Congratulations, President Obama!

Seeing as how I am the recipient of Time Magazine's designation as Person of the Year for 2006 - remember this?

- I wish to congratulate our president, Barack Obama, for his Nobel Peace Prize, which, according to the Associated Press,

Rather than recognizing concrete achievement, the 2009 prize appeared intended to support initiatives that have yet to bear fruit: reducing the world stock of nuclear arms, easing American conflicts with Muslim nations and strengthening the U.S. role in combating climate change.

Or as the Nobel Committee itself put it,

"We trust that this award will strengthen his commitment, as the leader of the most powerful nation in the world, to continue promoting peace and the eradication of poverty," the foundation said.

Two other U.S. Presidents have received the Nobel Peace Prize: Theodore Roosevelt for brokering a peace between Russia and Japan, which ended a horrific war being fought by the two countries; and Woodrow Wilson for - misguided as it may have been - creating the League of Nations in an attempt to give the world's nations a forum for settling their differences peacefully (COUGH - World War II).

At least you can make the argument that these two presidents accomplished something; they made something happen toward bringing peace to the world. Even the Nobel committee admits that Obama was given this award with the hope (there's that word again) that Obama will work toward creating a peaceful world.

Is there anything about this man that counters the notion that he is nothing but an empty suit? At least I had accomplished something concrete when I became Time Magazine's Person of the Year: I had created a blog a full year earlier, and it has now been running for over four years. Obama was President for less than three weeks when he was nominated for his Nobel Peace Prize.

Nevertheless, from one award winner to another: Congratulations Mr. President. You deserve your award as much as I deserved mine!

Good Day to You, Sir

The mother of all puns

I am currently planning ahead on my 8th grade lesson plans as much as I can, so during my prep period today, I was brushing up on the War of 1812. The biggest battle of that war - the Battle of New Orleans - took place a couple weeks after the peace treaty was signed, but the belligerents at New Orleans didn't know that. The British commander, Major General Edward Pakenham, was killed during the battle, and his body was shipped back to England in a barrel full of rum. Apparently in life, Gen. Pakenham had a rather surly personality, and this gave rise to a hilarious comment that was uttered by one of Pakenham's relatives upon the General's return in the barrel of rum. Wait for it...

"The General has returned in better spirits than he left."

Now that's funny, er, punny!

Good Day to You, Sir

Best line of the day

It goes to David Limbaugh - brother of Rush Limbaugh - who is a lawyer and accomplished columnist in his own right. In his latest column about the horrid appointees that our Dear Leader Obama keeps assigning to his cabinet, Limbaugh fired off this little nugget:

"It's not Obama who didn't vet Jones, but the MSM who have never vetted Obama. Had they vetted Obama, they would have realized that he is Van

Jones."

Touche'

Good Day to You, Sir

What became of the Kelo decision?

In 2005, a 5-4 majority of the United States Supreme Court passed down a decision which, in my opinion, will go down in the annals of the Court's history as one of their worst - right down there with Dred Scott vs. Sandford.

In the case of Kelo vs. New London, Connecticut, the Court gave the greenlight to the city of New London to tear down the homes of Susette Kelo and the rest of her neighbors in the city's Fort Trumbull neighborhood. It was the intention of New London to raze the neighborhood's houses in order to make way for a Pfizer plant, a hotel, and condos.

So, New London has had control of that land for the last four years. How is that redevelopment coming along? Read this article from National Journal Online and prepare yourself for the wave of nausea that will envelope you. And as you read, keep in mind that New London's big argument before the court is that this neighborhood needed to be destroyed in order to obtain higher tax revenue from the new businesses that would be built there instead.

Good Day to You, Sir

I was wondering when this was going to be addressed

I must admit that I experienced a rather intense case of schadenfreude when our Dear Leader Obama fell flat on his face in his effort to bring the 2016 Olympics to Chicago.

Although I was pleased to hear that the Olympics were instead awarded to a city, country, and continent that has never before hosted an Olympic Games, one of my first thoughts about the location was concern about Rio de Janeiro's crime problem.

It didn't take long for me to trip across an article where someone else expressed similar concern.

Not only did Rio - a city of 7 million people - suffer through just over 2,000 murders last year, what makes that number worse is that 20% of those murders were committed by the city's policemen!

Like any upcoming host city, Rio has its work cut out for it.

Good Day to You, Sir

Coincidence?

My son attends Kindergarten at an open-enrollment public school near our home. Even though we live a mere five-minute walk away, there was no guarantee that he would get in, but he got in. This K-6 school has an API score in the 940s out of a scale of 1,000. In comparison, the middle school at which I teach just surpassed 700 for the very first time this year. Those inner-city hellhole schools that Hollywood loves to make movies about usually score in the 400-500 range.

So what makes my son's school so much more successful than most other schools in the state? Yeah, yeah, it's open enrollment... so what? I have read of plenty of charter schools out there whose scores suck and they are closing up shop, so park that excuse. My wife and I got a taste of why our son's school scores so high when we received a contact list of all the parents of all the students in our son's class. My wife immediately noticed something about the list that she felt compelled to share with me.

Of the 21 students in my son's class, every single one of those students was living with his or her married, biological parents. Coincidence?

There were no single mothers; no custodial parent with the other as an alternate contact; nothing but two-parent families who both share the same last name (except for one couple who kept their own last names, and their son has a hyphenated last name). Coincidence?

The day after my wife showed me this list, I spent about 10 minutes scrolling through the "Guardian Contact" information on my PowerSchool program at work. I was hard-pressed to find any students of mine who live in a two-parent household that is so prevalent at my son's school. Students at my school predominantly live with only their mother, or with a parent and stepparent, or with a grandparent, or with a sibling. I have a minute number of students who live only with their fathers, and they tend to be just as well-adjusted as my two-parent students. The only class period I teach that did have a majority of two-parent households just happened to be my one and only XL/GATE class. Coincidence?

Don't misunderstand what I am saying here. I teach some wonderful, hardworking students who come from single-parent households, and I teach some apathetic and/or misbehaved students who come from biological two-parent households. But statistically, there is no mistaking the fact that overall, students who come from households in which they live with both married, biological parents tend to be the ones that shine both academically and behaviorally. It is no coincidence.

Good Day to You, Sir

You can't improve on nature

I can't remember if I have mentioned this, but my school was moved to a new campus this year. Our old campus was taken over by a charter school in my district, and we were moved to a brand new campus that had been built the year before and was only about a mile or so down the road.

One of the things about my new campus that I found intriguing is that we have an all-weather track, and the infield inside the track is astroturf instead of grass. It's pretty funny to think about, but in my 37 years, I had never walked on astroturf until the other day, when I finally stepped onto the infield. It was quite squishy because of the bits of ground up black rubber that are underneath the green turf.

