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I really try to hammer the right vs. wrong into my 13-year-old. He's 13, but still we see glimpses that he "gets it."

We're also fortunate that the youth group is a strong support for him. And, we figure it's just an answer to prayer the three other boys his age in our neighborhood come from strong Christian homes. One of the most amazing things to me is that his football coach is a Christian (and I think a lay minister). He begins every game and ends every pratice with prayer.

And, in spite all of the troubles, the Richmond area is still basically conservative and you're not considered abnormal if you go to church on Sunday.

But I can't rest on that...

You are very fortunate. Dade County, and more specifically Kendall, was a moderately small suburb until Andrew. Then, the population exploded and a whole lot of builders decided to push the housing to its limits.

As a result, people are crammed together, traffic is awful (as I've mentioned before) and jobs are limited. Add to that, with such a diverse mix of cultures, it is impossible for most folks to get along. When we first moved here, hispanics were a minority, but as an American family, fully assimilated in American culture, we had no problems with bigotry at all.

Now, the new Cubans (and thousands of South and Central Americans) that come over have no desire to assimilate and really don't have to, since most every supermarket has more Spanish speaking staff than English. So the Dade County natives became strangers in their own town. That is why during the Elian affair, so much pent-up anger towards Cubans and hispanics in general finally lashed out and Americans of Cuban descent like me, took a lot of heat.

But, back to the topic at hand, the fall out of the rapid growth of Miami suburbs was the strain on public schools to handle more kids, a lot of them who cannot speak English and thus learn more slowly. This leaves the smarter kids who speak the language to become bored and frustrated with school and get into more trouble as their grades slip. Additionally, there is a mindset that mediocrity is A-OK and once a student falls into that trap, it's nearly impossible to get them out.

Lastly, God is persona non grata in public schools, so students with a less than perfect home life have no moral compass whatsoever. In all, you get a student with no clear distinctiveness in grades, morals and discipline - the perfect Democrat voter.