So I watched the CNN/YouTube Republican debate last night, and even before I was aware of the Democratic shenanigans I was impressed with the quality of the candidates on the Republican side. With the exception of the questions regarding gays (more on this in a minute), I feel that everyone of them, with the possible exception of Tancredo, is infinitely better than any of the Democratic choices.
Now do you remember that the Democratic candidates refused to take part in a debate on Fox News because opponents had criticized Fox as biased against Democrats, despite the fact that all of the questions would be coming from credible journalists? These is the same group (well, really it’s mostly Hillary) that complained about the unfairness of the questions Tim Russert asked. And do I need to remind you that Tim Russert used to work for both Mario Cuomo and Democratic Senator Patrick Moynihan, so we’re not exactly talking about a member of the “vast right-wing conspiracy” here.
So the Dem’s refuse to debate on Fox because it slants right, but the Republicans AGREE to debate on CNN even though it slants left. Let me ask you this: If Hillary and friends can’t stand up to Fox News, how are they going to stand up to the leaders of nations that want to kill us.
And one other thing. Remember a few weeks ago when Hillary got caught planting questions at her own press conferences, and she said she’d never do it again? Well, I guess what she meant when she said that was she’d never plant another question in HER press conferences. She never said she wouldn’t plant one at the Republican debate.
So here are the rules for question submission to the YouTube debate: You can not be affiliated with any political candidate, of either party, and you need to be an undecided voter.
So first we have Retired Brigadier General Keith Kerr, who asked the question about gays in the military. Given that the General is gay himself, it’s a reasonable question for him to ask. However, he “conveniently” neglected to mention that he is co-chair of a gay & lesbian steering committee for Hillary Clinton. (he was also a supporter of John Kerry)
Next we have Ted Faturos – the young man who asked the question about corn subsidies. Ted is a former intern for Democratic Rep. Jane Harman.
Then there’s “Journey”, who asked if a women should be prosecuted for having an abortion, should Roe v. Wade be overturned. Her web page shows she is clearly an Edwards supporter.
Another questioner, Leeann Anderson, asked about the danger of lead toys from China. Anderson is an assistant to Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers of America. The union endorsed Edwards earlier this month, and Anderson's question is posted on the steelworkers' YouTube page next to a picture of Edwards
And then we have David McMillan, a screenwriter from Los Angeles who asked the candidates why they thought the vast majority of African Americans don't vote Republican. McMillan has pictures of himself on his Web site attending a fundraiser for Barack Obama as well as several parodies bashing current and former Bush administration officials Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and Alberto Gonzales.
Now you can say that CNN had no control over who sent what questions in, and you’d be right, HOWEVER they did have control over what questions were picked, and a simple Google search of any of these individuals showed that their affiliations were in direct violation of the rules. Out of 5,000+ questions submitted, 30 or so were asked and these five all had Democratic affliations of one type or another. Coincidence? Yeah, sure…
But then you can’t get too upset, because you have to remember all of the questions asked of the Democrats at their YouTube debate that were planted by Republicans. Oh wait, that didn’t happen…..
And look at the questions CNN choose. They stayed away from Iraq, because they knew that would give the candidates an opportunity to discuss the recent successes there. The questions were about guns, abortion, illegal immigration, and gays in the military – all questions that pander to the stereotypes of conservative Republicans. Did they trip them up? Well, like I said earlier, I wasn’t real pleased with the gay marriage/gays in the military questions – those responses did make them look antiquated. Why can’t Republican candidates just accept the fact that there are gay people out there and deal with it. Actually, I think most of them probably do accept them, but they are afraid of offending the religious right.
I do find it interesting going back to General Keer, that he was so disappointed with the Army’s “Don’t ask/Don’t tell” policy, and yet he is currently the co-chair of a committee for the women whose husband put that policy in place.
So does this whole thing upset me? Not really, the Democrats tried their usual dirty tricks, and were exposed. CNN reminded everyone why they earned the moniker “Clinton News Network.” And the Republicans faced the questioning from the opposition and came out looking great. Heck, I think most of them would have had no problem taking on “planted” questions even if they were aware of them up front.
You see, the Republicans aren’t afraid to debate the tough questions. The Democrats on the other hand…..
Friday, November 30, 2007
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Bill Clinton Rewrites His Support For Iraq War...
Yesterday in the great state of Iowa, former President Bill Clinton said this: “Even though I approved of Afghanistan and opposed Iraq from the beginning, I still resent that I was not asked or given the opportunity to support those soldiers"
Okay, “I still resent that I was not asked or given the opportunity to support those soldiers," is a pretty odd statement, but that’s not the one I am going to take on today. No, I’m more interested in the phrase: “opposed Iraq from the beginning”. Really Bill? Lets look at some quotes from Bill himself on the issue:
On May 19, 2003, Clinton declared, "I supported the president when he asked for authority to stand up against weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."
A March 27, 2003 Iowa City Press-Citizen article reported that speaking before the University of Iowa, "Clinton, who voiced his support for the troops fighting in Iraq, said it made sense after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to become more concerned about Saddam Hussein's potential for producing and distributing weapons of mass destruction."
"It is...illogical to believe that [Iraq's weapons] stocks would not get into the wrong hands," Clinton said just days after the war began. "It's easier to deal with the production and spread of this stuff than deal with the aftermath."
Clinton also downplayed the potential costs of waging war. On September 3, 2002, a month before Hillary authorized the war, he told CNN: "I don't think it will be a big military problem if we do it." That statement begs the question: Instead of opposing the war, did Clinton actually urge his wife to vote in favor of it?
"Whether you were for it or against it or whatever your opinions of it are to date, every American ought to be pulling for this mission to succeed," he told Larry King in December 2005.
In 1998, on the eve of his impeachment hearings, Clinton addressed the country following his bombing of Iraq: “Earlier today, I ordered America’s armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces. Their mission is to attack Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors.”
So yeah, I guess you really we’re opposed from the beginning Bill. Not convinced? Here are a few additional quotes:
March 18, 2003 (Guardian): "...if we leave Iraq with chemical and biological weapons, after 12 years of defiance, there is a considerable risk that one day these weapons will fall into the wrong hands and put many more lives at risk than will be lost in overthrowing Saddam....Blair is in a position not of his own making, because Iraq and other nations were unwilling to follow the logic of 1441."
On September 12, 2002, Bill Clinton appeared on The Late Show With David Lettermen. There, this exchange took place: Letterman asked, "Are we going into Iraq? Should we go into Iraq? I'd like to go in. I'd like to get the guy. I don't like the way the guy looks."
"He is a threat. He's a murderer and a thug," said Clinton. "There's no doubt we can do this. We're stronger; he's weaker. You're looking at a couple weeks of bombing and then I'd be astonished if this campaign took more than a week. Astonished."
February 17, 1998 (CNN)"There is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein's Iraq. His regime threatens the safety of his people, the stability of his region and the security of all the rest of us."
"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program."
"The community of nations may see more and more of the very kind of threat Iraq poses now: a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction, ready to use them or provide them to terrorists. If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow."
I have to tell you, I’m disappointed. I’ve always felt that Bill Clinton was an amazing liar, but this is amatuer.
One last thing. Now that you know what Clinton said yesterday, and what he has said previously, I think it's pretty obvious that he is flip-flopping. Now go to the New York Times article on the flip-flop at the following link: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/28/us/politics/28clinton.html. Now answer me this: Do you STILL think that there is no such thing as a Liberal media?
Okay, “I still resent that I was not asked or given the opportunity to support those soldiers," is a pretty odd statement, but that’s not the one I am going to take on today. No, I’m more interested in the phrase: “opposed Iraq from the beginning”. Really Bill? Lets look at some quotes from Bill himself on the issue:
On May 19, 2003, Clinton declared, "I supported the president when he asked for authority to stand up against weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."
A March 27, 2003 Iowa City Press-Citizen article reported that speaking before the University of Iowa, "Clinton, who voiced his support for the troops fighting in Iraq, said it made sense after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to become more concerned about Saddam Hussein's potential for producing and distributing weapons of mass destruction."
"It is...illogical to believe that [Iraq's weapons] stocks would not get into the wrong hands," Clinton said just days after the war began. "It's easier to deal with the production and spread of this stuff than deal with the aftermath."
Clinton also downplayed the potential costs of waging war. On September 3, 2002, a month before Hillary authorized the war, he told CNN: "I don't think it will be a big military problem if we do it." That statement begs the question: Instead of opposing the war, did Clinton actually urge his wife to vote in favor of it?
"Whether you were for it or against it or whatever your opinions of it are to date, every American ought to be pulling for this mission to succeed," he told Larry King in December 2005.
In 1998, on the eve of his impeachment hearings, Clinton addressed the country following his bombing of Iraq: “Earlier today, I ordered America’s armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces. Their mission is to attack Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors.”
So yeah, I guess you really we’re opposed from the beginning Bill. Not convinced? Here are a few additional quotes:
March 18, 2003 (Guardian): "...if we leave Iraq with chemical and biological weapons, after 12 years of defiance, there is a considerable risk that one day these weapons will fall into the wrong hands and put many more lives at risk than will be lost in overthrowing Saddam....Blair is in a position not of his own making, because Iraq and other nations were unwilling to follow the logic of 1441."
On September 12, 2002, Bill Clinton appeared on The Late Show With David Lettermen. There, this exchange took place: Letterman asked, "Are we going into Iraq? Should we go into Iraq? I'd like to go in. I'd like to get the guy. I don't like the way the guy looks."
"He is a threat. He's a murderer and a thug," said Clinton. "There's no doubt we can do this. We're stronger; he's weaker. You're looking at a couple weeks of bombing and then I'd be astonished if this campaign took more than a week. Astonished."
February 17, 1998 (CNN)"There is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein's Iraq. His regime threatens the safety of his people, the stability of his region and the security of all the rest of us."
"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program."
"The community of nations may see more and more of the very kind of threat Iraq poses now: a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction, ready to use them or provide them to terrorists. If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow."
I have to tell you, I’m disappointed. I’ve always felt that Bill Clinton was an amazing liar, but this is amatuer.
One last thing. Now that you know what Clinton said yesterday, and what he has said previously, I think it's pretty obvious that he is flip-flopping. Now go to the New York Times article on the flip-flop at the following link: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/28/us/politics/28clinton.html. Now answer me this: Do you STILL think that there is no such thing as a Liberal media?
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
I'm A Little Embarassed To Tell You This About Myself....
Okay, today I’m going to let you in on a little “hobby” of mine. Being from the Midwest and living in California, I have a little bit of an obsession with celebrities. My wife is from L.A. and grew up around the Hollywood industry, so celebrity means nothing to her. When I first moved to L.A., I would look intently at every limo that drove by, certain that it contained an “A” list star. Of course, anyone that has lived in L.A. for any period of time will tell you that 99% of the limos DO NOT contain movie stars.
And as we left L.A. and moved to the Central Coast of California, the celebrity sightings dropped dramatically, but we still see them from time to time. I have had Alex Trebec, Josh Brolin and Diane Lane in my store on a regular basis, and we have also spotted Steve Martin and Mel Gibson (they have both filmed movies locally), Sandra Bullock, and even Oprah herself has vacationed in the area. My wife even once had the great Sandy Koufax in her store.
So what is my hobby? Well, in addition to my celebrity obsession (okay, obsession is probably too strong of a word), I also have a pretty morbid curiosity about death. I blame that on my Mom, who goes to the obituaries the way some people go to the sports pages and check out the box scores. Come to think of it, I guess she’s checking box scores too, in a way.
So one of the first things I do when I open up the L.A. Times is go to the obituaries, and see which famous people died. Then , about seven years ago I got the brilliant idea: Why not attend the funeral of some of these famous people. You would be surprised how easy this is to do. Oh, you’re never going to get close to the funeral of a big star, but you’d be surprised how easy it is to attend the funeral of a “minor” star, especially if that star has been out of the public eye for a while.
While it’s possible to attend these funerals almost daily – depending on how willing you are to stretch the definition of “star” – I have chosen to attend funerals based on A) my work schedule, and B) if there is any connection that I have to this star.
In the past I have been able to attend the funerals of John Vernon, the man who played Dean Wormer in the classic Animal House. I also attended the funeral of Jonathon Harris, Dr. Smith from T.V. Lost in Space, and Keith Knudson, longtime drummer for The Doobie Brothers. One of my favorites was Howie Morris, who played the immortal Ernest T. Bass on the old Andy Griffith Show. At that funeral I had the opportunity to shake hands with both Andy Griffith and Don Knotts.
However, this week I attended a funeral that has me rethinking my hobby. This was not a funeral that I would normally attend, but I was already in L.A. for the UCLA/Oregon game, so I thought, “what the heck”. This week I attended the funeral of Larry LaPrise. Who, you may ask, is Larry LaPrise? Larry is a songwriter who did a great deal of work in television in the early years, but he is most remembered for a novelty song early in his career that subsequently defined him – "The Hokey Pokey".
That’s right, I attended the funeral of the man that wrote “The Hokey Pokey”. And it was excruciating. Why? Well, there was both a church service AND a graveside service, as there often is. The church service was fine. It was very nice, and maybe about 20 minutes long. But the graveside service, oh my God. Believe it or not, it was over four hours long. Why? They put his left leg in, they took his left leg out, they put his left leg in……..
Wow! See what happens when I can’t come up with a topic? Hopefully THAT will never happen again.
And as we left L.A. and moved to the Central Coast of California, the celebrity sightings dropped dramatically, but we still see them from time to time. I have had Alex Trebec, Josh Brolin and Diane Lane in my store on a regular basis, and we have also spotted Steve Martin and Mel Gibson (they have both filmed movies locally), Sandra Bullock, and even Oprah herself has vacationed in the area. My wife even once had the great Sandy Koufax in her store.
So what is my hobby? Well, in addition to my celebrity obsession (okay, obsession is probably too strong of a word), I also have a pretty morbid curiosity about death. I blame that on my Mom, who goes to the obituaries the way some people go to the sports pages and check out the box scores. Come to think of it, I guess she’s checking box scores too, in a way.
So one of the first things I do when I open up the L.A. Times is go to the obituaries, and see which famous people died. Then , about seven years ago I got the brilliant idea: Why not attend the funeral of some of these famous people. You would be surprised how easy this is to do. Oh, you’re never going to get close to the funeral of a big star, but you’d be surprised how easy it is to attend the funeral of a “minor” star, especially if that star has been out of the public eye for a while.
While it’s possible to attend these funerals almost daily – depending on how willing you are to stretch the definition of “star” – I have chosen to attend funerals based on A) my work schedule, and B) if there is any connection that I have to this star.
In the past I have been able to attend the funerals of John Vernon, the man who played Dean Wormer in the classic Animal House. I also attended the funeral of Jonathon Harris, Dr. Smith from T.V. Lost in Space, and Keith Knudson, longtime drummer for The Doobie Brothers. One of my favorites was Howie Morris, who played the immortal Ernest T. Bass on the old Andy Griffith Show. At that funeral I had the opportunity to shake hands with both Andy Griffith and Don Knotts.
However, this week I attended a funeral that has me rethinking my hobby. This was not a funeral that I would normally attend, but I was already in L.A. for the UCLA/Oregon game, so I thought, “what the heck”. This week I attended the funeral of Larry LaPrise. Who, you may ask, is Larry LaPrise? Larry is a songwriter who did a great deal of work in television in the early years, but he is most remembered for a novelty song early in his career that subsequently defined him – "The Hokey Pokey".
That’s right, I attended the funeral of the man that wrote “The Hokey Pokey”. And it was excruciating. Why? Well, there was both a church service AND a graveside service, as there often is. The church service was fine. It was very nice, and maybe about 20 minutes long. But the graveside service, oh my God. Believe it or not, it was over four hours long. Why? They put his left leg in, they took his left leg out, they put his left leg in……..
