Not My March .....but still

I don’t live under a rock, I truly don’t.  Yet somehow I was not aware that there was this big march in Philadelphia today.  Ok, so it is “Not My March”.  True.   Maybe I was subconsciously editing out the news of this event.  My bad.  I knew of the DC Women’s March but I guess Philadelphia news did not snag my attention.  Consequently, when I dropped off my 14 year old for his volunteer work at the Academy of Natural Sciences on the Parkway this morning, I was confronted by closed streets, waves of women wearing oddly shaped pink hats, and homemade anti-Trump signs which were, mercifully, mostly unreadable. 

This is not the point, I know, but I have to get it off my chest first.  The event was frightfully inconvenient.   I had to cancel a date with my college student daughter as the streets were largely unnavigable - tremendously disappointing.  I had to figure out a way to still visit my Alzheimer-plagued mother who lives in northwest Philadelphia – an unwelcomed burden.  And, I was slowly realizing that I would have no way to pick-up my 14 year old once I dropped him off, as the streets were beginning to overflow with marchers and the police were widening the shut-down area. In short, it was a nightmare and I was trapped in it.  The fact that I was not simpatico with the crowd - yet could not escape it - surely added to my discontent.

I pulled over (in a no parking zone, of course,  until chased by police 10 minutes later) and tried to relax.   My young teen jumped out of the car, a cell phone and hand-drawn map balled up in his pocket, to make his way to his job.  I stayed put, waiting for his “all good” text.  I looked at all the people who were walking around holding signs, objecting to one thing or another about Trump.   I did not hear hate and I did not see hate.  I just saw friendly folks in a friendly atmosphere coming together to be with each other – to commiserate with like-minded folks – and to reinforce their objections to our new president.   Nothing wrong with this, I thought.   I rather like that we have the freedom to do this.  I might not agree with their purpose but I am glad that these folks have the liberty and privilege to speak their minds.  It is a good thing, not a bad thing.  This made me feel better.

Then I began to wonder how the women who were marching felt about Bill Clinton when he sullied the office of the President of the US with his outrageous behavior (and then lied about it under oath).   Were there any women’s marches then?  I could not recall, but I doubted it.  I also thought back on some of the awful behavior of Jack Kennedy, a presidency which was pre-internet of course, so his philandering was not given much air-time.  Like many of our presidents, he was a prodigious womanizer and chauvinist, yet I do not think his shenanigans resulted in so much fuss.  For someone who is forever looking for patterns to help makes sense of the world, I was at a loss here.   Oh, well.  I guess living in the information age and the misinformation age has its drawbacks.   Today, no one in the limelight gets to escape bad behavior, true or imagined.  Sometimes there will be protests, other times there will not.  That was the best I could do with this set of facts.

I then took a minute to google the pink hat thing.  I learned that it was somehow symbolic of that female body part which women strenuously object to being defined by.  So why were they sporting hats evocative of this?  I was marveling over this strange contradiction when I was asked firmly but politely by an officer to move my car.  My son had texted that he found his way through the blocks of pink hats to make it to his volunteer job and I had fortified myself with more black coffee from the thermos I’d packed, so I headed  into the fray of vehicles being diverted through multiple detours.

It was more harrowing when I returned to pick up the young teen later in the day, probably due to the empty thermos and the fact that I had to park on South Street and walk 12 blocks to retrieve him.  Even on a good day, the metered spots on the streets of Philadelphia conspire against visitors, block by block.  Some only take quarters.  Some only take PPA cards.  Some only take credit cards at a kiosk but will fail to connect so you must give up that perfect spot or get a ticket.  Some streets are not metered at all but the signs threaten towing while making vague reference to mysterious permits. The only break I got today was no parking ticket!  Despite being 15 minutes late returning to my expired meter, no ticket.  I skedaddled back to New Jersey, and never thought I’d say this, but I was glad to be doing it. 

Frankly, I am pleased that the protestors had a venue to voice their concerns.  I am also glad that (unlike DC’s)  it was peaceful.  Although I felt like a stranger in a strange land, at least I did not have to pay the Philadelphia Parking Authority for my front row seat at this event.

