Category Archive

I found this candidate calculator (via Sisterblogger JustRandi) which promised to tell me which 2008 candidate “best aligns with my beliefs.”  I don’t usually put much stock in such things, and this particular “calculator” just reaffirmed my belief that voting must and should involve more than just plugging your public policy variables into a particular formula and solving for Candidate X (or if you prefer, Candidate Y).  Why do I say this?  Because the Candidate Calculator just told me that my guy for 2008 is…Rep. Tom Tancredo of California Colorado!  (Thanks, JustRandi!)

I seriously did physically recoil from the computer screen when I saw this because, to be perfectly frank, although I don’t really “follow” the campaigns of the lower-tier candidates, I’ve always been under the impression that Rep. Tancredo is a little nutso.  No offense to him.  He has some admirable libertarian tendencies, and I can see–I guess–why the calculator would say that his beliefs line up largely with mine.  Except that I’m a reasonable person who doesn’t tie every social and economic ill to the issue of illegal immigration–and therein lies the problemo.  There’s nothing in the Candidate Calculator to account for reasonableness versus unreasonableness. 

To illustrate my point, there is no way in hell I would vote for anyone who says, as Rep. Tancredo did in yesterday’s GOP debate, “I am absolutely tired and sick and tired of being forced to go to the polls and say I’m going to make this choice between the lesser of two evils.  I really don’t intend to do that again.”

Rep. Tancredo said this in response to a question about supporting his party’s eventual nominee (assuming that it would not be him)–which just goes to show that the man may have it “right” on certain questions of federalism, but he lacks the fundamental quality most important in any candidate who wants to be leader of the free world, and that’s a desire to engage reality.

In the real world we don’t get many choices between totally evil and totally good.  If that’s what life were about, we wouldn’t even need the political process because the solution to every problem would be so obvious.  I would be scared to death of having a president who refused to choose between Bad and Not As Bad.  What on earth would happen to him the first time he had to make a decision about something consequential?  Would he spontaneously combust?  Or would he just sit there and fold his arms until he was miraculously presented with an option that didn’t require him to “choose evil”?  Thanks, but I think I’d prefer a lesser evil.

Ron Paul was another candidate who said that he wouldn’t support a GOP nominee who wasn’t willing to end the Iraq war and brings the troops home.  “You won’t want me then, pal,” said John McCain.  I try not to vote for a candidate strictly on the basis of personal charm, but I have to tell you, Sen. McCain continues to grow on me.  I can’t help it. 

Speaking of Sen. McCain, here is a candidate whose views certainly don’t match up perfectly with mine, on a few issues I consider relatively important.  (For one, I wince every time campaign finance reform comes up.  First Amendment, anyone?  Anyone?)  And yet I would be much more comfortable with President McCain than President Tancredo because I think John McCain strikes an acceptable balance between principles and pragmatism.  After he lost the GOP nomination in 2000, some floated the idea of McCain running as an independent or possibly as the Reform candidate.  McCain, of course, didn’t do this.  Instead he campaigned for George W. Bush–because he thought W would make a better president than Al Gore.  Better, not best.  That’s the way a grown-up thinks.  A third-party run by McCain would have been pure vanity on his part, and at least McCain had sense enough to realize that.  It gives me hope that he would have similar sense about a host of other choices, even if he didn’t choose perfectly. 

I don’t have similar confidence in Rep. Tancredo.  Refusing to support your party’s candidate is called “voting for the other guy.”  Which is fine, if you think the other guy (or gal, as the case may be) is the better choice, but I don’t think that’s Rep. Tancredo’s reasoning.  He just doesn’t want to choose the lesser of two evils; he’d rather have the evil chosen for him–in which case he is either too silly or too dangerous to be president, and that Candidate Calculator can just kiss my Inner Libertarian’s big toe. 

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You all will be relieved to learn that reports of my favorite saucepan’s demise were premature.  I was able to save it last night with a combination of elbow grease, S.O.S pads and the ever-popular love.  Yes, I’m sure you’re relieved, but probably you also feel a teensy bit used, after all that fuss I made–if you wanted a ride on that emotional roller coaster, you would have just followed the link to the ferret post.  Well, I’m sorry.  I promise not to blog “wolf” again.  Okay, maybe I shouldn’t promise.  I don’t like to lie so blatantly.

Does this story strike you as weird?

