, make a meme or what have you from my words above and use that whenever they hear or see someone mocking me or maybe some other hard-working politicians who are really, trying their best to make the world or their slice of the world just a little bit better.  OK like I said enough for that. Yeah I'm trying to prepare myself and it's gonna be tough, but I'm ready for it and maybe soon I’ll have a few allies to help me too.

What I  want to write about today, and if I can focus maybe for the next several days even unto the Holiday season week, where I think I might take a break from all this, as we could or should - are two topics that I'd like to write about distinctly. but also in combination. I think these two topics outside of China are most important to me and. to our future as I see it.

One is education reform.  Until we change our education system and make it a 21st educational system we will do a lot of damage to our kids, families, and, our country. Some minor adjustments really won't do the trick. It will take a lot of hard work and time to accomplish some of what I'm going to suggest. There will be pain and hardship, frustration, anger, and resentment as we transition from a system that paid us dividends last century but no longer does now. The second topic sounds abstract but is to me at the heart of what I think can help our politics. I want to take some time to look into the idea of conservative, what it is, what it can mean, and how that term has been corrupted. I don't dislike all conservatives, conservative people are and can be some of the kindest, most generous, most giving people you can ever meet. They love their families dearly, are incredibly patriotic, give to charities by the millions, even the tens of millions -  I mean if you are a lefty and think to be conservative means to be a bad person - you, really need to think again and hopefully, this will show at least my understanding of what and how conservatism and conservatives can be good - even though I am not one myself. I can tell you one of my favorite people in the world well she's not, actually a people, not a person at all - she's my cat, and she’s conservative. For all of you animal lovers out there, consider whether or not your pet, your beloved cat or dog is conservative. I'd venture to say that more likely than not he or she is.

Huh?  Your cat or dog loves you to death, is fiercely loyal, and when in an environment where he or she feels safe can be as free, as open, and as loving as any creature that walks on this earth. Yet put that same creature in an environment of uncertainty, watch out, she or he will bark like there’s no tomorrow, howl or claw, or as is the case with my beloved Mel, run like the dickens to her favorite hiding spot or series of spots if one is somehow between the fear causing element and her nearest safe place in my house under the sofa or bed, Maybe the same for you.

Maybe you are wondering if I'm saying can’t a big old cat or pet or any animal be liberal?  If you think about it now, really, well not so much. Are there some pets, some animals who are willing to risk their life for the sake of others who are unknown to them?  Doesn't sound like the kind of special animal or pet that I know.  Can you imagine your lovely kitty willingly sharing some of her food or water with another kitty that has a bit of a foreign smell, again. Unlikely? How about Fido or whatever you call your lovely canine? Would she be willing to share her bone with someone she has barely met, never met at all, or, has only maybe seen once or twice -  for the good of being well a good pup?  I don't think so, right? Animals by their nature are conservative and guess what? We are animals too. So if you lefties out there are wondering why how golly gee willikers how could anyone in their right mind be conservative start with your pet and his or her life and maybe that can be a way to help - maybe it can be a way to help us build a bridge that every day for certainly the last several years if not more has been destroying us even when deep down we don't really, want it to. I know for many it seems like we want it to, But I'm pretty sure pretty confident that deeper down deeper than the deep you have looked so far, but way deep down even a little deeper, there is a desire to want to like your liberal or conservative neighbor so that you and he or she and you can enjoy time together in that strange sphere we call humanity.

Ok so I will as I said use more time to dig into that topic in the coming days and as I said I'd like to at, some times merge my comments about educational reform with my thoughts on conservatism, but at other times keep them distinct because I think it will be useful to use the ideas about conservatism in other sphere of life and public policy that aren't related to education. On the other hand, I think that to get educational reform right we must include and incorporate conservative ideas and principles not to appease or merely satisfy the right but because conservative principles have their merit and value and without them, the reform won’t work and won't be right. Sorry if this disappoints some of my supporters or potential supporters on the political left. Remember I'm here to solve problems not to be ideologically right.