Unfortunately, I found out something else about astroturf. It may look inviting with its dark-green hue, but it doesn't retain the same cooling properties as good old fashioned grass.

On an extremely hot late-summer afternoon, the entire student body and staff went out to the infield for the first rally of the year. The students were to sit on the field in a large U-shaped pattern, with the rally activities going on within the U. The air temperature was just under 100 degrees, and I swear the temperature of the turf had to have been somewhere between 110 and 120. While real grass provides relief from the heat, astroturf actually reflects heat back and makes it even worse!

I was not the only person who has never dealt with astroturf. It turns out that our Principal knew nothing about it either, and didn't realize that holding a rally on astroturf on a hot Sacramento afternoon wasn't the best move. The rally had to be called off after just 10 or 15 minutes and the students were returned to their classrooms. The students had staged a mini-mutiny by refusing to stay seated because their butts were burning. I can't say I blamed them.

Good Day to You, Sir

The Cult of Obama strikes again in our schools

Here is another ode to Obama from one of America's classrooms that was brought to my attention from Sacramento Citizen editor Katy Grimes, who posted it on her Facebook page. The kids, identified only as students from Mr. B's class in Room 8, are wearing Obama t-shirts and singing "Yes We Can!" Yet again, more schoolchildren being indoctrinated by the adult in charge.



It's OK though; according to the person - presumably the teacher - who posted the video, a mock election was held in the classroom the day before the 2008 election, and Obama had won with 18 out of 20 votes. Since most of those students presumably picked up their political beliefs from their parents, who presumably also supported Obama, I have to ask: Would those parents have been OK with this song and video if the students had been singing about George W. Bush or Ronald Reagan?

Good Day to You, Sir

The sleazy indoctrination of children by the Cult of Obama continues

I have previously blogged about the creepy songs and chants that educators have coaxed out of impressionable school children.

First, there was the ode to Obama by some children during the '08 campaign:



Then there were the militant, step-dancing boys:



And now we have possibly the most disturbing video I have seen (although the militant boys group is pretty hard to top). This video of elementary schoolchildren singing Obama's praises comes to us out of Burlington Township, New Jersey. Michelle Malkin has a good write-up of the story behind this video, because it goes a little deeper than simply an Obama-worshipping teacher who got too enthusiastic. Here is the video, and because little kids aren't always so articulate when they sing, I have copied the song lyrics directly below the video.



Song 1:
Mm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

He said that all must lend a hand
To make this country strong again
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

He said we must be fair today
Equal work means equal pay
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

He said that we must take a stand
To make sure everyone gets a chance
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

He said red, yellow, black or white
All are equal in his sight
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

Yes!
Mmm, mmm, mm
Barack Hussein Obama

Song 2:
Hello, Mr. President we honor you today!
For all your great accomplishments, we all doth say “hooray!”

Hooray, Mr. President! You’re number one!
The first black American to lead this great nation!

Hooray, Mr. President we honor your great plans
To make this country’s economy number one again!

Hooray Mr. President, we’re really proud of you!
And we stand for all Americans under the great Red, White, and Blue!

So continue —- Mr. President we know you’ll do the trick
So here’s a hearty hip-hooray —-

Hip, hip hooray!
Hip, hip hooray!
Hip, hip hooray!

Stuff like this truly disturbs me, as it so easily harkens back to the time of Stalin and Mao, when little kids would sing their leaders' praises with similar flowery and contrived song lyrics. I have never seen a U.S. president deified in this fashion. I have to wonder if Barack Obama himself would be creeped out if he saw these videos.

Good Day to You, Sir

Welcome to Crazy Arne's Used Educational Bromide Emporium!

From the "Better Late Than Never Department": Last Sunday in the Forum section of the Sacramento Bee, they ran a rather extensive collection of articles about President Obama's Secretary of Education (and former head of the failing Chicago public school system) Arne Duncan. The collection of articles was entitled Education Chief Wants a Transformation.

I had a bit of difficulty wading my way through these articles as the author, SacBee editor Pia Lopez, lost me in the first two paragraphs when she wrote in the most sycophantic terms,

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is a man in a hurry. Children, he says, have only one chance to get an education: "We cannot wait because our children cannot wait."

And he's a one-man whirlwind in a battle against stifling bureaucracy at all levels - whether at the Department of Education in Washington or in rules and regulations at the local level that get in the way of efforts to improve student achievement.

Oh yeah, he's a real reformer, that Arne Duncan. When he was "CEO" of the public school system in Chicago, black 4th graders in Illinois demonstrated a 32-point gap in math scores compared to the state's white students, when the national gap was 26 points. Similarly, black 8th graders in Illinois experienced a 31-point gap in math scores when the national average was 38 points. Since most black students in Illinois live in Chicago, one must take note of who was in charge of the Chicago schools at the time, and had been since 2001: Arne Duncan.

As NBC News in Chicago put it in an article just five days ago:

So much for the Arne Duncan era.

In what was supposed to be the first noteworthy evaluation of the Chicago Public Schools' High School Transformation project of better teacher training and a tougher curriculum, test scores went absolutely nowhere - and in some cases, down.

No wonder school offiicals didn't hold the usual press conference; they just posted the scores and slinked away.

This news follows earlier reports that the high test score claims Duncan and President Obama touted about were inflated.

In fact, a Civic Committee study concluded that Chicago Public Schools had made little progress since 2003.

While performances like this are not unusual, it goes to show that Arne Duncan is not some superhuman supe who is going to pull our educational system back from the edge of the abyss, like Pia Lopez makes it sound. Whatever Duncan was pushing in Chicago wasn't working, and now that he is CEO of our federal educational bureaucracy, he wants to bring his failed policies to a school near you.

The Pia Lopez article continues:

"In the months and years ahead," [Duncan] has said, "we will ask thousands of communities across America to close and reopen schools based on data showing that they are underperforming. That has never happened before and it will be as difficult as it is important."

That will require that we find 5,000 "high-energy, hero principals" to take over these struggling schools. It will require finding 250,000 "great teachers who are willing to do the toughest work in public education...."

Oh, is that all? And tell me genius, where are we going to miracle up these 5,000 hero principals and quarter-million tough-work teachers? If it were that easy, would we not have done it already? How are you going to find quality teachers to do this tough work when the teachers unions will not allow them to be paid more. Speaking as a teacher myself, which scenario would I choose?

1. Get paid a certain salary to work in a comfortable middle class suburban school where I can actually teach moderately to well-behaved, motivated students.

2. Get paid the same salary or a little less to work in an urban school with dangerous, insolent, profane, unmotivated, disruptive human seat warmers.

Hmmm. What to do? As long as teachers get paid the same salary for different levels of abuse, you are never going to be able to fill these "tough-work" positions that require "heroes" to effect a change. And even then, many teachers and administrators would not sign up for that kind of abuse no matter how much they were paid.

