The title of this post is the inside joke and unofficial motto of National Security Agency spooks. It’s not quite “all others,” though; spooks monitor whomever they’re tasked to monitor. But who is considered “God” by today’s spooks? Whomever they’re told, I suppose, and that depends on which way the wind blows.

I’m still flummoxed how President Obama can state that he will no longer monitor world leaders yet seems okay with recording Grandma’s calls. With all due respect, Mr. President, world leaders are fair game! That’s why we built this colossal monitoring institution: to find out what the world is doing. The operative word here is “world.” American taxpayers aren’t handing over their money so they themselves can be monitored, they’re expecting you to go after the bad guys who dwell outside of America’s borders.

When our President is skittish about monitoring foreign leaders yet doesn’t bat an eye at monitoring ordinary Americans there are priorities somewhere that are seriously out of whack.

I heard an alarming story last week. A teacher was discussing recent interviews she had conducted of potential new teachers. When asked “why would you like to teach at our school,” the job candidates could only muster lame responses such as “because it’s close to my house!” The teacher was dumbfounded that these people couldn’t even come up with a useful, halfway-convincing response.

What seems to be happening is that the good teachers are heading out the door after one or two years, discovering they can get paid twice a teacher’s salary in the private sector. Taking their place are often teachers who aren’t as bright or as capable. Where does that leave the education of our children?

If our governor and legislative leaders like to harp about running government like a business, they should remember the first rule of hiring: if you want top talent you have to pay for top talent. If our state leaders want North Carolina to be competitive, we should pay our teachers a competitive wage and not have our teacher salaries near the lowest in the nation.

The future prosperity of our state rests on the education we provide to our children. The mistakes we are making now will haunt us in the years to come.