Why don't they just use duct tape?

The federal government has a new way to parent your children for you. Problem is, it's going to cost $500 million dollars.

According to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, the Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge will target children from birth to age 5 in an effort to make sure they're ready for school.

Sounds fine, if you're the sort that likes the government interfering in your business, right?

Wait until you hear what the feds are worried about.

CNSNews.com reports:
 
Sebelius, adding on to comments from Asst. Education Secretary Joan Lombardi, pointed to studies done in her home state of Kansas, where she served as governor. “When we looked at 5-year olds--and we tested about half the 5-year-olds in a relatively homogeneous state like Kansas -- and found that about half of them were not ready for kindergarten at age 5," Sebelius said.
"And some of those skills were missing: readiness for their math or reading," she said. "A number of children were missing the social and developmental skills which would allow them to sit in a classroom or play with others or listen to a teacher for any period of time. So I think it was an indicator that you couldn’t just test curriculum readiness.”

And this gem, also from Ms. Sebelius:

“You really need to look at the range of issues, because if a 5-year-old can’t sit still, it is unlikely that they can do well in a kindergarten class . . ."
Let me see if I've got this right. FIVE-YEAR-OLD children were "tested" for math and reading readiness. They were found lacking in social and developmental skills which would allow them to sit in a classroom and listen to a teacher for any period of time.

This is rocket science??????

They're FIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is a problem that usually time, maturity, and patient training will solve unless some wingnut convinces a parent to drug their little energetic child into a trance, but I digress.

Have we all lost our minds? Have we forgotten what it means to be a little kid? When did normal, youthful exuberance become a disease to be cured? When did kindergarten become so regimented?

Duct tape will keep a child in his or her seat, and for a whole lot less than $500 million. Maybe we should rethink its use in schools after all.

The battlefield of public education

These are the headlines as published on the Drudge Report yesterday (May 19).
Anyone care to comment?

Sexting scandal rocks middle school (this involved distribution of a photo of a 13 yo girl nude)

Student commits suicide day after principal hypnotized him

Teacher discovers 18 lbs of heroin in 7 year-old's backpack


Mom: 12-year-old son duct taped to chair and beaten while teacher ignored attack

School wants to allow bus drivers to search students

CHEATERS: DC teachers help students beat standardized tests


Child pornography, cheating, physical abuse, drugs, body searches, hypnotism . . . 

Something tells me the American public has been hypnotized with the result that too many of us still believe the government schools are really the best place for our children to receive an education.

I'm just saying . . .

I'm glad bin Laden is gone. Does that make me a bad Christian?

Just 24 hours after the disposal of Osama bin Laden's earthly remains, a new debate has emerged.

Should Christians be rejoicing over the death of a human being, even if that man is the modern-day epitomy of evil?

Clergy writing for websites such as Huffington Post lament the celebrations taking place across our country saying such vulgar displays of jubilation debase us as a people, certainly if we call ourselves Christians.

No word on whether atheists or religious non-Christians are free to whoop and holler without the charge of hypocrisy being heaped upon them.

As a Christian, albeit an imperfect one, I decided to explore my own feelings about the long overdue demise of OBL. To what extent am I merely relieved? To what extent am I actually gleeful?

Frankly, it's hard to tell.

Am I sorry OBL was so deranged and deluded by visions of grandeur and a thorough perversion of his religion that he masterminded the death of nearly 3,000 people on 9/11? Sure am.

Am I sorry OBL was killed? No.
As we say in Texas, "he needed killin'." Besides, if we'd taken him alive, some bleeding-heart liberals would have whined that his constitutional rights had been violated and we'd have had to let him off on a legal technicality. Killing him removed that risk altogether.

It's a fact that once a murderer is himself killed, he can never murder again.

Is being not sorry equal to feeling joy?

In my case, it might be, and I'm willing to admit it.

I rejoice because our military men were brave and successful in their effort to track and nail OBL. I rejoice because none of our men were hurt. I rejoice because OBL will never commit another atrocity -- because we killed him. I rejoice because now OBL has the chance to meet face to face with the One Who made him and to begin his atonement for the many sins committed while on earth. I rejoice because the principle of the universe that says no one goes unpunished either here or hereafter for violating God's laws proved itself true once again.

So, yeah, I guess I do rejoice in the death of OBL.

I know what Jesus says about forgiving seven times seventy. I know what he said about turning the other cheek. I know that if he'd been here in the intervening years after 9/11 he'd have probably driven out the evil spirit that dwelt in OBL and changed the man's life for the better.

But Jesus hasn't been here all these years -- at least not in a bodily form able to meet and talk with OBL -- and I am just flawed enough in my walk with God to struggle mightily with forgiveness, especially when neither my country nor my fellow Americans asked to be attacked.

May God forgive me since I cannot find it in my heart to forgive OBL. And may God work a mighty work in OBL so that he finally sees the error of his ways.

The small pink shoe

My daughter turned nine today. And our country killed Osama bin Laden.

The coincidence is rich with meaning for me.

The first appointment with the midwife -- who would go on to deliver my child in a planned homebirth -- was scheduled for an otherwise unremarkable morning, September 11, 2001.

The midwife was late. Riveted to her computer as I was to our television, the horrific news of that morning hung over our visit. Neither of us could really discuss the details of childbirth at home, our hearts were so heavy and our minds racing to fully grasp what had just happened a hour or so before.

My daughter was born the following May in a country still grieving the more than 3,000 innocents killed some seven months before. I gave her the middle name of America.

Fast forward nine years to a routine rummage through my nightstand and the discovery of a small pink shoe. . .


Little pink shoe in the palm of my hand
Worn by the tiniest dancer of all.
At barely three years old, I still see her stand
At the barre where she seems so brave and so small.

Move through the positions, stepping once and again,
She knows how to bend and then how to begin,
Didn't want to take lessons, just wanted the clothes,
Tiny pink soft shoes to wear on her toes.

What happened to time?
Supposed to go slow
And my little dancer?
Where did she go?

When I found the little shoe, the realization that my daughter was once so small hit me hard and I started to cry. It all moves much too fast.

Justice delayed is justice nonetheless

Socrates: "And what of doing evil in return for evil, which is the morality of the many - is that just or not?"

Crito: "Not just."

Socrates: 'For doing evil to another is the same as injuring him?

Crito: "Very true."

Socrates: "Then we ought not to retaliate or render evil for evil to any one, whatever evil we may have suffered from him.... This opinion has never been held, and never will be held by any considerable number of persons."


The head of the snake has been cut off. How much longer until the rest of the body dies?

In memory of all who were killed September 11, 2001.

Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue.
We got him!