New York Post:  “Agita over Chelsea Photo”

September 26, 2007 — Hillary Clinton just lost one vote. Yesterday, Nino Selimaj, owner of Italian eatery Osso Buco on University Place, received a letter from Bill Clinton’s office demanding that a photo of Chelsea Clinton with Selimaj, which had hung in the front window for five years, be taken down. “I am really heartbroken,” Selimaj told us. “Until this morning, I would have voted for Hillary. Bill was my favorite president of all time . . . I really hope they will reconsider.” Selimaj also said he would “post the letter from the office instead of the photo.” The letter from Clinton lawyer Douglas Band stated, “Ms. Clinton, a private citizen, was not consulted prior to this picture being displayed, and thus, her permission was not given for you to do so. While she may have dined at your restaurant, this does not serve as an endorsement. We ask that you immediately remove that picture and any and all pictures displaying Ms. Clinton.” Selimaj said he has never before been asked to take down a photo of a public figure. “Hillary has lost my vote,” he said.

The weirdness is three-fold:

1)  Isn’t Chelsea Clinton an adult now?  Can’t she handle her own correspondence?

2)  Isn’t Chelsea Clinton a public figure?  Did she not pose for the picture of her own free will?  Is it not merely hanging on the wall of the restaurant which is privately owned by Nino Selimaj, the other subject in the photograph?  Is it also plastered all over the subways and sides of buses with copy along the lines of “My dad says eat at Osso Buco or he’ll have you audited” or “The vast, right-wing conspiracy doesn’t want you to eat at Osso Buco”?  Is it not just a document of a historical fact, i.e. Chelsea Clinton ate here?

3)  Is this not a freaking picture?  Not even a particularly unflattering one?  Was she drunk?  Was she thirteen?  Does this not make the Clintons look petty and/or lame?  Does this not fall under the category of Not Remotely Worth The Bother? 

Is it just me?

From the Associated Press:

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -

An elementary school has banned tag on its playground after some children complained they were harassed or chased against their will.

“It causes a lot of conflict on the playground,” said Cindy Fesgen, assistant principal of the Discovery Canyon Campus school.

Running games are still allowed as long as students don’t chase each other, she said.

Fesgen said two parents complained to her about the ban but most parents and children didn’t object.

In 2005, two elementary schools in the nearby Falcon School District did away with tag and similar games in favor of alternatives with less physical contact. School officials said the move encouraged more students to play games and helped reduce playground squabbles.

This story reminds me of something I’ve been wanting to write about for a long time, except that other issues–such as the upcoming presidential election, Mormon movies, and the weather–have been preoccupying me. 

OUR neighborhood school banned tag.  Princess Zurg came home from first grade and informed us that there was a rule against “chasing.”  I thought she must mean that there was a rule against unwanted chasing.  Because surely they still let children play games, like tag.  No, she said, all chasing games were against the rules.  This really bothered me at the time, but I never complained about it because I was too busy complaining about their inadequate accommodations for disabled students.  I just had to shrug my shoulders and say, “Oh well, paranoid public schools,” and make a mental note to find other opportunities for my children to engage in such innocuous activities. 

Then Mister Bubby came home from kindergarten and said there was a “no running” rule.  Even Princess Zurg–who didn’t have much of a problem with the “no chasing” rule because it was, after all, a safety issue (you can never be too careful)–was incredulous.  “You mean there’s no chasing,” she said.  “You can run, just not chase.”

“No,” MB said, “you can’t run OR chase.”

“Maybe that’s a rule just for kindergarteners,” she said. 

“No, it’s a rule for the whole school,” he insisted.

I was incredulous myself.  But again, I was preoccupied with other issues, so while I was certainly upset in the philosophical sense, I could not spare any moral outrage on behalf of tag, especially since MB seemed to be taking the whole thing in stride.  But even if it doesn’t bother my kids, it still bothers me, for one simple reason:

IT’S TAG!

I understand that some children don’t like to be chased.  Some kids are okay with being chased at some times and not at other times.  Some kids are a little too aggressive with their chasing.  Sometimes when you “tag” someone, you might be overzealous and maybe hit them.  You might trip.  You might trip someone else.  I understand all the risks.  I just don’t understand the remedy.

Just how often children have to be hospitalized for tag injuries?  I’m sure there are freak occurrences, like two kids run into each other head on and one of them gets a concussion, maybe even sustains some brain damage.  I would not put that outside the realm of possibility.  Someone could trip over a tree root and break a bone, maybe.  Someone with a heart condition maybe shouldn’t play tag.  I don’t know.

But safety concerns apparently aren’t the issue in Colorado Springs, where they banned tagged after some students complained about being chased against their will.