Wow! See what happens when I can’t come up with a topic? Hopefully THAT will never happen again.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Hillary and Education - Naw, doesn't make sense to me either
I know that up until the last couple of days I’ve spent a lot of time writing about education, specifically school vouchers – and while I do want to cover a broad range of topics, I ran across some education information today that I found quite interesting.
I am currently reading Rewriting History by Dick Morris. For those of you who don’t know him, Mr. Morris was a political strategist for the Clintons, from Bill’s first campaign for Governor of Arkansas right through his second term at President. Rewriting History is his response to Hillary’s autobiography Living History. Since Morris was there, he has a unique perspective on what Hillary says in her book, and what REALLY happened.
Clinton was elected Governor in 1978, and during his first term Hillary began her career at The Rose Law Firm. Clinton lost his bid for reelection in 1980, but regained the Governors Mansion in 1982. During his second term, Hillary decided that she needed to move into the public policy arena, and she decided education would be the arena she moved into. Actually, it wasn’t so much that SHE decided on education, but one of the first things that greeted Gov. Clinton was a State Supreme Court decision declaring the states entire education-financing system unconstitutional. Of course Hillary fails to mention the court order as a motivation in her book.
Anyhow, Bill was left with a choice: Cut aid to wealthy neighborhoods, or raise taxes to fund the poor ones. Since Bill lost reelection after his first term due to a tax increase, he was understandably gun shy. However, polling found out that the people of Arkansas would accept a full one cent increase in the state sales tax IF it truly led to improved education. At the time Arkansas ranked 49 out of 50 states, behind only Mississippi.
So Hillary led an education reform in Arkansas. Here reform was based on several ideals: Raising both test performance AND teacher pay, giving schools “report cards” based on student performance, getting additional help to the schools that did not meet standards and, if they continued to not meets standards, the school would be decertified and closed. In other words, Hillary implemented “No Child Left Behind”, almost word for word.
The benchmark of her program was to test all teachers, to offer training to those on the fence, and to get rid of the worst of the worst. After all, this is a state that had a teacher teaching her students about the horrific World War Eleven – That is how she read World War II.
When the teacher scores came in, Bill and Hillary were shocked. The teachers of Arkansas had failed miserably, and if the Clintons stuck to their guns – and their plan – they would have to fire greater than 50 percent of the teachers. And minority teachers took an even bigger hit. So true to form, the Clintons did what they do best – they took a poll. They polled the citizens of Arkansas to see what percentage of the teachers they would feel comfortable losing. Of course the REAL answer should have been any that didn’t meet the minimum standards. Their answer was 10%.
So true to form, the Clintons fired the bottom 10%. Hey, give them credit for at least doing that, but once again we have an example of Hillary (and Bill) “drawing a line in the sand”, and then changing the line based on a poll. The good news is thanks to Bill and Hillary’s “No Hillbilly Left Behind” strategy, Arkansas soared from 49th in the nation to 48th in only eight years.
The better news is that under eleven years of Republican Governor Mike Huckabee, Arkansas now ranks 32nd in the Nation.
And this is the women that so many people want to run our country. I just don’t get it.
I am currently reading Rewriting History by Dick Morris. For those of you who don’t know him, Mr. Morris was a political strategist for the Clintons, from Bill’s first campaign for Governor of Arkansas right through his second term at President. Rewriting History is his response to Hillary’s autobiography Living History. Since Morris was there, he has a unique perspective on what Hillary says in her book, and what REALLY happened.
Clinton was elected Governor in 1978, and during his first term Hillary began her career at The Rose Law Firm. Clinton lost his bid for reelection in 1980, but regained the Governors Mansion in 1982. During his second term, Hillary decided that she needed to move into the public policy arena, and she decided education would be the arena she moved into. Actually, it wasn’t so much that SHE decided on education, but one of the first things that greeted Gov. Clinton was a State Supreme Court decision declaring the states entire education-financing system unconstitutional. Of course Hillary fails to mention the court order as a motivation in her book.
Anyhow, Bill was left with a choice: Cut aid to wealthy neighborhoods, or raise taxes to fund the poor ones. Since Bill lost reelection after his first term due to a tax increase, he was understandably gun shy. However, polling found out that the people of Arkansas would accept a full one cent increase in the state sales tax IF it truly led to improved education. At the time Arkansas ranked 49 out of 50 states, behind only Mississippi.
So Hillary led an education reform in Arkansas. Here reform was based on several ideals: Raising both test performance AND teacher pay, giving schools “report cards” based on student performance, getting additional help to the schools that did not meet standards and, if they continued to not meets standards, the school would be decertified and closed. In other words, Hillary implemented “No Child Left Behind”, almost word for word.
The benchmark of her program was to test all teachers, to offer training to those on the fence, and to get rid of the worst of the worst. After all, this is a state that had a teacher teaching her students about the horrific World War Eleven – That is how she read World War II.
When the teacher scores came in, Bill and Hillary were shocked. The teachers of Arkansas had failed miserably, and if the Clintons stuck to their guns – and their plan – they would have to fire greater than 50 percent of the teachers. And minority teachers took an even bigger hit. So true to form, the Clintons did what they do best – they took a poll. They polled the citizens of Arkansas to see what percentage of the teachers they would feel comfortable losing. Of course the REAL answer should have been any that didn’t meet the minimum standards. Their answer was 10%.
So true to form, the Clintons fired the bottom 10%. Hey, give them credit for at least doing that, but once again we have an example of Hillary (and Bill) “drawing a line in the sand”, and then changing the line based on a poll. The good news is thanks to Bill and Hillary’s “No Hillbilly Left Behind” strategy, Arkansas soared from 49th in the nation to 48th in only eight years.
The better news is that under eleven years of Republican Governor Mike Huckabee, Arkansas now ranks 32nd in the Nation.
And this is the women that so many people want to run our country. I just don’t get it.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Timely Advice, No Matter Who The Source
I’m always a little cynical when I receive e-mails from friends, especially the ones that have already been forwarded a hundred times. I am amazed at how often my otherwise intelligent friends will fall for the most ridiculous scams (e-mail this to ten people and receive a $50 gift certificate to Applebee’s…), so I am skeptical at best when most of these arrive.
Today I got an e-mail from a friend which contains a letter supposedly written by George Carlin. The e-mail informed me that Carlin’s wife had recently died, and that he penned this note in rememberence. So naturally, the cynic in me went right to the internet and Googled Carlin, and I found out that in fact his wife did pass away – in 1997. Based on that fact alone, I really doubt that the letter came from Carlin himself, but then again I have no proof that it didn’t.
Regardless, it is very eloquent and thought provoking, and so I decided to reprint it here today for you my readers:
Today I got an e-mail from a friend which contains a letter supposedly written by George Carlin. The e-mail informed me that Carlin’s wife had recently died, and that he penned this note in rememberence. So naturally, the cynic in me went right to the internet and Googled Carlin, and I found out that in fact his wife did pass away – in 1997. Based on that fact alone, I really doubt that the letter came from Carlin himself, but then again I have no proof that it didn’t.
Regardless, it is very eloquent and thought provoking, and so I decided to reprint it here today for you my readers:
A Message by George Carlin (maybe):
The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.
We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.
We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.
We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.
We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We've done larger things, but not better things.
We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We've learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.
These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes.. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom. A time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete...
Remember; spend some time with your loved ones, because they are not going to be around forever.
Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side.
Remember, to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn't cost a cent.
Remember, to say, "I love you" to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you.
Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person will not be there again.
Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person will not be there again.
Give time to love, give time to speak! And give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind.
AND ALWAYS REMEMBER:
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.
If you don't send this to at least 8 people....Who cares?
George Carlin
Sunday, November 25, 2007
A Time For Tradition
Tradition. I like tradition, and this time of year seems to have more of them than average. I was reminded of this over the weekend as the house began its transition from Thanksgiving to Christmas. As we were heading out for round three of our “Black Friday” shopping, my eleven-year old daughter announced to me that she felt that this was going to be a very good Christmas. “Why” I asked, “what is it that you think you are going to get?” She explained that it wasn’t what she would get, but rather that she just liked the traditions so much.
My wife grew up in a home that appreciated and celebrated traditions. I guess there were traditions in our home as well, but we were never really sentimental about them. It’s funny, but the other day I saw a picture of an old aluminum Christmas tree, and I started to well up. This was the kind of tree that we had probably until I was eight or so. It was only about three feet tall, and had just barely more branches than Charlie Browns tree. Nostalgic, I went on line to see how much these trees go for. The four foot model was $229. Yeah, it wasn’t that great.
Starting in 1969 my mom started a new tradition in our house – Flocked Trees. Now if you like the flocked trees, more power to you, but if you could have seen some of our trees, you might rethink your position. There’s nothing wrong with a white flocked tree. But my mom decided she wanted a different color every year, so after the white one came the red one, then gold, then blue – that’s right, blue. And then my mother did the unthinkable: Bought a beautiful natural green tree, and had it flocked…. GREEN. Now you understand why I’m so sentimental for the aluminum tree. And once you add a color wheel to it, well then you have a thing of beauty.
I got to thinking a lot about tradition this weekend, for this year we have added a new tradition to our home. At the beginning of the year I lost my Aunt Ruth, probably the closest person who was like a parent to me in my youth, other than my own parents of course. I would spend almost every Friday night sleeping over with my Aunt Ruth and my Uncle Clarence, and the time I spent with them are among the happiest times I have from my childhood.
One of the things that Clarence and I would do at this time of year, was make Christmas decorations, and our favorite decorations of all were snowmen that we would make out of Styrofoam balls. We would use sewing pins – the kind with the little colored ball on the head, and colored electrical tape, and we would create the most elaborate little snowmen you could imagine, or at least the most elaborate my little five-year-old could come up with.
Well this year, after Aunt Ruth passed away, we found those snowmen, gingerly wrapped and packed away in the same Washington State Apples box that they were always stored in, and this year, for the first time in nearly 40 years, those snowmen are on display, not at Ruth and Clarence’s house, but at my home. And every year from this one out, those same seven little snowmen are guaranteed a place of honor amongst the other treasures Cindy and I have accumulated in our 22 Christmases together.
Here’s hoping that you and yours can find joy in your traditions this holiday season.
My wife grew up in a home that appreciated and celebrated traditions. I guess there were traditions in our home as well, but we were never really sentimental about them. It’s funny, but the other day I saw a picture of an old aluminum Christmas tree, and I started to well up. This was the kind of tree that we had probably until I was eight or so. It was only about three feet tall, and had just barely more branches than Charlie Browns tree. Nostalgic, I went on line to see how much these trees go for. The four foot model was $229. Yeah, it wasn’t that great.
Starting in 1969 my mom started a new tradition in our house – Flocked Trees. Now if you like the flocked trees, more power to you, but if you could have seen some of our trees, you might rethink your position. There’s nothing wrong with a white flocked tree. But my mom decided she wanted a different color every year, so after the white one came the red one, then gold, then blue – that’s right, blue. And then my mother did the unthinkable: Bought a beautiful natural green tree, and had it flocked…. GREEN. Now you understand why I’m so sentimental for the aluminum tree. And once you add a color wheel to it, well then you have a thing of beauty.
I got to thinking a lot about tradition this weekend, for this year we have added a new tradition to our home. At the beginning of the year I lost my Aunt Ruth, probably the closest person who was like a parent to me in my youth, other than my own parents of course. I would spend almost every Friday night sleeping over with my Aunt Ruth and my Uncle Clarence, and the time I spent with them are among the happiest times I have from my childhood.
One of the things that Clarence and I would do at this time of year, was make Christmas decorations, and our favorite decorations of all were snowmen that we would make out of Styrofoam balls. We would use sewing pins – the kind with the little colored ball on the head, and colored electrical tape, and we would create the most elaborate little snowmen you could imagine, or at least the most elaborate my little five-year-old could come up with.
Well this year, after Aunt Ruth passed away, we found those snowmen, gingerly wrapped and packed away in the same Washington State Apples box that they were always stored in, and this year, for the first time in nearly 40 years, those snowmen are on display, not at Ruth and Clarence’s house, but at my home. And every year from this one out, those same seven little snowmen are guaranteed a place of honor amongst the other treasures Cindy and I have accumulated in our 22 Christmases together.
Here’s hoping that you and yours can find joy in your traditions this holiday season.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
A Final Case For Vouchers
Okay, no ranting today, lets just get into busting that last few Myths surrounding school vouchers:
Myth: Vouchers violate the separation of church and state Truth: Are you serious? The reason the left pulls this one out is beyond me, other than the fact that the left has a real problem with religion in general, perplexes me. First of all, there is no SEPERATION of church and state. The 1st Amendment states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…”, which means that this myth has legs ONLY if the government is telling you what church-sponsored school you can send your kids to. Which brings us to…
Myth: Vouchers will lead to an explosion of religious schooling Truth: So? I agree that initially, should vouchers become a reality, most of those leaving the public school system would go into religious sponsored schools. Why? Well first of all, most private schools currently ARE religious schools. Also, a lot of churches already have the infrastructure (buildings, etc…) to set up schooling.
But what the left really fear isn’t going to materialize. Many fear that these “religions” will throw out the fundamentals, and focus solely on religious instruction. The thing they don’t realize is that A) Who’s going to send their children to that kind of a school, and B) those that would support that kind of education are probably already homeschooling their kids.
Besides, as vouchers come into play, we will see other types of schools, which we will discuss in a moment
Myth: Some of these voucher students may have trouble getting into college Truth: Does everyone need to go to college? 15.5% of Americans have a bachelors degree, while 8.9% have a graduate degree. In other words, less than one in four Americans have a degree. Even if we can double the number of graduates, that would still mean the majority of Americans don’t have degrees.
Currently, nearly 20% of Americans do not graduate high school, with 7.5% of Americans getting no further than ninth grade. Obviously, the public school system is failing these people. Assume that through voucher schools – schools geared towards the future these individuals see for themselves – half of these individuals could be saved. Isn't that a good thing?
Like I said recently, my sister is a teacher. She recently earned her second masters degree and is now a Special Ed instructor (kind of – I’ll explain later). Prior to that, she taught students at one of the poorest school systems in Texas, near Corpus Christi. The majority of her students were “at risk” students, many of them already parents and destined for the welfare ranks. Did she teach them to get into college? No, although some of them with her help did. What she taught them was life skills. She ran the student store, and was there every morning at 5:00 with her students, overseeing them, and teaching them valuable retail skills. Without that program, most of these kids would be working in retail. WITH that program, most of these kids would be working in retail. The difference is whether they are working as cashiers or management.
The fact of the matter is that there are a lot of options that would become available with the new world that vouchers would open up. In some cases it’s a matter of finding a curriculum that suits them better than what the public school offers. This could be a religious school, a “trade school”, or some other form. Imagine that in your town you have a school that educates pregnant students and those who have already had children – boys and girls. This is a group that is highly at risk of dropping out, and their offspring are probably going to be starting behind the 8 ball as well. But what if you had a school geared not only towards educating these kids, but also towards teaching them parenting skills as well as life skills. Wouldn't that be a positive thing?
Some of these schools would be more traditional in their curriculum, but they may start earlier and run later, or go all year long. Heck, even the Liberals who are the ones most against the voucher system could benefit. For years they have tried to sneak their leftist indoctrination into the public schools, now they can have their own schools where they can implement any wacky social experiment they want. Of course they would have to convince people to attend their school, and that might be a trick, since most liberal leadership trumpet the cause of public schools and then send their own kids to the more conservative private schools.
