Category Archives: women

“Speak your mind…

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…even if your voice shakes.” (quote by Maggie Kuhn.) ( Oh, those uppity Presbyterian women…  :p   –I was raised Presbyterian.)

The story isn’t clear on what exactly was happening, other than the teacher handed him a packet as educational instruction.   I’ll presume, then, it is the brainless edumucation of  No Child Left A Mind that he is actually protesting….a mindless program that takes away the teacher’s creativity and ability to teach intuitively…rather, she/he must teach to the test.  If they don’t…the child doesn’t do well on the test…their school loses funding…and the teacher loses his/her job.  The child, though, is the one that loses the most–their most creative years for exploring their world are lost—all based on a false premise that the testing is a true assessment of the child’s aptitude and abilities.

Warrior princesses

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My heroes. 

They put into words what a celiac goes through with the *cough* medical profession….clueless doctors who charge $$ to tell you that it’s all in your head.

I like the one who told the patient she couldn’t feel pain in the gut…say what??

I’d like to see the Wisconsin Tea Party legislators tangle with these gals. Pass the popcorn. (Ooh, wait, what was I thinking??…Um, pass the gluten free snack. 🙂  Still not used to the idea of not having some things…<sigh>   )

With politicians like these….

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…who needs Bozo the Clown?

Did Walworth really ask if they were growing cultures that would become human beings?  OMG….these are the people deciding educational standards?  ::holds head from spinning::

Even more alarming (if anything could be more alarming) is this passage from Louisiana Voice:

Where others within the Department of Education (DOE) have alluded privately to data suppression and manipulation of school performance scores that artificially inflated graduation rates, Bassett, a band director who said he was “highly qualified” to teach math, publicly charged White, BESE and DOE of misrepresenting test scores and then covering up the lie by removing the data from the Louisiana Believes website. “This is data suppression,” Bassett said.

He said he was asked by his principal last October to look into his school’s score so that it could be improved in the future. “My subsequent research revealed deceit, distortion, manipulation of scores and data suppression,” he said.

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Further down, it goes into specifics about VAM and how the data was missing or manipulated.  Good God, these people have no conscience nor credibility…

Unfortunately, Louisiana is not alone.

Girl Scouts and Common Core Badge

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Diane Ravitch has a blog up on the Girl Scouts getting on the “Common Core Bandwagon” by issuing badges to girls for the…um…skill of Common Core…

Gah, whatever happened to learning how to build a campfire, going on hikes, helping the elderly, playing an instrument, identifying trees by their leaves,  and so on…?  Remember when it was about learning survival skills for being out in the woods?

I mean, when I was a Girl Scout we learned some actual skills that I use even to this day! (Okay, I’ve forgotten a lot, but not everything)

We camped overnight at the campground in the woods.  We used genuine outhouses with wooden boxes over holes in the ground.  Yours truly got stung on the rear end when a wasp from a nest located in the outhouse resented the invasion into its “territory”…I have never moved so fast in all of my life. :p

I remember singing “Kookaberra” and “Amster___ (shhhh…Scouts don’t cuss)”   haha. Great times.  So, now they want to award badges for unproven educational standards that have absolutely nothing to do with the outdoors?  Pfft.

Fox guarding hen house attacks hen

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…news at 11:00.  Seriously?? 

Cue the “outrage” that such action occurred….then quietly continue with status quo….

This is more than a military issue.  This is a culture issue.

Yeah, rape is hilarious. It’s just so freaking funny to listen to a woman scream “no, no, no” over and over again.  And hey, it’s great fun to force yourself on someone who is asleep and unable to fight you off.  /snark

Elizabeth Smart and why she didn’t run away--her self esteem was so low she felt like a “chewed up piece of gum”….because the way she was raised, if one lost their virginity, one was worthless.  The ever important hymen must be intact (Gah, can someone say Al-Queda?) in order for her to be worthy….it is so sad that she felt so awful about herself instead of putting the behavior onto her captor.  It should also be noted that when feminists began working to uplift women’s self esteem, the evangelicals put a stop to it (Gloria Steinem, Revolution from Within).

And the lovely gun manufacturers’ target, “The Ex”. …they included a woman, dripped in blood, because they didn’t want to be sexist…?!  I’m surprised they didn’t also say that they wanted to include a black man because they didn’t want to appear racist….and he just *happened* to look like President Obama…just like the “devil” on the Mark Burnett / Roma Downey “Bible” series…these things just happen, dontcha know?

See my blog here on the Steubenville case and rape culture around the world.

 

Tossed aside

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The suicide rate has skyrocketed for one particular age group:  the over 50 crowd….the Boomers…

Susie Madrak has a post up on it here.

From the comments, which are really sobering:

dogjudge • 3 hours ago 

September, 2011. I get a phone call from friends of my (then) 83 year old aunt. She had just been saved by two friends. Both are nurses. She had sliced both arms about 35 times. When the dust settled, we found out that she had gotten over 10 grand in debt. Why? She and her husband had lost all of their money paying for hospital bills for his heart condition. He died about 10 years prior. Her only income was Social Security. Couldn’t afford to live on that. Long story short, she now lives with my wife and I.

And we get the Republicans wanting to make that situation worse for millions and a President who thinks that cutting Social Security is fine so that the wealthy in this country still don’t have to pay their fair share.

Isn’t this a great country, or what?

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The comments are heartbreaking.  And very telling.  There’s a lot of pain out there….and not a lot of hope that things will get better.

Are you listening, members of Congress? President Obama?

….probably can’t hear over the loud voices of lobbyists and campaign donors….

Obama and Education

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Diane Ravitch has a link up to the discussion on the Washington Post.  You can’t let President Obama off the hook, as is discussed–he picked Arne Duncan and actually praised No Child Left a Mind while slobbering over Bush at the dedication to the *cough* library.

No one who cares about public education and children can endorse No Child Left a Mind.  Only someone with a narrow view and narrow mind can believe it is a success.  Those with $$ in their eyes, that is….

I just want to cry

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…at what they have done to our schools….

Little ones who are now exposed to the constant fear of some bad person coming into their school and killing them or their teacher…

Schools being locked down every day instead of just when there is a possible suspect in the area…

…and No Child left a Mind continuing to be regarded as some sort of successful program, when all arrows point in the opposite direction…

…and the ones that care, the teachers and principals who give a rat’s behind about the children and not just earning a paycheck, well…they’re the ones that are leaving the profession.

I just want to cry.

Eat a damn cup cake

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I found this blog on the women and weight issue.  She points out that the same magazines that criticize women for being too skinny also turn around and criticize them for being too *cough* fat.  It is pathological.

She does a great job of listing the statistics of women and how  the media distorts its portrayal of women.

I love the line:  Eat a damn cup cake!

She also advocates, as I do, eating a healthy diet and not sitting on the couch all day.  It’s all about balance.

I will be forever grateful that I started doing aerobics after my first child was born.  I was active as a kid, but slacked off when I became  a teenager–sports were considered unladylike in my hometown–you were a lesbian if you participated in sports (yes, they were that backward)….and people who exercised regularly were considered “health nuts” .  Geez-o-pete.

But I do believe those years of exercising helped with the health issues I’m dealing with now—I think I would have been much, much worse off from the effects of slowly being poisoned if I had not been as healthy to begin with.

And I’ve discovered that I’m much more likely to exercise when it’s something that is active and sports-like.  I do like aerobics, but even they can become routine and boring….I’m more likely to want to do something like playing in the snow or riding a bike or hiking a trail…and on…it’s something that I think is probably more beneficial not only to the body but to the spirit, as well.  Gotta have that.