I'm Not Ignorant

What Media bias? Yeah, Right

Ok, Ok, long time no post, but this really has me worked up. No, it's not just this article, but it's the straw that broke my back!

Am I wrong that it's the job of reporters to report the FACTS. I'm getting so sick of editorializing by supposedly neutral "journalists". The very first paragraph, emphasis added by me:

Two of America's allies in Iraq are withdrawing forces this month and a half-dozen others are debating possible pullouts or reductions, increasing pressure on Washington as calls mount to bring home U.S. troops.

Is the bolded part a fact, or an opinion. Yeah, it makes for a dry story to put the period at the end of the word reductions, but that's reporting.  Do we have any statements from the withdrawing countries as to why they are pulling out? Not a single one in the article.

The entire rest of the article paints it entirely as an opportunity to once again bring all the negative nay-sayers about the war to the forefront, recount casualties one more time, and generally paint the President in a bad light.

They even go so far as to bring up a worst case scenario that hasn't even been hinted at happening yet:

If Australia, Britain, Italy, Japan, Poland and South Korea reduce or recall their personnel, more than half of the non-American forces in Iraq could be gone by next summer.

When did a single official from any of these countries suggest withdrawal? It's nothing but an attempt to make it look like since these two tiny forces are being pulled out, the whole effort is collapsing. The only reason the article guesses is that it's because support for the war in the US is dwindling:

"The vibrations of unease from within the United States clearly have an impact on public opinion elsewhere," said Terence Taylor of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Washington. "Public opinion in many of these countries is heavily divided."

Gee, one liberal think tank says that public opinion here affects the rest of the world! By golly, that must be why they are pulling out! Let's look at some other potential reasons they ignored:

• Many of the coalition forces had specific jobs, like Italy training police. It could very well be the jobs these two forces were doing are FINISHED. In other words, they were successfully completed, but that would be good news, don't want to report that!
• The US has been so successful in the part of the country where Bulgaria and Ukraine worked that they are done. Hmm.
• There is a new government at home with different priorities in both these countries. However, that government probably wasn't elected based on Iraq as the central issue, since we're talking about 1250 troops here, between them. I hardly think a new government won parliament in Bulgaria over 380 troops being in Iraq. So, it is hardly a statement on the war itself.

The other thing that strikes me as hilarious is how quickly they will repeat the "unilateral invasion" cries of Democrats, yet write articles like this ticking off the many countries that helped and the fact that there was once 140,000 or more non-US troops involved in the effort.

The liberal media has become like sharks with blood in the water. They report the percentage of Americans who disapprove of the war, it's a majority. They don't report that a vast majority is against withdrawing from Iraq before the job is done.

I'm so tired of "reporting" that is just a disguised editorial. No wonder public opinion of our President is so low. When's the last time the AP or Reuters or any of the major networks reported anything good from Iraq, like a town's schools all being open for the first time in a decade, or the major port cities bustling or all the hospitals up and staffed and operational? That's right. You won't see a single fact reported or a single opinion put forth that anything positive is happening in Iraq as long as a Republican is in office.

You can count on it. So look elsewhere. There are media sites, like The Wall Street Journal, that reports everything, facts in their reports, editorials in their opinion section. Amazing. That's the way it's supposed to work, isn't it?

 

Marriage, what I've learned

Marriage is a bedrock institution of every civilization. It forms the smallest atomic unit of a society. I'm not writing this about the issues of marriage in the news today, however, this is what I've learned that I think would be valuable to anybody getting married or already married, like Phil and Lisa.

1) It's not about YOUR happiness.
It never fails. Every marriage that's falling apart or dissolved the number one word people use to explaine it: I. "I'm not happy any more." "I don't love her anymore." "I needed my space". "I've outgrown him."

Marriage will not always make you happy. It's not there to make you happy. Nothing outside of you will EVER make you happy even 75% of the time. Happiness comes from within, and expecting marriage to provide that 100% of the time is a recipe for disappointment. Sure, your spouse has a great capacity to make you feel happy, but you will only find happiness in the contentment of your soul no matter what your external circumstances.

How do you deal with this? Stop worrying about your own happiness and focus on the other person. Too many non-Christian counselors (and I've seen it many times, so I'm not just blowing smoke here) encourage people that if they aren't happy, perhaps it is time to move on. That's crazy talk! Your job in marriage is not to be happy, but to do things to make your spouse happy! Which brings me to my next point.