But Arne Duncan is not done. He then provides Pia Lopez with his four basic models for transforming broken schools. I will list them uninterrupted and hold my comments until the end:

1. The children stay and the staff leaves. Teachers can reapply for their jobs and some get rehired, but most go elsewhere. His view is that, "At least half of the staff and the leadership should be completely new if you really want a culture change."

2. Replace staff and leadership and create experimental public schools run by charter organizations, universities, or non-profit groups.

3. For smaller communities with fewer options for new staff, keep most of the existing staff, but change the culture by increasing the school day and school year; providing new flexibility around budgeting, staffing and the school calendar; changing curriculum.

4. Close underperforming schools and re-enroll the students in better schools.

In the interests of time and space, let us just analyze the first and last models. Model #1 assumes that teachers and administrators are the problem with education. While I will freely admit that there are plenty of these people who need to find another line of work (isn't this true of any profession?), the primary issue is deciding who is not cutting it, especially the teachers, who are to be evaluated based on the academic performance of their students. How do you compare apples and oranges? Just envision two scenarios:

Well Mr. Ritzy Suburban Teacher, I see that your students, who come from intact families with involved parents, have almost perfect attendance and they have overwhelmingly scored either Proficient or Advanced on their standardized tests. Good Work! Would you like to come back next year?

As for you Mr. Inner-City Teacher, your students, who come from totally broken and dysfunctional families, missed an average of 50 school days this year, their rates of suspension for on-campus misbehavior were atrociously high, they turned in little to no homework, and most of them scored Below Basic or Far Below Basic on their standardized tests. You are obviously a sub-standard teacher, and you do not belong in this profession.

Model #4 is equally ridiculous. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, where is Secretary Duncan going to miracle up these "better" schools in which to re-enroll students who are being relocated from closed underperforming schools? Let's imagine another scenario using the hypothetical ritzy suburban and inner-city schools I just mentioned. Obviously, the inner-city school would be closed down for underperformance. What happens to the students who attended there? Since all students are entitled under the law to a "free and appropriate public education," they have to be put somewhere. Let's say there is room available at the ritzy suburban school, which is obviously a "better school" of which Duncan spoke. Let's say students from the now closed-down inner-city school are sent to the "better" school in the ritzy suburbs. When that happens, just how long do you think that the ritzy suburban school is going to remain a "better school"? Just how long do you think it will take for the parents who send their kids to that "better school" to yank out their kids and send them to either private school or another "better school," leaving the previous "better school" to become another underperforming school? Imagine this scenario being played out thousands of times over, all across the nation.

Spreading failing students to other schools is not going to solve the problem. In this blogger's humble opinion, the only way to solve the problem is to make attendance in school a privilege again, rather than a right. As long as disruptive and ambivalent students are kept captive in our schools, nothing will improve. Let them go find out how fun the real world is without being coddled in the surreal world of our current educational system. Additionally, the social safety net that makes being kicked out of school or dropping out of school look more attractive needs to be seriously curtailed.

I am all for evaluating teacher performance, and merit pay, and paying teachers more for subjects that are hard to fill (math, special ed). The problem is when you take a private business model like that and then apply it to a public institution with all the inertia and bureaucratic nonsense that comes with it. If I were in charge, I would close down the public - read: government - school system tomorrow and privatize the whole dang thing, but I know that won't happen in the foreseeable future. The most frustrating thing for me is watching the deck chairs be arranged over and over again on our Titanic educational system. All I can do is sit helpless and watch.

"...Boy?" Really?

I have been totally swamped at work, hence my dearth of posts recently. I did have time, however, to take note of the whole "You lie!" controversy that took place when Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina uttered his now-famous two word exclamation during President Obama's speech defending his so-called health care reforms - a speech in which he repeatedly... well... lied. Go Joe.

There had already been many past mutterings from the loony Left that any criticism of Obama was based on his race, but Wilson's utterance, and the huge anti-Obamacare rally that took place in Washington D.C. on 9/12/09 opened the flood gates of vitriol against anyone questioning our Dear Leader. Pretty soon you had everyone on the Left - including a Jew-hating ex-president - declaring that all the criticism of Obama was being committed by racists.

Of all the declarations of that preposterous and slanderous lie, the worst was from that hateful little shrew at the New York Times, Maureen Dowd. In a hilarious episode of pop-psychological projection, Dowd insisted that Wilson hadn't just yelled, "You lie!" No, what he was really yelling - we just couldn't hear it - was, "You lie, Boy!" Gosh, Maureen, Rep. Wilson said nothing of the kind... but you certainly did. Attributing the utterance to Rep. Wilson does nothing to change the fact that Dowd is the one who verbalized it. We don't know that Wilson was thinking "Boy", and I'm sure he wasn't. I can't say the same for Maureen Dowd, as apparently that is what she was thinking.

Try as I might to explain this whole situation, a writer far more talented than I has scribbled a much better roundup. I urge you to read National Review's Jonah Goldberg's thoughts on this subject. Here is a snippet or two to get you started:

And, yes, a tiny, tiny fraction of the signs at the Tea Party protests last weekend were racially insensitive. But if that’s how we’re going to score, then opposition to the Iraq War is anti-Semitic. After all, I saw a bunch of signs at antiwar protests that said bigoted things about Jews...

Left-wing writers spent the week droning on about how it’s now racist to say “I want my country back.” These amnesiacs are blissfully unaware that “taking back” America was the rallying cry of the Democratic party for eight years under George W. Bush. Anti-white racists all...?

Read the rest. I thought Goldberg - author of the stupendous book Liberal Fascism - was dead on.

Good Day to You, Sir

Dumbest. politician. ever

I have seen cities issue policies that prohibit local police agencies from engaging in high-speed car pursuits, but how about prohibiting pursuits on foot? Sallie Peake, the mayor of Wellford, South Carolina, has issued just such an order. If I had simply read an article about this insanity, I would have thought that Ms. Peake was stupid enough, but then I saw this video of her as she defended her policy to a skeptical reporter. I hope that the people who voted this numbskull into office are very proud.



This woman has the intelligence of a sack of hammers.

Good Day to You, Sir

RIP, Patrick Swayze

I can imagine how my parents felt when the actors of their generation began dying off. Now I am getting a taste of it as well. Despite his horrid personal life, I must admit that I have always loved much of Michael Jackson's music; I grew up listening to it. How weird it was when he died this summer. Similarly, I can track the years of my youth by thinking of movies starring Patrick Swayze. When I was the same age as the middle school students I now teach, I remember watching Uncommon Valor and Red Dawn. In high school, it was Dirty Dancing and Road House. In college, it was Ghost and Point Break.

Thank goodness for the DVD player.

Good Day to You, Sir

Finally, Obama and I agree on something

I have written about the rude and racist antics of egomaniac extraordinaire Kanye West when he made an ass of himself on the post-Hurricane Katrina telethon in which he announced that "George Bush doesn't care about black people."