If ever I am moved to be a card-carrying protestor of one type or another, it is good to know that there are so many agencies willing to facilitate that possibility.  Despite my scheduling disappointments today, despite my confusion and my inconvenience, at the end of it all, I am glad for those who had the freedom to come together to object.  I don’t have to be on that team or understand it to be happy for it.

Full Page Ad in Wired Magazine - Rather Unsuitably Timed

The Electronic Frontier Foundation placed this full ad in Wired Magazine's January 2017 issue.

Since Barack Obama officially transferred control of ICANN to an "international governing body" effective October 1, 2016, isn't this doomsday-panic-time ad in the January 2017 magazine a bit late? Haven't the giveaways that grew out of Obama's fetish with globalization made the claim that our "threat model has changed" a bit disingenuous?

Control of the internet addressing system had been in the hands of the US Department of Commerce since 1998.    Then, the US government gave ICANN, a non-profit in Los Angeles,  the authority to run things.  ICANN oversaw domain names for websites and individual IP addresses for internet users until its contract with the US Dept of Commerce ran out on Sept 30 2016.  It still does the same thing but now has an international overseer.

The questions that EFF should be asking, now, in this winter of our discontent, is what community or governance poses a greater threat to the common man and his use of the internet?  An international one made up of many governments and many corporations?  Or the US government?  Before you answer, better look at the list of overseers in this link, which details the members of the Governmental Advisory Committee to ICANN.  Its membership most definitely does not make me feel better.   https://gacweb.icann.org/display/gacweb/GAC+Representatives

I love the idea of a surveillance-free web but I'm not fool enough to believe that we actually have one.  Of course, the encrypt/delete/reveal advice that EFF offers in this ad is excellent and everyone should be doing these things to protect themselves, but these actions should have been taken post-Snowden, not post-Trump.

Anyway, ICANN does not control content.   Main stream media and Facebook do this for us.  I'd like to see a big ad in Wired Magazine on how we can remedy that sad fact.

Common Core Contrition - Bill Gates Should Just Apologize

I have never been more grateful for the freedom to home educate.  If home education became illegal -tomorrow?   I would be an outlaw - tomorrow.

In the past few months, I have fielded more inquires into home education than in all of the previous 16 years combined.  Why? Because there are countless parents who simply can not bear to send their kids back to the testing warehouses - the Common Core laboratories - where nothing makes sense and where enthusiasm for learning goes to die.

The more I hear from parents, who are daily stupefied and aghast over the inferior curriculum, the tormented teachers, and the clueless autocrats - all of which are inflicted on exhausted and enfeebled children -  the more certain I am that it is doomed, doomed, doomed.   It is so sad.

I grieve for these children.  But, there is one hope.

Bill Gates, who must certainly and deeply regret ever putting his money into this, should simply admit that he was wrong.  Mr. Gates should apologize to the nation.  This would be the beginning of our long journey out of this educational purgatory.  This is how the United States, as a nation, can be rescued.

Bill Gates' money has done great things in the past.  For example, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has helped to eradicate polio in India and continues to make great strides, reducing polio by as much as 99% across the globe!  When philanthropy can do something like this, something so clearly GOOD in all respects, everyone applauds.  Indeed, everyone is deeply grateful.  But, when philanthropy seeks to affect massive social change in a country, while the bulk of the citizens in that country oppose it and mistrust it, no good can come of it.

Mr. Gates knows this now.
But can he admit it?

Mr. Gates, I thank you for your generosity and for all the good you have done.  But, it is time to throw in the towel on Common Core.  It is time to admit that it was a bad idea.  It is time to extract yourself from the College Board Cartel.

Your apology can rescue the country from the apocryphal Common Core and the mediocrity it embodies.  Just these words:  "I am sorry.  I was wrong."  It costs nothing at all and it can rescue more kids now than ever before.