Here’s an idea:  why don’t you make a rule about not playing tag with people who don’t want to play tag?  “Only willing participants may play tag.”  That sounds like a good rule to me.  A little more complicated than “no running.”  A little more nuance than some school-age children are prepared to deal with.  But here’s another idea:  why don’t we stop micromanaging children’s games altogether?  Not that recess should be some Lord of the Flies free-for-all.  But would a tiny step in that direction be such a bad thing?

I’m totally against bullying and harassment.  When I was in grade school, one of the boys in my class and his buddy used to throw rocks at me on the way home from school.  That was uncool.  Okay, they weren’t big rocks, and they weren’t aiming at my head, but still, it was annoying.  That’s what I recall thinking at the time.  “This is annoying.  I’d like to walk home without having rocks thrown at me.  I wish they’d go do something else and leave me alone.”  And yes, I was ignoring them.  I’ve always been good at ignoring people, or at least pretending to ignore them.  But they still kept throwing rocks at me, and I was still annoyed.  So I told my mother, and since we didn’t know the boys’ parents, my mother talked to the principal.  The principal talked to the boys’ parents, and the parents punished the boys.  (I’d like to point out that at no time were the police or the district attorney’s office involved.  Shocking, I know.)  The boys were reasonably annoyed with me for getting them in trouble, but they didn’t throw any more rocks at me.  I wish I could say we all became good friends and that I eventually married one of them, but that would be a fiction.  (I’m sure SD threw some rocks at girls in his youth, too, but that’s neither here nor there.)  We didn’t stay enemies, either.  We lived happily ever after in mutual indifference to one another, which was just fine with me.

See, that’s an incident of harassment that didn’t even occur on school property, yet the school did, I think, play an appropriate role.  As far as I know, the boys never received any school discipline, which was fine, because none of this occurred during school hours or on school grounds.  If they were throwing rocks at me at recess, I would have expected them to get, I don’t know, detention or something.  Have to stand in a corner or clap erasers or something.  Write “I will not stone innocent bystanders” a thousand times.  How did they punish us in elementary school?  I don’t know, I was always a perfect angel.  But I digress.  That was then.  Nowadays I’d expect that maybe the whole student body would be barred from walking home without an adult escort.  Because nowadays the world is crazy.

At PZ’s school they are not allowed to pick up sticks.  I assume this is because they don’t want anyone hitting or poking others with sticks, or running and tripping and accidentally impaling themselves with sticks.  (As far as PZ knows, kids are still allowed to run at her school.)  That makes sense.  I can understand telling a youngster who’s running with a stick, “Hey, stop running with that stick!  You could trip and fall and impale yourself!”  I can also understand telling youngsters who appear to be engaging in a mock sword fight with sticks, “Hey, put down those sticks, you could poke each other’s eyes out!”  (I’m not saying that I would be so uptight, mind you, but a reasonable amount of uptightness is tolerable, I think.)  I definitely understand telling a youngster who’s beating another youngster with a stick, “Hey, stop beating that other kid with a stick!  And get thee to a principal’s office, go!”  That is all reasonable stuff.

Telling a kid that she can’t pick up a stick to write in the dirt or build a home for the ants or some other non-violent act seems a little…excessive. 

I don’t tell PZ this is a dumb rule, and I don’t complain about it, because I understand why these rules are made.  I do.  It’s the same reason I end up screaming at my kids, “Aaaughhhhh!  That’s it!  No more talking!  No more touching!  No sounds!  Only breathing!”  It’s simpler than saying, “No screaming, yelling, teasing, whining or threatening!” and “No hitting, kicking, poking, scraping, or smashing!” and “No fake flatulence!”  It’s also simpler to say, “No picking up sticks.”  “No fighting with sticks” and “no running with sticks” and “no striking menacing poses with sticks” is unnecessarily complex. 

Likewise, “No playing tag” is simple.  “No running” is even simpler.  But isn’t there a better way to deal with children’s conflicts?  Something that doesn’t suck all the fun out of childhood?

Just wondering.

Student suspended for sketching a gun

I’ve been meaning to blog about this story out of McMinnville, Oregon, for quite some time, but I haven’t because it makes me so angry and because anger tends to make me verbose, I just haven’t had time.  There is a lot more to the story than the above linked article includes, but in a nutshell, two seventh-grade boys in McMinnville are being prosecuted for swatting girls’ bottoms at their school.  Originally the the district attorney, Bradley Berry, charged them with several felony counts of sex abuse.  They were arrested, went to jail (enduring the attendant humiliations thereof, e.g. strip searches), and hauled into court in shackles.  The felony charges have since been dropped, but there are still several misdemeanor sex abuse charges against them, all imprisonable and registerable offenses–”registerable” meaning that they would be required to register as sex offenders for the rest of their lives. 