2) Love is an action verb, not an emotion.
Ok, so you can "feel" loved. True. But love is only properly expressed through action. You can tell somebody you love them 100 times a day, but if you don't actually love them, as an action, it quickly loses it's value.  How do you do this? 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 has a pretty good guide:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.     ⁸Love never fails.

Love is being quick to encourage, even quicker to forgive, and even quicker to say you're sorry. It's putting the needs of somebody else above your own. It's making the other person number one priority. Of course, it works best when both people to that, but it's not a situation that says "Well, if they do their part, I'll do mine." You need to do your part no matter what they do (short of physical or mental abuse).

Love is not sex. Sex between two people who feel loved by each other is better. Sex is also a good way to love your spouse. But it is one of MANY ways and opportunities to put the other person first. You can put them first by turning off your favorite team on TV to go on a walk. You can bring them something cold to drink on a hot day, when they didn't even ask for it. Etc.

3) Learn your spouse's love language
These are the five identified love languages:
- Personal touch and closeness
- Quality time
- Acts of service
- Words of encouragement
- Gift giving

We all need all five in at least small doses. Yes, every person is "lit up" by one of the languages. It's not hard to figure out: what language does your spouse express their love to you in? When they really feel good about you do they bring you breakfast in bed (acts of service)? buy you a gift (gift giver, duh)? give you a big hug? 

The tough thing is, more often then not the spouses have different languages. And you can't change them. Yet, with effort, you can learn to speak your spouse's language to them, then they can speak your to you, and it will go a long way to helping with point two.

I've seen gift givers very upset that their spouse didn't appreciate a gift they bought them, but the spouse's language was quality time. I've seen encouragers frustrated that their spouse seems unresponsive, when the spouse just needs a hug/kiss and to hold your hand a while to feel loved.

4) Give 100%, but don't watch the other person's part
Too many times I see spouses fighting over what the other person is not doing. "They aren't carrying their weight." Usually this comes from the idea they both have that they need to contribute only half the effort in the marriage. "I do the garbage, she does the laundry." Hello! Laundry is not equal to garbage.

Each spouse needs to try to do 100% of the work, yet not measure it. Each should do what needs to be done when he or she can. There is no "I go to work all day, so you do it." Obviously, there's no way in a marriage with both spouses doing 100% that they will actually do 100%, but the point is don't measure it. Your responsibilities are equal, where they can be. Obviously, the husband can't help with breast feeding, but once it's on to bottles, he should be just as willing, while applying 2 and 3 above, to take care of it too.

5) Put Christ as the center
You may wonder why this is last. Christ said, "And the last shall be first." In the light of Christ, your spouse will look much, much better. He or she will be as imperfect as you, when Christ died for you.

It's hard to measure how much the other spouse is contributing if you're focused on Christ and not his or her contributions.

It's easy to actively love another person when you can see how Christ loved and loves you.

Putting somebody else first becomes less of an effort when you realize that Christ would have died for you if you'd been the ONLY sinner ever to live on Earth.

That happiness that you have to find within, regardless of failing external circumstances, comes from the joy of knowing Christ as your Lord and Savior.

Do marriages survive without Christ? Absolutely, but they have those four things already figured out and I'd be willing to bet that in 9 out of 10 non-Christ centered marriages that last, the spouses have the same love language for their primary.

Marriage can be hard work, but it's worth it. I've been married for 14 years as of next month. And it's been awesome. Yet, it's rarely been easy. I do believe, however, that if you apply these principles, it will survive almost anything.

You make me shake my head, Gary

Gary Trudeau, how about you read a paper other than your own comic?

Today's comic has the bubbles out of the white house as Bush chastises Rove for illegally revealing a spy (Valerie Plame) then promoting him.

Gary, even the newspaper I'm sure is your favorite, The New York TImes, has said no crime was committed. Valerie's boss says no crime was committed. Valerie was out of the field for over 5 years, had twins, was known to not be a covert agent.

The New York Times even reported that Rove didn't out Plame, he just confirmed her name when the reporter, who got her name from a different source, maybe Joe Wilson himself, called to check who Joe's wife was.

So desperate to rip Bush and demean him, you can't even get your facts straight. Yes, it's a comic. Yes, it's not supposed to be a great source of news. Only makes it slightly less irresponsible to not get your facts straight. Why isn't this a Lewinsky size scandal on the liberal, err I mean, big three news networks? Because NO CRIME has been committed. This was a despicable desperate attempt by the Democrats at political gamesmanship.