In the wake of Kanye's idiotic behavior toward Taylor Swift at the increasingly irrelevant MTV Video Music Awards, it seems that our president is not all that impressed with Kanye West either, apparently calling him a "jackass" during an unguarded and off-the-record moment with the press.

On the other hand, Obama does seem to think that thuggish hip-hop rappers like Jay-Z and Ludacris are a-ok. So, he had me, then he lost me. Oh well.

Good Day to You, Sir

Ah, the sound of freedom

I took my 5 year-old son to the Capital Air Show at Mather Air Field this Saturday. I took him last year and he loved it, but we were only there for a couple of hours starting in the early afternoon, and by the end, he was ready to go.

Not so this year. This time, we got there around 11am, and I had to drag him away even after the final act - the Air Force Thunderbirds - had finished their show after 4pm! We toured the static display airplanes, watched as many demonstrations as we could, ate lunch, and frequented the World War II display of American and German uniforms and weapons. We both handled the M-1 Garand, M-1 Carbine, British .303 Enfield, Bazooka, Sturmgehwer 44 and MP-40 submachine guns, and the Kar-98k rifle. If you know your weapons, that was quite an impressive list.

I thought I would include a few photos. I can think of few things that are harder to photograph than an airshow. Your target is moving so quickly, and it always looks so much smaller in the photo than it did in real life. All I can do is incorporate the plane(s) into the larger shot and hope for something dramatic. That is made much easier when you are blessed with the skies we had on Saturday afternoon:




My favorite demonstrations to watch are the aerobatic prop-job airplanes that do flips and tumbles which seem physically impossible, both for the aircraft and for the pilot. Unfortunately, photos of these demonstrations don't show the tiny little one-seat aircraft very well. That is why I enjoy the big planes being put through their paces. The C-17 Globemaster III has no problem filling my viewfinder. This aluminum overcast was designed to get in and out of small airfields, and with its reverse thrusters and incredible thrust-to-weight ratio, it can take off and land on a virtual dime. On the ground, it can even travel in reverse!


And then of course, the final act of the day was the Air Force Thunderbirds. If I can think of one word to describe my feelings when these planes zoom and whoosh overhead, that word would be "proud." It truly is the sound of freedom!

Good Day to You, Sir

When all doubt was removed

At 6:03am PDT on September 11, 2001, my wife and I were getting ready for work, and as we usually did, we had the T.V. on so we could catch the morning news. On that day at that time, we were both looking at the screen, transfixed, as we tried to comprehend how an airplane could fly into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. It was at that moment that I watched the black image of a large jet airplane flash into the screen and then disappear behind the north tower. An instant later, a gigantic fireball burst from the other tower.

The human brain works in strange ways when confronted with a stressful situation. I will never forget my first thought when I watched that second plane hit the World Trade Center. My thought was, "Good Lord, there is an air traffic controller out there somewhere who is screwing up very badly right now." A few seconds later, the comments of the witnessing newscasters snapped me out of it when they said that there was no doubt now that all this was on purpose.

If you can stand it, watch this compilation of news footage of the moment when all doubt was removed that the horrific happenings of that September morning 8 years ago were no accident:



Good Day to You, Sir

In Memoriam: Joan Francis

Three years ago, I profiled Christopher Faughnan, who died in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. I have linked the profile to his name if you wish to read it. I wrote about Mr. Faughnan as a part of the 2,996 Project, which was begun to help remember the 2,996 innocent people who were killed on September 11, 2001 in the World Trade Center, in the hijacked airplanes, or in the Pentagon. The way the Project works is that bloggers sign up to honor one or more victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The person I was assigned is a woman named Joan Francis. While I found all kinds of information for Christopher Faughnan, it was very difficult to find any information on Ms. Francis. After Googling her name, I noticed that on list after list of all the 9/11 victims, Ms. Francis was the only person on the entire list who did not have her age and town/state of residence listed beside her name. I found one website that quoted a government official from the Carribean island nation of Trinidad-Tobago identifying Ms. Francis as being a citizen of that country.

The lack of information or photos of Ms. Francis saddened me greatly, as I could not find out if there is anyone - friends or family - who miss her or give tribute to her memory. So Joan Francis of Trinidad-Tobago, although I have never met you; I don't know what you look like; I have no idea what kind of person you were or what kind of life you led; I do know that you were present in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, and you deserve to be remembered and honored for giving your life on that horrible day that still haunts my dreams.

God Bless you, and Good Day to You, Joan Francis

Source: http://www.caribvoice.org/Features/caritoll.html

Is it the British Parliament on C-SPAN?

I thought it was for a moment while I was listening to Obama's speech in my car on the way home from work this afternoon. Right after Obama told the joint session of Congress that any health care bill signed by him would not provide free access for illegal aliens, I heard a low ruckus from the audience, and one member yell, "You lie!" Wow! I don't think I have ever heard anything like that emanate from a congressional audience while any president - Democrat or Republican - was speaking. I am by no means saying it has never happened; I have just never heard it until today.

What was really funny was watching the footage of the incident on YouTube when I got home. When I merely heard it on the radio, I could not see Obama's reaction, and I certainly could not see the look of consternation on Pelosi's tightly stretched mug.

Check it out if you haven't already seen it:



For the record, the man who yelled was Republican Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina. In true squishy Republican fashion, Wilson later issued an apology for his actions. The problem with doing that is that Obama was indeed lying. When Republicans tried to insert language into a possible health care bill that would have specifically excluded funding of illegal aliens and abortion, both amendments were voted down by the Democrats.

Good Day to You, Sir

"His" town hall meeting?

These arrogant congresscritters at their town hall meetings are the gift that keeps on giving and giving. The latest congressional representative to taste his own foot is Democrat (what else is new?) representative from Indiana, Baron Hill, who I think might be taking his first name a little too seriously.

Listen to what he tells a constituent in the audience when she asks him why she cannot film the meeting for a school project:



What was that last statement from congresscritter Hill? "Now the reason why I don't allow filming is because usually the films that are done end up on YouTube in a compromising position." More prophetic words have rarely been spoken soon-to-be-ex-congressman Hill. You just made your future opponent's campaign ad.

Good Day to You, Sir

Tomorrow's Obama school speech: Yes or No?

If you haven't heard, tomorrow morning, President Obama is going to give a speech to the students of our nation's schools via the whitehouse.gov website. He and his handlers have insisted that the speech is simply a "stay in school and do your work" pep talk. Tonight, I finally had the opportunity to read and preview his speech, and to tell you the truth, as much as I find the man's politics to be horribly repugnant, the speech isn't half bad.

As long as Obama sticks to simply telling kids to stay in school and what not, I never had a big problem with the speech itself. What I had a major problem with was the fact that until tonight, I could not preview the speech to see exactly what he was going to say. Further, the lesson plan from the Department of Education website that accompanied the speech - which has since been removed - instructed teachers to do such things as have their students write a short essay in which the students would write about how they could help our president. This leaves students with the impression that they work for our president and not the other way around. I would have had a big problem with that assignment.

