Category Archives: teachers
Guns Explained With Cats
Sailor J Does The “Thoughts And Prayers” Make-up Look
I love this girl.
(Her signs of the zodiac videos are spot on too.)
Cadet “Bonespurs” Opines About Courage
“When it came time to get in there and do something, he didn’t have the courage or something happened, but he certainly did a poor job. There’s no question about that,” Trump said of Scot Peterson on the White House South Lawn before leaving to speak at CPAC.
“But that’s a case where somebody was outside, they’re trained, they didn’t react properly under pressure or they were a coward,” Trump added. “It was a real shot to the police department.”
Note To Self: Say “I Hear You.” Fake Empathy Will Con Them Every Time.
Trump’s crib sheet from his “listening” session with the parents and survivors of gun massacres in this country. How could he NOT remember to say that?
And what is up with the “45” on his cuff?
Can’t he remember what number president he is either?
Yes, We Should Be Worried About Assault With a Deadly Condom.
From The Hill:
Florida lawmakers on Tuesday passed a resolution declaring pornography a public health risk, less than an hour after they rejected a motion to consider a bill that would ban assault rifles.
The Florida House of Representatives opened its Tuesday session with a motion to debate a bill banning assault rifles, which it rejected by a 36-71 vote within three minutes, according to the Washington Post.
In the same session, less than an hour later, according to the newspaper, the legislature considered a GOP-backed bill to declare porn a public health risk, which it passed by a voice vote.
During the debate, State Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith (D) questioned State Rep. Ross Spano, the GOP lawmaker who presented the pornography bill, asking if pornography has killed anyone or caused first responders to seek counseling for post-traumatic stress disorder.
“[Spano] was saying porn as a health risk was more important to address here in the Florida Legislature than the epidemic of gun violence,” Smith told the AP. “These are their priorities. I don’t understand the politics, to be honest, if I’m being honest. I’m not aware there’s a base of voters who are losing sleep every night over the epidemic of pornography as a public health crisis.”
It Was Called Segregation, Honey. Choice Had Nothing to Do With It.
President Donald Trump’s efforts to bolster relations with historically black colleges erupted in controversy Tuesday after Education Secretary Betsy DeVos released a statement equating the history of the schools — founded during an era of racial segregation — to “school choice” policies.
“HBCUs are real pioneers when it comes to school choice,” DeVos said in the statement, released Monday night in advance of Trump’s planned signing of an executive order giving the schools more clout. “They are living proof that when more options are provided to students, they are afforded greater access and greater quality. Their success has shown that more options help students flourish.”
A Grizzly, Perhaps?
From CNN:
After a Senate confirmation battle that came down to a tie-breaking vote from the Vice President, Betsy DeVos stood up in front of her new team for the first time since being sworn in.
“For me personally, this confirmation process and the drama … has been a bear,” she said.
Yes. Let’s Go Back to the “Good Old Days.”
From a Trump rally in Janesville, Wisconsin:
As Trump spoke, some listened. Peggy Sue Metz, 47, a trucking dispatcher from Rockton, Illinois, lamented not making it inside and being forced to share the sidewalk with the protesters, who she suspected, were raised with the values of unionized schoolteachers rather than those of their own parents. “It would be nice go back to the days when the father worked and could support five kids and the mother could stay home and raise the kids properly,” she said.
In other words, Donald Trump will make sure women stay pregnant and in the kitchen if he’s elected.
The Case for a Little Benign Neglect
I came across this 2009 post of mine deep within the bowels of my blog’s archive.
(Sorry for the colonic imagery.)
I think it’s still relevant today, so…here you go.
By today’s standards for parenting, my entire generation shouldn’t have made it to adulthood.
The other day my daughter attended a “meet and greet” with the teachers at the private school my grand-kids attend. She figured it would be the usual get-together where the teacher expounds upon the lesson plan for the year, the parent listens while politely munching on a cookie provided by the room mother, and then the teacher fields a few questions on mundane topics such as “can little Herkimer wear his orthodontic headgear in class.”
Instead, my daughter was taken aback by the grilling some of the mothers gave my grandson’s second grade teacher, Miss F., a young single gal with a bookish demeanor but, apparently, nerves of steel.
The intensity and depth of the questioning were quite surprising.
Sarah Palin was given more leeway by Katie Couric than the young Miss F. received from her inquisitors.
The climax of the interrogation arrived when one of the mothers said she wanted to personally deliver a Subway sandwich to her daughter every day for snack time. (I will interject here that the kids in kindergarten through second grade get out of school at 12:15, so there is no actual lunch period.)
Our Miss F. maintained her cool while informing the mother that this was not an option. She explained if the children want a snack, they must bring it with them from home. Anything out of the norm would be disruptive to the class and interfere with the egalitarian atmosphere that the school was trying to project.
The mother wasn’t listening. She pressed on by asking if she could just “hang it on the classroom doorknob” so as not to disturb anyone. Miss F. wasn’t buying this either, but apparently it took some discussion before the case was closed.
When my daughter related this conversation to me, I raised my hands to shoulder level and made little fluttering motions with my fingers.
“What is that?” she asked.
“Helicopter parents” I said, to clarify that I wasn’t having a stroke or something.
She hadn’t heard that before, so I went on to explain the concept of parents who continuously hover over their kids, anticipating their every need. These are parents who have completely invested themselves in their children, possibly setting up their kids for a rude awakening at some point when they discover the universe is not centered around them.
In the days since hearing of Miss F.’s inquisition, I’ve been reflecting upon my own upbringing. Certainly my mother worried about things like me putting my eye out if I ran with scissors, but there wasn’t a lot of concern about many of the things that are taken for granted with child raising today.
We rode bikes everyday and didn’t wear protective helmets. We wandered around the neighborhood and beyond all day and into the dusk, only returning home after hearing my father’s loud whistle from the front yard.
My mother used to put big gobs of Vicks Vapor Rub up our noses when we had colds. If you actually read the directions, it emphatically says not to use it anywhere internally, only on the chest. I should be dead right now. But, if my mother had her way, she would have found a way to cure cancer with Vicks, she loved it so much.
My parents had a baby-blue Oldsmobile. There were no seatbelts and the dashboard was solid metal. We kids used to rattle around in the backseat and very often I would ride in what we called “the way back”, that spot that was sort of a ledge behind the backseat and below the rear window. If there had been a quick deceleration, I would have been a projectile object. No one gave it any thought.
I practiced a form of benign neglect with my own kids. Yes, they wore seat belts, always. (By that time we did have them, thankfully.) But when it came to overseeing every little detail of their day, that I didn’t do.
Maybe this attitude of “live and let live” was a result of my mother always wanting to know what I was thinking. It wasn’t out of concern for my well-being. She just wanted to know what was going on in my little head at all times. So perhaps allowing my kids to have some independence from the Thought Police resulted in my being more of a laissez-faire parent overall.
Yes, things have changed in this country since the 50’s and 60’s and not in good ways. There are a lot more threats out there to children than there used to be. But kids need room to grow into individuals and they can’t do it with Mom and Dad always fluttering overhead.
Be like my mother. Send the kid to school with a warm tuna sandwich.
Now, that’s living dangerously.
I Tried Being Tasteful... 