And I'll be one of the first I've seen say it: I bet Valerie's husband released her name, had the reporter call Karl to confirm it, and then the reporter could say "Government sources close to the President." There is that much of an agenda in the press. Dan Rather and the fake National Guard records is just the tip of what individuals in the media are trying to do to get a liberal pinhead in office.

Good luck, the blogging world will do their best to stop you!

No Class System

Through my other blog reading and listening to the media, I've caught a lot of liberals referring to me as the "working class."  It makes me think back to my days at Willamette University when we learned about social classes in our economics and political science classes.  At the time, I really did consider them to be structures of other countries, not America.

Yet, because I've seen it brought up there and looking back on John Kerry's rhetoric in the campaign, the Democrats really do try to paint a class system as if putting us in these boxes helps their cause. The problem is, those class systems in other countries and cultures prevent people from moving out of them without something unusual for the culture happening.  In some cases it takes somebody from a different class marrying you or doing some heroic act that gets you recognition and pulls you up.  However, for the most part, in those systems you are considered to be what your class says you are and you will never be anything more or less.

Academia has driven this, spending too much time reading Karl Marx and other social structure authors and not enough really stopping to understand culture outside their walls.  Obviously this isn't universally true, but what drives this? I believe many professors like this system because the "educated class" has always been of high repute, right up there with the aristocracy. Most class systems put the most educated at the top of the system, so naturally professors, even unconsciously, desire to have a class system because they no they'll be on top.

The problem is, in America, people still believe this is the land of opportunity.  I certainly don't believe I'm "working class".  My income puts me into the upper middle "class", but it's semantically different.  "Working class" implies this is my lot in life, but I know I don't have to be stuck here.  I can move up or choose to move down.

The majority of people outside academia fall into one of these four categories:

Contented Poor
These Americans are poor in the sense that they are at the lower end of the income scale.  I call them contented to imply that they lack the will/desire to improve their lot.  Among these are women who have babies to increase their welfare check, yes.  There are many others in this group, however, that believe their skills and abilities are insufficient to improve their lot in life.  Unfortunately, this group is also full of people that the liberals have caused to believe they can't move up, even though they can.  The liberals have spent so much time talking about the imaginary oppression of the poor and minorities, that many poor and minorities believe there is no opportunity for them. Yes, they face barriers, but so did everybody else who went from dirt poor to filthy rich, and many Americans in our history have done just that.

Upwardly Mobile
This group of Americans, the vast, vast majority of Americans, strives every day to improve their financial situation.  They work harder, look for better jobs, save, work side businesses, whatever it takes to join the rich.  These are the people the liberals target politically to try to score points. 

The contented poor votes liberal in many cases because the liberals will keep the welfare flowing. The rich tend to vote Republican because they want to keep more of what they make and they don't want to pay for welfare.  So, the liberals target this swing group, calling us the "working class" and telling us the Republicans are unfair to us because of how they treat our bosses and the rich.

There are two big problems with this:
1) This group of people wants to be rich someday, so helping the rich means future help for us. Plus, every time President Bush has reduced taxes, he's done so across the board.  Yes, the rich got more of a break, but they paid more to begin with.  1/8 of a bigger pie means a bigger piece, but they had a bigger pie being takent to begin with.
2) This group realizes that if our bosses, the rich, keep more of their money, that means they'll have more to spend on what we make and sell and help us in the long run.  We realize that money will do more for us in the hands of the rich investing in the stock market (where our retirement accounts are), cars (which are made by the "working class"), etc , than it will in the hands of a welfare recipient in Section 8 housing somewhere.

So, putting us into aristocratic systems of classes to try to pit us in an "us against them" mentality will work for some, but most people want to and believe they will be moving up to be one of them, so they don't want to be "their" enemy.  Given that we don't see the rich as our enemy and the breaks they sometimes get as unfair, our next criteria is values.  And polls show that most Americans agree with President Bush on gay marriage, the war on terror, etc.

Contented Wealthy
A very broad group, this includes everybody who is not considered "poor" in terms of income and net worth, from the steel worker to the rich. These group of people have found their spot of bliss and are happy with what they are doing and their lot in life.  They will move up as opportunity presents itself but, for the most part, don't envy those above them or have the desire to change what they are doing to get there. There is nothing wrong with living this way, it is very Biblical to be content with what you have. 

