Where's the cash? Where are the toilets?

J's World, by Jeremiah Bartz

I was talking to Wasilla activities director Doug Bean the other day and he had something to say that made complete sense. Something his mother told him actually.

South Dakota, where the Bean clan is from, is one of the poorest states in the union, but if you have to do your business you can always find a rest area. You can always find a toilet.

In Alaska, you can drive for hours and not see one rest stop. Despite how bad you have to go, there is not a toilet in sight.

And though it is one of the poorest state's in the union, you rarely read in the sports page of a South Dakota newspaper that the school district wants to cut the funding of the activities of the local youth.

South Dakota has the money for toilets and the money for education, something Alaska - a state rich in not only wealth, but resources -- cannot say.

And the two go together. Cut resources for education, and the futures of the local students go directly in the toilet.

If you cut resources for education and cut resources for activities, Alaska might as well sink every last penny into the prison system.

If the elimination of activities are the hot topic of debate now, in five years we will be discussing the massive overcrowding of prisons.

And as Bean will attest, you can throw stones at the school district. You can't exactly take blood from a turnip.

Our law makers had the opportunity to participaste and better themselves in co-curricular activities within our schools. Now it is their responsibility to ensure future generations are guaranteed the same right.

Otherwise, we are heading straight down the drain.