Well, we're praying (naturally) that Gustav goes elsewhere (except NO; I think those poor folks have had ENOUGH for awhile!), but people are coming up from the river bottoms and swamps to get "supplied up" at the neighborhood Wally World!
Seriously! We saw momma Cletus, papa Cletus, Grandpa Cletus, Grandma Cletus, Aunt and uncle Cletus, and all the little baby Cletuses right there at our own little neighborhood Wally World just a-shopping away. Strangely enough, we saw them on the soap aisle, but who knows why THAT is!? Maybe they were looking for something to keep the varmints away under higher than normal tide conditions....
All I know is that all of the Frenchmen in the store ran the other direction!
Anyway, there's nothing like an impending storm to bring them out of the woodwork!
Pretty convenient, actually. Aunt Cletus and momma Cletus is the same person....
Anyway, what happens to all of the stuff that gets purchased in the name of hurricane preparation? I mean, a lot of stuff has a relatively short shelf life and, God knows, we pray that we buy stuff that we will never need....
I pray now that we won't need any of the stuff we bought this time, either!
Friday, August 29, 2008
Monday, August 25, 2008
Water is wet, sky is blue and...
...you didn't have to be a freakin' Kreskin to predict this one! That's right! Bill and Hillary are upset and tensions between them and the Obama campaign threaten to boil over onto the convention floor and split the Democratic party wide open!
Bill and Hillary......causing DIVISION in America?!?!
N-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O!!!!!!!!!!
Could these people be ANY more predictable if they tried? If someone had said, "Hey, Dan! Bill is going to pitch a fit because the convention isn't about HIM and what he considers to be his accomplishments and Hillary is going to pitch a fit because the convention isn't about her and her total LACK of accomplishment! What do you think about that?"
Sky is blue..... water is wet.....Bill and Hillary will ALWAYS do whatever serves their own selfish interest EVERY time!
And the Dems wonder why the 'Pubs have to run a total statue to lose!
Incredible!
Bill and Hillary......causing DIVISION in America?!?!
N-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O!!!!!!!!!!
Could these people be ANY more predictable if they tried? If someone had said, "Hey, Dan! Bill is going to pitch a fit because the convention isn't about HIM and what he considers to be his accomplishments and Hillary is going to pitch a fit because the convention isn't about her and her total LACK of accomplishment! What do you think about that?"
Sky is blue..... water is wet.....Bill and Hillary will ALWAYS do whatever serves their own selfish interest EVERY time!
And the Dems wonder why the 'Pubs have to run a total statue to lose!
Incredible!
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Can manners make a comeback?
Hello again, dear blogfan!
An incident happened to MDB earlier that reminded me of one of my "hot buttons;" the disappearance of common courtesy and good old-fashioned manners in today's society.
It seems that MDB was carrying on a conversation with a friend when another lady came up and interrupted the conversation they were carrying on and interjected her own subject, all without apology or apparent awareness of the fact that what she'd done was just wrong!
This lady has an uncanny likeness to a cartoon character that my kids watched. But her appearance has little to do with what irks me about her behavior. Sadly, it's not even her; it's the trend in our society to mirror the behavior that she so clearly demonstrated this morning!
I wish her behavior was an aberration. Unfortunately, it is not. I see every day that children are NOT being taught what was once called "common" courtesy. Sadly, it's not nearly as common as it once was. Things that I would never dream of are typical now. I would NEVER stand in some one's personal space while they're clearly involved in something else already EXPECTING them to drop what they're doing and pay attention to me, but that sort of thing happens constantly now! I would NEVER interrupt someone else's conversation with one of my own, but that rude action is repeated multiple times every day in this day and age! I will strive to ALWAYS be on time for whatever it is I'm expected to attend. In fact, I generally make it a rule to be there at least 15 minutes early. I guess it's not that the acts described are rude or indicative of a lack of respect for others; it's just that such behaviors, at least to me, indicate that the actor believes that his/her time is somehow more valuable than mine or that whatever he/she has on his/her mind is much more important than whatever it is I'm engaged in at the moment.
Uhhhh......no it's not!
To all you other piglets out there - whatever you've got on your mind is NOT more important that the thoughts or conversations of others! Your pressing matter is seldom if EVER more important than what's already being pursued! What you consider an emergency is hardly ever an actual emergency!
Get over yourself, piglet!
Next topic - ATTENDING A SEMINAR JUST SO THAT YOU CAN MAKE COMMENTS TO PROVE TO EVERYONE IN THE ROOM HOW SMART YOU ARE
Uhhh....seminars are held for LEARNING!!!! People who attend them are there to LEARN!!!! If you already know everything in the world (or think you do), WHY ARE YOU GOING TO A SEMINAR?????
Stay home next time. Everyone already knows you're the smartest guy in the room. How could we not? You've been telling us for YEARS!!!