However, this group is also completely unswayed by a politicians that try to get their vote by creating a class war.  Tax breaks for the rich?  "Hmm, well," they think. "I got money back too and according to that taxpayer group, I worked less days this year to pay my taxes. I got some of the pie."  The rich are not an enemy, they are their employers, their friends down the street, they own the houses where their kids go to birthday parties with large pools.

"Filthy" Rich
I don't really care for the term "Filthy Rich", but this group is all those worth millions. While there are scoundrels like Kenneth Lay at Enron, and Bernard Ebbers at Worldcom, for the most part these are the people who ultimately put bread on everybody's table. They start and run companies that employ people and put money into the economy.  They support the stock market where millions of Americans have a significant portion of their retirement. They spend a high proportion of their income on disposable items that the not-so-rich are employed to make. They also have a lot of disposable income to donate to charities and other causes, while the rest of us struggle with that $30 a month to Suzanne Somers :) .

The vast majority of Americans don't see the rich as the enemy that liberal politicians try to tell us they are. I and many other Americans see them as examples of what we can all be if we work hard and get the right turns of luck. 

Conclusion
If the Democratic party were to go out and search, they'd find that almost nobody voted for Kerry because the President "gave tax cuts to the rich."  They voted for Kerry because of Iraq, the environment, hatred of Republicans, etc.  You know what those are called? Values.  That's right, values. 

The Democrats are treading dangerous ground by trying to create a class war in the absence of understanding the values of the vast majority of Americans.  If they think they can stay pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage, pro-unconstrained welfare, etc. and win by pitting the rich against the rest of America, it will fail. Got news for them: we all want to be rich.

It reminds me of a scene from Braveheart, which I was watching the other night. In one part of the movie, Longshanks, the English king, sends Irish soldiers against the Scottish, assuming they must be enemies because he stated them so.  When the Irish and Scottish soldiers rush at each other, they stop and shake hands and share hugs, then turn to face the English together.  Try to create a war that doesn't exist between two groups, and you might find both groups going against you together, as they did by over 10million votes in the last election!

Be Back Soon

I know I haven't posted in a while, but I can tell by my huge number of comments I'm popular! NOT :)

But I do have things to post.  My account was a little messed up, but I'm back!

Trust Michael Schiavo?

This is a heated and emotional issue. It's also very sad that it's being played out in the press the way it is.  I'd like to address my feelings on it in several parts.

Michael Schiavo's Motivation
First, I often hear that Michael wants to let Terri die to hide something.  What would he be hiding that a vegetative woman could reveal, ever, that an autopsy wouldn't?  That he beat her? Long past that.  That he withheld food from her and it was not an eating disorder? How could Terri reveal that?

Second, I've heard he's afraid she'll recover, making his current relationship with his girlfriend even worse. I'm sorry, but NINE doctors, appointed by the court, not Michael, have all said she's in a Persistent Vegitative State from which she will never recover.  NINE.  The only doctor, ONLY doctor, to say she might recover works for a Catholic Right to Life agency, didn't do a full exam, just stood by her bedside, and was brought in by the Schindlers, who are convinced that her crying out is signs she can recover.  If all Michael wants is to be free to continue his current relationship, he would just divorce Terri!

Third, I've heard money suggested because of the million dollar settlement on a malpractice suit regarding Terri's brain damage. If money was all he wanted, Michael would have taken the millions he's been offered to let custody go to her parents.  I've heard reports of 5 million, 15 million dollars to just let her live and walk away.

Fourth, I've heard he wants to let her die so he can get married. Again, divorce is an option he could take without spending 6-7 figures on lawyers, and as stated in the last point he could divorce her with millions in the bank if he took that option.

Therefore, the only argument you're left with as a bad motivation is that Michael is a sadistic jerk.  Not only that, we'd have to assume he's a sadistic jerk that doesn't care about money, wants his in-laws to suffer, and cares only about being in the press.

I believe his motivation is love. I think he loves Terri still, and wants to see her wishes carried out. Based on his testimony and the testimony of many others as this case was heard over and over again in the Florida courts, the courts agreed.  Judge after judge believed his testimony and the testimony of others that Terri's desire was to not be kept alive by a feeding tube. Why did he wait 7 years? The same reason her parents want to wait forever! He hoped she would recover.   Michael Schiavo so loves his wife that he still wants to see her wishes carried out.

