(woke up yesterday with a migraine-like headache from the stupid chemtrails. Thought it best that I not post.)
At about 12:30 today, I asked the kids if they knew what happened this day 50 years ago…hoping that they knew. Nope. I told them what happened (briefly, no gore), and then told them some of the things JFK did.
It was disheartening that they knew so little of the circumstances or about John F. Kennedy. I’ll bet they are very aware of presidents who promote war, however. (cynical, I know, but the over-emphasis on war in textbooks and the absence of praise for peace is glaring.)
It all seems like it happened yesterday to me. And they have no comprehension of how this day changed everything. I wished I could have gone into more detail with them, but that would not have been appropriate. And as I write that, i’m thinking….these kids witness more violent acts than any generation before them….why would this not have been appropriate….? I clumsily tried to explain to them that our society is more violent now than it was then–how could I convey that to them when they have no idea how that act, and the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the rest were out of the ordinary? They hear about violence daily. They experience bullying at school. They’re being pressured to perform like circus animals at school. Their world is so far removed from Camelot….it’s like trying to explain colors to someone who is blind.
meager possessions. (hat tip to Harsh Reality who, unfortunately, doesn’t care about the “moochers”). **see comments–apparently Harsh Reality does care…sarcasm doesn’t translate well on the ‘net.
I am beyond comprehension of this horrible person. Who would do that? What does he think he’s accomplishing? As others pointed out in the comments, the person IS STILL HOMELESS after this self-righteous jerk destroys what little they have.
Just another compassionate conservative. Yep. Probably takes taxpayer paid-for junkets to exotic locations, eating steak on taxpayer dollars, and probably gets free coffee and donuts on the taxpayer dime, too, while the homeless go hungry and scrape by with dumpster diving…
Here’s a great post on what is happening to the kids. You know….those kids that the reformers say they are concerned about??
G2 put a comment linking to this post. I found this passage especially poignant:
It is imperative, therefore, that we make school a supportive environment free of the extreme stress that can harm healthy development. Some stress is productive and promotes growth. However, especially for children living in poverty, creating an unnecessarily stressful environment has long-term damaging effects.
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To label schools as “just” a place to get an education is a short-sighted, narrow view. Children in poverty are already stressed out by worrying that they won’t have enough to eat that day…that Mom will be crying again because she doesn’t know how she’s going to pay the bills…
…and the one thing that can make that child feel worth something? Knowing the answer to a question the teacher asks. Getting an “A” or even a “B” on a test. Having a teacher provide a treat on his/her birthday….which he/she might not get at home because there just isn’t any extra.
School can be the difference between a poor kid seeing beyond their environment and reaching beyond their little world.
More here:
Child-development experts have decried the age-inappropriateness of the Common Core. In 2010, more than 500 people signed a statement stating that the “standards conflict with compelling new research in cognitive science, neuroscience, child development, and early childhood education about how young children learn, what they need to learn, and how best to teach them in kindergarten and the early grades.”
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A reminder of the nonsensical approach of Common Core.
This just says it all:
The U.S. Department of Education hyped the Common Core as creating a “national market” for “educational entrepreneurs.”
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Makes you sick, doesn’t it??
One of the commenters said that homeschooling is the next step. Yes and No. If you’re wealthy enough that one parent can stay home, you can do that. And we would lose so much of the connectedness that school encourages. We would be further isolated from each other. I just can’t wrap my brain around that–our children and grandchildren will be living in the same neighborhood, but regarding the others as strangers. I see kids out playing in the neighborhood and it makes my heart sing. If this continues, there won’t be the shared experience of discovering new things together, of sharing their personal stories in class discussions (finding common ground or discovering other cultures), of class plays, of singing together, of inspiration…
Bring it on, Arne. She’s referring to this by Duncan. Oh.My.God. Did he really say that?? Did he really just insult a group of women who know their children and know their schools and know their teachers? Is he really that condescending and arrogant? And racist? I mean, really, if it was stated that a group of “angry, black women” were not accepting their failing schools, it would be seen as the racist statement that it is.