So here are some raw suggestions or goals that I think we need to consider moving towards to make our education system coincide with the realities of twenty-first-century life.  Before you laugh, cackle or think my ideas are crazy, immature, or wild, please hear me out. This will be a debate and struggle like no other possibly during my entire political career if I am to last that long.

1 - This is probably the most important reform of all, bear none, and will scare the living bejesus out of many many folks on the right, left and, center so here we go, are you ready?

1 We must let kids graduate from high school at the ripe old age of 16.  What Farber are you crazy 16, our kids aren't even ready to fill in the blank at the age of 24 these days. Yeah, yeah I know and that's exactly the problem and why we need such a solution. We have done so much damage to so many people's families, friends, institutions, etc., by allowing the teenage creation which never existed before to become the 20age creation.  I know I know people are like Farber you are out of your mind, but you will see and I think everyone will see this can and should work.

I’d like to take a moment or two, if you’ll allow me to digress, reflect on, and, write about arguably the singularly most important influence on my life. I have not mentioned this force yet and it seems as things get closer to becoming quite real for me to acknowledge the contribution that this force has made to my life and if I’m able to influence the direction of our great state nation, or even to some extent this world much credit must be due to him - my dad, Joseph Martin Farber, may he rest in peace.  My dad and I battled for ages for decades and even until his dying day about 10 years ago, could not get right with each other. I remember some of his last words to me and it made me feel like I wanted to end him right then and there. If you are wondering how he could have been a positive influence or even an influence or significance that I would mention here (as I wipe some tears from my eyes)  I think I understand him more now after his passing than I ever did while he was alive. This in no way excuses him for his behavior that I often found repulsive, pathetic, and downright mean, but as I said I feel I understand more of how he became the way he was and how that was and is so at odd with who and how I am. It is almost for this reason and I will explain more as I go along that if possible if one day some of the legislation or even yes constitutional amendments that I will suggest here if ever come to fruition, I would be honored if in some way my Dad’s name could be a part of that history. How’s that Dad for some respect? What do you think? (a few more tears)

If you are wondering how all of these things could possibly, fit together, educational reform conservatism and my Dad as I said I’ll try to explain all of this and put it all together over the coming days but in essence, we need to treat our children like adults even we need to treat our adults like adults if we want to rebuild our nation and lead ourselves forward to a better world.

We have fallen into a deep and desperate trap by calling our twenty-somethings kids, which they are not.

They are only kids if we call them kids - if we allow them to be kids and they are not. How do I know? Because I know that even fifteen-year-olds can make babies. And as long as there is a God in heaven and whatever else, to me if you can make a baby you are an adult. It's as simple as that.

How I hear the anger the rabble-rousing, the all kinds of hatred coming my way, but I'm ready for it cause this is not an idea that just popped into my mind yesterday, It's a thought an idea that has come to me from the 30 years of working in the education system where the suffering the challenges the answers are nowhere to be found because the foundation has been shaken.

We have a system that was built for K-12 but we have allowed the 12 to become `14 and 16 and 18 and god knows how long until we now have people with college degrees who don't know how to do almost anything and it's not their fault. It's our fault, We are the adults in the room and we have to fix it. We owe it to them to fix it. We brought them into the world. They didn't choose to be here. We have to be the adults in the room. We have to make the hard choices to right this ship or the suffering will continue and if you think it can’t or won’t get worse, think again.

Why do you think for example we have so many school shootings?  It's not the guns. It's not the psychological problems of the kids. It's the frustration that they are stuck in a place where they don't belong, and they just can't bear to keep waiting to get out and be the adults that their bodies tell them they are.  In the pre-internet age, we could get away with this, but that age ended about 20 years ago and we haven't really, done bupkus to adjust since Email began.