Terri's Parents
My heart aches for them.  I, too, value human life. I'm anti-abortion and anti-euthanasia.  This case isn't either. Euthanasia is doing something to kill yourself.  This is omission, asking that if you can't communicate, sit up, eat, drink, etc, a vegitative state, don't do those things on my behalf.

The parent side of me can see the great pain of losing a child. I also see them as having lost perspective. Their child is gone in every way except that the brain is keeping the organs working. Nobody truly knows what goes on in the mind of a person in PVS. Are they able to still think on the same level of complexity? Are they going insane being trapped there in that universe? Do they truly understand what people are saying or is their brain responding on auto pilot the way it's running their organs on auto pilot?

There's great sadness in it for me, because if Terri is going to heaven, she'll be much happier there, especially if she never wanted to be kept alive by these means! Let her go! Do Roman Catholics really have so little faith in their destination? Our souls live an eternity, is it not better to let go and see her again in heaven, whole, for an eternity.

I think they sincerely believe she can recover and at least be able to talk again. Only one doctor with an agenda of his own, and without a thorough neurological examination has told them this. They want it so bad they can't see the truth. What if Terri did learn to speak and said, "I don't want to live in this state with a tube into my stomach.  Please disconnect me and let me go."?

Drawing a Line
One of the things that seems to always get injected into this is hysteria like "Who's next, the wheelchair bound?" The hysteria always assumes there isn't a line we can see.  Same as the pro-choice people that are pro-choice because they are afraid if abortion is taken away, suffrage is not far behind. There is a clear line here - Terri is in a Persistent Vegitative State, from which nobody has EVER recovered.  Nine court doctors and I'm sure others before it went to court have all certified this.  The line is there, the case can be distinguished. The slippery slope argument hold little water in these cases, as long as society has the standards and laws that they do.

If I ever end up in a condition that doctors, note plural, say I will never recover from, where I can't do anything for myself, even communicate my needs/desires, don't hook me up to keep me alive. Let me go be with my Lord in Heaven.  Let me be healed by Him. I'd rather my loved ones turned to videos of me to remember the fond times and waited for their turn to join me in Heaven for eternity. Don't wipe out your savings, mortgage your properties, borrow from friends to keep me lying there as barely more functional than brocolli.

The Farce of University "Openness"

When a famous singer/actor gets criticized and boycotted by his/her fans for being critical of US war policy, liberals start chanting cencorship. To the contrary, both groups are expressing their free speech. If saying something that your fans disagree with will cause you to lose fans, you have that choice.  What should we do? Keep buying their albums and DVD's anyways. Not supporting them is our form of expression that we didn't agree with what they said.  Nobody will make them stop talking, make the media stop reporting what they say, make radio stations stop playing their music (unless the stations disagree as well, but when a private company makes that decision they are just expressing their own freedoms.  No state-run radio here).

Want to see how liberals really handle diverse opinions? They can only be diverse within their narrow range of views.  For instance, and they have every right to do it, they're free to run their private business the way they want, but a place called Ocean Heaven professes diversity yet excludes Bush voters at the same time: http://oceanhaven.com/index.html . Hmm, so, conservatives are haters because we oppose gay marriage, but what are these people for treating people who voted for Bush as unworthy of an ocean view.  I disagree with George Bush's environmental policies, but I disagreed with John Kerry on just about everything else. Guess liberals can be quite judgemental too.

Or there is this article, which made the Spot the Idiot section on Opinion Journal at the Wall Street Journal: Amherst Daily Collegian . The author CLEARLY says that if you are of a Religious persuasion that's too conservative for her, you shouldn't be in politics.  In other words, Christians should have no voice.  Now, I wrote a reasonable response:

            What twisted idea gave you the idea that Tim LaHaye wants
            to kill homosexuals? Or that George Bush does?

            How does a 42-year-old woman with two kids "accidentally"
            get pregnant? She accidentally chose to have sex?
            Unmarried sex at that? Does she not know after two kids
            how this sort of thing happens? She made her 'choice'
            when she chose to have sex with somebody other than her
            husband knowing the risks that sex might make her
            pregnant. Oh, the poor thing, the condom failed, go
            murder your baby and go right back to the life style
            that, yes, I consider sinful.

            I read many conservative authors, including Dr. LaHaye,
            and not ONCE have I seen them advocate execution for
            moral crimes. As Christians we LOVE the sinner, hate the
            sin. I want people to turn from their sins, not die for
            them, though the reason we don't live forever is because
            of Adam's sin and our continued sin.