My first question here is “What the hell goes on in McMinnville?”  Not actual sex abuse, apparently, because they obviously have enough time on their hands to pursue frivolous cases like this one.  Now, I don’t believe schools should look the other way while the boy students slap the buttocks of the girl students.  Buttocks should not be swatted with impunity on school grounds.  That’s just inappropriate.  Such behavior should be subject to discipline of the school and the parental variety.  Any chuckling thereover should be done privately and with due discretion.  But seriously, folks–sex abuse?  Criminal investigation?  Prison time?  Lifetime sex-offender registry?  Really?

I can appreciate the embarrassment and discomfort suffered by a girl whose bottom was touched without her express permission.  Goodness knows I hope to raise my own sons with a greater sense of decorum and chivalry.  I also don’t want any punks slapping my girls’ butts, whether they ask for it or not.  But I also don’t want to raise any of my children in a world that confuses immature, hormone-informed horseplay among children with sex abuse.  My husband has already informed me that if this had been the environment when he was growing up, he would be rotting in prison.  Nothing my husband tells me about his youth gives me particular hope for the future.  But I digress. 

DA Berry says that his office takes sexual abuse of children very seriously, but this can’t possibly be true.  If it were true, he’d be spending some taxpayer dollars putting actual predators behind bars instead of prosecuting two ill-mannered teenage boys.  (For what it’s worth, this informally-organized “Butt-Slap Day” had male and female participants slapping one another’s butts, but all of the alleged victims, i.e. those who complained about said butt-slapping, were female.)  He wouldn’t be forcing them to undergo psychosexual evaluations, characterizing them as perverts for engaging in behavior that, while rude and undesirable, falls well within the boundaries of normal for adolescent boys. 

I’m not trying to excuse what the boys did.  What I think is especially sad is that instead of being able to use this incident as an opportunity to give their sons some lessons in gentlemanly deportment, the parents have been forced to defend them and their actions against overzealous prosecution.  What will the boys learn from this experience, except that they are the victims?  Probably they won’t be slapping any more girls’ butts, but most likely their restraint will be due less to an enhanced respect for others’ personal space than an appreciation of, and resentment over, the fact that they are helpless at the hands of nutjobs in high places. 

* This case is scheduled to have a hearing this afternoon, at which time the remaining charges could possibly be dropped. 

In Friday’s Oregonian:

Using brain-scanning technology, University of Oregon researchers have found an unlikely force at play in the minds of people paying taxes: Pleasure.

In their experiment, taxing people for a charitable cause activated the brain’s reward centers — the same areas that respond to such sources of delight as food and sex.

“Paying taxes can make people feel good,” said William Harbaugh, UO economist and co-author of the study. Previous research had established that voluntary giving stirs activity in the brain regions that process feelings of reward. The UO study, published today in the journal Science, is the first to show that involuntary payments can evoke the same reaction.

Well, this is certainly breakthrough research.  I wonder how they discovered this phenomenon.

In the study, researchers gave $100 to each of 19 female volunteers. The volunteers confronted choices about giving money to a local food bank or having money for the food bank taken from them involuntarily, like a tax. Researchers scanned their brains using functional magnetic resonance imaging, a technology that can map surges in brain cell activity in specific parts of the brain.

The experiment helps explain the curious willingness of people to pay taxes, which has long puzzled economists.

In other words, a grand total of nineteen (19!) females got turned on by the prospect of having money they did not earn forcibly taken from them.  Sounds a little kinky to me.  But I’m not sure it explains the “curious willingness” of people to pay taxes.  If compliance under threat of imprisonment–and as a result of one’s income being automatically withheld rather than merely requested–can be characterized as “willingness,” I’m not sure where the mystery lies.  But let’s say it is a mystery.  I hardly think nineteen dames with nothing better to do than live in Eugene and volunteer for neurological experiments constitute a representative sample of the human population.  But can anyone honestly say it’s surprising that people felt good upon learning that a food bank was getting money?  Obviously, if you were to monitor their pleasure receptors while watching money going to, say, interstate highways, that would be introducing too many variables into the equation.  Even among nineteen female Oregonians, you’re going to have some conflicting philosophies.  Maybe some of them are cyclists.  Perhaps others are concerned that the money would be spent on actually fixing the roads instead of picking up litter and recycling it.  So that’s not a tenable research experiment.  But given that most tax revenues are spent on causes significantly less sexy–but no less essential to society–than feeding the hungry, can this experiment really be applied to the general subject of tax compliance? 