Remember my sister, and how I said she was “kind of” a Special Ed teacher? Well my sister has always wanted to teach kids with special needs, and she worked her ass off to earn a second masters degree that would allow her to teach these kids. She got that degree while already working full time as a teacher, and this fall she started her first job teaching severely disabled kids. One of these kids was a big, big boy prone to violent outbursts. After his first attack on my sister they added an assistant to the classroom, a large young man to protect my sister. Well, despite his presence, there were still outbursts, and Sue’s assistant wasn’t always close enough to protect her. The injuries from the last attack resulted in Sue being too disabled to continue to work.
So why didn’t they remove this kid after the first attack? Texas law says he couldn’t be denied an education, so instead they lost a dedicated teacher. Look folks, I think those that choose to go into Special Education are a rare breed. God knows I don’t have the patience to teach kids without disabilities. But if this is the way that the NEA protects it’s teachers, well…….
Myth: Vouchers violate the separation of church and state Truth: Are you serious? The reason the left pulls this one out is beyond me, other than the fact that the left has a real problem with religion in general, perplexes me. First of all, there is no SEPERATION of church and state. The 1st Amendment states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…”, which means that this myth has legs ONLY if the government is telling you what church-sponsored school you can send your kids to. Which brings us to…
Myth: Vouchers will lead to an explosion of religious schooling Truth: So? I agree that initially, should vouchers become a reality, most of those leaving the public school system would go into religious sponsored schools. Why? Well first of all, most private schools currently ARE religious schools. Also, a lot of churches already have the infrastructure (buildings, etc…) to set up schooling.
But what the left really fear isn’t going to materialize. Many fear that these “religions” will throw out the fundamentals, and focus solely on religious instruction. The thing they don’t realize is that A) Who’s going to send their children to that kind of a school, and B) those that would support that kind of education are probably already homeschooling their kids.
Besides, as vouchers come into play, we will see other types of schools, which we will discuss in a moment
Myth: Some of these voucher students may have trouble getting into college Truth: Does everyone need to go to college? 15.5% of Americans have a bachelors degree, while 8.9% have a graduate degree. In other words, less than one in four Americans have a degree. Even if we can double the number of graduates, that would still mean the majority of Americans don’t have degrees.
Currently, nearly 20% of Americans do not graduate high school, with 7.5% of Americans getting no further than ninth grade. Obviously, the public school system is failing these people. Assume that through voucher schools – schools geared towards the future these individuals see for themselves – half of these individuals could be saved. Isn't that a good thing?
Like I said recently, my sister is a teacher. She recently earned her second masters degree and is now a Special Ed instructor (kind of – I’ll explain later). Prior to that, she taught students at one of the poorest school systems in Texas, near Corpus Christi. The majority of her students were “at risk” students, many of them already parents and destined for the welfare ranks. Did she teach them to get into college? No, although some of them with her help did. What she taught them was life skills. She ran the student store, and was there every morning at 5:00 with her students, overseeing them, and teaching them valuable retail skills. Without that program, most of these kids would be working in retail. WITH that program, most of these kids would be working in retail. The difference is whether they are working as cashiers or management.
The fact of the matter is that there are a lot of options that would become available with the new world that vouchers would open up. In some cases it’s a matter of finding a curriculum that suits them better than what the public school offers. This could be a religious school, a “trade school”, or some other form. Imagine that in your town you have a school that educates pregnant students and those who have already had children – boys and girls. This is a group that is highly at risk of dropping out, and their offspring are probably going to be starting behind the 8 ball as well. But what if you had a school geared not only towards educating these kids, but also towards teaching them parenting skills as well as life skills. Wouldn't that be a positive thing?
Some of these schools would be more traditional in their curriculum, but they may start earlier and run later, or go all year long. Heck, even the Liberals who are the ones most against the voucher system could benefit. For years they have tried to sneak their leftist indoctrination into the public schools, now they can have their own schools where they can implement any wacky social experiment they want. Of course they would have to convince people to attend their school, and that might be a trick, since most liberal leadership trumpet the cause of public schools and then send their own kids to the more conservative private schools.
Remember my sister, and how I said she was “kind of” a Special Ed teacher? Well my sister has always wanted to teach kids with special needs, and she worked her ass off to earn a second masters degree that would allow her to teach these kids. She got that degree while already working full time as a teacher, and this fall she started her first job teaching severely disabled kids. One of these kids was a big, big boy prone to violent outbursts. After his first attack on my sister they added an assistant to the classroom, a large young man to protect my sister. Well, despite his presence, there were still outbursts, and Sue’s assistant wasn’t always close enough to protect her. The injuries from the last attack resulted in Sue being too disabled to continue to work.
So why didn’t they remove this kid after the first attack? Texas law says he couldn’t be denied an education, so instead they lost a dedicated teacher. Look folks, I think those that choose to go into Special Education are a rare breed. God knows I don’t have the patience to teach kids without disabilities. But if this is the way that the NEA protects it’s teachers, well…….
Friday, November 23, 2007
Lets See If We Can Help Johnny Read. Step One, NO UNIONS!!
Okay, I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. I know I did, and now it’s on to Christmas. Holidays are kind of a big thing around my house, so the minute one is over, it’s on to the next one. Think of my wife as a younger Martha Stewart. Of course she’s not quite as talented. Martha, I mean.
Anyhow, lets get back to the topic we were discussing before our Thanksgiving post – School Vouchers. Generally speaking, liberals as a group oppose school vouchers. I can understand why the liberal leadership does, because they are beholden to the NEA (National Education Association), one of their largest donors. It’s funny how liberals are always accusing the right of being the puppets of “special Interests” such as big oil, pharmaceuticals and tobacco, even though about 40% of donations from oil and pharmaceutical companies go to Democratic candidates, and tobacco donations are about 50/50.
What they never do however is refer to the NEA and the Trial Lawyers Association as “special interest” groups, even those both of those groups are among the biggest donors to Democratic candidates, and neither of those groups donate more than 10% to Republican candidates (some years it is less than 3%). And if you look at Democratic voting records, you can see the NEA and Trial Lawyers hands all over them.
But that’s the leadership. Why do the Liberals themselves oppose a voucher system, a system that would give untold opportunities to those who need them most, those who are stuck in poor performing schools and are too poor to have any options other than hope? Why? Well part of it is a lot of liberals blindly follow their leadership, as do many conservatives. As for the rest, the so-called “intelligent” liberals, hard to say. I guess after years of being lied to, you start to believe anything.
Actually, I think I have a good idea of why? Liberals have a dislike of the wealthy, so anything that they think will help the rich, they oppose, even though it will help a lot more of the poor. And actually, by helping the “rich”, they are actually helping the poor, even the poor that choose to not take advantage of vouchers. I’ll explain in a minute. You know, if 15% of America were poor, and a Republican had a plan that would knock that down to 5% - but would also help the upper 5% of wage earners, while not effecting the rest of us, the left would say “no way”. In their hurry to “punish” the rich, they don’t care who gets hurt, even those they claim to champion.
Now if I were a cynic, I would say the reason was because of “The Man”. You know “The Man”, the one who keeps the (insert: poor, minorities, etc) down. Didn’t know he was a Democrat, did you. Again, IF I were a cynic that’s where I would go, that by keeping “certain” groups down, the Dem’s have created a perpetual voter pool. What I can’t figure out is why that “pool” doesn’t wise up and see who’s “keeping them down”. But again, if you’re told the same lie long enough, it becomes your truth.
That said, lets bust a few more liberal myths about school vouchers. Actually, thanks to my rant, I only have time for one myth today, But we’ll jump right to it tomorrow and bust our final few myths.
MYTH: School Vouchers Hurt Public Schools. TRUTH: Vouchers IMPROVE Public Schools. Look, for all practical purposes, the public school system is a monopoly. Sure, there are private schools out there, but not enough to make a dent in the school system, and besides, a lot of people can’t afford private schools, so for to many students, where you are is where you are.
Without competition, schools fail. Look at other monopolies. Remember when the phone company was a monopoly? You had a black phone that they provided, long distances was REALLY expensive, and it was illegal, that’s right, illegal to hook up an answering machine. What about the post office. Before FedEx and UPS came along, it was impossible to ship overnight. Of course those two showed that in fact it wasn’t impossible, and now even the post office can get it there overnight (sometimes?)
I worked for Kinko’s for over 16 years. Early on, there was no one else doing what we were doing. Oh, there were mom and pop shops, but nobody came close to us on a national scale, and after awhile we slowed down as far as innovation was concerned. And as soon as Staples, Office Max and others started gaining on us, we got our butts in gear. And because of that competition, that company has reinvented itself and is 100 times stronger today than it would have been if we had not had competition. And the real winner: Their customers, just as the students would be the real winners with the competition that vouchers would bring.
“But you’re taking money out of the schools.” Are we? Wednesday I told you that the average amount of tax dollars that are spent per students is $11,178. However, where vouchers are tried, the amount of the voucher is rarely anything near what the tax dollars are. And why should they be, since most private schools cost less than the amount the government spends. As a matter of fact, the average tuition at a Catholic school is less than $5,000 – less than ½ what the government spends – and the average Catholic school student scores much higher than his or her counterpart.
So lets say you have a High School – grades 9-12 – and you have 300 students in each grade. So you’re receiving $13,413,600 from the government to educate those students (1200 students x $11,178). But assume 20% of those students seek other schooling, each taking with them a $5,000 voucher. That means we lost 240 students, and we lost $1.2 million in funding. But what that REALLY means is I now have 960 students, and I receive $12,213,600 to educate them. That breaks down to $12,722 per student, so now I actually have $1,544 MORE per student to spend on their education.
But what kind of education are those “left behind” students getting? Consider this: In 1980, the city of Milwaukee created a voucher program. Robert Peterkin, Milwaukee School Superintendent remarked “The idea that competition is just going to spark improvement for all schools is something that has no basis in fact.”
The results: The students that took the vouchers (which were $3,878 less than what the government was spending per pupil) to go to private schools saw their scores improve. And the public schools saw a 8.1% increase in math, 13.8% in science, and 8% in language. Those are AMAZING numbers, and if that doesn’t present a solid case for competition, I don’t know what does.
So my liberal friends, what’s your argument against vouchers now. Before you answer that, wait until tomorrow when we deflate the few remaining arguments you have.
Anyhow, lets get back to the topic we were discussing before our Thanksgiving post – School Vouchers. Generally speaking, liberals as a group oppose school vouchers. I can understand why the liberal leadership does, because they are beholden to the NEA (National Education Association), one of their largest donors. It’s funny how liberals are always accusing the right of being the puppets of “special Interests” such as big oil, pharmaceuticals and tobacco, even though about 40% of donations from oil and pharmaceutical companies go to Democratic candidates, and tobacco donations are about 50/50.
What they never do however is refer to the NEA and the Trial Lawyers Association as “special interest” groups, even those both of those groups are among the biggest donors to Democratic candidates, and neither of those groups donate more than 10% to Republican candidates (some years it is less than 3%). And if you look at Democratic voting records, you can see the NEA and Trial Lawyers hands all over them.
But that’s the leadership. Why do the Liberals themselves oppose a voucher system, a system that would give untold opportunities to those who need them most, those who are stuck in poor performing schools and are too poor to have any options other than hope? Why? Well part of it is a lot of liberals blindly follow their leadership, as do many conservatives. As for the rest, the so-called “intelligent” liberals, hard to say. I guess after years of being lied to, you start to believe anything.
Actually, I think I have a good idea of why? Liberals have a dislike of the wealthy, so anything that they think will help the rich, they oppose, even though it will help a lot more of the poor. And actually, by helping the “rich”, they are actually helping the poor, even the poor that choose to not take advantage of vouchers. I’ll explain in a minute. You know, if 15% of America were poor, and a Republican had a plan that would knock that down to 5% - but would also help the upper 5% of wage earners, while not effecting the rest of us, the left would say “no way”. In their hurry to “punish” the rich, they don’t care who gets hurt, even those they claim to champion.
Now if I were a cynic, I would say the reason was because of “The Man”. You know “The Man”, the one who keeps the (insert: poor, minorities, etc) down. Didn’t know he was a Democrat, did you. Again, IF I were a cynic that’s where I would go, that by keeping “certain” groups down, the Dem’s have created a perpetual voter pool. What I can’t figure out is why that “pool” doesn’t wise up and see who’s “keeping them down”. But again, if you’re told the same lie long enough, it becomes your truth.
That said, lets bust a few more liberal myths about school vouchers. Actually, thanks to my rant, I only have time for one myth today, But we’ll jump right to it tomorrow and bust our final few myths.
MYTH: School Vouchers Hurt Public Schools. TRUTH: Vouchers IMPROVE Public Schools. Look, for all practical purposes, the public school system is a monopoly. Sure, there are private schools out there, but not enough to make a dent in the school system, and besides, a lot of people can’t afford private schools, so for to many students, where you are is where you are.
Without competition, schools fail. Look at other monopolies. Remember when the phone company was a monopoly? You had a black phone that they provided, long distances was REALLY expensive, and it was illegal, that’s right, illegal to hook up an answering machine. What about the post office. Before FedEx and UPS came along, it was impossible to ship overnight. Of course those two showed that in fact it wasn’t impossible, and now even the post office can get it there overnight (sometimes?)
I worked for Kinko’s for over 16 years. Early on, there was no one else doing what we were doing. Oh, there were mom and pop shops, but nobody came close to us on a national scale, and after awhile we slowed down as far as innovation was concerned. And as soon as Staples, Office Max and others started gaining on us, we got our butts in gear. And because of that competition, that company has reinvented itself and is 100 times stronger today than it would have been if we had not had competition. And the real winner: Their customers, just as the students would be the real winners with the competition that vouchers would bring.
“But you’re taking money out of the schools.” Are we? Wednesday I told you that the average amount of tax dollars that are spent per students is $11,178. However, where vouchers are tried, the amount of the voucher is rarely anything near what the tax dollars are. And why should they be, since most private schools cost less than the amount the government spends. As a matter of fact, the average tuition at a Catholic school is less than $5,000 – less than ½ what the government spends – and the average Catholic school student scores much higher than his or her counterpart.
So lets say you have a High School – grades 9-12 – and you have 300 students in each grade. So you’re receiving $13,413,600 from the government to educate those students (1200 students x $11,178). But assume 20% of those students seek other schooling, each taking with them a $5,000 voucher. That means we lost 240 students, and we lost $1.2 million in funding. But what that REALLY means is I now have 960 students, and I receive $12,213,600 to educate them. That breaks down to $12,722 per student, so now I actually have $1,544 MORE per student to spend on their education.
But what kind of education are those “left behind” students getting? Consider this: In 1980, the city of Milwaukee created a voucher program. Robert Peterkin, Milwaukee School Superintendent remarked “The idea that competition is just going to spark improvement for all schools is something that has no basis in fact.”
The results: The students that took the vouchers (which were $3,878 less than what the government was spending per pupil) to go to private schools saw their scores improve. And the public schools saw a 8.1% increase in math, 13.8% in science, and 8% in language. Those are AMAZING numbers, and if that doesn’t present a solid case for competition, I don’t know what does.
So my liberal friends, what’s your argument against vouchers now. Before you answer that, wait until tomorrow when we deflate the few remaining arguments you have.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Happy Thanksgiving Everyone
Today is Thanksgiving, and my plan was to take a break in my discussion of school vouchers and discuss what I am thankful for. However, I ran across a column by Mark Steyn, a syndicated columnist for the Orange County Register, that says it better than I ever could. It’s a little long, but well worth the read.
Before we go to that wonderful column, I have three quick things. While listening to Air America today (the things I do for this blog), host Sam Sedar, great American that he is, refused to recognize that tomorrow is Thanksgiving, instead choosing to refer to it as “Illegal Alien Day” or “Original Occupation Day”.