There’s another link here, to a report on Common Core playbook, from the Perdido site.
There’s more but this is making me so depressed I need to step away for the moment.
Karen Silkwood died on this day nearly forty years ago. Her death was ruled an accident, but there was controversy surrounding her. I didn’t want to let this day go by without putting her story out there. Her story highlighted another aspect of the nuclear industry–manufacturing. As always, when there is a profit to be made, corners are cut to obtain the biggest profit.
Karen was asking questions and that is never a popular with manufacturers who cut corners on safety.
I was watching People’s Court with Judge Marilyn Milian this afternoon.
There are times when I don’t agree with her conclusions–sometimes she seems to make too quick a judgment without allowing the plaintiff and/or defendant to put their stories out there.
But nothing has been so outrageous as what I witnessed today–the plaintiff was a woman whom had pawned jewelry at a pawn shop and when she went to pick up the jewelry before the date due, she was told it was stolen. The owner told her that she was SOL because of the robbery. What she didn’t come out and say was that it was an employee who robbed the shop.
The judge asks the plaintiff how much she pawned the jewelry for? $150. What was the original value of the jewelry? $5,000.
The judge was incredulous. She says there is nothing that would make her pawn her engagement ring and other jewelry….she then waited for the plaintiff to give her an answer. All she would say was that she needed the money.
The judge wasn’t satisfied with that, however, and kept coming back to why she had pawned it–badgering the plaintiff why she would pawn the jewelry for such a low amount?? The woman had stated before that she had four kids. After being badgered by the judge, she stated that her husband was out of work.
The judge continued and asked if it was for food or what? The insinuation was that this woman was using the money for…..wait for it….cigarettes, booze, or drugs…because, you know, that’s all poor people do—drink and smoke and do drugs./snark
The woman was not disheveled. She was dressed nicely, and well-groomed (which isn’t easy, by the way, when you’re poor). But the judge just wouldn’t let it go.
She was the victim here on so many levels, and the judge was badgering her and stating that NOTHING would ever make her sell her engagement ring, no matter how bad the circumstances. She was blaming the victim for being robbed….and the undercurrent of being poor.
The judge obviously has never been desperate. The woman had four kids to feed. She probably needed basics like school supplies, toilet paper, soap, shampoo, trash bags, detergent, and on…that the wealthy never worry about. Food stamps does not cover everything a family needs to eat in a month’s time…even less now that the extra has been taken away. It certainly doesn’t cover the necessities. The woman stated that she absolutely needed it for necessities or would not have pawned it. The judge was asking if her husband knew about it, and she said it needed to be done. The judge was clearly not “getting it” that people ARE THAT DESPERATE in these times!
The judge should have been giving the pawn shop owner the third degree about why she paid so little for such valuable jewelry….why she was allowed to take such an advantage over the poor?
The pawn shop also had a policy of not paying for the merchandise in case of fire, robbery, and a list of about everything that could go wrong. In addition, they stated they would never pay for more than double the amount of the pawn….in this case, $300.
The poor woman was robbed twice–she was robbed of her jewelry, and the pawn shop robbed her of not paying for the value of the jewelry.
Usually, the judge is all over people who don’t have their ducks in a row–this woman had receipts showing the value of the jewelry, she had come to the pawn shop in time to redeem her jewelry before it went to the floor, so I’m at a loss to explain the judge’s treatment of her….other than the contempt of the poor runs deep. I never really realized how much contempt this country has for the poor until I was one.
I saw recently where James Taylor was supposed to sing the Star Spangled Banner, and started singing “America, the Beautiful”…God Bless him. I want to put a vote in for America, the Beautiful for our national anthem. The Star Spangled Banner sings of war and bombs but America the Beautiful sings of the beauty of our country, the abundance, and the brotherhood (as yet to be realized, but a worthy goal).