Any sixteen-year-old now and don't tell me some don't have access to high-speed internet yadi yadi yadi (my inner Seinfeld. I’m in Queens now, after all ok?), any, ok well almost any sixteen-year-old in America can right now, at this very moment, get online with their phone and have access to more information within minutes than most people from the 20th century could have if you added up all of the time in their entire life. And yet we have these “teenagers” sitting in classrooms listening to teachers talk while reading books as if we were still living in the 1980s and we are not. We must change this and the sooner the better. This is how we stop the school shootings. This is how we stop the opioid crisis. This is how we stop the marijuana shops from opening in places like my Astoria Queens as fast as ... as fast as you name it.  By keeping adults in the lives of children unnaturally, we are doing tremendous damage to the entire social fabric of our nation and dare I say the world’s nations. To quote a rather famous line from a rather famous person from a rather famous book in my culture’s heritage “Let My People Go.'' There is no reason why we should continue to keep seventeen and eighteen-year-old men locked up in schools because they need to complete some credits. It is a travesty. It is a crime and we must end it, and the sooner the better.

At the age of sixteen, a man and a woman in today’s internet world can read and access information that they can use to lead their young lives. There is no reason they need to obtain more credits or even more diplomas before they can start their lives,  They might not want to have children at that age so in the past sixteen-year-olds in history were parents. In fact for the majority of human history, this was normal and entirely common, Only when we decided somehow that the best way to help our workforce was to keep kids in school so dad and then mom could go to work, but now everyone in the world of mind-word can work from wherever they are so the seventeen and eighteen-year-olds don't need to be locked up in school so Mom and Dad can go to work. Why? Because now Mom and Dad are working from home. They are free, but their poor kids are not. Terrible!

Now if Mom and Dad are not working from home and in many cases this is not the case then we make adjustments for this, but why are Mom and Dad now working from home as I do and have been for years, connected to any, and all technology that they need to do their mind work, while their kids have to go to school and use some of that old technology called cars and buses to get to a place where the internet that is at home or even not at home wherever they have their phone also is. It simply doesn't make any sense, anymore, and the sooner we right this wrong and get it straightened out I'm sure many other things will settle into place, but it will take time. Can twenty and, twenty-one-year olds have children? Yes, a man and a woman can graduate from high school at 16, enter a local community college either online or in person, and maybe take an Associate’s degree for 2 years. Then by the ripe old age of eighteen, he or she can find a job, get married maybe start a family by their early 20s. If at the age of sixteen, a young man and young woman wish to look for work and feel like their high school diploma provided them with enough knowledge and skills to find less mind-related work so be it, that's their choice and there ain’t nothin’ wrong with it. But let's not have them waste a few more years each and learn to feel bad about themselves because they can't do calculus or read The Federalist Papers.  Judge people by their character, their effort their kindness - not by how many degrees they have in god knows what.

If the young man and the young woman decide after they have finished their Associate’s degrees at the age of 18 that they might like to continue studying to pursue a Bachelor's Degree which will regain its rightful place in American history, unlike today where it gets you almost nothing, in many, but not all cases.  Please if you went to a top 100 or even top 200 college please, understand we are not talking about you here. We are talking about the folks, now the hundreds, thousands even millions of folks who either haven’t earned a high school diploma, earned one but it was too little too late, or by merely, just passing, it didn’t prepare them for work. These are the folks we need to worry about the most.

If at the age of twenty this young man and woman realize that with 2 more years of study, they have the opportunity to pursue work that is more interesting and meaningful to them and that by sacrificing two additional years of study and delaying for 2 more years the joys and challenges of family life they can jump their lives future to a higher level and they decided to enter a graduate program and earn a master's degree by the ripe old age of 22 or 23, we have a rebuilt America that will challenge any nation and be a model for how other nations can thrive in the 21st century.

Now if you think I've lost my mind, here’s a further radical idea that I think can and should be considered even though for many at first it appears that it is unAmerican in my view it is nothing of the sort.  In my view it is as American as apple pie and long since past due.