Also, I’m no scientist, but it would seem to me that if you wanted to measure what really goes on in people’s brains when they “pay taxes,” you would have to give them MRI’s while confiscating their own actual money, as opposed to the theoretical stuff.  But lying still for an MRI is difficult and time-consuming.  I imagine most working people aren’t motivated to fit it into their schedules.

But what the researchers were really trying to study was not tax-paying, but altruism.

The findings also could help resolve a long-standing debate about the motives behind altruistic behavior. One side asserts that the satisfaction gained from contributing to the overall public good drives people to give money, a motive known as “pure altruism.”

The competing view, known as “warm glow” altruism, holds that people give mostly for the ego-stroking feeling that their personal act of charity made someone else feel better. …

The experiment showed that both forces play a role in altruistic behavior. Subjects had no choice in the taxlike transfers of money to the charity, but they still experienced reward-related brain activity. That showed pure altruism at work, rather than warm glow altruism, since the subjects had no choice in the matter.

See, again, this might just be me, but it seems that if you have no choice in the matter and hungry children are eating, why not feel good about it?  Especially since it was free money to begin with.

Based on how strongly the subjects’ brains responded to receiving money or giving it to the food bank, the researchers found that they could predict how likely individuals were to donate. Those with higher brain activation when money went to the charity rather than to themselves were about twice as likely to give money voluntarily.

This is another Duh Moment.  If you’re heartless enough to begrudge hungry people food when it’s not even your money that they’re taking, it sort of follows that you aren’t going to willingly donate more money of your own accord.  But what do I know?  I was an English major.

Bottom line:  If you have to read something this week, don’t bother with Science.  Pick up this book instead.

I’ve learned via Artemis at Feminist Mormon Housewives that the National Pork Industry has ordered lactivist blogger Jennifer Laycock (aka The Lactivist) to stop selling t-shirts for breastfeeding women with the slogan “The Other White Milk” or risk a lawsuit.  You simply must click here to get the full story.  It’s a treasure.  Here is an excerpt from the letter they sent Artemis (at FMH) responding to her e-mail of protest:

It is important to understand that our lawyer’s correspondence to Ms. Laycock was in no way intended to challenge or demean breastfeeding or those who support it. This correspondence is about defending our trademark and the National Pork Board’s responsibility to protect pork industry investments on behalf of the 70,000 US pork producers we represent. The Other White Meat® is a pork industry trademark whose value was built slowly and thoughtfully over 20 years, paid for by producer’s hard-earned dollars. Any infringement on that mark would substantially lessen its value and impact for US pork producers.

It’s also important to understand that the National Pork Board cannot pick and choose which infringement challenges it decides to address. We have a responsibility to the industry to challenge all viable infringements (and we do so on a weekly basis) or face the possibility of losing trademark protection and allowing the industry’s valued trademark to become public domain, and thus worthless.

Now you all know me.  I’m an extreme right-winger and therefore in favor of Corporate Greed and all that.  Trademark infringement is a serious business.  If you don’t protect your trademark, you could very well end up in the same boat as the following losers:

Band-Aid®
Kleenex®
Rollerblade®
Wite-Out®

So I’m sympathetic to businesses protecting their trademarks, but it seems to me that the National Pork Board is taking things a tad too far.  For one thing, I don’t think it’s terribly likely that another food product is going to up and start calling itself The Other White Meat® and things get so out of hand that before you know it people are referring to every white meat as the other white meat (no caps, no little R in a circle). 

Also, I’m no lawyer, but it seems to me that their registered trademark is “The Other White Meat (®),” not “The Other White Fill-in-the-Blank.”  I mean, how many different ways can this be exploited?  “The Other White Bread”?  “The Other White People”?  “The Other White Christmas”?  I fail to see the imminent threat.

The most priceless part of their original cease and desist letter (see the Lactivist Blog for details) is this:

“In addition, your use of this slogan also tarnishes the good reputation of the National Pork Board’s mark in light of your apparent attempt to promote the use of breastmilk beyond merely for infant consumption, such as with the following slogans on your website in close proximity to the slogan “The Other White Milk.” “Dairy Diva,” “Nursing, Nature’s Own Breast Enhancement,” “Eat at Mom’s, fast-fresh-from the breast,” and “My Milk is the Breast.”

Ah, yes, those filthy lactivists selling breastmilk porn on Cafe Press.  Who knew the folks in the pork industry had such lewd imaginations?  I’ll never eat bacon again without feeling a little bit dirty.  But please tell me, how does the disgusting insinuation in the above paragraph square with the Pork Board’s claim that they don’t intend to challenge or demean breastfeeding or those who support it? 