However, after previewing the speech and seeing the president actually has some rather candid things to say, I believe I will actually show the speech tomorrow. Either live, or delayed, as I am sure it will be instantly posted on YouTube.

Now don't think I have gone all soft on our Marxist Commander in Chief. I am still very wary about having any president piped directly into our nation's schools. Even though his message might be a good one, the precedent that is being set here, no matter how benign the subject matter, is one that needs to be addressed with my students. My first question to them would be to ask how they would feel if President George W. Bush was going to speak to them directly instead of their hero Barack Obama. I will discuss with them the notion that although this speech was very non-offensive, what if future presidents (including Obama himself later in his presidency) use their direct access to the nation's schoolchildren in order to push for policies and legislation that are near and dear to that president's agenda? I will discuss with them how a practice like this could be used or abused in the years to come. I will let my students hear Obama's message in my classroom, but I will still require them to think about discuss the ramifications behind its delivery.

If you want to read the speech yourself before Obama gives it tomorrow, you can read it at this link here. Otherwise, here are some of my favorite passages:

But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.
And that’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself...

But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying...

I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work -- that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things.
But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try...

The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.
It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.
So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?

I am not above giving credit where credit is due: overall, President Obama's speech is an excellent one. But politically, I still oppose him on every front.

Oh, and one more thing. I noticed that Obama ends his speech with "God Bless America." I wonder if the ACLU is going to sue him for that one. After all, they sued to have schools take down the very same words from their marquees in the wake of September 11, 2001.

Good Day to You, Sir

The right to own a telephone?!

And to think, this man is a U.S. senator. Mark Warner (D-naturally) of Virginia was holding a town hall meeting in Fredericksburg the other day when a constituent - who is a high school government teacher by the way - asked Senator Warner a very simple question: Under what specific article and section of the Constitution does the government have the power to run our health care system?

Watch the good senator make a fool of himself as he stupidly brings up other unconstitutional government programs to prop up his argument, and then proceeds to forget for whom the Constitution was written:



You might want to reacquaint yourself with the 10th Amendment regarding your telephone argument, Senator.

Good Day to You, Sir

Buckhorn Road was burning

Well, almost. The reason I haven't posted in the last few days is because I have been without a computer. The reason? On Tuesday morning while I was teaching, I got a very rare phone call on my cell phone. It was my home alarm company informing me that they had received a maintenance signal from our alarm system. There wasn't much I could do about it until I got home. Around 4pm, the fam and I arrived home to find the electricity at our house was completely out in one section of the house, and was doing some strange things in the rest of the house. I would turn on a light, and it would burn at what seemed like 400w, then a few seconds later, it would be barely illuminated like we were having a brownout. Speaking of brownouts, our refrigerator was barely functioning, so I ran an extension cord to another outlet that seemed to be OK. When I plugged in the fridge to the new outlet, it caused the power in the entire house to diminish to almost nothing. There had been such a surge of power in my son's room, that a bulb had burst out of the light fixture on his ceiling fan, and fallen to the floor. The metal part of the bulb was still screwed into the socket. I tested our kitchen chandelier, and turning it on instantly caused two bulbs to burst. To top everything off, the house was permeated with acrid odor of overloaded electrical wire. It was as if our house had been possessed by a poltergeist, and we have come to find out that we were damned lucky our house didn't burn down.

My suspicion was that our 40 year-old circuit panel had finally gone kaput. Nevertheless, I called our local utility company to come take a look. To cut to the chase, it turns out that our next-door neighbor had a tree company in his back yard that morning, and somehow, the workers had managed to either partially cut the powerline running our house, or a felled branch had landed on the powerline and pulled it partially loose from the pole. Either way, the line had lost its ground, and had spent the day surging and diminishing in an effort to find some kind of equilibrium.

Once the utility repairman replaced the damaged line, he told me I might want to go around the house and check if any electrical equipment had been damaged. I began pushing buttons on our electronics to see if anything was ruined. Behold the list of what needs to be replaced:

Computer tower
Home stereo
Home CD player (6 disc changer)
Two DVD players
Mounted microwave oven
Two alarm clocks
$800 of circuitry in our air conditioning system
Cordless weed eater (battery recharger was ruined)
Three ceiling fans
Garage door opener
Dish Network box
Cordless phone
The transformer to our alarm system was blown

Not to mention a visit by an electrician that cost $200 in which he said our breaker panel will probably need to be replaced, and also a day off from work on Friday so I could receive all these technicians who paid a visit.

One of Friday's visitors was a representative from the tree-trimming company who confirmed that it was his workers who caused this mess, and next week, I will be hearing from their insurance company.

One purchase that couldn't wait was a new computer, as we use it for an additional consulting business that my wife and I both do. I saved the receipt.

This experience has already been such a pain, but if I can find any lemonade in this deluge of lemons, at least we will be receiving an upgrade on our computer, stereo, and other older equipment that did not survive the Chanman family electrical massacre of 2009.

Good Day to You, Sir

Undercover at a town hall meeting

Jason Mattera of the Young America's Foundation has rounded up his brass cajones and given us another wonderful insight into the mind of left-wing ignoramuses who gathered outside a town hall meeting put on by moonbat congressman Jim Moran of Virginia.

Mattera is the one in the Bob Marley garb and the gaudy sunglasses who gives all those kleptocrats out there the opportunity to say what they are really thinking.

Creepiest part of the video: The long-of-tooth hippy who speaks of the collective "It."



For more of Mattera's hilarious and downright ballsy antics, just enter his name in the search engine feature at the top of the screen.

Good Day to You, Sir

My own eulogy to Ted Kennedy

The hagiographic tributes to the "Lion of the Senate" continue to pour in - the latest coming from the left-leaning New Republic which appeared in today's Forum section of the Sunday Sacramento Bee. So, let me simplify things for everyone. You want to remember Ted Kennedy? Here is all you need to know:

1. Chappaquiddick. 'Nuff said on that one.

2. His slanderous lies against Robert Bork when Bork was nominated for the Supreme Court in 1987. Kennedy actually said the following words on the floor of the Senate not 45 minutes after Bork was nominated, and Kennedy paid no price for it:

"Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is -- and is often the only -- protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy... President Reagan is still our president. But he should not be able to reach out from the muck of Irangate, reach into the muck of Watergate and impose his reactionary vision of the Constitution on the Supreme Court and the next generation of Americans. No justice would be better than this injustice."