Next, we have the Seattle School District using the occasion of Thanksgiving to teach how oppressive America is as a nation. Rather than recap the situation, go over to Michelle Malkin’s web site at the link below to read the whole sick story:
http://michellemalkin.com/2007/11/13/the-war-on-thanksgiving/
Look, I’m no fool, I know that America’s past is filled with some gruesome incidents, but this is still the greatest nation on the earth and we need to recognize that. If the left can’t take two days out of the year – July 4th and Thanksgiving – to celebrate this nation, then what good are they. Look, if Columbus or The Vikings or The Pilgrims had never come to the “new world”, it’s not like the countryside would still be dotted with Cherokee and Sioux villages.
And finally, I have some wonderful news to share with you, and I would like to thank my friend Jody over at http://www.iowageekonline.com/ for bringing this to my attention. There is a wonderful organization known as Soldiers Angels <http://soldiersangels.org/> which gives you an opportunity to “adopt” a soldier in Iraq for the holidays. Please take a moment to visit their website. Might I also suggest the USO’s website: http://www.uso.org/. Thanks Jody!
But I’m getting off task. Unlike the “patriots” at Air America, I choose to celebrate Thanksgiving, and as promised, here is that great column by Mark Steyn:
Mark Steyn: World should give thanks for America
Before we go to that wonderful column, I have three quick things. While listening to Air America today (the things I do for this blog), host Sam Sedar, great American that he is, refused to recognize that tomorrow is Thanksgiving, instead choosing to refer to it as “Illegal Alien Day” or “Original Occupation Day”.
Next, we have the Seattle School District using the occasion of Thanksgiving to teach how oppressive America is as a nation. Rather than recap the situation, go over to Michelle Malkin’s web site at the link below to read the whole sick story:
http://michellemalkin.com/2007/11/13/the-war-on-thanksgiving/
Look, I’m no fool, I know that America’s past is filled with some gruesome incidents, but this is still the greatest nation on the earth and we need to recognize that. If the left can’t take two days out of the year – July 4th and Thanksgiving – to celebrate this nation, then what good are they. Look, if Columbus or The Vikings or The Pilgrims had never come to the “new world”, it’s not like the countryside would still be dotted with Cherokee and Sioux villages.
And finally, I have some wonderful news to share with you, and I would like to thank my friend Jody over at http://www.iowageekonline.com/ for bringing this to my attention. There is a wonderful organization known as Soldiers Angels <http://soldiersangels.org/> which gives you an opportunity to “adopt” a soldier in Iraq for the holidays. Please take a moment to visit their website. Might I also suggest the USO’s website: http://www.uso.org/. Thanks Jody!
But I’m getting off task. Unlike the “patriots” at Air America, I choose to celebrate Thanksgiving, and as promised, here is that great column by Mark Steyn:
Mark Steyn: World should give thanks for America
Speaking as a misfit unassimilated foreigner, I think of Thanksgiving as the most American of holidays.
Christmas is celebrated elsewhere, even if there are significant local variations: In Continental Europe, naughty children get left rods to be flayed with and lumps of coal; in Britain, Christmas lasts from Dec. 22 to mid-January and celebrates the ancient cultural traditions of massive alcohol intake and watching the telly till you pass out in a pool of your own vomit. All part of the rich diversity of our world.
But Thanksgiving (excepting the premature and somewhat undernourished Canadian version) is unique to America. "What's it about?" an Irish visitor asked me a couple of years back. "Everyone sits around giving thanks all day? Thanks for what? George bloody Bush?"
Well, Americans have a lot to be thankful for.
Europeans think of this country as "the New World" in part because it has an eternal newness, which is noisy and distracting. Who would ever have thought you could have ready-to-eat pizza faxed directly to your iPod?
And just when you think you're on top of the general trend of novelty, it veers off in an entirely different direction: Continentals who grew up on Hollywood movies where the guy tells the waitress "Gimme a cuppa joe" and slides over a nickel return to New York a year or two later and find the coffee now costs $5.75, takes 25 minutes and requires an agonizing choice between the cinnamon-gingerbread-persimmon latte with coxcomb sprinkles and the decaf venti pepperoni-Eurasian-milfoil macchiato.
Who would have foreseen that the nation that inflicted fast food and drive-thru restaurants on the planet would then take the fastest menu item of all and turn it into a Kabuki-paced performance art? What mad genius!
But Americans aren't novelty junkies on the important things. The New World is one of the oldest settled constitutional democracies on Earth, to a degree the Old World can barely comprehend. Where it counts, Americans are traditionalists.
We know Eastern Europe was a totalitarian prison until the Nineties, but we forget that Mediterranean Europe (Greece, Spain, Portugal) has democratic roots going all the way back until, oh, the mid-Seventies; France and Germany's constitutions date back barely half a century, Italy's only to the 1940s, and Belgium's goes back about 20 minutes, and currently it's not clear whether even that latest rewrite remains operative. The U.S. Constitution is not only older than France's, Germany's, Italy's or Spain's constitution, it's older than all of them put together.
Americans think of Europe as Goethe and Mozart and 12th century castles and 6th century churches, but the Continent's governing mechanisms are no more ancient than the Partridge Family. Aside from the Anglophone democracies, most of the nation-states in the West have been conspicuous failures at sustaining peaceful political evolution from one generation to the next, which is why they're so susceptible to the siren song of Big Ideas – communism, fascism, European Union.
If you're going to be novelty-crazed, better the zebra-mussel cappuccino than the Third Reich.
Even in a supposedly 50/50 nation, you're struck by the assumed stability underpinning even fundamental disputes. If you go into a bookstore, the display shelves offer a smorgasbord of leftist anti-Bush tracts claiming that he and Cheney have trashed, mangled, gutted, raped and tortured, sliced 'n' diced the Constitution, put it in a cement overcoat and lowered it into the East River. Yet even this argument presupposes a shared veneration for tradition unknown to most Western political cultures: When Tony Blair wanted to abolish, in effect, the upper house of the national legislature, he just got on and did it.
I don't believe the U.S. Constitution includes a right to abortion or gay marriage or a zillion other things the Left claims to detect emanating from the penumbra, but I find it sweetly touching that in America even political radicalism has to be framed as an appeal to constitutional tradition from the powdered-wig era.
In Europe, by contrast, one reason why there's no politically significant pro-life movement is because, in a world where constitutions have the life expectancy of an Oldsmobile, great questions are just seen as part of the general tide, the way things are going, no sense trying to fight it. And, by the time you realize you have to, the tide's usually up to your neck.
So Americans should be thankful they have one of the last functioning nation-states. Europeans, because they've been so inept at exercising it, no longer believe in national sovereignty, whereas it would never occur to Americans not to. This profoundly different attitude to the nation-state underpins, in turn, Euro-American attitudes to transnational institutions such as the United Nations.
But on this Thanksgiving the rest of the world ought to give thanks to American national sovereignty, too. When something terrible and destructive happens – a tsunami hits Indonesia, an earthquake devastates Pakistan – the United States can project itself anywhere on the planet within hours and start saving lives, setting up hospitals and restoring the water supply.
Aside from Britain and France, the Europeans cannot project power in any meaningful way anywhere. When they sign on to an enterprise they claim to believe in – shoring up Afghanistan's fledgling post-Taliban democracy – most of them send token forces under constrained rules of engagement that prevent them doing anything more than manning the photocopier back at the base.
If America were to follow the Europeans and maintain only shriveled attenuated residual military capacity, the world would very quickly be nastier and bloodier, and far more unstable. It's not just Americans and Iraqis and Afghans who owe a debt of thanks to the U.S. soldier but all the Europeans grown plump and prosperous in a globalized economy guaranteed by the most benign hegemon in history.
That said, Thanksgiving isn't about the big geopolitical picture, but about the blessings closer to home. Last week, the state of Oklahoma celebrated its centennial, accompanied by rousing performances of Rodgers and Hammerstein's eponymous anthem:
"We know we belong to the land
And the land we belong to is grand!"
Which isn't a bad theme song for the first Thanksgiving, either.
Three hundred and 86 years ago, the Pilgrims thanked God because there was a place for them in this land, and it was indeed grand. The land is grander today, and that, too, is remarkable: France has lurched from Second Empires to Fifth Republics struggling to devise a lasting constitutional settlement for the same smallish chunk of real estate, but the principles that united a baker's dozen of East Coast colonies were resilient enough to expand across a continent and halfway around the globe to Hawaii.
Americans should, as always, be thankful this Thanksgiving, but they should also understand just how rare in human history their blessings are.
Christmas is celebrated elsewhere, even if there are significant local variations: In Continental Europe, naughty children get left rods to be flayed with and lumps of coal; in Britain, Christmas lasts from Dec. 22 to mid-January and celebrates the ancient cultural traditions of massive alcohol intake and watching the telly till you pass out in a pool of your own vomit. All part of the rich diversity of our world.
But Thanksgiving (excepting the premature and somewhat undernourished Canadian version) is unique to America. "What's it about?" an Irish visitor asked me a couple of years back. "Everyone sits around giving thanks all day? Thanks for what? George bloody Bush?"
Well, Americans have a lot to be thankful for.
Europeans think of this country as "the New World" in part because it has an eternal newness, which is noisy and distracting. Who would ever have thought you could have ready-to-eat pizza faxed directly to your iPod?
And just when you think you're on top of the general trend of novelty, it veers off in an entirely different direction: Continentals who grew up on Hollywood movies where the guy tells the waitress "Gimme a cuppa joe" and slides over a nickel return to New York a year or two later and find the coffee now costs $5.75, takes 25 minutes and requires an agonizing choice between the cinnamon-gingerbread-persimmon latte with coxcomb sprinkles and the decaf venti pepperoni-Eurasian-milfoil macchiato.
Who would have foreseen that the nation that inflicted fast food and drive-thru restaurants on the planet would then take the fastest menu item of all and turn it into a Kabuki-paced performance art? What mad genius!
But Americans aren't novelty junkies on the important things. The New World is one of the oldest settled constitutional democracies on Earth, to a degree the Old World can barely comprehend. Where it counts, Americans are traditionalists.
We know Eastern Europe was a totalitarian prison until the Nineties, but we forget that Mediterranean Europe (Greece, Spain, Portugal) has democratic roots going all the way back until, oh, the mid-Seventies; France and Germany's constitutions date back barely half a century, Italy's only to the 1940s, and Belgium's goes back about 20 minutes, and currently it's not clear whether even that latest rewrite remains operative. The U.S. Constitution is not only older than France's, Germany's, Italy's or Spain's constitution, it's older than all of them put together.
Americans think of Europe as Goethe and Mozart and 12th century castles and 6th century churches, but the Continent's governing mechanisms are no more ancient than the Partridge Family. Aside from the Anglophone democracies, most of the nation-states in the West have been conspicuous failures at sustaining peaceful political evolution from one generation to the next, which is why they're so susceptible to the siren song of Big Ideas – communism, fascism, European Union.
If you're going to be novelty-crazed, better the zebra-mussel cappuccino than the Third Reich.
Even in a supposedly 50/50 nation, you're struck by the assumed stability underpinning even fundamental disputes. If you go into a bookstore, the display shelves offer a smorgasbord of leftist anti-Bush tracts claiming that he and Cheney have trashed, mangled, gutted, raped and tortured, sliced 'n' diced the Constitution, put it in a cement overcoat and lowered it into the East River. Yet even this argument presupposes a shared veneration for tradition unknown to most Western political cultures: When Tony Blair wanted to abolish, in effect, the upper house of the national legislature, he just got on and did it.
I don't believe the U.S. Constitution includes a right to abortion or gay marriage or a zillion other things the Left claims to detect emanating from the penumbra, but I find it sweetly touching that in America even political radicalism has to be framed as an appeal to constitutional tradition from the powdered-wig era.
In Europe, by contrast, one reason why there's no politically significant pro-life movement is because, in a world where constitutions have the life expectancy of an Oldsmobile, great questions are just seen as part of the general tide, the way things are going, no sense trying to fight it. And, by the time you realize you have to, the tide's usually up to your neck.
So Americans should be thankful they have one of the last functioning nation-states. Europeans, because they've been so inept at exercising it, no longer believe in national sovereignty, whereas it would never occur to Americans not to. This profoundly different attitude to the nation-state underpins, in turn, Euro-American attitudes to transnational institutions such as the United Nations.
But on this Thanksgiving the rest of the world ought to give thanks to American national sovereignty, too. When something terrible and destructive happens – a tsunami hits Indonesia, an earthquake devastates Pakistan – the United States can project itself anywhere on the planet within hours and start saving lives, setting up hospitals and restoring the water supply.
Aside from Britain and France, the Europeans cannot project power in any meaningful way anywhere. When they sign on to an enterprise they claim to believe in – shoring up Afghanistan's fledgling post-Taliban democracy – most of them send token forces under constrained rules of engagement that prevent them doing anything more than manning the photocopier back at the base.
If America were to follow the Europeans and maintain only shriveled attenuated residual military capacity, the world would very quickly be nastier and bloodier, and far more unstable. It's not just Americans and Iraqis and Afghans who owe a debt of thanks to the U.S. soldier but all the Europeans grown plump and prosperous in a globalized economy guaranteed by the most benign hegemon in history.
That said, Thanksgiving isn't about the big geopolitical picture, but about the blessings closer to home. Last week, the state of Oklahoma celebrated its centennial, accompanied by rousing performances of Rodgers and Hammerstein's eponymous anthem:
"We know we belong to the land
And the land we belong to is grand!"
Which isn't a bad theme song for the first Thanksgiving, either.
Three hundred and 86 years ago, the Pilgrims thanked God because there was a place for them in this land, and it was indeed grand. The land is grander today, and that, too, is remarkable: France has lurched from Second Empires to Fifth Republics struggling to devise a lasting constitutional settlement for the same smallish chunk of real estate, but the principles that united a baker's dozen of East Coast colonies were resilient enough to expand across a continent and halfway around the globe to Hawaii.
Americans should, as always, be thankful this Thanksgiving, but they should also understand just how rare in human history their blessings are.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Johnny Can't Read - Part Three
Okay, we’ve spent the last few days talking about the Democratic candidates take on education. As you’ll remember, Chris Dodd wants to reward teachers, not for being good teachers, but for going into poor neighborhoods. While I have no issue with some kind of “combat pay” for certain areas, I don’t think this addresses the main question, “Should the best teachers earn more”. Of course we know the answer is yes, but try to get one of the democrats to say that.
Bill Richardson wants to give everyone two years of college tuition for one year of “public service”, which doesn’t sound too bad, but of course there are no details as to what Bill considers to be “public service”. And the only problem here is we aren’t doing more to address elementary and high school education, so that when those people get to college they are prepared to be there.
And then there’s Joe Biden, who wants to make two years of preschool mandatory.
The fact of the matter is, the American Public School System is a mess. Why? It’s a monopolistic government-run program. No, actually it’s worse than that: It’s a monopolistic government-run union-dominated program. That right there should be all I need to say, but of course for my friends on the left, I need to spell it out.
The problem with American Schools is choice, or more correctly, lack of choice. Most of our students today are in the school they are in because they don’t have a choice of schools. Yes, there is always the option of private schools, but that is not an option for many. Now being stuck in a specific school isn’t so bad if it’s a good school, but it’s hell if it’s a bad school. The answer: Vouchers. Actually there are two answers: Vouchers and Competition – and with the first will come the second.
The easiest way to make a case for vouchers is to answer the reasons that the critics say that vouchers are a bad idea. Once their house of cards comes tumbling down, it’s easy to see the brilliance behind this simple idea.