Hobby-Lobby Hyperbole

The sea of misinformation on the Supreme Court decision this week was really quite something to witness. The Facebook kerfuffling, the twitter conniptions, and the endless rants and tantrums from the left are of heroic proportions.  And mostly wrong.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg lays it on thick in her dissent and she seems to knowingly pave the way for this sweeping misunderstanding with her immature hype.   At 81, I guess she figures she has nothing to lose, but seriously?    Her opening words: "In a decision of startling breadth, the Court holds that commercial enterprises, including corporations along with partnerships and sole proprietorships, can opt out of any law (saving tax laws) they judge incompatible with their sincerely held religious beliefs."   This is not an opinion based on law and it is her lack of judicial disposition that is most disturbing .  She uses inflated phrases like - "Unleash havoc...." and   "radical purpose".   This kind of shrill bombast you might expect on a sports page, or some middle-aged homemaker's blog, but not from a Supreme Court Justice.  It is very disappointing.  Plus, she's wrong.

The decision applies only to closely held corporations and the majority merely said that Hobby Lobby could refuse to pay for four kinds of contraception.  Nothing, nothing, stops the employees from buying their own supplies.

I am willing to bet dollars to donuts that Ginsburg has never run a business.  When the founder of a closely held corporation sacrifices all her time, all her money, and possibly all her health to build something from the ground up, it, in very large measure, is her and it embodies her values and investment.  The last thing she expects is some over-reaching government telling her why her religious conscience is irrelevant.

Ginsburg also finds it awfully inconvenient that many American citizens still have a religious conscience.  In her frustration with this troublesome truth, she temporarily trades her legal reasoning for her political passion. I do not think Supreme Court Justices are supposed to do that.  Yep, if Ginsburg had her druthers, she would much rather obliterate the liberty of those with a religious conscience.

On this Independence Day, as a country, we really ought to remember what our Founding Fathers fought to achieve.  The Revolution, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are all at odds with what Ginsburg said, because she does not remember that individual liberty and, especially, religious liberty is germane to this decision.

No one is stopping anyone from acquiring what ever kind of birth control is wanted.  Amen.

I am so insulted by the implication in all of the protests and strident stink I have seen - evidently, women are helpless babies.  Women are so very helpless that when an employer removes some forms of birth control from the menu of refundable medical expenses, they become defenseless, pathetic victims who see misogynistic boogey-men everywhere, and they can  no longer figure out how to find birth control?

Does Ginsburg and do the shrieking feminist lemmings who are parroting her dissent think that women are this stupid and helpless? 

Employers don't give us floss.  Do our teeth fall out?

If the state does not pay for birth control, is there no other way to take care of this business?

Ginsburg can only see one thing -  a transfer of power away from the bureaucrats and regulators and into the hands of people who actually produce value and income.  Oh, well, we sure can't have that, huh?

Religious liberty might be inconvenient, Justice Ginsburg, but America had better hope that it never, ever becomes irrelevant.

Shame, Shame, Shame on this Rutgers University junta....

Rutgers University now holds the most dubious honor of rejecting America's first female African-American Secretary of State and first female African-American National Security Advisor as commencement speaker. This comes as a result of one of the most conspicuous moves of any single-agenda, left-leaning group of students and faculty ever. Condoleezza Rice withdrew from her commitment to speak at the Rutgers University commencement amid faculty-led controversy and objection. Congratulations, Rutgers.  Your myopic, narrow, hissy-fit will be a stain on your history forever more.   

Let me take a minute to thank the President of Rutgers who worked hard to ignore the small group of harpies and hotdogs who had their way in the end.  Also, I apologize to all of my friends who have students at Rutgers.  I am certain that they are among the majority of students and faculty at Rutgers who knew they were lucky to get Condoleezza Rice as commencement speaker.   

Professor Rudolph Bell and other small-minded professors (who one can only hope will be in an unemployment line somewhere soon) actually helped people organize the tragically confused and surprisingly small group of student protesters. It is so nice to have liberal professors remind us that the marketplace of ideas is not the Rutgers way.

Of course, forever the class act, Condi Rice decided to give them the heave-ho.  Way to go, Condi. 

To the cry-babies and buffoons who caused Ms. Condoleezza Rice to withdraw:

1. No one takes you seriously and no one is stupid enough to believe that this was anything more than political zealotry gone wild with even more disturbing religious undercurrents. 

2. If you are going to hold the former Secretary of State Rice accountable for her actions a decade ago, would you hold Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the same standard I wonder? 

3. Here is what you have proven:  Overly-zealous politically motivated enclaves in American universities have more throw-weight than any other constituency.  Forget about acknowledging outstanding women in government.  Forget about acknowledging superior, scorching-smart black American women.  The most important measure of worth as a citizen in your university-world is whether or not that citizen has offended your very narrow, un-American, left wing faculty and its groupies.