Stay home next time; Or, barring that, get there on TIME and LEARN HOW TO PUT A FREAKIN' CELL PHONE ON VIBRATE, FOR CRYIN' OUT LOUD!!!!
You'd think the smartest guy in the world would know how to read a clock and show up on time for a seminar AND would NOT get outsmarted by a cell phone CONTINUALLY, but then, evidence seems to be incontrovertible!
There.....I feel better now!
PS - Can you tell I've been to WAY too many seminars lately? Can we just get school started already?
Thanks! I feel better now!
An incident happened to MDB earlier that reminded me of one of my "hot buttons;" the disappearance of common courtesy and good old-fashioned manners in today's society.
It seems that MDB was carrying on a conversation with a friend when another lady came up and interrupted the conversation they were carrying on and interjected her own subject, all without apology or apparent awareness of the fact that what she'd done was just wrong!
This lady has an uncanny likeness to a cartoon character that my kids watched. But her appearance has little to do with what irks me about her behavior. Sadly, it's not even her; it's the trend in our society to mirror the behavior that she so clearly demonstrated this morning!
I wish her behavior was an aberration. Unfortunately, it is not. I see every day that children are NOT being taught what was once called "common" courtesy. Sadly, it's not nearly as common as it once was. Things that I would never dream of are typical now. I would NEVER stand in some one's personal space while they're clearly involved in something else already EXPECTING them to drop what they're doing and pay attention to me, but that sort of thing happens constantly now! I would NEVER interrupt someone else's conversation with one of my own, but that rude action is repeated multiple times every day in this day and age! I will strive to ALWAYS be on time for whatever it is I'm expected to attend. In fact, I generally make it a rule to be there at least 15 minutes early. I guess it's not that the acts described are rude or indicative of a lack of respect for others; it's just that such behaviors, at least to me, indicate that the actor believes that his/her time is somehow more valuable than mine or that whatever he/she has on his/her mind is much more important than whatever it is I'm engaged in at the moment.
Uhhhh......no it's not!
To all you other piglets out there - whatever you've got on your mind is NOT more important that the thoughts or conversations of others! Your pressing matter is seldom if EVER more important than what's already being pursued! What you consider an emergency is hardly ever an actual emergency!
Get over yourself, piglet!
Next topic - ATTENDING A SEMINAR JUST SO THAT YOU CAN MAKE COMMENTS TO PROVE TO EVERYONE IN THE ROOM HOW SMART YOU ARE
Uhhh....seminars are held for LEARNING!!!! People who attend them are there to LEARN!!!! If you already know everything in the world (or think you do), WHY ARE YOU GOING TO A SEMINAR?????
Stay home next time. Everyone already knows you're the smartest guy in the room. How could we not? You've been telling us for YEARS!!!
Stay home next time; Or, barring that, get there on TIME and LEARN HOW TO PUT A FREAKIN' CELL PHONE ON VIBRATE, FOR CRYIN' OUT LOUD!!!!
You'd think the smartest guy in the world would know how to read a clock and show up on time for a seminar AND would NOT get outsmarted by a cell phone CONTINUALLY, but then, evidence seems to be incontrovertible!
There.....I feel better now!
PS - Can you tell I've been to WAY too many seminars lately? Can we just get school started already?
Thanks! I feel better now!
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Someone please tell me what "Final" means!
Hi there!
I saw an article the other day ( I wish I could remember where!) that said that video game players were playing a certain video game with the name "Final" in the title and were passing out and dying as they tried to save whatever from a virtual enemy that you or I have never heard of....
Got that!?
That's right! A certain group of losers are playing a video game until they pass out or actually DIE from lack of food and/or water.
Of course, this video game is one I've played myself a few times before it went "online." In the old days, you died, you tried again, and then you quit! It wasn't a "lifestyle" per se!
That was then.....this is now!
Now, in the latest version, you join other virtual warriors and battle imaginary enemies till you can't see straight (allegedly).
Sounds like fun, huh?
Not so much!
Final question. This is the 14th chapter in this series of video games. What part of "final" did you fail to understand?
I saw an article the other day ( I wish I could remember where!) that said that video game players were playing a certain video game with the name "Final" in the title and were passing out and dying as they tried to save whatever from a virtual enemy that you or I have never heard of....
Got that!?
That's right! A certain group of losers are playing a video game until they pass out or actually DIE from lack of food and/or water.
Of course, this video game is one I've played myself a few times before it went "online." In the old days, you died, you tried again, and then you quit! It wasn't a "lifestyle" per se!
That was then.....this is now!
Now, in the latest version, you join other virtual warriors and battle imaginary enemies till you can't see straight (allegedly).
Sounds like fun, huh?
Not so much!
Final question. This is the 14th chapter in this series of video games. What part of "final" did you fail to understand?
Life update
Well, dear reader (there's only one, hence the lack of the plural), you can probably tell I'm back to work from the lack of posts lately. Actually, I've sat down to post a couple of times and thought, "I really don't have anything to say....why manufacture something just to be blathering on?", so I didn't post at all. However, I thought I'd fill you in on what has been going on just so.