As we go through this discussion, remember a couple of things. First of all, The National Education Association – The Teachers Union – is one of the biggest donors the Democratic Party has, and while I am not saying that the current lack of vouchers is due to the left, 90% of the NEA’s donations go to Democrats, so you do the math. But I still have plenty to bitch about with the right on this issue as well, which we will get to soon enough.
Now, lets bust some myths:
A. We need Level Playing Fields: This of course assumes that busing and other liberal programs “level” the playing field in the first place. 54.4% of public-school students are in schools that are 90% or more white or minority. That number in private schools 41.1%. In otherwords, private schools are MORE segregated than public schools.
B. Public Schools are Underfunded: Not even close. Nationwide, the average school is given $11,178 per student. The average elementary school size is 24.8 students per classroom – lets round it up to 25. That’s $279,450 in funding per classroom. According to the American Federation of Teachers, the average salary for a teacher in 2004-2005 (the last year we have figures for) was $47,602. So lets assume for inflation that it’s $50,000. That still leaves $229,450. PER CLASSROOM.
Now I live in a pretty small town – about 4,000 people – and my son graduated last year with 181 people in his class. Assuming our 25 per classroom, lets assume 6 classes per grade (175 students per grade). 6 classes times 13 grads (k-12) is 78, times $229,450, and that is $17,897,100 AFTER salaries are paid. That’s almost $18 million dollars for a school district in a city of 4,000 people. And remember, we’ve already paid our teachers.
Now I’m not saying that our schools can’t use more money. Honestly, I think that we can always find good uses for money where education is concerned, including more funding for arts and sciences. But money is not the reason for our education problems. As a matter of fact, as I pointed out in yesterdays post, from 1971 to 2001 the nationwide spending per student doubled, and yes, that is adjusted for inflation, which means we have an ACTUAL doubling of funding. Over that same period of time our test scores have been flat, and the drop out rate has gotten worse. More money does not always mean better education.
C. Teachers are Underpaid: In Missouri there are 25 applicants for every teaching opening. With the exception of Math and Science positions, these numbers are repeated across the USA. Why are people lining up for an underpaying job?
Now before you accuse me of being heartless, I want to see our teachers making more money. Heck, my sister is a teacher with two Masters degrees, and my brother is an Associate Professor at UNI. But as we have already stated, the average teachers pay is $50,000 a year. And remember, we are talking about a nine-month-a-year position. That means that, if it was a 12 month position, they would be making almost $67,000 annually. That means teachers make more than chemists, computer programmers, registered nurses, and psychologists.
Do teachers deserve more money? Most do, and vouchers can make that happen. But at the same time they are not in dire straits.
Now I’ve barely scratched the surface of the voucher debate, so I’ll have to pick this up again on Friday, as I have a special Thanksgiving post for Thursday. Until Then….
Bill Richardson wants to give everyone two years of college tuition for one year of “public service”, which doesn’t sound too bad, but of course there are no details as to what Bill considers to be “public service”. And the only problem here is we aren’t doing more to address elementary and high school education, so that when those people get to college they are prepared to be there.
And then there’s Joe Biden, who wants to make two years of preschool mandatory.
The fact of the matter is, the American Public School System is a mess. Why? It’s a monopolistic government-run program. No, actually it’s worse than that: It’s a monopolistic government-run union-dominated program. That right there should be all I need to say, but of course for my friends on the left, I need to spell it out.
The problem with American Schools is choice, or more correctly, lack of choice. Most of our students today are in the school they are in because they don’t have a choice of schools. Yes, there is always the option of private schools, but that is not an option for many. Now being stuck in a specific school isn’t so bad if it’s a good school, but it’s hell if it’s a bad school. The answer: Vouchers. Actually there are two answers: Vouchers and Competition – and with the first will come the second.
The easiest way to make a case for vouchers is to answer the reasons that the critics say that vouchers are a bad idea. Once their house of cards comes tumbling down, it’s easy to see the brilliance behind this simple idea.
As we go through this discussion, remember a couple of things. First of all, The National Education Association – The Teachers Union – is one of the biggest donors the Democratic Party has, and while I am not saying that the current lack of vouchers is due to the left, 90% of the NEA’s donations go to Democrats, so you do the math. But I still have plenty to bitch about with the right on this issue as well, which we will get to soon enough.
Now, lets bust some myths:
A. We need Level Playing Fields: This of course assumes that busing and other liberal programs “level” the playing field in the first place. 54.4% of public-school students are in schools that are 90% or more white or minority. That number in private schools 41.1%. In otherwords, private schools are MORE segregated than public schools.
B. Public Schools are Underfunded: Not even close. Nationwide, the average school is given $11,178 per student. The average elementary school size is 24.8 students per classroom – lets round it up to 25. That’s $279,450 in funding per classroom. According to the American Federation of Teachers, the average salary for a teacher in 2004-2005 (the last year we have figures for) was $47,602. So lets assume for inflation that it’s $50,000. That still leaves $229,450. PER CLASSROOM.
Now I live in a pretty small town – about 4,000 people – and my son graduated last year with 181 people in his class. Assuming our 25 per classroom, lets assume 6 classes per grade (175 students per grade). 6 classes times 13 grads (k-12) is 78, times $229,450, and that is $17,897,100 AFTER salaries are paid. That’s almost $18 million dollars for a school district in a city of 4,000 people. And remember, we’ve already paid our teachers.
Now I’m not saying that our schools can’t use more money. Honestly, I think that we can always find good uses for money where education is concerned, including more funding for arts and sciences. But money is not the reason for our education problems. As a matter of fact, as I pointed out in yesterdays post, from 1971 to 2001 the nationwide spending per student doubled, and yes, that is adjusted for inflation, which means we have an ACTUAL doubling of funding. Over that same period of time our test scores have been flat, and the drop out rate has gotten worse. More money does not always mean better education.
C. Teachers are Underpaid: In Missouri there are 25 applicants for every teaching opening. With the exception of Math and Science positions, these numbers are repeated across the USA. Why are people lining up for an underpaying job?
Now before you accuse me of being heartless, I want to see our teachers making more money. Heck, my sister is a teacher with two Masters degrees, and my brother is an Associate Professor at UNI. But as we have already stated, the average teachers pay is $50,000 a year. And remember, we are talking about a nine-month-a-year position. That means that, if it was a 12 month position, they would be making almost $67,000 annually. That means teachers make more than chemists, computer programmers, registered nurses, and psychologists.
Do teachers deserve more money? Most do, and vouchers can make that happen. But at the same time they are not in dire straits.
Now I’ve barely scratched the surface of the voucher debate, so I’ll have to pick this up again on Friday, as I have a special Thanksgiving post for Thursday. Until Then….
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Johnny Can't Read, Part Two
Yesterday we started to discuss the Democratic Candidates responses to education at their last debate. Senator Chris Dodd, when asked if we should be rewarding outstanding teachers and terminating poor performers stated he believes that we should reward teachers who are willing to teach in rural or poor areas. However, he refused to be pinned down on the fact that it needs to be easier to terminate poor performing teachers.
Next, Governor Bill Richardson stated that he believes that in exchange for two years of government paid tuition, the student in return “repays” that tuition through one year of national service to the country. This sounds good, but I need more information. So I went to Governor Richardson’s website to get more details. Sorry, while he does mention this program I guess we can’t be bothered by actually providing details. And Bill, don’t we already have a program where the government pays your tuition in return for national service: It’s called ROTC.
Some of the other gems on Bill’s website include a plan to decrease drop out rates: “I will invest $1 billion a year in states' dropout prevention programs to encourage the one million students who drop out each year to stay in school.” Again, that sounds great, but what are the details? How are we going to discourage these students from dropping out? Pay them?
Bill says that his educational programs will cost about $60 billion, but that’s okay, because he has already identified $60 billion in weapon system cuts to pay for it. Yeah, that shows quality thinking during a time of war. What, you couldn’t find $60 billion in failed social programs to cut? Need a hand?
This brings up a typical liberal defense, which is spend your way out of a problem. But the only problem is, that doesn’t always work. Consider this: From 1971 to 2001 the nationwide spending per student doubled, and yes, that is adjusted for inflation, which means we have an ACTUAL doubling of funding. Over that same period of time our test scores have been flat, and the drop out rate has gotten worse. So Bill, spending more money isn’t necessarily the best course of action.
There is an old saying that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results. Actually, the real definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, while increasing funding for it, and expecting different results.
There was another gem on Bill’s website, and this comes word for word : “Our work to improve education depends on parental involvement. We should provide all federal employees with eight hours per year of paid, one-to-one time with their children, and encourage private businesses and the rest of the public sector to do the same.”
What? Man, I could have been a doctor or a lawyer if only my dad had spent an extra eight hours a year with me? And people are actually considering putting these people in office.
One last thing we’re going to discuss today, and then tomorrow we start looking at some solutions. Consider this statement from the debate from Senator Joe Biden: “I've laid out a $30 billion plan over five years to -- 16 years of education is what our kids need. They need to start two years earlier and be guaranteed two years after school."
Now I have no problem with preschool. Sure there are some really crappy ones out there, but I think most of them are fine and several are outstanding. What I have a problem with is the phrase “They NEED to start two years earlier….”. No Joe, I disagree. What they need to do is spend that time at home with their mother, HOWEVER I understand that in a lot of homes this is not an option. And if that is the case, then we need to make sure that everyone who needs it has access to a quality preschool. But given the choice between family and preschool, family will always come first.
But of course that’s not how the left sees it. How dare I assume that I can raise my child better than the government.
I also have an issue with Joe stating that everyone needs an education beyond high school. Now I do believe that everyone should have the opportunity to continue their education after high school and beyond, but a lot of people choose not to go to college, and that’s okay. Does that limit their opportunities and learning potential? Maybe, but if someone knows what they want to do and that vocation does not require an education beyond high school, more power to them. But again, the democrats know better than you do what is right for you.
So what is the right thing to do as far as education is concerned? Well, we’ll have to wait until tomorrow to hit those points. But I can give you a hint – It doesn’t involve a union. Do you know what happens when a union is involved in any industry? See below: 
Next, Governor Bill Richardson stated that he believes that in exchange for two years of government paid tuition, the student in return “repays” that tuition through one year of national service to the country. This sounds good, but I need more information. So I went to Governor Richardson’s website to get more details. Sorry, while he does mention this program I guess we can’t be bothered by actually providing details. And Bill, don’t we already have a program where the government pays your tuition in return for national service: It’s called ROTC.
Some of the other gems on Bill’s website include a plan to decrease drop out rates: “I will invest $1 billion a year in states' dropout prevention programs to encourage the one million students who drop out each year to stay in school.” Again, that sounds great, but what are the details? How are we going to discourage these students from dropping out? Pay them?
Bill says that his educational programs will cost about $60 billion, but that’s okay, because he has already identified $60 billion in weapon system cuts to pay for it. Yeah, that shows quality thinking during a time of war. What, you couldn’t find $60 billion in failed social programs to cut? Need a hand?
This brings up a typical liberal defense, which is spend your way out of a problem. But the only problem is, that doesn’t always work. Consider this: From 1971 to 2001 the nationwide spending per student doubled, and yes, that is adjusted for inflation, which means we have an ACTUAL doubling of funding. Over that same period of time our test scores have been flat, and the drop out rate has gotten worse. So Bill, spending more money isn’t necessarily the best course of action.
There is an old saying that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results. Actually, the real definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, while increasing funding for it, and expecting different results.
There was another gem on Bill’s website, and this comes word for word : “Our work to improve education depends on parental involvement. We should provide all federal employees with eight hours per year of paid, one-to-one time with their children, and encourage private businesses and the rest of the public sector to do the same.”
What? Man, I could have been a doctor or a lawyer if only my dad had spent an extra eight hours a year with me? And people are actually considering putting these people in office.
One last thing we’re going to discuss today, and then tomorrow we start looking at some solutions. Consider this statement from the debate from Senator Joe Biden: “I've laid out a $30 billion plan over five years to -- 16 years of education is what our kids need. They need to start two years earlier and be guaranteed two years after school."
Now I have no problem with preschool. Sure there are some really crappy ones out there, but I think most of them are fine and several are outstanding. What I have a problem with is the phrase “They NEED to start two years earlier….”. No Joe, I disagree. What they need to do is spend that time at home with their mother, HOWEVER I understand that in a lot of homes this is not an option. And if that is the case, then we need to make sure that everyone who needs it has access to a quality preschool. But given the choice between family and preschool, family will always come first.
But of course that’s not how the left sees it. How dare I assume that I can raise my child better than the government.
I also have an issue with Joe stating that everyone needs an education beyond high school. Now I do believe that everyone should have the opportunity to continue their education after high school and beyond, but a lot of people choose not to go to college, and that’s okay. Does that limit their opportunities and learning potential? Maybe, but if someone knows what they want to do and that vocation does not require an education beyond high school, more power to them. But again, the democrats know better than you do what is right for you.
So what is the right thing to do as far as education is concerned? Well, we’ll have to wait until tomorrow to hit those points. But I can give you a hint – It doesn’t involve a union. Do you know what happens when a union is involved in any industry? See below:
Monday, November 19, 2007
Johnny Can't Read - Part One
Okay, today I want to go back a few days to the Las Vegas Democratic Debate. There were a few things said at this debate that really got under my skin. And it had nothing to do with the war in Iraq, or illegal immigrants with drivers licenses. No, it had to do with Education. Education is important to me, and I think that a lot of the issues that we deal with as a society – poverty, racism, crime, etc…. – can be cured through education. Well, maybe not “cured”, but certainly diminished.
Now I have been very fortunate as far as education is concerned. I was lucky enough to grow up in Cedar Falls, Iowa, a community with a strong school district. And while I wasn’t the best of students, I had several great teachers (along with a few not so great ones) , and their effort made me a good enough student to get into college, where after a slow start, I did pretty well. And when my wife and I found out we were pregnant with our first child, we bought a house in the best school district we could afford. And by the time we were pregnant with our second child, we sold that home and moved to Templeton, a town with the best school district in the county. Like I said, we were fortunate, but a lot of people in America are not.
Most people in America are not so fortunate. Most people in America are stuck sending their children to the nearest school, and a lot of those schools – for lack of a better word – suck. And most of these people can’t afford to send their children to private schools. The problem is that the government and the National Education Association run the school systems, and those people DO NOT have the best interest of the students in mind. The left preach about the evil of monopolies (and they are not that far off of the mark), and yet they are the biggest supporter of the biggest monopoly in this country, The Department of Education.
And before my liberal friends start jumping on me on this one, let me point out that their isn’t a lot of brilliance coming from the right on this issue as well. There is bipartisan blundering on this issue, however the fact that about 90% of political donations from NEA members goes to Democrats, you’ll understand if I attack the liberals a little harder. But again, I’m not letting the right off either, because while they haven’t played as strong a roll in keeping education in it’s current quagmire, their wimpiness on this issue has not advanced education in this country at all.
Which brings us to the recent Democratic Debate in Las Vegas. There were several minutes spent on education in this debate, and a lot of promises made, but very few solid answers. Senator Dodd was asked about the need to A) reward quality teachers, and B) terminate bad teachers. This is a very, very serious issue, and one of the biggest problems with Unions today, and the NEA is no exception. Before we go to Dodd’s response, go to this link and see what it takes to fire an inept teacher these days:
http://cgood.org/assets/attachments/firing_chart.pdf
Now, if you didn’t go to that link, please back up and click on it. It’s okay, I can wait…..
Disgusting isn’t it? And the problem is, that’s only half of the problem – It’s also just as difficult to reward quality teachers, which is why burnout is such a big deal. Look, lets assume you start a new job. And once there, you take a look around at the people you work with. Over here is Jenny. Jenny has only been with the company six years, but she is enthusiastic and hard working, and Jenny makes $75,000 a year. And on the other side we have Stu, who has worked her for twelve years, and always does just enough to keep from being fired. Stu makes $45,000 a year.