            Do we want to see the whole world Christian? Absolutely,
            because I love everybody in the world and believe they
            need Christ to go to heaven. The motivation is pure. You
            have every right to disagree with that, but it's no more
            wrong than you wanting the whole world to NOT be
            Christian. It IS wrong of you to once again insist that
            tolerance cannot include being tolerant of the Christian
            world view.

             Christianity is not about oppression. Many religions do
            ENFORCE the belief that their 'god' or 'gods' require
            their obedience, but Christianity teaches that it's
            always a choice, because true love, truly pure obedience
            is by choice - we choose to accept God's free gift,
            nobody makes us. Many Christians oppose welfare and such
            because they believe the church is a better provider of
            those services and we are required to care for the needy.
            The church IS Biblically required to care for the needy
            and, sadly, welfare has made so many feel exempt from
            this that the churches now have left it to the
            government.

            This extreme screed, with no facts or evidence behind it
            (where did Tim LaHaye say to kill homosexuals and other
            people committing immoral acts?) to me must be driven by
            fear mongers you are listening to.

            This country's constitution requires allowing the free
            EXPRESSION of religion. Don't try to take away President
            Bush's right to express his religious views, or anybody
            else's. Don't try to shut us up just because you don't
            agree.  And maybe, just maybe, you should open up your
            mind and attend all functions of a local baptist church
            for 8 weeks so you can understand us better than you can
            from some radical spouting hate at us.  I support your
            right of free speech to post this, please support my
            right, and President Bush's right, to say what we believe
            as well.

A little strong but no stronger than what the Collegian writer said. Yet, one week after I posted this, the moderator of this forum at this supposed school of open ideas still has not posted my feedback nor any other. That seems a little strange to me.

Oh well, this is my forum. I can say whatever I want here, and I say my voice and view has just as much right to be heard and be a part of the political process as any other.

She wants a Godless government, she can move to China.  They treat their people real well.  Or North Korea, even a better example of Godless government, where with no moral compass, the leaders feel free to starve their own people.  How's that for religion not in politics?

Like this 'funny'

Got this in an email once, over dramatised of course, but I think it's funny!

OLD VERSION:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself!

MODERN VERSION:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering grass-hopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.

CBS, CNN, NBC, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when they sing "It's Not Easy Being Green." Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing "We shall overcome." Jesse then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's sake.

John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Tom Daschle , Dick Gephart, Hillary Clinton and Howard Dean stage an interview with Peter Jennings claiming that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his "fair share."

Finally, the EEOC drafts the "Economic Equity and Anti-Grasshopper Act," retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.

Hillary Clinton gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel of Federal judges that Bill Clinton appointed from a list of single-parent welfare recipients. The ant loses the case.

As the story ends, as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he is in, which just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him because he doesn't maintain it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow.

Later, the grasshopper is found dead in a drug-related incident and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once peaceful neighborhood.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Vote Republican

More Public School Idiocy!

Since one commentator of this column said we Christians shouldn't be pushing so hard against public education, I thought maybe I'd point out a couple more idiotic things they've done.

First, according to the WoonSocket Call , the Lincoln, RI school district is cancelling all spelling bee activities.  You know, the ones that kids can eventually get to nationals in DC.  Their reason?

"No Child Left Behind says all kids must reach high standards," Newman said. "It’s our responsibility to find as many ways as possible to accomplish this."

HELLO! MS NEWMAN, IS YOUR BRAIN ALIVE! Very few kids like spelling, but putting it in a competition at least provides a separate incentive to learn to spell! It's so very, extemely obvious to anybody that thinks about this for two seconds that spelling bees encourage kids to learn to spell, SO THEY DON'T GET LEFT BEHIND, that I can only think this is a back door way of trying to make the No Child Left Behind initiative look bad.

I can see it now, some liberal politician, "No child left behind is causing school districts to give up spelling bees for the best students so those that don't particpate can be on equal ground.  It's evil."

Wow, I'm utterly amazed. Yeah, somebody wins a prize, but every student that particpates becomes a better speller than they were and HAS LESS CHANCE TO BE LEFT BEHIND. You know what would be smarter, if you had smarts, Ms Newman? Making spellng bee particpation MANDATORY, to make sure no child gets left behind.