As mentioned, we're back to work full time now. We won't see the kids until this coming Tuesday, but we're hard at it preparing our rooms and doing staff development trying to make sure we're ready. On my 7th grade team, there are only a few of us left from last year and my cohort across the hall is not only new to the building, but new to the profession as well. He's former military and had gone into some sort of counseling field before this, so he's got a lot on the ball, but I'm afraid his expectations are too high and he's going to be disappointed by the level of kids he's going to get.
It's like riding a bike; you've got to fall and scrape up your knees a bunch of times until you figure out how to make this gadget work!
In any case, they had a "secret" meeting on Thursday that I was surreptitiously invited to attend. I had no idea what it was for, but it turned out that they wanted me to be my new cohort's official "mentor" teacher. Being the official mentor is detailed and somewhat tedious, but it does add a little to your paycheck and, more importantly, if you do it right, you can develop someone into a really good teacher who will thank you for your efforts in the future. I was mentor to the person who was named our district's secondary teacher of the year last year, so I know that it's possible to take someone who's never taught and turn them into someone who teaches very well.
Along those same lines, my poor mentee is freaking out because of all of the various initiatives they lay on us this time of year. Happens every year! The administrators get all pumped up and tell us about all of these wonderful things that are going to happen (well, wonderful in THEIR eyes because they're not the ones doing the work most of the time!) and about all of these new programs that are being initiated.....blah....blah....blah. I told my cohort not to worry too much; it happens every year. They come in, freak us out with all of this stuff that we're supposedly going to be doing that we KNOW we don't have time for, and that's as far as it gets; the planning stage! This year the administrators are supposed to do 20 walk-throughs a WEEK and we're supposed to observe someone else teaching on some interval that wasn't shared. Uhhhhhhh........that's not happening; at least it's not happening IF you want grades turned in on time and lesson plans turned in on time AND parent contacts made. Yes, boys and girls, we're supposed to start turning in a parent contact log every two weeks along with our lesson plans! Here's how this is going to go:
"Hello, this is Dan at your child's school. Could I speak with Mrs. Martinez, please?"
"Hola? Como Esta? Su Iglesia con nino?"
"Sorry, ma'am, no comprende! I'll call back when I learn to hable some espanol. Click"
I'm really going to try on this one, actually! Making parent contact has consistently been a shortcoming of mine, so I'm really going to work on it this year. I'm going to make at least two calls every day and even if they really do turn out like the one above, I'm going to log and turn them in.
Well, wish us Godspeed as we move into the new school year!
As mentioned, we're back to work full time now. We won't see the kids until this coming Tuesday, but we're hard at it preparing our rooms and doing staff development trying to make sure we're ready. On my 7th grade team, there are only a few of us left from last year and my cohort across the hall is not only new to the building, but new to the profession as well. He's former military and had gone into some sort of counseling field before this, so he's got a lot on the ball, but I'm afraid his expectations are too high and he's going to be disappointed by the level of kids he's going to get.
It's like riding a bike; you've got to fall and scrape up your knees a bunch of times until you figure out how to make this gadget work!
In any case, they had a "secret" meeting on Thursday that I was surreptitiously invited to attend. I had no idea what it was for, but it turned out that they wanted me to be my new cohort's official "mentor" teacher. Being the official mentor is detailed and somewhat tedious, but it does add a little to your paycheck and, more importantly, if you do it right, you can develop someone into a really good teacher who will thank you for your efforts in the future. I was mentor to the person who was named our district's secondary teacher of the year last year, so I know that it's possible to take someone who's never taught and turn them into someone who teaches very well.
Along those same lines, my poor mentee is freaking out because of all of the various initiatives they lay on us this time of year. Happens every year! The administrators get all pumped up and tell us about all of these wonderful things that are going to happen (well, wonderful in THEIR eyes because they're not the ones doing the work most of the time!) and about all of these new programs that are being initiated.....blah....blah....blah. I told my cohort not to worry too much; it happens every year. They come in, freak us out with all of this stuff that we're supposedly going to be doing that we KNOW we don't have time for, and that's as far as it gets; the planning stage! This year the administrators are supposed to do 20 walk-throughs a WEEK and we're supposed to observe someone else teaching on some interval that wasn't shared. Uhhhhhhh........that's not happening; at least it's not happening IF you want grades turned in on time and lesson plans turned in on time AND parent contacts made. Yes, boys and girls, we're supposed to start turning in a parent contact log every two weeks along with our lesson plans! Here's how this is going to go:
"Hello, this is Dan at your child's school. Could I speak with Mrs. Martinez, please?"
"Hola? Como Esta? Su Iglesia con nino?"
"Sorry, ma'am, no comprende! I'll call back when I learn to hable some espanol. Click"
I'm really going to try on this one, actually! Making parent contact has consistently been a shortcoming of mine, so I'm really going to work on it this year. I'm going to make at least two calls every day and even if they really do turn out like the one above, I'm going to log and turn them in.