3. Kennedy was instrumental in transforming the face of the United States by ensuring the mass immigration of millions of people from third world countries who had and have no business coming here, either because of their political ideologies which are incompatible with our tradition of individual freedom, their dependence upon our welfare system, their refusal to assimilate into our national culture, or because of diseases that they reintroduce into our country. If you think Kennedy was proud of this so-called accomplishment, you wouldn't know it from the speech he gave in favor of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 that caused all this mess:

"First, our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually. Under the proposed bill, the present level of immigration remains substantially the same.... Secondly, the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset.... Contrary to the charges in some quarters, [the bill] will not inundate America with immigrants from any one country or area, or the most populated and deprived nations of Africa and Asia.... In the final analysis, the ethnic pattern of immigration under the proposed measure is not expected to change as sharply as the critics seem to think.... The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs."

So how did that work out for us?

4. According to Republican political consultant Marc Nuttle, Ted Kennedy revealed his true colors - both politically and egotistically - during a Senate hearing on January 20, 1995. Kennedy demonstrated a moment of candor in front of no less a luminary than economist Milton Friedman, who was testifying in favor of a constitutional amendment that would require a balanced budget. Kennedy began bellyaching about how such an amendment would prevent government from helping people in need and would restrict the federal government from fairly distributing resources in an equitable manner. To this assertion Friedman responded,

"Senator, socialism hasn't worked in 6,000 years of recorded history. Why won't you give up on it?"

According to Nuttle, who was present to witness it, Kennedy stood up and uttered,

"It hasn't worked in 6,000 years of recorded history because it didn't have me to run it."

Do we really need a #5?

Good Day to You, Sir

This cop tells us what we already know

Boy, I sure love YouTube. There of course is a lot of superfluous crap on it, but it also serves as an invaluable tool for preserving that which should be remembered. Watch and listen to this astonishing exchange between a police officer and a sign-holding anti-Obamacare protester outside a town hall meeting. And I mean, truly astonishing:



Of course, if our esteemed president can gain control of Internet content, like a proposed bill in Congress is trying to authorize, then videos like this won't be much of a worry anymore, now will they?

Good Day to You, Sir

Another reason to be embarrassed for California

Because this lying, racist, communist creature hails from my once great state. That's bad enough. What makes it even more delicious is that she is a congresscritter from from the Los Angeles area. Listen to Diane Watson wax poetic about race, Castro, and Che.



What an abominable human being.

Good Day to You, Sir

I hope she slaps him when she sees him

So Teddy Kennedy is no longer among the living. This is the part where I am supposed to put politics aside and be respectful toward his passing. OK. But I think the person who needs to be remembered in all this is the woman that Kennedy left to die in an overturned car. Mary Jo Kopechne possibly lived for up to 3 hours in that car before the water level erased the air pocket she was using. But let's say she died on impact; Kennedy still left her to go sober up, take a shower, and get some shuteye before he finally went to the police and reported the crash.

So Ms. Kopechne, when you see Teddy in the great Hereafter, feel free to unload on him.

Good Day to You, Sir

Donahue flunks the Friedman School of Economics

Hat tip to Neal Boortz (see blogroll) for posting this gem. Watch this vintage footage of free-market economic genius Milton Friedman shooting down the silly arguments of socialist economic ignoramus Phil Donahue.

This is great stuff:



Too bad that this exchange did nothing to change Phil Donahue's mind, as the rantings on his cancelled MSNBC show made evident several years ago.

Good Day to You, Sir

Questions about gender make you a... racist. Huh?

Even if you don't follow the sport of track and field like I do, you might nevertheless have heard about a controversy that took place at the recent Track and Field World Championships, which concluded in Berlin a few days ago. The runaway winner of the women's 800 meter run was Caster Semenya of South Africa. Let us take a gander at young Caster:

There have been some questions raised about the gender of Caster Semenya due to her manly looks and muscled physique. So is she a girl or isn't she? That's not what I am worked up about. What has me in a tizzy is the race card being pulled by leaders of South Africa in addressing the controversy. According to them, the only reason Semenya's gender is being questioned is because she is a black African:

The president of Athletics South Africa, Leonard Chuene, was also defiant and said he had resigned from his seat on the IAAF board to protest the organization's treatment of Semenya... "We are not going to allow Europeans to describe and define our children," he told a news conference, which Semenya attended although she did not address reporters... Semenya's supporters say the allegations against her are motivated by jealousy and show racial discrimination against Africans. (Emphasis by Chanman)

Oh, yeah, that's the ticket. No white female athlete has ever had her gender questioned; only the black ones.

I guess this South African official wasn't paying attention during the 1970's and 1980's when female athletes from Eastern Block communist countries were showing their grotesque selves at track meets all over the world. How about current world record holder in - of all events - the 800 meters, Jarmila Kratochvilova of Czechoslovakia, who set the still-standing record of 1:53.28 back in 1983? Check out her feminine self:

Or how about Ewa Klobukowska of Poland, who actually did fail a gender test in the 1960s:

Those are two real-life examples, but the stereotype of the manly eastern European female athlete lives on. Just think of the uni-browed lovely with the Princess Leia hair buns in the Vince Vaughn/Ben Stiller movie Dodgeball. Hey, she was white, too!

For South African officials to base their arguments on racism toward their athlete is ludicrous. All it does is make me think that perhaps they doth protest too much.

Good Day to You, Sir

Sacramento Citizen Column

My latest column is up and running at the Sacramento Citizen. This column is the first in a planned series in which I will be addressing the so-called racial Achievement Gap in standardized test scores and academic achievement.

Good Day to You, Sir

Hoo-Rah!

This brought a smile to my face. Watch this Marine veteran rip into Representative Brian Baird at a town hall meeting in Washington state. Baird is infamous for recently calling townhall protesters "Brown Shirts." This protester really lets Baird have it:



Baird doesn't even know what to say; what can he say? It is so refreshing to watch citizens out there vociferously reminding our congresscritters of who is the employer and who is the employee.

Good Day to You, Sir

The Obama Cult is alive and well among the youth

While our president's job approval poll numbers are in free-fall, he is still quite popular among the younger too-young-to-vote crowd, if what I witnessed in my classroom on Friday is any indication.

I have already forgotton how the subject came up, but I was talking with my 8th graders about controversies that had happened during past presidencies and how those controversies had affected the presidents' popularity. I mentioned the usual events from the Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II years that caused them to be either not reelected, impeached, or otherwise vilified in the press. I then mentioned that the same thing is happening to Obama right now. I mentioned the criticisms he has received about his massive spending proposals and attempts to gut our current health care system.

You should have seen the looks on my students' faces that accompanied the several seconds of shocked silence as my students tried to compute what I had just told them. The look was equal parts confusion and rage. They were confused as to why anyone would actually have a reason to criticize their Dear Leader, and they were enraged that he would actually be criticized. Of course, if you never read or watch the news like most of my students, you would never realize that Obama is actually not universally adored. Believe me, the pleasure of informing them of this fact was all mine.