I am so glad that Condoleezza Rice took the high-road but I am not surprised.  She has distinguished herself again and again and again as an individual who will not be pulled down by haters and who will not be put down by her lessers.  

Yet Another Common Core Smack Down

I love this Common Core moment!  George Will echoes many of the points I made a few months ago about the creepy use of the word "align".  He sees the clear and present danger that Common Core represents and responds with a powerful smack-down.  Thank you, George.

 Juan Williams:  “And, I don’t think it’s out of place for our governors, for our school leaders, local school leaders, to say, ‘Here are the common standards that we want them to achieve'  The military’s on board, the Chamber of Commerce is on board, even Condoleeza Rice and the Council of Foreign Affairs are on board.”

George Will’s response is powerful, even connecting the lies told about Common Core to those  lies told about Obamacare by beginning with a play on words of Obama’s ‘Lie of the Year.’

        George Will: They’re all wrong, and here’s why.

“The advocates of the Common Core say, ‘If you like local control over your schools, you can keep it. Period. If you like your local curriculum, you can keep it. Period.’ And people don’t believe them, for very good reasons.”

“This is a thin end of an enormous wedge of federal power that will be wielded for the constant progressive purpose of concentrating power in Washington, so that it can impose continental solutions to problems nationwide.”

“You (common core supporters) say it’s voluntary. It has been driven by the (federal government’s) use of bribes and coercion in the form of waivers from No Child Left Behind or Race to the Top money – to buy the compliance of these 45 states, two of which – Indiana, and I believe, Oklahoma – have already backed out, and they will not be the last.”

“Watch the verb ‘align’ in this argument. They’re going to align the SAT and the ACT tests with the curriculum. They’re going to align the textbooks with the tests. And sooner or later, you inevitably have a national curriculum that disregards the creativity of federalism.”

“What are the chances (speaking to Juan Williams) that we’re going to have five or six creative governors experimenting with different curricula, or one creative, constant, permanent Washington bureaucracy overlooking our education?”

“We’ve had 50 years now of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act – 50 years of federal involvement that has coincided with stagnation in test scores across the country.”

 http://theliberatedlearner.blogspot.com/2013/11/ccsi-common-core-standards-initiative.html

The Congressional Award Program for Youth

Have you ever wondered how you can get your teen recognition for doing good things, even if these things don't include finding a cure for cancer, developing a new technology, or writing a NYT best seller before the age of 16 ?

Then you should check out The Congressional Award Program.

www.congressionalaward.org

Two of my kids did this program and received the Congressional Gold Award.  This included ceremonies in DC, meetings with senators and congressmen, internship opportunities, and membership in a community of youth who are on the road to success.  My 3rd teen is in the middle of earning this award now.  The youngest eagerly awaits his turn.

Students must be 13.5 years old to begin.  Enrollment costs $15.   It takes a minimum of 24 months to complete the program.  The good news is that most of what a student needs to do to earn the Gold Award falls into the category of stuff they are probably already doing.

To achieve the Gold, a student needs to log 200 hours of physical fitness, 200 hours of personal development, 400 hours of community service and a few days and nights away from home immersed in a culture different than his own. (You do not have to go far; you just have to do something that challenges you.)

This program really does teach a teen how to set goals and stick to them.  At a time when so many outstanding teens maneuver to check all of the boxes for extraordinary (and somewhat clichéd) activities on their march toward acceptance to the universities for the best and the brightest, this program focuses on the straightforward work of sticking to some goals over a period of a few years.

The other students we met at the award ceremonies were all stand-outs and most of them were actually headed to good schools.  No surprise - it turns out that a kid who hangs in there, working on goals over a long period, also has what it takes to gain entry to his top choice school.  But the Congressional Award Program is not an achievement test.  Top grades are not uncommon among the candidates, but they are by no means required to earn the Gold Award.  What a teen does need to get the Gold Award is sincerity and resolve.


                                 Here's John getting his gold medal in 2011 from the only
                                 Congressman who can make him (John) look short (!)

 

Below is Nora getting her gold medal in 2013!