Well, wish us Godspeed as we move into the new school year!
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Sex Education In Egypt
Hello again, blogfans!
Apparently, the state of sex ed in Egypt is in a sad state of disrepair. I just read an interesting article about a woman who gave birth to 7 children at once; 4 boys and 3 girls. What's so interesting about that? Well, according to the article, the 27 year-old woman, who had 3 daughters already, took fertility drugs because she wanted to bear a son.
Uhhhh......WHAT?
Let me get this straight; in Egypt, they're teaching that fertility drugs make it more likely that you'll have a son? Let me guess; kissing a cobra makes you more likely to get pregnant under a full moon and sleeping with a vat of hog urine under the bed will prevent conception!
Last time I checked it was men, the keepers of that elusive "Y" chromosome, who determined the gender of offspring, NOT the number of kids you can cram into that over sized Egyptian baby oven you've got there!
"Oh....you mean I didn't have to have 37 kids at once to ensure that I'd have a son?"
That's right, Ghazala!
What was so important about having a son, anyway? It's not like China, is it? You know, a place where your female children will be drowned in the commode if you've already had one? Is it important because only a male can inherit property in your backward medieval society?
That's what I thought!
I don't know who's feeding 10 mouths until they're old enough to fend for themselves, but bringing the other 6 into the world when a single boy is all that was wanted seems a little bit of overkill, don't you think?
Look, Egypt; ignorance is NOT bliss, not when it comes to this kind of stuff. Let's make sure that future potential moms know that MEN determine the sex of offspring and it doesn't matter if you have 100 of them!
Sheesh!
Apparently, the state of sex ed in Egypt is in a sad state of disrepair. I just read an interesting article about a woman who gave birth to 7 children at once; 4 boys and 3 girls. What's so interesting about that? Well, according to the article, the 27 year-old woman, who had 3 daughters already, took fertility drugs because she wanted to bear a son.
Uhhhh......WHAT?
Let me get this straight; in Egypt, they're teaching that fertility drugs make it more likely that you'll have a son? Let me guess; kissing a cobra makes you more likely to get pregnant under a full moon and sleeping with a vat of hog urine under the bed will prevent conception!
Last time I checked it was men, the keepers of that elusive "Y" chromosome, who determined the gender of offspring, NOT the number of kids you can cram into that over sized Egyptian baby oven you've got there!
"Oh....you mean I didn't have to have 37 kids at once to ensure that I'd have a son?"
That's right, Ghazala!
What was so important about having a son, anyway? It's not like China, is it? You know, a place where your female children will be drowned in the commode if you've already had one? Is it important because only a male can inherit property in your backward medieval society?
That's what I thought!
I don't know who's feeding 10 mouths until they're old enough to fend for themselves, but bringing the other 6 into the world when a single boy is all that was wanted seems a little bit of overkill, don't you think?
Look, Egypt; ignorance is NOT bliss, not when it comes to this kind of stuff. Let's make sure that future potential moms know that MEN determine the sex of offspring and it doesn't matter if you have 100 of them!
Sheesh!
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Energy truth!
I just watched the Chairman and CEO of Exxon/Mobil, Rex Tillerson, explain many aspects of our current energy woes on an ABC news report this evening.
I don't know what it is, but I like this guy!
Well, he merely told the truth and did not in any way defend or attempt to justify the record profits his company posted in the first half of this year. He DID explain that his primary responsibility was to his own shareholders. You know; the people who OWN Exxon/Mobil!
You can watch the interview for yourselves, but I think that opening the dialogue and trying to solve our problems TOGETHER is far superior to simply imposing punitive taxes against oil companies. After all, think about what YOU would do if you suddenly had to pay a lot more taxes. I don't know about you, but I would pull my head into my shell and go into defensive mode!
Tillerson said that the problem is on both the demand AND the supply side of the equation, even though demand has leveled somewhat recently. He also said that, in agreement with T. Boone Pickens, we cannot drill our way out of the problem. It's a war to be fought on multiple fronts and there's no single solution to it. We must conserve as much as possible AND develop more sources of domestic crude oil. We must continue to decrease demand or at least decrease the amount of increase in demand AND we must develop alternative sources of energy. Only by attacking the problem on multiple fronts from both the demand and supply side of the equation can we hope to ever achieve energy independence.
Anyone need one of those giant windmills in their front yard!
I don't know what it is, but I like this guy!
Well, he merely told the truth and did not in any way defend or attempt to justify the record profits his company posted in the first half of this year. He DID explain that his primary responsibility was to his own shareholders. You know; the people who OWN Exxon/Mobil!
You can watch the interview for yourselves, but I think that opening the dialogue and trying to solve our problems TOGETHER is far superior to simply imposing punitive taxes against oil companies. After all, think about what YOU would do if you suddenly had to pay a lot more taxes. I don't know about you, but I would pull my head into my shell and go into defensive mode!