Now imagine the same workplace, but in this workplace Stu makes more than Jenny because Stu has tenure. Also, since Stu can’t be fired, he is no longer trying anywhere near as he was, and Jenny lost her ambition by year four, and is on her way to becoming the new Stu. The difference between these two workplaces is simple: The first workplace represents many of those found in America today, the second represents many of America’s public schools.
Is this an accurate representation or a caricature? You’d be surprised. My son has always been a good student, but he struggled a bit in 5th grade. Not a lot, but up until that year school never challenged him much. His 5th grade teacher, who will remain nameless, was the first one who really challenged him, and because of her efforts Blake really shined in her class, and for the first time in his young life he really worked hard at his school work, and really shined (and I am happy to report that he continued to shine throughout High School and is doing quite well in college).
Now my daughter is another story. She’s a good student, but she is also a social one, and she needs a teacher who keeps her on task, and her fourth grade teacher was not that type. We requested the same 5th grade teacher that Blake had, and we were lucky enough to get her. At least we thought we were lucky. In the seven years since Blake had Ms. Whats-her-name, she went from Jenny to Stu, or worse. The bottom line is Madison’s 5th grade experience was horrible, and she spent her summer in summer school. Fortunately, sixth grade has been much better.
Now is it possible that our daughter just isn’t as bright as our son? Sure it’s possible, but we talked to several other parents who had the same teacher, and a vast majority had serious issues. And several of those parents had children in her class earlier, and they were just as disappointed as we were.
Does this one incident prove anything? Maybe, maybe not. But this story is being repeated in school after school. But lets get back to Dodd’s response to terminating and rewarding teachers. He said:
Well, I think if you define excelling by teachers who will go into poor -- rural or poor urban areas and make a difference, mentor children after school, put in extra time to make a difference, then I think that sort of merit pay has value.
Now I have been very fortunate as far as education is concerned. I was lucky enough to grow up in Cedar Falls, Iowa, a community with a strong school district. And while I wasn’t the best of students, I had several great teachers (along with a few not so great ones) , and their effort made me a good enough student to get into college, where after a slow start, I did pretty well. And when my wife and I found out we were pregnant with our first child, we bought a house in the best school district we could afford. And by the time we were pregnant with our second child, we sold that home and moved to Templeton, a town with the best school district in the county. Like I said, we were fortunate, but a lot of people in America are not.
Most people in America are not so fortunate. Most people in America are stuck sending their children to the nearest school, and a lot of those schools – for lack of a better word – suck. And most of these people can’t afford to send their children to private schools. The problem is that the government and the National Education Association run the school systems, and those people DO NOT have the best interest of the students in mind. The left preach about the evil of monopolies (and they are not that far off of the mark), and yet they are the biggest supporter of the biggest monopoly in this country, The Department of Education.
And before my liberal friends start jumping on me on this one, let me point out that their isn’t a lot of brilliance coming from the right on this issue as well. There is bipartisan blundering on this issue, however the fact that about 90% of political donations from NEA members goes to Democrats, you’ll understand if I attack the liberals a little harder. But again, I’m not letting the right off either, because while they haven’t played as strong a roll in keeping education in it’s current quagmire, their wimpiness on this issue has not advanced education in this country at all.
Which brings us to the recent Democratic Debate in Las Vegas. There were several minutes spent on education in this debate, and a lot of promises made, but very few solid answers. Senator Dodd was asked about the need to A) reward quality teachers, and B) terminate bad teachers. This is a very, very serious issue, and one of the biggest problems with Unions today, and the NEA is no exception. Before we go to Dodd’s response, go to this link and see what it takes to fire an inept teacher these days:
http://cgood.org/assets/attachments/firing_chart.pdf
Now, if you didn’t go to that link, please back up and click on it. It’s okay, I can wait…..
Disgusting isn’t it? And the problem is, that’s only half of the problem – It’s also just as difficult to reward quality teachers, which is why burnout is such a big deal. Look, lets assume you start a new job. And once there, you take a look around at the people you work with. Over here is Jenny. Jenny has only been with the company six years, but she is enthusiastic and hard working, and Jenny makes $75,000 a year. And on the other side we have Stu, who has worked her for twelve years, and always does just enough to keep from being fired. Stu makes $45,000 a year.
Now imagine the same workplace, but in this workplace Stu makes more than Jenny because Stu has tenure. Also, since Stu can’t be fired, he is no longer trying anywhere near as he was, and Jenny lost her ambition by year four, and is on her way to becoming the new Stu. The difference between these two workplaces is simple: The first workplace represents many of those found in America today, the second represents many of America’s public schools.
Is this an accurate representation or a caricature? You’d be surprised. My son has always been a good student, but he struggled a bit in 5th grade. Not a lot, but up until that year school never challenged him much. His 5th grade teacher, who will remain nameless, was the first one who really challenged him, and because of her efforts Blake really shined in her class, and for the first time in his young life he really worked hard at his school work, and really shined (and I am happy to report that he continued to shine throughout High School and is doing quite well in college).
Now my daughter is another story. She’s a good student, but she is also a social one, and she needs a teacher who keeps her on task, and her fourth grade teacher was not that type. We requested the same 5th grade teacher that Blake had, and we were lucky enough to get her. At least we thought we were lucky. In the seven years since Blake had Ms. Whats-her-name, she went from Jenny to Stu, or worse. The bottom line is Madison’s 5th grade experience was horrible, and she spent her summer in summer school. Fortunately, sixth grade has been much better.
Now is it possible that our daughter just isn’t as bright as our son? Sure it’s possible, but we talked to several other parents who had the same teacher, and a vast majority had serious issues. And several of those parents had children in her class earlier, and they were just as disappointed as we were.
Does this one incident prove anything? Maybe, maybe not. But this story is being repeated in school after school. But lets get back to Dodd’s response to terminating and rewarding teachers. He said:
Well, I think if you define excelling by teachers who will go into poor -- rural or poor urban areas and make a difference, mentor children after school, put in extra time to make a difference, then I think that sort of merit pay has value.
If you're judging excelling by determining whether or not that teacher has students who do better because they're in better neighborhoods or better schools, I'm totally opposed to that.
Now I’m not saying that what Dodd proposes isn’t without merit, but it doesn’t really answer the question, does it? Dodd defines “good performance” by someone willing to teach in a poor neighborhood, which is great, but what if that someone is our pal Stu. Dodd is rewarding placement, not performance. And what’s wrong with an outstanding teacher in a good school system. Do I think there should be an extra incentive for outstanding teachers in poor areas? Absolutely, I’m 100% for it.
But there are other issues, and believe it or not, a few solutions as well. But alas dear reader, that will have to wait until tomorrow. And possibly the day after as well (we have a lot to cover here)
Now I’m not saying that what Dodd proposes isn’t without merit, but it doesn’t really answer the question, does it? Dodd defines “good performance” by someone willing to teach in a poor neighborhood, which is great, but what if that someone is our pal Stu. Dodd is rewarding placement, not performance. And what’s wrong with an outstanding teacher in a good school system. Do I think there should be an extra incentive for outstanding teachers in poor areas? Absolutely, I’m 100% for it.
But there are other issues, and believe it or not, a few solutions as well. But alas dear reader, that will have to wait until tomorrow. And possibly the day after as well (we have a lot to cover here)
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Guest Post From Robert Parkhurst
Okay, Robert doesn't know he is doing a guest post, but I'm kind of busy today and I read a letter to the editor yesterday in the New Times that I thought was really well written. The New Times is our weekly "alternative" rag that usually has a leftist slant but every now and then they surprise me.
Last week they ran a commentary praising socialized medicine, and while it was well written it conveniently side-stepped any of the issues that would come along with such a program. Oddly enough, all three letters in this weeks addition slamed the writer. I say "oddly enough" because in San Luis Obispo, these kinds normally get a whole birkenstock wearing parade lining up behind them. Anyhow, here is Robert's letter.
Remember What The Road To Hell Is Paved With.
The commentary in the Nov. 8 issue asks the question "Why not socialized medicine?" The author implies that socialism evokes a knee-jerk response, and the press won't challenge the assumption that socialism is somehow evil. I have no doubt that the author and most people advocating socialized medicine have the best intentions - the road to hell is paved, nonetheless, with good intentions.
Remember the suffering of Agent Orange victims, who were so long unable to get their government to accept this as anything other than "just in your mind", or remember the soldiers that suffered with Gulf War Syndrome. "All in your mind" they said.
Recently, several Democrat congressmen have been very outspoken on TV about how the government runs its prisons and the VA hospitals. These are government-run programs that they are complaining about.
Democrats seem to be unhappy with the Bush administration. They complain constantly in the pages of this paper that Bush hates children and is responsible for everything from Hurricane Katrina to the fires in Southern California. Republicans I've talked to seem much more forgiving. A strange irony - The Republicans are reasonably happy with the government but want it to do less and be a smaller part of our lives, while the Democrats are unhappy and want it to do more. We need to remember, however, that if Hillary had done her job during the Clinton Administration (Hillary Health Care), Bush and his appointees would now be in charge of our medical care.
Robert Parkhurst
Atascadero, CA
Last week they ran a commentary praising socialized medicine, and while it was well written it conveniently side-stepped any of the issues that would come along with such a program. Oddly enough, all three letters in this weeks addition slamed the writer. I say "oddly enough" because in San Luis Obispo, these kinds normally get a whole birkenstock wearing parade lining up behind them. Anyhow, here is Robert's letter.
Remember What The Road To Hell Is Paved With.
The commentary in the Nov. 8 issue asks the question "Why not socialized medicine?" The author implies that socialism evokes a knee-jerk response, and the press won't challenge the assumption that socialism is somehow evil. I have no doubt that the author and most people advocating socialized medicine have the best intentions - the road to hell is paved, nonetheless, with good intentions.
Remember the suffering of Agent Orange victims, who were so long unable to get their government to accept this as anything other than "just in your mind", or remember the soldiers that suffered with Gulf War Syndrome. "All in your mind" they said.
Recently, several Democrat congressmen have been very outspoken on TV about how the government runs its prisons and the VA hospitals. These are government-run programs that they are complaining about.
Democrats seem to be unhappy with the Bush administration. They complain constantly in the pages of this paper that Bush hates children and is responsible for everything from Hurricane Katrina to the fires in Southern California. Republicans I've talked to seem much more forgiving. A strange irony - The Republicans are reasonably happy with the government but want it to do less and be a smaller part of our lives, while the Democrats are unhappy and want it to do more. We need to remember, however, that if Hillary had done her job during the Clinton Administration (Hillary Health Care), Bush and his appointees would now be in charge of our medical care.
Robert Parkhurst
Atascadero, CA
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Harry & Nancy, A Waste Of Time AND Money
The era of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi is just over ten months old and already it has been deemed by many as one of the worst congresses on record. Lets take a look at what the democrats got for their “historic revolution”:
= 57 political Iraq votes held in the House and Senate
= $300,000 in funding for the San Francisco Exploratorium museum in the Labor-HHS-Ed appropriations bill
= $1 million in funding for the Woodstock Museum proposed by Senators Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer
= $2 million in funding for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service, the Rangel Conference Center, and the Charles Rangel Library at CCNY
= $3 billion in border security funding pulled from the defense spending bill by Democrats
= $22 billion in additional spending proposed by Democrats over the President's budget request
= $220 billion in additional spending over 10 years proposed by Democrats
= $916 billion additional taxes proposed in the Democrats' budget over the next 10 years
= $1.3 trillion in additional taxes proposed by Democrats in AMT legislation over the next 10 years
And this is what they have done with a Republican in the White House. Imagine what we would be facing with this congress and Hillary in office? I shudder to think about it
= 57 political Iraq votes held in the House and Senate
= $300,000 in funding for the San Francisco Exploratorium museum in the Labor-HHS-Ed appropriations bill
= $1 million in funding for the Woodstock Museum proposed by Senators Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer
= $2 million in funding for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service, the Rangel Conference Center, and the Charles Rangel Library at CCNY
= $3 billion in border security funding pulled from the defense spending bill by Democrats
= $22 billion in additional spending proposed by Democrats over the President's budget request
= $220 billion in additional spending over 10 years proposed by Democrats
= $916 billion additional taxes proposed in the Democrats' budget over the next 10 years
= $1.3 trillion in additional taxes proposed by Democrats in AMT legislation over the next 10 years
And this is what they have done with a Republican in the White House. Imagine what we would be facing with this congress and Hillary in office? I shudder to think about it
Friday, November 16, 2007
Lunesta, Christmas Lights and Ozzy Osborne..... Trust Me, This Is My Life
So what did you think of last nights debate? While there we’re fewer “gotcha” moments than the previous one, there were still a few things I would like to comment on, but that’s going to have to wait until tomorrow. Today I have just a few random notes…..
¥ I started putting up the Christmas lights today. I know, it’s only November 16th, but I promise not to turn them on until the day after Thanksgiving. I hear on the T.V. that there’s a chance of snow back home in Iowa this weekend, and I’m putting up Christmas lights in 82 degree weather. There is something seriously wrong about that…..
¥ Okay, while I applaud the pharmaceutical companies for life-saving breakthroughs, I also think that in some cases – okay, A LOT of cases – we’ve gone over the cliff.
Consider this: Tonight I was watching T.V. when an ad for Lunesta came on. Lunesta is a sleep aid, and during the “legal” portion of the ad (“Do not take Lunesta if you are pregnant or plan on becoming pregnant, do not take Lunesta with alcohol, do not…..) I swear I heard the following line. Actually, I was pretty certain that I couldn’t have heard what I thought I had, but thanks to the miracle of Tivo, I can confirm that the following line ACTUALLY appears in the Lunesta ad:
“Call your doctor right away if after taking Lunesta you walk, drive, eat, or engage in other activities while asleep.”
It used to be that my midnight snack came before I went to bed. Now it seems that I can not only have a midnight snack but I can drive out to get it, AND I don’t need to worry about doing it before I fall asleep.
¥ And finally, as I write this letter my eighteen-year old son Blake a
nd his friend Kenny
are at an Ozzy Osborne/Rob Zombie concert in Stockton, CA.
¥ I started putting up the Christmas lights today. I know, it’s only November 16th, but I promise not to turn them on until the day after Thanksgiving. I hear on the T.V. that there’s a chance of snow back home in Iowa this weekend, and I’m putting up Christmas lights in 82 degree weather. There is something seriously wrong about that…..
¥ Okay, while I applaud the pharmaceutical companies for life-saving breakthroughs, I also think that in some cases – okay, A LOT of cases – we’ve gone over the cliff.
Consider this: Tonight I was watching T.V. when an ad for Lunesta came on. Lunesta is a sleep aid, and during the “legal” portion of the ad (“Do not take Lunesta if you are pregnant or plan on becoming pregnant, do not take Lunesta with alcohol, do not…..) I swear I heard the following line. Actually, I was pretty certain that I couldn’t have heard what I thought I had, but thanks to the miracle of Tivo, I can confirm that the following line ACTUALLY appears in the Lunesta ad:
“Call your doctor right away if after taking Lunesta you walk, drive, eat, or engage in other activities while asleep.”
It used to be that my midnight snack came before I went to bed. Now it seems that I can not only have a midnight snack but I can drive out to get it, AND I don’t need to worry about doing it before I fall asleep.
¥ And finally, as I write this letter my eighteen-year old son Blake a
nd his friend Kenny
are at an Ozzy Osborne/Rob Zombie concert in Stockton, CA. And I am worried. Look, I saw Aerosmith at 16, Kiss at 17,
and did a short stint as a roadie for Alice Cooper at 19, so I couldn’t really say “no”. And actually I have no problem with the concert, other than it’s in the city of Stockton, a city that twice was rated the second worse city to live in in America, and also has the distinction of being the car theft capitol. I hope he has fun, but I’ll feel a lot better when he gets home on Sunday.