Oink.  Oink.

A local school district is dropping their application requirements for entrance into their magnet school programs, in favor of a lottery system.  (Their single exception, as I understand it, is the magnet school for talented and gifted students.)  The muckety-mucks that be felt that the application process discriminated against minority and low-income students, who may not be exposed to the arts and sciences in the home. 

I must say that racial diversity is not Oregon’s strong suit in the first place.  My husband’s brothers were so astonished by the huge number of blonde-haired, blue-eyed people here that they took to calling this place the Village of the Damned (an apt nickname, to be sure, but that’s another story).  Portland is by far the most racially diverse part of the state–there are even some black people here–but apparently it is not terribly integrated.  It’s kind of like the rest of the country in that respect.  But I digress.  Anyway, so diversity is valued by Oregonians, nonetheless, and we’re very upset when diversity seems to be eluding us, which is why the public school bigshots decided that dropping the steep entry requirements was the best way to keep these magnet programs from being elitist.  (Or should I say “elitist”?)

The only problem I have is that it seems somewhat presumptuous and condescending, at best, to think that you can get more poor and brown-skinned people into a school if you just don’t ask them to do anything hard like, say, write an essay or submit letters of recommendation (or even, God forbid, undergo an interview).  I mean, I understand that with some families there may be a language barrier or lack of experience or lack of extra time on their hands, which may interfere with their ability to guide students through the application process.  But it seemeth to naive moi that an application process is a) a really good way to attract students who are seriously interested and motivated and therefore likely to be successful in a specialized program and b) not that terribly difficult in the first place, assuming that you can read English, even if your parents don’t.

I can certainly understand waiving an application fee, which definitely discourages lower-income students from the process, but doing away with the application altogether seems a little excessive to me.  I mean, how difficult is it to get your head around “write an essay and submit two letters of recommendation to this address”?  Or “show up at this address at this time for your interview/audition/whatever”?  As a teenager I didn’t know any more about applying to college than your average Joe off the street; everything I learned came from reading the instructions on the application packet.  I was fluent in written English; I admit that was an advantage.  Neither my parents’ income nor my race played much of a role.  I mean, I don’t understand how you can argue that without implying that families who aren’t white or middle-class have a culture of non-achievement–and even assuming that’s the case, I can’t imagine it would be discouraged by dropping admissions standards.

It’s true that not being exposed to arts or science at home puts you at a disadvantage, but a) that’s kind of just the way life is, and b) if you aren’t willing to do more than write down your name and address and take a number, why do you deserve admission as much or more than someone who’s willing to meet some other modest requirements?  No one’s asking for cold fusion.  I mean, I realize I’m old-fashioned, but isn’t there still such a thing as “qualifying”?  These are public schools we’re talking about, so everyone deserves equal access, but when you’re talking about a specialized program (as opposed to the regular old comprehensive program that any Tom, Dick or Sally can participate in), mightn’t the integrity of that program be better served by a few appropriately-placed hoops students must jump through?  Doesn’t a lottery system sort of render the whole thing, I dunno, stupid?

I would be less offended by an “affirmative action” program that gave preference to low-income or minority students than I am by the idea that standards in and of themselves are hostile to minorities and the poor.  (Can someone explain how that idea isn’t racist, among other things?)  A lottery system sounds like a lazy alternative to community outreach.  If a student can’t figure out how to write an essay or get a letter of recommendation or show up for an interview, how is he or she going to navigate a program that is intended to be more rigorous and/or demanding than the comprehensive school? 

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Speaking of stupid…Wacko of the Week: 

“Soy Is Making Our Kids Gay!”

World Net Daily has officially jumped the shark, ladies and gentlemen.

The following is an excerpt from an op-ed piece in today’s Oregonian by Oregon superintendent of public instruction Susan Castillo:

We’ve all heard “All I Really Need to Know I learned in Kindergarten.”  This simple truth, that kindergarten is fundamental to lifelong learning, made author Robert Fulghum a multimillionaire.

In Oregon, the title would be “Half of What I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten”–because only about 15 percent of our students are in full-day programs. [...]

Research, and the experience of other states, has shown that full-day kindergarten builds academic and social readiness for first grade.  In addition, these gains last throughout the early school years.  [...]

Full-day kindergarten is also a wise long-term investment.  If America is going to keep its competitive edge in the 21st century as technology and globalization transform the world we live in, we need to support education.