Tillerson said that the problem is on both the demand AND the supply side of the equation, even though demand has leveled somewhat recently. He also said that, in agreement with T. Boone Pickens, we cannot drill our way out of the problem. It's a war to be fought on multiple fronts and there's no single solution to it. We must conserve as much as possible AND develop more sources of domestic crude oil. We must continue to decrease demand or at least decrease the amount of increase in demand AND we must develop alternative sources of energy. Only by attacking the problem on multiple fronts from both the demand and supply side of the equation can we hope to ever achieve energy independence.
Anyone need one of those giant windmills in their front yard!
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Education on Oprah
I caught a bit of Oprah yesterday. MDB records it and I happened to be in the room when it started playing.
I'm sure she was glad to change it after a very short time; I'd asked her to pause it so I could explain the REAL problem in education to her so many times.....
The show featured Bill Gates and his wife, both of whom have taken on the education system and are determined to bring it up to world-class standards.
I hope they're not too late!
You see, the problem is NOT the education system. It would work just fine if the politicians would let it. The problem is society and the general attitude toward education, the attitude of entitlement that pervades every arena today, and the idea that we should leave no one behind.
Sorry, but that's not real.
The Oprah show framed the problem by doing a little C and C on two Chicago area high schools; one an inner-city school, the other a suburban school.
You guessed it; the inner city school was almost entirely black and the suburban school was lilly white.
Naturally, the white school was REALLY nice; the nicest school I've seen anywhere (it was suggested, of course, that such environs are typical in white suburban America) and the black school was a pit. It was horrible! They took students from both schools and transplanted them into each other's schools to see how they'd feel about it. Of course, the white students were appalled and the black students felt cheated and snubbed.
Imagine that.
The black students reported their utter disappointment, stating that they WANT to succeed and they WANT an educational opportunity like their white counterparts.
In short, it was framed as a racial issue.
Now look who's disappointed! Shame on you, Oprah!
This is NOT, I repeat, NOT, a racial issue! It's a behavioral issue, and the behaviors that have destroyed that inner-city school are the same ones that will never allow a nice one to replace it!
Here's what needs to be done to fix education:
1. Stop putting square pegs in round holes. The days of mandatory education are past! If a child does not wish to be educated, don't make them go! LET them explore the inner workings of the criminal justice system if that's where they think their future lies! Students who insist on going but clearly have no desire to do anything but disrupt the educational environment by starting fights, selling drugs, gang-banging, or otherwise pursuing almost every non-academic avenue they can find, should be escorted out of the building and not allowed back in; period!
If those elements of society were removed, the inner-city school COULD be as nice as the suburban school and no one would have to worry about a bunch of thugs tearing it down as fast as it's built!
2. Let high achievers do their thing and stop dragging them down! I'm sorry if some one's going to get their feelings hurt, but we need to stop mainstreaming special education and learning disabled kids in with the general education population so that THEY can go at a pace that's more comfortable to them and the general ed kids can do the same! Look, I KNOW that learning disabled kids are NOT retarded; many of them are very bright. However, they ARE re-evaluated every year and CAN be re-assigned based on the progress they make, so spending some much-needed catch-up time isn't a bad thing, is it?
Let's face it; not everybody is college material. We've come up with this mindset that you can't be successful and NOT go to college, but that's not true and it never was. Some of the most successful people in America are bootstrap people who simply worked their way past whatever shortcomings they had and found success because this IS the land of opportunity. They found theirs by EARNING it!
Oh, and they didn't spend a lot of time whining about what they DIDN'T have and about how unfair everything is!
Does that mean that education is not valuable? Of course not! I work in education and I genuinely believe that a good education is the key to your future so long as that education is crafted to fit what your future holds! If a guy wants to become a mechanic, why does he need trigonometry? If he wants to be a welder, why should he be forced to take keyboarding? People who intend to go into vocational fields should pursue vocational education! People who intend to go on to college should be educated in those other fields of higher learning! Let's quit stuffing square pegs into round holes, people!
I guess the whole "entitlement" thing bothers me as much as anything. To hear those black students complain that they don't have the same opportunity as their white counterparts..... Uhh.....that school didn't fall down all by itself! It had a lot of help! It's like graffiti; you see it, you paint over it, tomorrow it's back. So you paint over it again and it returns overnight. You paint over it again and it comes right back. So, you give up and just let it remain because you don't have the time or the resources to fight it! That's what's happened to these inner city schools. They TRIED to keep them up, but the destructive elements that they allowed to attend, uhhh.....INSISTED that they attend......, tore them apart. Districts ran out of time and money to fix it back up again, so it stayed broken.
Remove the element that does not want to be there and insist that it NOT be allowed back in, and then the school will be nice! I'd bet Oprah and Bill and a lot of others would even cough up the coin to make it happen, but I'd be just as willing to bet that they'd NEVER throw good money after bad and put a new school into the current situation when they KNOW it will just be torn up as badly as the old one in no time flat!