Good Day to You, Sir

The self-esteem movement hasn't gone away

My five year-old son belongs to a soccer league. This is his first time attempting organized sports, and he played in his first competitive game yesterday evening.

During the game, my son got hold of the ball in the open field and took off with it toward the other team's goal. I began to cheer for him, but that quickly got shot down by the other parents because, apparently, you are not supposed to cheer for your own child - you are only supposed to cheer for the entire team: "Go Firecrackers!"

Later during the game, my son was sitting out for a few minutes, so we kicked the ball around near the sidelines. Since I wasn't paying attention to the game during that time, once my son went back in to the game, I asked my wife what the score was. That's when I found out that they don't keep score during the game, because after all, they only want the kids to have fun. Funny, I thought competition is what makes things fun.

Look, I realize that these kids are only five years old. There isn't a stadium full of people yelling for them. The score of their game is not going to go down in the annals of sports history. I ask though, what is the harm in cheering for your own child at the expense of the other kids? Somehow, I think the other kids will get over it. What is the harm in keeping score? Are these kids' fragile little souls going to be devastated if they lose? And if their souls do shatter, shouldn't they learn from day one how to handle it when losing inevitably happens?

One of the worst things that ever happened to our educational system and our society was when worries about the self-esteem of our children reached obsessive levels. It became accepted orthodoxy that exposing our kids to failure would scar them for life. Instead, it sets them up for further failure by making them afraid to try. What I witnessed at the soccer game last night is a perfect example of the legacy of this self-esteem movement that began in earnest back in the 1970s and 1980s. While some of its excesses have begun to be addressed, the vestiges of this movement are obviously still with us.

Perhaps, the coaches and timid parents believe that winning and losing and scores don't matter to kids so young. Hmmm. Sure enough, after his first soccer match, on the way home, my son asked my wife and me, "So, who won the game?"

Good Day to You, Sir

Another job Americans won't do

If there is a shortage of circus clowns in this country, these illegal aliens could certainly find employment in that industry. Watch as a beleaguered Border Patrol agent is totally outclassed by this multitude of Mexicans. As an added bonus, see if you can keep track of how many there are. Start counting now:



I counted 14... what did you get? Naturally, the only thing that would have made this video more enjoyable is if the minivan had been a Volkswagen Beetle.

Good Day to You, Sir

Queen Sheila holds court

One of the most obnoxious - and most unintelligent - members of Congress is Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee of Texas. This is the woman who complained that there aren't enough "black" names for hurricanes (Hurricane Shanequa?) and once told an uncooperative event scheduler "I am a queen, and I demand to be treated like a queen!" She has also pulled the whole "Don't you know who I am" routine with airline attendants when she got the wrong meal.

If you can't believe that one human being can be this reptilian, check out how Jackson-Lee treats one of her constituents during a town hall meeting:



This woman represents everything that is wrong with Congress.

Good Day to You, Sir

It's official: Obama is an ass

I was driving home from my first day back to work this afternoon, when the talk radio station cut away to the bottom-of-the-hour newsbreak. The news played a soundbite from President Obama where he was talking about the health care legislation. What he said in that soundbite astounded me. I went the website for the Associated Press, and lo and behold, I found it in print:

"I suspect that once we get into the fall and people look at the actual legislation that's being proposed, that more sensible and reasoned arguments will emerge. And we're going to get this passed," he said.

You're kidding me right? The man who tried to get this piece-of-crap bill rammed through Congress before their August recess - when no one had time to read it - is now saying that people will be on board with it later this fall once they have time to read it? Changing our tune, are we Barry?

The man is a disgrace.

Good Day to You, Sir

It's on, now

I have returned to the front lines of teaching. Today was the first day back with students. Not much to report, except that I feel like I have done all this before. I think enough years have gone by where I don't get this fresh new giddy feeling on the first day. Instead, I have a "here we go again" feeling.

Luckily, I didn't receive very many frequent fliers from last year, and the ones I did receive are dispersed through several classes, rather than all being concentrated in one particular period like last year. It's a lot easier to pick them off when they don't have the chance to gang up and overwhelm you.

Good Day to You, Sir

A trip to the human zoo

Can you imagine a conservative guy like myself walking the streets of Berkeley, California? Two days ago, I was. On Sunday afternoon, my wife and I drove to Berkeley to see her favorite band Counting Crows in concert on the campus of UC Berkeley.

We arrived at the campus about two hours before the concert, found a choice parking spot, then walked a short distance from the campus to the heart of Berkeley on Telegraph Avenue. To make the experience even more laughable, there was some sort of street fair going on which closed Telegraph Avenue to vehicles, so it was foot traffic only. Every kind of freakazoid you can imagine or not even comprehend could be found during the walk my wife and I took down Telegraph Avenue. There was a scuzzy bearded urban outdoorsman (homeless guy) walking down the sidewalk telling people to go fuck themselves, there was a scuzzy bearded guy running a booth where you could buy just about any left-wing bumper sticker you have ever seen. Yes, Celebrate Diversity and Visualize World Peace - two of my favorite meaningless ooshy-gooshy left-wing sayings - were both to be found. And my favorite part of the tour? The Church of Obama (or is that Cult of Obama?) was out in force. There were Obama t-shirts being worn EVERYWHERE! I gotta tell you, it takes quite a courageous and brave soul to wear an Obama t-shirt in downtown Berkeley. Way to put yourself out there people! I'll tell you courageous: I should have worn my Viva la Reagan Revolucion t-shirt, complete with a Che-like image of Ronald Reagan. I bet that would have gotten some looks and comments (and possibly suckerpunches) as I walked down the street. My wife wasn't in the mood to nurse any violence done to me, so I kept the Reagan shirt at home.

After eating dinner, my wife and I walked back to the campus and found a seat at the top of the grassy area at the top of the outdoor arena to wait for the concert to start. As we sat there, a guy walked past me with the most vomit-inducing Obama shirt of the day. I tried to find a picture of one online, but I was unsuccessful. The shirt features headshots of four different presidents: Clinton, GW Bush, Nixon, and Obama. Under Clinton is the word "Smoker"; under Bush is "Spender"; under Nixon is "Schemer"; and under Obama's smug mug, it says "Dreamer." Awwwwwww. Pardon my French, but these people are batshit insane! I thought the Left was in love with Clinton when he was soiling the oval office, but as you can see by his description on the t-shirt, Slick Willie is yesterday's news. Even at his height of power, he has nothing on the Obamessiah. The uncritical adoration that these people have for Barack Obama is truly disturbing.

And then, it was on with the concert. We had lawn seating, which was at the top of the arena, but the lawn was so danged steep, that my wife and I decided to sit at the very top of the lawn where it flattens out. As you can see, this put us in the nosebleeds:

But this turned out to be a wise move, because it provided us with the following view, which could be seen above the roof of the stage:

Do you see it? Off in the distance? Let's zoom in a little more:

Yep, during the entire concert, we could see downtown San Francisco on the horizon, along with the Bay Bridge that connects the City to the East Bay where we were located. As the sun went down, the famous fog started rolling in:

I know San Francisco is as insane as Berkeley and is truly a social and political hellhole, but you would be hard-pressed to find a more physically beautiful city than San Francisco. I could stare at it all day.