A beautiful, crisp morning as the sun rises….now moved across the horizon for the winter sleep…
I saw six deer this morning. Sometimes they will stop and just observe me, but mostly they just run off, with white tails bobbing up…it never ceases to amaze me how they can be standing still in front of a four foot tall fence and leap over it with such athletic grace. They like apples, by the way. A momma deer and baby were seen nibbling apples one morning while they hung from the tree. You’ll see a half-eaten apple on the ground and know that it was lunch for a deer.
I went out the other morning, and the birds were singing as if it were a Spring day. It caught me off guard….this is Fall, right…? :p
There were cardinals singing, Blue Jays sounding the warning, and another bird I couldn’t identify singing its little heart out. Funny.
I’ve seen a bird that is mostly grayish black that at first I thought was a junco, but it’s tail looked like a sparrow’s and it was too big to be a junco.
The hummingbirds have long since sought warmer climates. I miss their antics. They spend more energy fighting over the food, when there is plenty there, rather than conserving the energy they used fighting so they wouldn’t need so much food….I know there is a lesson for mankind in there, somewhere….
You remember the hornet’s nest I mentioned? Something happened to it–we had about three days of rain (no chemtrails to interfere), and then we had really windy days….so it may have been the combination that caused the nest to lose its outer wrap (for want of a better word). It literally had torn off the wrap down to the honeycomb-like inner chambers. I guess birds could have gotten to it, too, but I’ve never seen that. Not that I’ve seen that many hornets’ nest….in my youth, when I lived around the woods, but not since moving to the city.
Here’s an informative blog on hornet’s nests. I learned something today–I saw the honeycombs of the torn hornet’s nest but I did not realize they actually made honey! It makes perfect sense, though, because they need something for the pupae. However, I wanted to double check this, and another site said they did not make honey.
Continuing the search, I found this:
I also learned that the Maya believe hornets/wasps learn the hut owner’s scent and leave them alone….but may go after visitors. Interesting. Hornets generally do leave people alone….unless they mess with them. There was one story of my childhood where one of the neighborhood kids thought it would be funny to poke a hornet’s nest. Um-hmm….you can guess what happened…hornets mad as hell swarmed him. They had to get a hose to get them off. Yep, he never did that again…
I found this interesting blog on hornet nest destruction. Apparently, bears will tackle anything. This site is pretty interesting with discussions on biodiversity. Someone posted a video on biodiversity but it advocates eco-tourism, and setting aside small tracts of land for preservation. I think both of these ideas send the wrong message. Tourism is tourism and the more people that trample the ground, disturbing the wildlife, the more stress they bring to resources and the life forms there–not to mention more pollution by using motorized vehicles. I shake my head at folks who drive up in SUV’s to the parks….the irony seems lost on them on the damage their vehicles cause by consuming gas and polluting with exhaust, which are destroying the nature that they seek.
And the setting aside tracts of land is a noble idea–but in my view, it absolves the rest of the occupants of the land their responsibility to take care of the land they’re on. In other words, it’s like they’re saying “we have this land over here that is being preserved, therefore, you can pollute the hell out of the other land that isn’t in the preserve.” It’s still missing the HUGE point that we cannot separate the land by lines….as much as we have been brainwashed into thinking that it is possible to do just that.
Water runoff polluted with pesticides, herbicides, genetically modified forms, mercury, etc., will migrate from the unprotected land to the protected land. Toxic air will flow over the protected land. There is no way to keep a tract of land pristine while the land surrounding it is poisoned. Just like we see with the nuclear accident in Japan–what happens in one area affects another that has nothing to do with it. We have to see that everything we do affects another–to take care.
Another link someone posted is something near and dear to my heart–natural water filtration a la natural swimming pools. Pretty cool, eh? Last one in is a rotten egg! 🙂
Also, there is a thread on endangered invertebrates. Interesting read.
And speaking of radiation….howz about some radiated water…? Oh, I know the report states it’s not from the radiated side of the plants, but you know, I’m having a hard time trusting nuclear plant operators to tell the truth when that truth could be politically and financially damaging to their interests. Canadians, be on the lookout for three-eyed fish sprouting feet….
Eagle 
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