Of course, we need to invest more in our high schools, community colleges and universities, but if you really want to increase the number of engineers in the pipeline, you need to introduce kids to math and science when they’re 5 and 6.

Okay, where to begin.  I’m rather at a loss for words.  I just don’t know how many ways I can say it.

It’s.  KINDERGARTEN!

Let me make it clear from the outset:  I understand that many children start school at a disadvantage.  I also understand that our public school system in Oregon (and many other states) has serious problems.  My life is not so sheltered that I am oblivious to the struggles that people outside my small bubble face.

I happen to be a big fan of public education–at least in theory.  In practice I see way too many knuckleheaded educators who think the key to long-term success is cramming mass quantities of book-learning down kids’ throats at the earliest possible age.  (That and a personal computer in every kindergarten teacher’s lap.  Preferably an iBook.)  When Princess Zurg started kindergarten, her school was starting a new “intensive kindergarten” program for students who were “at risk.”  Understand that by “at risk” they did not mean at risk of winding up in prison by the third grade or at risk of going to bed hungry every night or at risk of flunking out of school before they hit puberty.  They meant “at risk” of not being able to read when they entered first grade.

Remember when they didn’t even start teaching kids to read until first grade?  If you’re younger than I am, probably not.  But for years and years and years that was standard practice.  Children didn’t used to go to kindergarten at all.  Those who did spent most of their time in the sandbox and eating paste.  Many of them started first grade not knowing their ABC’s.  And yet, by some miracle, most not only learned how to read but also graduated from high school, got jobs, and lived very successful lives.  (And hold on to your hats, kids–some of them…were even bottle-fed.  True story.  God’s witness.)

When I told a friend about PZ’s school’s “intensive kindergarten,” she said, “Well, they probably figure that these at-risk children are better off spending the day in kindergarten than at home or the day care center.”  She assumed that “at-risk” implied some kind of serious neglect, but this was hardly the case.  At that time we lived in an area that had a lot of low-income and Spanish-speaking families.  But low income and Spanish as a first language are not forms of neglect.  Also, while nearly all of the Spanish-speaking students qualified for “intensive kindergarten” intervention, most of the students who qualified were not Spanish-speaking.  PZ was one of only three kindergarten students who did not qualify for intensive kindergarten.  I talked to some parents of children who did qualify.  They were upset that their five-year-olds who had never attended any kind of school before were suddenly being thrust into a six-hour day of intensive academic training.  What part of “they’re five” did the school not understand?

Five-year-olds do not need to know how to read.  It’s nice if five-year-olds can read, but it’s not necessary.  Princess Zurg could read at five.  Has Princess Zurg been more successful in school than the children at her kindergarten who couldn’t read?  I think not.  PZ has yet to master the stuff that Robert Fulghum considers the key to success in life itself.  Stuff like “share everything.”  “Play fair.”  “Don’t hit people.”  “Clean up your own mess.”  Not a word in there about knowing how to read or do long division.  Nothing about “mouse skills.”  None of the stuff that usually comes up when people talk about preparing our kids for “competing in today’s global economy.”

Seriously.  Seriously, people.  Your five-year-olds do not have to worry about competing in today’s global economy.  They.  Are.  Children.  They need to eat a good breakfast and brush their teeth.  They don’t need to spend all freaking day in school.  They don’t need more instructional time.  They need more free time to discover things on their own.  They need more recess.  They don’t need their own computers.  They don’t need the burden of our nation’s economy on their shoulders before they’ve even entered the first grade.

If America is going to “keep its competitive edge,” it needs to have an educated workforce.  And it is so important for kids to start well.  But “starting well” has more to do with Robert Fulghum’s kindergarten curriculum than with No Child Left Behind.  (Do not get me started.  I am already worked up.)  Intensifying math and science instruction at age five (or six) is not going to increase the number of engineers “in the pipeline”–not if students are burnt out on school before they’re old enough to learn the stuff they need to know to be “competitive” later on in life.  I am sick to death of this attitude that the primary years of grammar school are your destiny.  Actually, I’m sick to death of this attitude that school itself is the primary factor in how well you do in life.

My older sister didn’t learn to read well until the fifth grade.  Did it damage her self-esteem and shake her academic self-confidence?  Absolutely.  She’s felt intellectually inferior her whole life.  Is she intellectually inferior?  No.  Did she drop out of school?  No.  She reads perfectly fine now and has her own business and runs her home with way more efficiency than her college-educated sister.  Her family has been through some financial struggles, to be sure.  But so have lots of other families I know–families where both parents went to college, some got Ph.D.’s and all of whom are in debt up to their eyeballs.  (My sister, incidentally, is not up to her eyeballs in debt because, despite the fact that she never had intensive kindergarten, she learned enough math to know that you don’t spend more than you earn.  How she managed that feat, heaven only knows.)  There is more to success in life than getting good grades in school.  There’s definitely more than getting good grades in kindergarten.  Freaking.  Kindergarten.  I’m sorry, but I can’t stop saying it!