While I have these horrible images of mass carnage, the opposite is more likely to happen. I remember when I saw the Stones in ’81 and The Who in ’82, there were just as many fans in their 50’s as in their 20’s on hand. Yeah, I saw wine flasks and bongs passed around, but just as many people were passing around ear plugs. And those were two groups who, at that time, had been around under twenty years. Ozzy has been on the scene for almost 40 years. And my understanding is that next to the T-shirt stand at the concert there’s going to be a table where you can sign up for an AARP card. Until tomorrow........
While I have these horrible images of mass carnage, the opposite is more likely to happen. I remember when I saw the Stones in ’81 and The Who in ’82, there were just as many fans in their 50’s as in their 20’s on hand. Yeah, I saw wine flasks and bongs passed around, but just as many people were passing around ear plugs. And those were two groups who, at that time, had been around under twenty years. Ozzy has been on the scene for almost 40 years. And my understanding is that next to the T-shirt stand at the concert there’s going to be a table where you can sign up for an AARP card. Until tomorrow........
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Happy Anniversary To Me!
No, not THAT anniversary. Today my blog is one month old. Now while I don’t plan on celebrating every month, I think the fact that I’m still at it after one month says something. My friend Chris warned me that this would become an obsession, and he was not wrong.
Before I start my post today, I want to recognize a few of my new blog friends I have made over the last month. I hope that as you visit my site you stop and visit a few of the folks I have links to. Today I’d like to invite you to visit three: My new friend Jody at http://www.iowageekonline.com/, my new friend Brent at http://coptalk.blogspot.com/, and my old friend Chris at http://www.redhogdiary.com/. Please give these folks a visit (or any of the other links at the right), and while you are there drop them a note and let ‘em know you found them from the Lost Iowan diary.
Okay, on to my rant. I was surprised the other day to hear that the NAACP
was supporting a Republican candidate for the state legislature because the Democratic candidate referred to one of her African-American campaign helpers as “Buckwheat”. Buckwheat of course was the timid black child on the old “Our Gang” comedies.
Now I wasn’t surprised that there was outrage at this remark, I was surprised that the comment was made by a Democrat, and she wasn’t being given a pass by the NAACP. No one doubts that if this women was a Republican she would have been crucified, but those that cry “racist” at the slightest remark are usually quiet when the racist in question is a Democrat. Now let me stop for a moment and say that I think this was at best a poor choice of wording, and at worst a racist comment. I don’t know for sure what it was because I don’t know what their relationship is.
But here’s the rub: It turns out that Jerome Boykin, the president of the Terrebonne Parish chapter of the NAACP is the SON of Hazel Boykin, the woman that Rep. Carla Blanchard Dartez called “Buckwheat”, so the attack was personal in his eyes.
“I've never had no one talk to me that way, and I considered it a racial slur," Hazel Boykin said. "I know the meaning of it; it's just like the N-word."
Now I doubt that Ms. Dartez was in effect calling Ms. Boykin “the N word”, or at least I’m sure that was not her intent. She probably thought she was being cute or funny, she was neither. In her defense she has apologized, although apparently not directly to Ms. Boykin or her son. Should that apology be accepted? That’s not for me to say, that decision should be Ms. Boykins.
The thing that bothers me the most about this entire situation is Where are Al and Jesse. When Don Imus makes a remark like these, he is fired. When there are racial incidents in Jena Louisiana, Al and Jesse are there. What makes this incident different? Simple: She’s a democrat. And if the son of the object of her slur hadn’t been the president of the local NAACP, she would probably still have their support as well.
Is Ms. Dartez a racist? I don’t know, and neither do you if you don’t personally know her. She could be, or she could just have an incredibly bad sense of what is funny or not. All I ask is that you keep this incident in mind the next time Al & Jesse show up.
Before I start my post today, I want to recognize a few of my new blog friends I have made over the last month. I hope that as you visit my site you stop and visit a few of the folks I have links to. Today I’d like to invite you to visit three: My new friend Jody at http://www.iowageekonline.com/, my new friend Brent at http://coptalk.blogspot.com/, and my old friend Chris at http://www.redhogdiary.com/. Please give these folks a visit (or any of the other links at the right), and while you are there drop them a note and let ‘em know you found them from the Lost Iowan diary.
Okay, on to my rant. I was surprised the other day to hear that the NAACP
was supporting a Republican candidate for the state legislature because the Democratic candidate referred to one of her African-American campaign helpers as “Buckwheat”. Buckwheat of course was the timid black child on the old “Our Gang” comedies.Now I wasn’t surprised that there was outrage at this remark, I was surprised that the comment was made by a Democrat, and she wasn’t being given a pass by the NAACP. No one doubts that if this women was a Republican she would have been crucified, but those that cry “racist” at the slightest remark are usually quiet when the racist in question is a Democrat. Now let me stop for a moment and say that I think this was at best a poor choice of wording, and at worst a racist comment. I don’t know for sure what it was because I don’t know what their relationship is.
But here’s the rub: It turns out that Jerome Boykin, the president of the Terrebonne Parish chapter of the NAACP is the SON of Hazel Boykin, the woman that Rep. Carla Blanchard Dartez called “Buckwheat”, so the attack was personal in his eyes.
“I've never had no one talk to me that way, and I considered it a racial slur," Hazel Boykin said. "I know the meaning of it; it's just like the N-word."
Now I doubt that Ms. Dartez was in effect calling Ms. Boykin “the N word”, or at least I’m sure that was not her intent. She probably thought she was being cute or funny, she was neither. In her defense she has apologized, although apparently not directly to Ms. Boykin or her son. Should that apology be accepted? That’s not for me to say, that decision should be Ms. Boykins.
The thing that bothers me the most about this entire situation is Where are Al and Jesse. When Don Imus makes a remark like these, he is fired. When there are racial incidents in Jena Louisiana, Al and Jesse are there. What makes this incident different? Simple: She’s a democrat. And if the son of the object of her slur hadn’t been the president of the local NAACP, she would probably still have their support as well.
Is Ms. Dartez a racist? I don’t know, and neither do you if you don’t personally know her. She could be, or she could just have an incredibly bad sense of what is funny or not. All I ask is that you keep this incident in mind the next time Al & Jesse show up.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
The Love Of A Dog, Part II
Yesterday I began the tale of the Peters’ pets. We left off with the passing of Rylee, and the acquisition of Hazel, the lone cat in a house full of dogs. However, once Rylee left us, there were no dogs in our family. Now Cindy and I had decided long ago that we would always have two dogs, first because we love dogs and would surround ourselves with them if we could, but also because we thought it was right that the dogs have each other to play with in our absence. However, with the memory of both Jessica and Rylee still so fresh, we weren’t sure if we would ever get another dog again.
For those of you that have never had a dog, I don’t think I have the words to describe how much love they can bring to your world. And those of you lucky enough to have been dog owners, I think you already know what I mean. And as much as we needed that void filled, neither Cindy or I knew if we could stand that heartbreak that came with losing another pet. We knew it would probably be a long time before we were ready to face that possibility again.
As it turns out, it wasn’t that long after all. In October of 1999, about six weeks after Rylee’s death, we found ourselves in San Luis Obispo on a Saturday doing some early Christmas shopping. And for some reason, we found ourselves near Animal Services, not that we should have been, as Animal Services is in a pretty isolated part of town. “Oh, we’ll just look” we told ourselves, knowing damn well that we were both ready to bring a new puppy into our home.
And we had a pretty specific idea of what we wanted – a puppy, the breed didn’t matter too much (actually a mutt was preferred) and a smaller dog. Not too small, but a nice terrier/schnauzer size. As anyone who has looked for a dog at the pound can tell you, puppies are not easy to find. They go out almost as fast as they come in, and yet the older dogs, dogs with just as much love to give, often don’t get a second look. I wish I could tell you that I was the one who spotted Aud
rey, but that was Cindy. While not a puppy, they said that they estimated that she was around six months old. They had to estimate because they had no history on Audrey – she was merely dropped off in the middle of the night. She also wasn’t the small dog we were looking for. A Queensland/Australian Sheppard mix, she was larger than what we were looking for. But one look in her eyes told us that this was the dog for us. She was friendly and loving, but flinched and often growled if you pet her hindquarters. It was obvious that she had been abused. There was one other sign that Audrey was the right dog – today was Audrey’s last day to be adopted. If no one claimed her today, there wouldn’t be a tomorrow.
I should note that Audrey’s name when we adopted her wasn’t Audrey. Actually she didn’t have a name at the pound, but my daughter decided to name her “Cleo” after one of her best friends. I thought it was a little creepy naming a dog after your friend, but that’s not why we didn’t keep the name. We always knew that it wasn’t the right name for her. She had (and has) a majestic beauty and dignified look about her, and for some reason her beauty and black and white coloring reminded me of Audrey Hepburn, and how in her black and white portraits she displays such class while also a down-to-earth beauty. Audrey it was.
Now like I said, we always said we wanted two dogs, but with Audrey and Hazel, we knew there wasn’t a need to hurry. Not that Audrey and Hazel got along. Hazel was used to being the queen bee in the house, and here comes this puppy whose idea of playfulness was a little bit different then the cats. Actually, “puppy” is probably not the right word to use, as the vet informed us that the six month old dog that we adopted was probably closer to eighteen months old. Anyhow, they both pretty much kept to themselves, and if Hazel crossed the line, Audrey let her know it.
About seven months went by without the discussion of adding another dog to the roost. Oh, we still knew that we were going to, but I think that we secretly felt that the longer we took, the more distance between the dogs in years, and the lesser the chance we would lose both dogs in a short time, as we had with Jessica and Rylee. We made a couple more trips to the pound, and while there were always wonderful dogs there, we just didn’t connect with any.
Then in early July of 2000, I was shopping at the drug store and saw a poster – Chihuahua Poodle Puppies For Sale. If you had asked me prior to this moment what type of dog I would like, I doubt that the words “Chihuahua” or “Poodle” would have come to mind. And yet I was oddly drawn to the poster, and I just had to know what a Chihuahua Poodle puppy looked like.
Well, the good news is they look like neither. They were among the cutest dogs we had ever seen, and as soon as we saw them we knew that we had found our second dog. The hardest part was choosing which dog. There were five or six to choose from, and they were all adorable. We decided to let Madison choose, and she choose the tan one, a little dog the owners had named “Bonnie”. The only problem was that the dogs weren’t old enough to leave their mother yet, and we had to wait a couple of weeks before we could bring her home. We also decided that since we had basically vetoed Madison’s naming of Audrey, we would let her name this one. We knew that if we gave the honor to my son, who was heavily into “Pokeman” at the time, we would end up with a name we would al regret later. One of Madison’s favorite T.V. shows at the time was a Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen show in which their character’s names were Riley and Chloe. So to honor Maddie’s first dog Rylee, we decided to name this one Chloe.
It was also fitting that the day we were to pick Chloe up was Madison’s 4th birthday, and it was with great anticipation that we all piled in the car and went to pick up our new family member. While the kids were playing with Chloe and her sisters, Debbie the breeder pulled us off to the side. “I have some bad news” she said, and our hearts sank. Oh no, not today, not on Madison’s birthday. It seems that Debbie was afraid that Chloe, the dog we had picked, was deaf. She had made an appointment to have the vet check her out, but that had not taken place yet. It seems she was suspicious because Chloe didn’t respond to being called or other noises, and basically just followed the other dogs.
What would we do? We certainly didn’t want to disappoint the kids, but what challenges would a deaf dog bring? Still uncertain, we asked Debbie the all important question: “If we don’t take her, what will happen to her?” Debbie explained that she would probably “bu
ndle” Chloe with another dog, that she would adopt her out to someone that wanted two dogs. That way Chloe would have a family member to basically direct her and watch out for her.
And that my friends is how we ended up with Chloe AND Meg. Not wanting to risk a worse fate befalling Chloe, we adopted her along with her sister Meg. And we decided that it would only be fair to let Blake have a shot at naming Meg, and after days of thought, he decided that Meg – the name she came with – was the right name for her. Oh, and if you’re wondering about Chloe, she’s fine – not deaf at all, just stubborn.
And that my friends is how our not so little family came to be. And who knows, there might be another addition soon – Madison’s friends cat just had kittens, and Christmas is coming.
For those of you that have never had a dog, I don’t think I have the words to describe how much love they can bring to your world. And those of you lucky enough to have been dog owners, I think you already know what I mean. And as much as we needed that void filled, neither Cindy or I knew if we could stand that heartbreak that came with losing another pet. We knew it would probably be a long time before we were ready to face that possibility again.
As it turns out, it wasn’t that long after all. In October of 1999, about six weeks after Rylee’s death, we found ourselves in San Luis Obispo on a Saturday doing some early Christmas shopping. And for some reason, we found ourselves near Animal Services, not that we should have been, as Animal Services is in a pretty isolated part of town. “Oh, we’ll just look” we told ourselves, knowing damn well that we were both ready to bring a new puppy into our home.
And we had a pretty specific idea of what we wanted – a puppy, the breed didn’t matter too much (actually a mutt was preferred) and a smaller dog. Not too small, but a nice terrier/schnauzer size. As anyone who has looked for a dog at the pound can tell you, puppies are not easy to find. They go out almost as fast as they come in, and yet the older dogs, dogs with just as much love to give, often don’t get a second look. I wish I could tell you that I was the one who spotted Aud
rey, but that was Cindy. While not a puppy, they said that they estimated that she was around six months old. They had to estimate because they had no history on Audrey – she was merely dropped off in the middle of the night. She also wasn’t the small dog we were looking for. A Queensland/Australian Sheppard mix, she was larger than what we were looking for. But one look in her eyes told us that this was the dog for us. She was friendly and loving, but flinched and often growled if you pet her hindquarters. It was obvious that she had been abused. There was one other sign that Audrey was the right dog – today was Audrey’s last day to be adopted. If no one claimed her today, there wouldn’t be a tomorrow.
I should note that Audrey’s name when we adopted her wasn’t Audrey. Actually she didn’t have a name at the pound, but my daughter decided to name her “Cleo” after one of her best friends. I thought it was a little creepy naming a dog after your friend, but that’s not why we didn’t keep the name. We always knew that it wasn’t the right name for her. She had (and has) a majestic beauty and dignified look about her, and for some reason her beauty and black and white coloring reminded me of Audrey Hepburn, and how in her black and white portraits she displays such class while also a down-to-earth beauty. Audrey it was.
Now like I said, we always said we wanted two dogs, but with Audrey and Hazel, we knew there wasn’t a need to hurry. Not that Audrey and Hazel got along. Hazel was used to being the queen bee in the house, and here comes this puppy whose idea of playfulness was a little bit different then the cats. Actually, “puppy” is probably not the right word to use, as the vet informed us that the six month old dog that we adopted was probably closer to eighteen months old. Anyhow, they both pretty much kept to themselves, and if Hazel crossed the line, Audrey let her know it.
About seven months went by without the discussion of adding another dog to the roost. Oh, we still knew that we were going to, but I think that we secretly felt that the longer we took, the more distance between the dogs in years, and the lesser the chance we would lose both dogs in a short time, as we had with Jessica and Rylee. We made a couple more trips to the pound, and while there were always wonderful dogs there, we just didn’t connect with any.
Then in early July of 2000, I was shopping at the drug store and saw a poster – Chihuahua Poodle Puppies For Sale. If you had asked me prior to this moment what type of dog I would like, I doubt that the words “Chihuahua” or “Poodle” would have come to mind. And yet I was oddly drawn to the poster, and I just had to know what a Chihuahua Poodle puppy looked like.