This kind of "some kids can't cut it so we're lowering standards for all" garbage is rampant in the public schools. My own son's public school teacher for the whole 1st semester had a 'spelling contract' that required the kids to do fun projects with their spelling words every week. Some kids were not getting it done every week (it was an hour to two of homework a week to do it), so rather than continuing to push those kids every week, and punishing them through grades, she cancelled the spelling contract. It's not even available as extra credit to those kids that want to learn their spelling better, though my child will continue to do it on his own, by my requirements.

Second, there are these 'zero tolerance' policies, which should be called 'zero discernment capability' policies. Here's an example from the Delaware County (Pennsylvania) Daily Times. An honor student takes Aleve for menstrual cramps and his suspended for 3 days pending review and a probably longer suspension.

It began innocently enough when a senior female student experiencing menstrual cramps asked a friend for a Tylenol or Advil. The classmate had none, but in an effort to be helpful, asked a third student, who supplied a generic form of Aleve. Aleve is a non-prescription strength form of Anaprox, sold over the counter as a fever reducer, and for temporary relief of minor aches and pains.

HELLO, WAKE UP! Do you school administrators really lack the ability to make common sense judgements on situations like this? I understand if somebody is being an Aleve dealer and helping kids thoughout the school end pain, but do you really have such a low opinion of yourselves that you can't have discernment on issues like this?

When I see stuff like this, sheer inability to think with the least amount of logic, that's when I want to home school or find a private school that understands that healthy competition breeds excellence and it is possible to discern between a drug dealer and a responsible use by a high school student of an over the counter pain medication when she really needed it.  There are stories of students being expelled because they let an asthmatic friend borrow an inhaler in a situation that without the help, the student easily could have died.

The attitude in the public schools, not everywhere but in way too many places, is that they must hamper or discourage the brightest students in order to make 'success' more achievable by those from bad homes or not quite as bright. This doesn't encourage kids to escape their situations or backgrounds, when our schools say, "It's OK that you come from a bad background, we'll just lower the standards to you can make it." This means the better off kids, with home support, are practically home-schooled anyways so they don't under achieve. Why should my tax dollars go to schools that treat my child this way and refuses to challenge him because those challenges aren't even being attempted by other students?

I read another article that was big news: A school district made being able to read a graduation requirement.  WHAT? It wasn't one already? Yet, this generated all kinds of hoopla, including people upset, saying that it discriminated. They were just reversing an earlier policy that lowered the graduation standards so kids that couldn't read could graduate high school.   If kids can't read, don't lower the standards, fire the teachers.  But that's a whole other blog about how education unions and the NEA have driven school districts to let the teachers fail to teach by bringing the requirements down to meet what the teachers are barely doing.  I better stop here.

Please buy my fantasy novel  so I can do this full time!

Short and Sweet

This one's quick.

First, why do Christians in America feel threatened by the Liberal agenda? Because it's following the pattern of Europe over the last two decades. It's getting more vitriolic and emotional towards us. And we have every reason to believe, with the wrong Supreme Court, despite the first amendment, we could end up like the Swedish pastor in this story: Minister Appeals Gay Bias Verdict .

Second, why do the public schools give us pause? Well, we aren't allowed to use the most important part of our life to defend our values in the public schools, and the schools are getting crazy.  There's this example reported here where a student, trying to be patriotic and honor her Uncle, was told to remove her red, white and blue necklace because it was 'gang colors.'  First of all, they're patriotic colors and THEY ARE THE SCHOOL'S COLORS as well. What do you think the real reason was? My guess is the school administration is liberal (like many where I live) and objected to the Iraq war. They'll soon find out in court.  What's funny, is that many of these administrators, if they're old enough, probably wore black armbands to school, thanks to the Supreme Court, protesting the Vietnam War.  Want more examples of why we watch our children's public school very close? Go to Zero Intelligence.

Finally, the ACLU changed their statement slightly that I quoted yesterday.  They didn't take the elipses out of their First Amendment quote, but they did change 'first freedom mentioned' to 'freedom protected by the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights.'  Still don't want to advertise that Freedom of Religion is in there, not Freedom FROM Religion.  But hey, it's a start.  If more people would read my blog and complain, maybe they'd fix that too. Wonder if the ACLU will represent a patriotic young lady that wants to wear our nation's colors as a necklace to school?  It is freedom of expression after all.

Oh, and if you're reading this, please, please buy my book.  :)