Sorry.....but that's REAL!
I'm sure she was glad to change it after a very short time; I'd asked her to pause it so I could explain the REAL problem in education to her so many times.....
The show featured Bill Gates and his wife, both of whom have taken on the education system and are determined to bring it up to world-class standards.
I hope they're not too late!
You see, the problem is NOT the education system. It would work just fine if the politicians would let it. The problem is society and the general attitude toward education, the attitude of entitlement that pervades every arena today, and the idea that we should leave no one behind.
Sorry, but that's not real.
The Oprah show framed the problem by doing a little C and C on two Chicago area high schools; one an inner-city school, the other a suburban school.
You guessed it; the inner city school was almost entirely black and the suburban school was lilly white.
Naturally, the white school was REALLY nice; the nicest school I've seen anywhere (it was suggested, of course, that such environs are typical in white suburban America) and the black school was a pit. It was horrible! They took students from both schools and transplanted them into each other's schools to see how they'd feel about it. Of course, the white students were appalled and the black students felt cheated and snubbed.
Imagine that.
The black students reported their utter disappointment, stating that they WANT to succeed and they WANT an educational opportunity like their white counterparts.
In short, it was framed as a racial issue.
Now look who's disappointed! Shame on you, Oprah!
This is NOT, I repeat, NOT, a racial issue! It's a behavioral issue, and the behaviors that have destroyed that inner-city school are the same ones that will never allow a nice one to replace it!
Here's what needs to be done to fix education:
1. Stop putting square pegs in round holes. The days of mandatory education are past! If a child does not wish to be educated, don't make them go! LET them explore the inner workings of the criminal justice system if that's where they think their future lies! Students who insist on going but clearly have no desire to do anything but disrupt the educational environment by starting fights, selling drugs, gang-banging, or otherwise pursuing almost every non-academic avenue they can find, should be escorted out of the building and not allowed back in; period!
If those elements of society were removed, the inner-city school COULD be as nice as the suburban school and no one would have to worry about a bunch of thugs tearing it down as fast as it's built!
2. Let high achievers do their thing and stop dragging them down! I'm sorry if some one's going to get their feelings hurt, but we need to stop mainstreaming special education and learning disabled kids in with the general education population so that THEY can go at a pace that's more comfortable to them and the general ed kids can do the same! Look, I KNOW that learning disabled kids are NOT retarded; many of them are very bright. However, they ARE re-evaluated every year and CAN be re-assigned based on the progress they make, so spending some much-needed catch-up time isn't a bad thing, is it?
Let's face it; not everybody is college material. We've come up with this mindset that you can't be successful and NOT go to college, but that's not true and it never was. Some of the most successful people in America are bootstrap people who simply worked their way past whatever shortcomings they had and found success because this IS the land of opportunity. They found theirs by EARNING it!
Oh, and they didn't spend a lot of time whining about what they DIDN'T have and about how unfair everything is!
Does that mean that education is not valuable? Of course not! I work in education and I genuinely believe that a good education is the key to your future so long as that education is crafted to fit what your future holds! If a guy wants to become a mechanic, why does he need trigonometry? If he wants to be a welder, why should he be forced to take keyboarding? People who intend to go into vocational fields should pursue vocational education! People who intend to go on to college should be educated in those other fields of higher learning! Let's quit stuffing square pegs into round holes, people!
I guess the whole "entitlement" thing bothers me as much as anything. To hear those black students complain that they don't have the same opportunity as their white counterparts..... Uhh.....that school didn't fall down all by itself! It had a lot of help! It's like graffiti; you see it, you paint over it, tomorrow it's back. So you paint over it again and it returns overnight. You paint over it again and it comes right back. So, you give up and just let it remain because you don't have the time or the resources to fight it! That's what's happened to these inner city schools. They TRIED to keep them up, but the destructive elements that they allowed to attend, uhhh.....INSISTED that they attend......, tore them apart. Districts ran out of time and money to fix it back up again, so it stayed broken.
Remove the element that does not want to be there and insist that it NOT be allowed back in, and then the school will be nice! I'd bet Oprah and Bill and a lot of others would even cough up the coin to make it happen, but I'd be just as willing to bet that they'd NEVER throw good money after bad and put a new school into the current situation when they KNOW it will just be torn up as badly as the old one in no time flat!
Sorry.....but that's REAL!
Friday, August 08, 2008
Back at work!
Well, boys and girls, the short summer is past and, the day before yesterday, I had to go back to work.
"Hello? National Weather Service? A flash flood warning? From 200 million people crying all at once? Okay....thanks!"
Actually, it's just me and the other 6 coaches. WE have to go back 5 days ahead of anyone else (for what reason, I'm not quite sure), but I guess it's time regardless.