Well, the good news is they look like neither. They were among the cutest dogs we had ever seen, and as soon as we saw them we knew that we had found our second dog. The hardest part was choosing which dog. There were five or six to choose from, and they were all adorable. We decided to let Madison choose, and she choose the tan one, a little dog the owners had named “Bonnie”. The only problem was that the dogs weren’t old enough to leave their mother yet, and we had to wait a couple of weeks before we could bring her home. We also decided that since we had basically vetoed Madison’s naming of Audrey, we would let her name this one. We knew that if we gave the honor to my son, who was heavily into “Pokeman” at the time, we would end up with a name we would al regret later. One of Madison’s favorite T.V. shows at the time was a Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen show in which their character’s names were Riley and Chloe. So to honor Maddie’s first dog Rylee, we decided to name this one Chloe.
It was also fitting that the day we were to pick Chloe up was Madison’s 4th birthday, and it was with great anticipation that we all piled in the car and went to pick up our new family member. While the kids were playing with Chloe and her sisters, Debbie the breeder pulled us off to the side. “I have some bad news” she said, and our hearts sank. Oh no, not today, not on Madison’s birthday. It seems that Debbie was afraid that Chloe, the dog we had picked, was deaf. She had made an appointment to have the vet check her out, but that had not taken place yet. It seems she was suspicious because Chloe didn’t respond to being called or other noises, and basically just followed the other dogs.
What would we do? We certainly didn’t want to disappoint the kids, but what challenges would a deaf dog bring? Still uncertain, we asked Debbie the all important question: “If we don’t take her, what will happen to her?” Debbie explained that she would probably “bu
ndle” Chloe with another dog, that she would adopt her out to someone that wanted two dogs. That way Chloe would have a family member to basically direct her and watch out for her.And that my friends is how we ended up with Chloe AND Meg. Not wanting to risk a worse fate befalling Chloe, we adopted her along with her sister Meg. And we decided that it would only be fair to let Blake have a shot at naming Meg, and after days of thought, he decided that Meg – the name she came with – was the right name for her. Oh, and if you’re wondering about Chloe, she’s fine – not deaf at all, just stubborn.
And that my friends is how our not so little family came to be. And who knows, there might be another addition soon – Madison’s friends cat just had kittens, and Christmas is coming.
My goal in life is to be as good of a person my dog already thinks I am. ~Author Unknown
Dogs' lives are too short. Their only fault, really. ~Agnes Sligh Turnbull
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Today, We Give Politics A Rest.....
I’m moving away from politics for today. Today I want to introduce you to four very special members of my family - our pets. And I am dedicating today’s post to my new friend Jody at iowageekonline.com. Jody lost her pet cat yesterday, and reading about her lost made me realize just how lucky I am to have the wonderful pets I do.
My pet world started 22 years ago last August as my wife Cindy and I (actually at that time she was my fiancé Cindy) got Jessica, our first dog. We found Jessica through the Penny Saver, and when we went to Pasadena to get her we were greeted at the door by her mother, one of the ugliest dogs I’d ever seen. As her owner went out back to get the puppy, Cindy and I were trying to figure out how to back out of the transaction when in ran the cutest puppy we had ever seen, and when she pee’d all over Cindy, we knew she was meant to be.
Jessica was soon to be a big sister, as the following spring we decided to add ano
ther puppy to our new home in Phoenix. Alas, that puppy – Molly – was not destined to stay a part of our home as she and Jess couldn’t get along at all. And even though we only had Molly a couple of days, Cindy and I both cried our eyes out when we handed her over to her new family. But we were still destined to expand our family, so after we returned to California we started talking again about finding a new pet for Jessica, and that new pet came in the form of Rylee, a cute Schnauzer mix puppy that we rescued from the pound (Rylee is the tan colored dog at the right, Jessica is the black dog. Rylee was an accepted addition, but about a week later she took a turn for the worse. We took her into the vet and learned she had Parvo, a nearly always fatal disease. However, the doctor felt confident that she could save Rylee. One week and $800 later, Rylee was back home where she belonged. It didn’t matter that we were broke and didn’t have $800, we arranged with the doctor to make installment payments. It was the best $800 we ever spent (so much for saving money by going to the pound).
We lost Jessica unexpectedly the day after Thanksgiving in 1998. While she had slowed down at 13, we didn’t think our time with her was coming to an end so soon. Jessie took ill that day and we took her into the vets prior to driving up to Paso Robles so that my son Blake could walk in the Christmas Parade with his Cub Scout Group. We got the call just as the parade was ending that we need to get to the vets quickly. We were fortunate that we got to spend Jessica’s last moments with her, and I don’t remember a sadder time in our house than the following days.
Shortly after Jessica left us, Rylee started taking a turn for the worse. At first we thought she was just lonely. In all the years they were together, Jessica could take or leave having a little sister, but Rylee adored her big sister. And not having her around was taking it’s toll. As Rylee started to slide, it was hard on the rest of the family as well, but none so much as our daughter Madison. At two years old, to say Madison loved her dog was a huge understatement.
Once we knew that Rylee was going to be leaving us, and given Madison’s love for her dog, we knew that it was time to add another pet to our family. However, given Rylee’s frail condition, we didn’t think introducing a bouncing puppy into the home would be fair, and that’s where Hazel came in. Although Cindy or myself had never had a cat before (short of a poor decision to adopt a cat in college that lasted a couple of days), we felt a kitten would be good for both Madison AND Rylee.
Hazel, a pu
re white kitten, came into our lives on Memorial Day in 1999. I named
her after the Shirley Booth character from the T.V. show “Hazel”, one of the favorite shows of my youth. . She was a perfect companion for Madison, and generally ignored Rylee. And Rylee returned the favor by ignoring Hazel. While we had never been “cat people”, Hazel earned a place in our hearts immediately. She was and continues to be a very sweet creature.
And she was a huge comfort to Madison when Rylee left us in September of that year. For the first time since before Cindy and I were married, we didn’t have the love of a dog in our home. But that wasn’t to be for long. Tomorrow, I’ll share with you the story of Audrey, Chloe and Meg.
My pet world started 22 years ago last August as my wife Cindy and I (actually at that time she was my fiancé Cindy) got Jessica, our first dog. We found Jessica through the Penny Saver, and when we went to Pasadena to get her we were greeted at the door by her mother, one of the ugliest dogs I’d ever seen. As her owner went out back to get the puppy, Cindy and I were trying to figure out how to back out of the transaction when in ran the cutest puppy we had ever seen, and when she pee’d all over Cindy, we knew she was meant to be.
Jessica was soon to be a big sister, as the following spring we decided to add ano
ther puppy to our new home in Phoenix. Alas, that puppy – Molly – was not destined to stay a part of our home as she and Jess couldn’t get along at all. And even though we only had Molly a couple of days, Cindy and I both cried our eyes out when we handed her over to her new family. But we were still destined to expand our family, so after we returned to California we started talking again about finding a new pet for Jessica, and that new pet came in the form of Rylee, a cute Schnauzer mix puppy that we rescued from the pound (Rylee is the tan colored dog at the right, Jessica is the black dog. Rylee was an accepted addition, but about a week later she took a turn for the worse. We took her into the vet and learned she had Parvo, a nearly always fatal disease. However, the doctor felt confident that she could save Rylee. One week and $800 later, Rylee was back home where she belonged. It didn’t matter that we were broke and didn’t have $800, we arranged with the doctor to make installment payments. It was the best $800 we ever spent (so much for saving money by going to the pound).We lost Jessica unexpectedly the day after Thanksgiving in 1998. While she had slowed down at 13, we didn’t think our time with her was coming to an end so soon. Jessie took ill that day and we took her into the vets prior to driving up to Paso Robles so that my son Blake could walk in the Christmas Parade with his Cub Scout Group. We got the call just as the parade was ending that we need to get to the vets quickly. We were fortunate that we got to spend Jessica’s last moments with her, and I don’t remember a sadder time in our house than the following days.
Shortly after Jessica left us, Rylee started taking a turn for the worse. At first we thought she was just lonely. In all the years they were together, Jessica could take or leave having a little sister, but Rylee adored her big sister. And not having her around was taking it’s toll. As Rylee started to slide, it was hard on the rest of the family as well, but none so much as our daughter Madison. At two years old, to say Madison loved her dog was a huge understatement.
Once we knew that Rylee was going to be leaving us, and given Madison’s love for her dog, we knew that it was time to add another pet to our family. However, given Rylee’s frail condition, we didn’t think introducing a bouncing puppy into the home would be fair, and that’s where Hazel came in. Although Cindy or myself had never had a cat before (short of a poor decision to adopt a cat in college that lasted a couple of days), we felt a kitten would be good for both Madison AND Rylee.
Hazel, a pu
re white kitten, came into our lives on Memorial Day in 1999. I named
her after the Shirley Booth character from the T.V. show “Hazel”, one of the favorite shows of my youth. . She was a perfect companion for Madison, and generally ignored Rylee. And Rylee returned the favor by ignoring Hazel. While we had never been “cat people”, Hazel earned a place in our hearts immediately. She was and continues to be a very sweet creature.And she was a huge comfort to Madison when Rylee left us in September of that year. For the first time since before Cindy and I were married, we didn’t have the love of a dog in our home. But that wasn’t to be for long. Tomorrow, I’ll share with you the story of Audrey, Chloe and Meg.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Joey Bishop and The Liberal Mindset
I’ve always been a fan of the “Rat Pack”, and was saddened last week at the passing of Joey Bishop, the last surviving member. While Bishop was probably the least well known of the pack, he was still a very entertaining member.
One of my favorite Joey Bishop moments came in the 60’s film A Guide For The Married Man. Bishop plays a man who is caught red-handed cheating on his wife. She walks in to find him in bed with another woman and goes ballistic. As she is screaming and yelling, Bishop and the “other women” calmly get dressed and make the bed. She continues to yell at him and he replies “What bed? What women? “ The women leaves and Joey keeps repeating “What women? What bed” as he calmly mixes a drink and starts reading the paper, finally he asks his wife “What’s for dinner?” as she stands there perplexed, starting to doubt what she saw with her own two eyes.
I was reminded of that scene twice this past week, first upon hearing the news of Joey Bishops death, and secondly upon receiving my weekly e-mail from Media Matters. That’s right, I’m on their mailing list – what better way to find out what the other side is thinking.
So the entire e-mail was devoted on how great Hillary did at last weeks debate, and that the articles stating that her performance was a “train wreck” were part of the infamous “vast right-wing conspiracy”. Now I’ll admit that some on the right are making this out to be worse than it really was, but the truth is it wasn’t a great performance. Clinton herself is quoted as saying "I wasn't at my best the other night," Clinton told CNN's Candy Crowley. "We've had a bunch of debates and I wouldn't rank that up in my very top list.
My point is not to debate whether or not Clinton did poorly at the last debate. There are always going to be loyalists on her side that are going to heap praise on her. There were also people who probably told Dukakis how good he looked in that helmet. My real point is that this situation is not an anomoly, it’s a pattern on the liberal front. It doesn’t matter what the facts are, just keep repeating the party line, and that mantra will become truth.
Think about what we hear over and over from the left: The surge isn’t working (despite attacks being down 80%). Bush lied about WMD’S (all you need to do is scroll down to my post of a few days ago to see what the left was saying about WMD’s). We need to end the war now and bring the troops home because 70% of Americans are against the war (yet they are oddly silent on ending illegal immigration, something that polls show 80% of Americans want taken care of).
And then there’s the biggie, all of the illegal evils that the Bush Administration has undertaken in the last 6+ years. If this administration is as evil as they claim, where’s the call for impeachment. Oh, the call is there, but where is the action. Either they don’t have the proof, or they do have the proof and yet they have decided not to act on it. According to my good liberal friend Chris, impeachment hasn’t happened because of “the expanded scope of executive privilege and a Justice Department that is complicit has made that impossible”. In other words, they don’t have the proof, merely speculation.
And when all else fails, attack the messenger. In the last several days I have been branded a “dumbass”, a “dick” and “un-American”, and this is from a friend of mine on the left. I can only imagine what my enemies think of me. And my crime? Questioning the liberal mantra, and daring to try to start a debate.
So are the arguments of the left always wrong? Are the arguments of the right always correct? Of course not, but we can never know what the right course of action is when the other side refuses to intelligently debate, and when the proof that they base their logic on is nowhere to be found.
And I’m not talking about the extremist nut cases here, the nut cases on either side of the spectrum. I’m talking about the supposed intelligent community on both sides of the aisle. And the big difference here is that I am acknowledging that there are intelligent individuals on the left, and they think that anyone on the right is a “nut case”.
What women? What bed?
One of my favorite Joey Bishop moments came in the 60’s film A Guide For The Married Man. Bishop plays a man who is caught red-handed cheating on his wife. She walks in to find him in bed with another woman and goes ballistic. As she is screaming and yelling, Bishop and the “other women” calmly get dressed and make the bed. She continues to yell at him and he replies “What bed? What women? “ The women leaves and Joey keeps repeating “What women? What bed” as he calmly mixes a drink and starts reading the paper, finally he asks his wife “What’s for dinner?” as she stands there perplexed, starting to doubt what she saw with her own two eyes.
I was reminded of that scene twice this past week, first upon hearing the news of Joey Bishops death, and secondly upon receiving my weekly e-mail from Media Matters. That’s right, I’m on their mailing list – what better way to find out what the other side is thinking.
So the entire e-mail was devoted on how great Hillary did at last weeks debate, and that the articles stating that her performance was a “train wreck” were part of the infamous “vast right-wing conspiracy”. Now I’ll admit that some on the right are making this out to be worse than it really was, but the truth is it wasn’t a great performance. Clinton herself is quoted as saying "I wasn't at my best the other night," Clinton told CNN's Candy Crowley. "We've had a bunch of debates and I wouldn't rank that up in my very top list.
My point is not to debate whether or not Clinton did poorly at the last debate. There are always going to be loyalists on her side that are going to heap praise on her. There were also people who probably told Dukakis how good he looked in that helmet. My real point is that this situation is not an anomoly, it’s a pattern on the liberal front. It doesn’t matter what the facts are, just keep repeating the party line, and that mantra will become truth.
Think about what we hear over and over from the left: The surge isn’t working (despite attacks being down 80%). Bush lied about WMD’S (all you need to do is scroll down to my post of a few days ago to see what the left was saying about WMD’s). We need to end the war now and bring the troops home because 70% of Americans are against the war (yet they are oddly silent on ending illegal immigration, something that polls show 80% of Americans want taken care of).
And then there’s the biggie, all of the illegal evils that the Bush Administration has undertaken in the last 6+ years. If this administration is as evil as they claim, where’s the call for impeachment. Oh, the call is there, but where is the action. Either they don’t have the proof, or they do have the proof and yet they have decided not to act on it. According to my good liberal friend Chris, impeachment hasn’t happened because of “the expanded scope of executive privilege and a Justice Department that is complicit has made that impossible”. In other words, they don’t have the proof, merely speculation.
And when all else fails, attack the messenger. In the last several days I have been branded a “dumbass”, a “dick” and “un-American”, and this is from a friend of mine on the left. I can only imagine what my enemies think of me. And my crime? Questioning the liberal mantra, and daring to try to start a debate.
So are the arguments of the left always wrong? Are the arguments of the right always correct? Of course not, but we can never know what the right course of action is when the other side refuses to intelligently debate, and when the proof that they base their logic on is nowhere to be found.
And I’m not talking about the extremist nut cases here, the nut cases on either side of the spectrum. I’m talking about the supposed intelligent community on both sides of the aisle. And the big difference here is that I am acknowledging that there are intelligent individuals on the left, and they think that anyone on the right is a “nut case”.
What women? What bed?
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