I am beginning to understand why Idaho elected a homeschooler as its superintendent of schools.  Maybe there’s hope for that state after all.

There’s only one reason for a five-year-old to be in school all day:  he has no place else to go.  And if a five-year-old has no place else to go but school, he has bigger problems than math and science can solve.   I am 100 percent in favor of funding education.  I am 100 percent in favor of supporting families and helping parents support their children.  I am ZERO percent in favor of this ridiculous hand-wringing over not having enough five-year-olds in school continuously between the hours of 8 a.m. and 4 p.m.  It’s stupid.  What part of “they’re five” do people not understand?

EDIT: 

I do think full-day kindergarten is a fine option–some children are ready for full-day school (especially if they’ve been in pre-school a couple years) and as several of you have pointed out, it’s convenient for parents who have to work all day (public school being much cheaper than childcare, for one thing)–but I’m against making it the standard.  And I’m totally against the notion that it makes for smarter, more successful (and “competitive”) human beings because that just isn’t true.  It’s not the program I hate–it’s the lies!

Brad Pitt announced a while back that he and Angelina Jolie wouldn’t be getting married until same-sex couples are allowed to marry legally in the U.S.  Donald Trump recently commented on this announcement:

“Maybe he’s just come up with an excellent way to stay a bachelor. It makes him look really concerned about the plight of other people. Yet at the same time, he doesn’t have to get married. This guy is smarter than I thought.”

As always, I appreciate the Donald’s insight, but I think he’s a little off in this case.  I think Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have no intention of ever getting married, and they’re getting sick of everyone asking them about it, so this is their socially-conscious way of saying, “When hell freezes over.  Hey, wanna buy a picture of our baby?”

It’s not even that original, because some other movie star said the same thing–I think it was Charlize Theron, but I’m not sure and I’m too lazy to google it.  Whatever.  I don’t feel personally invested in whether or not Brad Pitt or Charlize Theron marries anybody in the first place, but I don’t buy their little solidarity-with-our-gay-brothers-and-sisters line.  I think it’s lame. 

Really, what a meaningless, nonsensical gesture.  Even more ridiculous than Gloria Steinem saying she wouldn’t marry until the ERA passed.  (Sometime around age 60 she realized that it was never going to pass, and figured that, having already enhanced her feminist image with the whole “vote pro-choice, get one free grope” proclamation, tying the knot in defiance of her previous vow would make her even more progressive.)  At least Gloria could argue that she was rejecting marriage because it was personally disadvantageous to her as a woman (describing it as a perfect institution for “one-and-a-half people”).  Straight people boycotting marriage until gay people can get married just doesn’t make any sense.  Is Brad Pitt going to stop eating until all the hungry people in the world are fed?  Is he going to stop using public toilets until the line for the ladies’ room gets shorter?  How deep does his empathy run?

I don’t know, perhaps gay people really are getting all dewy-eyed over Brad Pitt feeling their pain.  I just don’t get it.  If this were the ’50s, would Brad Pitt announce that he was no longer going to vote until all the Jim Crow laws were repealed?  How does not getting married help same-sex couples one iota?  Oh dear, no one’s getting married anymore!  The bridal boutiques are going out of business and ruining the economy!  We must lobby Congress and get those discriminatory laws repealed before our entire society collapses!

Stupid.

Speaking of marriage, though–almost ten years after Sugar Daddy and I wed, just as easy and carefree as if we were tossing styrofoam drink cups out our car window on the highway, with no regard for the suffering of others–I have learned something new about my husband.  To wit, he doesn’t like Asian pears.  I know.  What’s that about?  Some friends of ours have an Asian pear tree in their yard, and they gave us a whole bag of Asian pears, but SD didn’t eat any of them because he “doesn’t care for them.” 

How is it possible that any husband of mine does not enjoy Asian pears?  He might say it’s possible in the same respect that I happen not to like olives.  But that makes no sense because olives are DEE-SGUS-TING, whilst Asian pears are a perfectly delicious food.  One of those mysteries of life, I suppose.  Anyway, Princess Zurg and I ate all the Asian pears, and now I miss them.  That’s all.  I just had to share that with somebody, because my husband doesn’t understand.