I wasn't ready. The storage building hasn't been completed yet (not too far away.....2 sides, the door, and the trim to go!), and I haven't even gotten a sniff of the patio cover yet, but that one won't take as long as the building so I may be able to squeeze it in on weekends. The last thing I did on the building was the roof. Before we left for Abilene, I put the decking up and then Wednesday, I installed the roofing felt and the shingles. I FINALLY got to use my new roofing nailer! What a hoot! The box of nails I bought ought to last for another three hundred years or so! There must be ten thousand nails altogether!
In any case, MDB likes it when we get into more of a routine and, if nothing else, school forces a routine that is absolute. We've been car-pooling as much as possible to save on gas. I guess a lot of other people are doing the same sorts of things that we've been doing driving gasoline prices down somewhat.
They're still $3.60 a gallon! What a bargain!
Maybe T. Boone Pickens' plan will get us some temporary relief. That would be nice!
"Hello? National Weather Service? A flash flood warning? From 200 million people crying all at once? Okay....thanks!"
Actually, it's just me and the other 6 coaches. WE have to go back 5 days ahead of anyone else (for what reason, I'm not quite sure), but I guess it's time regardless.
I wasn't ready. The storage building hasn't been completed yet (not too far away.....2 sides, the door, and the trim to go!), and I haven't even gotten a sniff of the patio cover yet, but that one won't take as long as the building so I may be able to squeeze it in on weekends. The last thing I did on the building was the roof. Before we left for Abilene, I put the decking up and then Wednesday, I installed the roofing felt and the shingles. I FINALLY got to use my new roofing nailer! What a hoot! The box of nails I bought ought to last for another three hundred years or so! There must be ten thousand nails altogether!
In any case, MDB likes it when we get into more of a routine and, if nothing else, school forces a routine that is absolute. We've been car-pooling as much as possible to save on gas. I guess a lot of other people are doing the same sorts of things that we've been doing driving gasoline prices down somewhat.
They're still $3.60 a gallon! What a bargain!
Maybe T. Boone Pickens' plan will get us some temporary relief. That would be nice!
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
New Christian Blog!
Hello again, blogfans!
Since "Dan's Place" has become more of a daily chronicle than anything, I decided to start up a new blog for primarily Christian topics, "Dan's Christian Place." Look in if you get a chance!
Since "Dan's Place" has become more of a daily chronicle than anything, I decided to start up a new blog for primarily Christian topics, "Dan's Christian Place." Look in if you get a chance!
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Going....going....GONE!!!
Well, nearly two weeks ago (7-23), I pronounced the next two weeks to be "make or break" series for my beloved Reds. You see, they had managed to pull within 3 games of the .500 mark and were facing three consecutive series against rather horrible teams (Rockies, Astros, Nationals), all of whom had records so far below .500 that you would not normally think that a 7-3 mark against that sort of competition would be that far out of the range of possibility.
Wishful thinking.
That was then....this is now. In that span of 9 games, they managed to win all of ONE of those games. That's right....1-8 in that 9 game span!
Game over!
Thanks for coming!
Enjoy your fine parting gifts!
Hoo Boy!
Wishful thinking.
That was then....this is now. In that span of 9 games, they managed to win all of ONE of those games. That's right....1-8 in that 9 game span!
Game over!
Thanks for coming!
Enjoy your fine parting gifts!
Hoo Boy!
Monday, August 04, 2008
Back from "mini-vacation"
Hello again, blogfans!
We're back from Abilene, which is where we've been since last Thursday visiting MDB's brother and his wife. It was an interesting trip!
On the way up, we decided to stop in Snook, Texas to eat at Sodolak's steak house, home of "chicken-fried bacon."
Yes......chicken fried bacon.
You can read about it here on MDB's blog!
Actually, it wasn't half bad and not nearly as greasy as you might think. We arrived in Abilene in the mid-afternoon and basically just relaxed for the rest of the day.
On Friday, we got up and took a little drive. We like the area and we're interested in finding property in the vicinity, so we started the "scoping out" process. Then, we drove back into Abilene and met an old and dear friend for lunch.
Yes, even though it was the first "face to face" for us, my friend Kathy, MDB, and I had a very nice lunch together and spent a wonderful time talking. A little history;
Kathy was one of the originals on the old IWon.com politics chat board, a place I used to frequent with some regularity beginning 1999/2000 or so. When discourse became absolutely vulgar and when attitudes towards Christians became totally untenable, I formed my own chat board on the Network 54 Website called "Jesus Is Lord." Kathy was one of the more frequent and reliable contributors. Well, as things usually go, our little group on JIL gradually dwindled until there weren't many of us left at all, so I opened it up to the public. Big mistake........HUGE!
JIL, which had been home to some of the most erudite and sophisticated Christian dialogue I'd ever been exposed to, became the home of anti-Christian, JW, and CoJCoLDS spam, making it completely unsavory for any of the previous posters. Even though we tried to reason with them as best we could, like IWon before it, the spamers were more interested in disruption and divisiveness than in meaningful dialogue, so I shut it down.