By the way, in case you were wondering, my favorite Counting Crows song is A Long December.

Good Day to You, Sir

Why study history?

All you fellow history teachers out there - I found a little nugget to share. I have often been asked by my students why they have to learn this meaningless history stuff, and while I have plenty of ready answers for them, I never quite feel like I am getting my point across. That is why I am happy to have found this from a book I just finished called The Language Police by educational historian Diane Ravitch.

The book is about the self-censorship and homogenization carried out by the publishing conglomerates who produce our nation's school textbooks. In an effort to not offend anyone, these publishers have cut out just about anything meaningful from our students' textbooks - including history textbooks, nay, especially history textbooks. It is so bad, many history textbooks don't even give a mention as to why students should read the darn thing in the first place. Ravitch gave an example of what kind of justification used to be included in textbooks:

It was once customary for writers of American history textbooks to explain to their readers why it was important to study history. In the depths of the Depression, David Saville Muzzey told the readers of his popular high school text, A History of Our Country:

You are growing up in this age of opportunity and responsibility. In a few years we of the older generation shall have passed on, leaving to you the duty of carrying on the American tradition of a free republic, of preserving our ideals, and remedying our faults. this is Your America. Whatever business or profession you may choose to follow, you are all, first and foremost, American citizens. Each of you should think of himself or herself as a person who has inherited a beautiful country estate, and should be proud to keep up that estate and to make such "modern improvements" as will increase its beauty and comforts. You would be ungrateful heirs indeed if you did not care to know who had bequeathed the estate to you, who had planned and built the house, who had labored to keep it in repair for your occupancy, who had extended and beautified its grounds, who had been alert to defend it from marauders and burglars. If you agree with me, you have already answered the question why you should be eager to study American history...

I think that is an outstanding piece of persuasive writing. I especially appreciate where the author points out that no matter what you do for a living, you are an American first, and you should learn about your heritage. That shoots down the whole line of questioning students always use about how are they going to use this when they are older when their future job will have nothing to do with history. If I was to use this quotation, I would have to frontload some vocabulary, such as "inherit" "heir" "ungrateful" "bequeathed" and "marauders." The fact that my students don't know such words - I have been asked before what an "heir" is - shows that aside from history class, they don't seem to think that much of Language Arts either.

Good Day to You, Sir

My visit to the sausage factory

I assume you have heard the sausage factory metaphor, where even though sausage may look and taste good, you do not want to see it made. Watching a legislature in action is sort of like that.

Last Thursday night and early Friday morning, I got to enjoy a rather unique experience. I have a friend who works at the State Capitol in downtown Sacramento, and he got me into the State Senate chamber where our esteemed legislooters were attempting to - once again - hammer out a budget for our decrepit state.

It had been known for a couple days in advance that the vote on the budget was going to happen sometime on Thursday, July 23rd. It was just a matter of how long that vote would take. After some progress early on in the afternoon, both sides got bogged down in the details. By the time I arrived at my friend's office in the Capitol around 10pm, both the Democrats and the Republicans were in caucus, which means that they weren't even in the Senate chamber; they were in their respective meeting rooms hammering out intra-party disagreements. The caucus locations themselves are fodder for amusement. With the Democrats wholly in charge of the California legislature, they have given themselves a plush conference room in the Capitol in which they hold their meetings. The Republicans? They get a coffee break room into which they shove their 15 members (out of a total of 40 state senators). I find much of what the majority party does to the minority party to be amazingly juvenile, no matter which state or federal body we are talking.

The Dems and Reps caucused until about 1:30 Friday morning. There are closed-circuit TVs focused on the Senate floor in offices throughout the building, so we could see members of both parties beginning to trickle into the chamber. My friend and I walked into the Senate chamber at 1:43am (!) and took a seat in the back of the chamber and began watching as the Senators finally got down to business. And what was their first order of business? What pressing matter was taken up just before 2 in the morning, with 30 more budget bills yet to debate and vote upon? It was some sort of meaningless resolution from a Democrat senator, calling for the support of some United Motor plant in her Bay Area district that was threatening to shut down. Her resolution was passed with bipartisan support, but not before a Republican senator stood up and pointed out that the reason that the plant was threatening to shut down in the first place is because of the anti-business confiscatory taxation that the Democrats who run this state keep shoving down our throats.

For the next two hours, the Senate debated and voted upon bill after bill - these bills together making up California's budget for the next fiscal year. Amazingly, at 4:15 in the morning, with a vote not going well on the Republican side, the Republican leader called for another caucus! That was it! We couldn't take anymore of the madness, so my friend and I went back to his office and watched another hour of proceedings on the closed-circuit television. Finally, at 5:30 in the morning, with the Senate still debating and voting, I walked out of the Capitol into the gloomy dawn light. The fun part is that I had to move two truckloads of teacher stuff from my garage into my classroom, but I went home and slept for a few hours first.

I wish I had a picture or two to accompany this narrative, but photographs were not allowed to be taken by anyone except the credentialed news cameramen who were present and, I assume, making some major overtime. I can only leave you with the visual of little ol' unimportant me sitting in the back of the chamber of the Senate that serves the largest state in our union. The business was slow and deliberate, but I found it to be absolutely fascinating. And yes, we have a budget... for now.

Good Day to You, Sir

Latest column is up and running

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Good Day to You, Sir

Where ya been, Chanman?

I know blogging has been light, but c'mon - how can I be expected to blog when I have been hanging around a place like this?

Lake? Check. Sun? Check. Cup of beer? Check. Forest and Mountains? Check. I love Summer.

Good Day to You, Sir

What's the definition of a fanatic?

I believe it was Winston Churchill who said that a fanatic is someone who cannot change his mind and will not change the subject. This truth was illustrated to me at of all places a charming little Independence Day parade that was held in our neighborhood.

The parade itself was a slice of Americana, with a hook and ladder truck from a local fire station leading the procession of parents and little kids riding their bicycles, which were decorated with flags and tinsel glistening with patriotic colors:



My daughter and me.



Pretty neat, right? But then, there was one family who just couldn't let it go; they had to use the occasion of our country's birthday to show that they don't realize the difference between our country and our government, and that they don't have a clue as to what it is we celebrate every fourth of July:



When I attended the local Tax Day Tea Party back in April, I was wearing my "Viva la Reagan Revolucion" t-shirt and carrying my "Don't Tread On Me" flag over my shoulder. On this day however, I purposely left the politics at home and just carried an American flag in my hat. Too bad these fanatics could not show similar restraint.

Good Day to You, Sir