Are you ready?  We must pass a constitutional amendment to give sixteen and seventeen--year-olds, the right to vote.  Not only must we “Let My People Go,” but we must give them the means to participate in public life as we did others who were unjustly enslaved after being given their freedom. It was realized that freedom without power doesn't mean freedom.

It is time to enact a post-civil war, like Amendment to give a new birth of freedom to our young people who have been deprived of it for far too long. We have imprisoned our children and we should feel ashamed. It is time to let them go.

We can modify the Constitutional Amendment so it captures something of American work ethic and sense of responsibility justice and fairness, We should make the right to vote for sixteen and seventeen-year-olds conditional on their receiving a high school diploma, if a US citizen earns a high school diploma before their 18th birthday then he or she can register and vote in the upcoming election. If not she or he must wait until their 18th birthday to participate in any, and all elections

I've decided to post this with some typos and grammar fixed but not entirely because I’d like to get the ideas up and out and it's almost 9 in the evening now here in NYC.  Please excuse all typos. I or others can and will fix them shortly. (Actually, I decided to try to fix most of them and I think I did a not too bad a job at that, hehe :)

Before I post this to my campaign’s website, maybe you are all still wondering why I would want to dedicate such legislation or an Amendment to my Dad. That's an important part of the story that I need to explain now so I will.

My Dad, just Joe to most who know him, has a challenging upbringing. Yeah, I know that's a famous story but my dad had his too. He never really talked about this much like never and I understand that a bit more now than I did years ago. I still don't condone silence about things, but my Dad was like a pet in a way, not so willing to share much really if he felt it wasn’t necessary which he often felt like it wasn’t. Could he have had more joy, love, pleasure, and connection if he did?  I think so, but I understand more about him now, like I said than I did before.

My Dad’s mom - my grandma Sarah - my Dad, and my grandma on my Dad’s side are both gone. May they rest in peace so I  hope no one in my larger family will feel like I'm disrespecting either of their memories in what I'm sharing with the world now. I think it's a worthy story and hopefully brings honor not dishonor to their memory.

My Dad’s Mom was legally blind and legally deaf, If this was hard on me as a grandson, unable to let my grandma know who I was or where I was unless I shouted in her ear, It has to be a whole lot harder for my dad when he was growing up, Not only could he not enjoy a typical mother’s well everything if you know what I mean,  I imagine she could not work much outside the home but she learned how to take care of the family cooking and clearing as best she could without two basic tools most of us take for granted. Try living without sight for just one day. Then try living without hearing for a second day. Try living without both for even a few hours, I teach a few students who are mute, and the challenges that such a disability presents are enormous all by themselves.

And then as far as I understand but, don't know so much about this, maybe someone can consider sharing more so we can learn more, hint hint. My dad was born when My grandfather who I never met was I think about 50. This means that my Dad was a fourteen-year-old when my grandpa was 64 and my grandma was blind and deaf. Get the picture.  My Dad’s sister was a few years younger, she also has passed away and I don't have anything particular to say about her except that she was a few years younger than my dad, and from what I understand my Dad had to take care of his family beginning at the ripe old age of somewhere between 14 and 16, and needed to continue to do this until well his Mom was able to find a place to live on her own which she did with support from the government, his dad passed away and or his sister to find her way to become independent which she did when she got married, I don't know the details there. I'm sorry to all for that.

Now if this sounds challenging wait until you hear more about my father, the Superman, hope you are ok with this so far Mom. My father graduated high school two years early at the ripe old age of 16 and started studying physics at CCNY where he completed his degree at age 20.

If my Dad did this with a blind and deaf mom and a dad who was in his 60s during his teenage years and 60s back in the 50s wasn't like being in your 60s today. Is it possible that today's kids with the technology they have and all the rest is it possible that maybe they can do it too?

That's a wrap for tonight. I'll go out for a walk, For those who are reading, I hope you are enjoying my work and that it is giving you some food for thought. For those who haven't been reading, I hope you also enjoy your evening.

Good night from Astoria, Queens

just around 10 pm (really time for a walk now. Three plus hours of writing will do it to you every time.)