It was a sad day.
I started another one after that called "Jesus Is Lord of All," but it was never the same and I deleted it a couple of years ago mostly because of the lack of interest. To be fair, I never had the time for it after I was laid off in 2003 and my lack of attention killed it as much as anything.
In any case, through it all, Kathy remained steadfast and was always a thoughtful, well-stated and articulate poster and, above all, she became a good "cyber friend" and a beloved sister in Christ, so it was really good to meet her finally!
Saturday, we drove down from Abilene toward Ballinger then east toward Coleman and back to Abilene. The area between Ballinger and Coleman was really very pretty; rolling hills, large oaks, mesquite, and cedar. We spent a lot of time going through MDB's brother's father-in-law's place in Ballinger. It has some really spectacular terrain and a couple of spring-fed tanks that hold some fairly large bass (we spent time catching some of them on Sunday).
Speaking of Sunday, we went to church at Highland CofC with Kathy on Sunday morning and really enjoyed the service. We were unable to stay for Sunday School, but the service and the sermon were really awesome!
Sunday, we loaded up and went back to Ballinger again, this time to fish the tanks previously mentioned. Most of the large-mouth bass we caught were in the 1 1/2 to 2 pound range. We threw them all back of course, but they were a lot of fun to catch none-the-less.
Last night, we got a call late. A tropical storm had developed in the Gulf and was headed for our back door! We drove all day and made it home at around 3, spending the rest of today making preparation for the coming storm.
God, let it be a mild one, I pray, and let no one get hurt in the storm, the flooding, or the aftermath of the storm. I ask it in Jesus' name, amen!
We're back from Abilene, which is where we've been since last Thursday visiting MDB's brother and his wife. It was an interesting trip!
On the way up, we decided to stop in Snook, Texas to eat at Sodolak's steak house, home of "chicken-fried bacon."
Yes......chicken fried bacon.
You can read about it here on MDB's blog!
Actually, it wasn't half bad and not nearly as greasy as you might think. We arrived in Abilene in the mid-afternoon and basically just relaxed for the rest of the day.
On Friday, we got up and took a little drive. We like the area and we're interested in finding property in the vicinity, so we started the "scoping out" process. Then, we drove back into Abilene and met an old and dear friend for lunch.
Yes, even though it was the first "face to face" for us, my friend Kathy, MDB, and I had a very nice lunch together and spent a wonderful time talking. A little history;
Kathy was one of the originals on the old IWon.com politics chat board, a place I used to frequent with some regularity beginning 1999/2000 or so. When discourse became absolutely vulgar and when attitudes towards Christians became totally untenable, I formed my own chat board on the Network 54 Website called "Jesus Is Lord." Kathy was one of the more frequent and reliable contributors. Well, as things usually go, our little group on JIL gradually dwindled until there weren't many of us left at all, so I opened it up to the public. Big mistake........HUGE!
JIL, which had been home to some of the most erudite and sophisticated Christian dialogue I'd ever been exposed to, became the home of anti-Christian, JW, and CoJCoLDS spam, making it completely unsavory for any of the previous posters. Even though we tried to reason with them as best we could, like IWon before it, the spamers were more interested in disruption and divisiveness than in meaningful dialogue, so I shut it down.
It was a sad day.
I started another one after that called "Jesus Is Lord of All," but it was never the same and I deleted it a couple of years ago mostly because of the lack of interest. To be fair, I never had the time for it after I was laid off in 2003 and my lack of attention killed it as much as anything.
In any case, through it all, Kathy remained steadfast and was always a thoughtful, well-stated and articulate poster and, above all, she became a good "cyber friend" and a beloved sister in Christ, so it was really good to meet her finally!
Saturday, we drove down from Abilene toward Ballinger then east toward Coleman and back to Abilene. The area between Ballinger and Coleman was really very pretty; rolling hills, large oaks, mesquite, and cedar. We spent a lot of time going through MDB's brother's father-in-law's place in Ballinger. It has some really spectacular terrain and a couple of spring-fed tanks that hold some fairly large bass (we spent time catching some of them on Sunday).
Speaking of Sunday, we went to church at Highland CofC with Kathy on Sunday morning and really enjoyed the service. We were unable to stay for Sunday School, but the service and the sermon were really awesome!
Sunday, we loaded up and went back to Ballinger again, this time to fish the tanks previously mentioned. Most of the large-mouth bass we caught were in the 1 1/2 to 2 pound range. We threw them all back of course, but they were a lot of fun to catch none-the-less.
Last night, we got a call late. A tropical storm had developed in the Gulf and was headed for our back door! We drove all day and made it home at around 3, spending the rest of today making preparation for the coming storm.
God, let it be a mild one, I pray, and let no one get hurt in the storm, the flooding, or the aftermath of the storm. I ask it in Jesus' name, amen!
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