President Obama's American Jobs Act will help modernize schools. Because to SOME people schools still matter.

I thought this might give you a lift this Sunday morning as well.

(Image courtesy of The Obama Diary.)

As if you needed ANOTHER reason to keep Michele Bachmann out of the White House!

Courtesy of CNN:

Painting herself as a "constitutional conservative" Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann told Sen. Jim DeMint's forum Monday that if elected president she would look to get rid of the Department of Education, among other things."Because the Constitution does not specifically enumerate nor does it give to the federal government the role and duty to superintend over education that historically has been held by the parents and by local communities and by state governments," she said, responding to a question by DeMint, a popular figure among the tea party movement.

So there you go voters, a vote for Michele Bachmann is a vote against providing your children with the same access to a free public education that you took for granted as citizens of the "greatest country on earth".  Try competing with China with a nation full of chronically undereducated video game addicts.

In a completely unrelated story, by no means connected to his candidate trotting out her bucket of batshit for all of America to see, Bachmann campaign manger Ed Rollins got a note from his doctor excusing him from having to work for her campaign: 

Ed Rollins is going to be stepping back from day-to-day management of the Michele Bachmann campaign, and moving into a senior advisory role, he said in an interview. 

Rollins said the reason for the change is personal — his health and the rigors of a campaign. 

“I wish I was 40 years old, but I’m not,” he told POLITICO. “I’m 68 years old, I had a stroke a year and a half ago. I’m worn out.”

Yeah I don't blame him.

I have only listened to her speak a handful of times and I am pretty "worn out" too.

Is there one day from your childhood that you will simply NEVER forget? You and this young man have something in common.

Guns don't kill people. Until they do. (Or almost do.)

Courtesy of the Newsminer:

Fairbanks police are investigating a report that a 5-year-old boy accidentally shot his 3-year-old sister in the chest with a .357 revolver Friday afternoon in an apartment near Party Palace on Peger Road.

The girl was in stable condition as of Friday evening and had been flown to Anchorage, officer Alana Malloy said. 

The girl’s parents drove her to Fairbanks Memorial Hospital, where police were called at 2:42 p.m. The gun belonged to the children’s parents and it was not immediately clear why the boy had access to it, she said.

You can already imagine what the father's argument was for purchasing this weapon. 

"We need to for protection.  The world is a dangerous place. Think of the kids."

Yes think of the kids.

A day ago this 5 year old boy was just a regular kid who had NOT just blown a hole in his little sister's chest with a .357 handgun.  And the suddenly in the blink of an eye, and the twitch of a finger, he was.

The good news is that it sounds like the little girl will pull through.

The bad news is that she will undoubtedly be returned to a family that clearly cannot protect her from their stupidity.

Bristol Palin puts her son Tripp to work helping to pay the bills. Yeah, why should he not have to pull his own weight?

These were apparently scenes filmed for Bristol's reality series.

 You know I would never suggest that I am an expert on raising children (pretty close though), but don't you think that once a child is old enough to push his own stroller that he no longer needs one?

Tripp is only about four months shy of his third birthday, and he appears rather large for his age, I really think he would benefit from being treated like a young boy, and NOT a baby. And what the hell is with the pacifier?

Besides it does not appear that he is too happy with the whole stroller situation.

That is clearly the face of a very angry young man.

And perhaps part of that reason is because he might be missing somebody...

..who is also REALLY missing him.

(BTW you can count Sadie as somebody who believes that the anonymous poster on the Nick Broomfield post is on the up and up. It was this comment here that convinced her: "Bristol talks about Sadie 24/7. Like...Constantly. It's the worst case of projection I have ever seen. She is so jealous of Sadie, she has taught Tripp to go "ewwww" and wrinkle his nose if Bristol shows him a photo of Sadie."   She said she had been told that before by people who have seen her do it. And people say Mercede is that vindictive one.)

US teachers spend the most time in the classroom teaching. So much for the idea that American teachers are lazy.

Courtesy of the Wall Street Journal:

Among 27 member nations tracked by the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development ), U.S. primary-school educators spent 1,097 hours a year teaching despite only spending 36 weeks a year in the classroom — among the lowest among the countries tracked. That was more than 100 hours more than New Zealand, in second place at 985 hours, despite students in that country going to school for 39 weeks. 

The OECD average is 786 hours.And that’s just the time teachers spend on instruction. Including hours teachers spend on work at home and outside the classroom, American primary-school educators spend 1,913 working in a year. According to data from the comparable year in a Labor Department survey, an average full-time employee works 1,932 hours a year spread out over 48 weeks (excluding two weeks vacation and federal holidays).

One of the things that can piss me off faster than just about anything else in the world is listening to people slam teachers. That absolutely makes my blood boil.

I have had the privilege of working with some of the finest educators in the country, and I can tell you from my own experiences with schools in the Anchorage area, that I have only rarely, and I mean RARELY, come across a teacher who I considered less than completely dedicated to the children they taught.

When I worked at the local elementary school for those four years, I would often receive calls from the teacher that I worked with, who was still at the school sometimes as late as seven o-clock in the evening inputting data on the computer or preparing her lessons.

Now this article goes on to say that despite these many hours of classroom instruction that America is still not doing as well as it could with educating our young people. But I would suggest that it has much more to do with the lack of parental involvement, the "dumbing" down of the textbooks around the country,  and the focus on "teaching to the test" that has been the focus of education in our public schools since the introduction of NCLB.

Nor does it help to provide a multifaceted educational experience with the dramatic increase in the banning of books from our school libraries:

On Monday at the Republic, MO school board meeting, four Republic School Board members reviewed a year-old complaint that three books are inappropriate reading material for high school children. In a 4-0 vote, the members decided to ax two of the three books from the high school curriculum and the library shelves: Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler and Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson was spared. The resident who filed the original complaint targeted these three books because “they teach principles contrary to the Bible“ 

There have been 20 books banned in the last six months from school libraries. And instead of responding to complaints from a single parent, like in times past, these days the complaints are coming from organizations that seem determined to "clean up" the libraries in response to a religious or political agenda:

Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, says he believes the challenges are increasingly influenced by politics and the economy. 

" Districts are dependent on budgets, and politically motivated school boards try to determine what we read, what we think and what we teach," he says. 

Here is the list of banned books.

Cutting school funding at every opportunity, demanding high exam scores even in low income/high crime  areas, and removing intellectually stimulating reading material that does not comport with a right wing political agenda, and we want to blame TEACHERS for the lack of success in our classrooms?

President Obama explains the relevance of the Constitution to children. Perhaps the Teabaggers should pay attention as well. They might learn something.

I would like to see ANY of these so-called Tea Party Republicans answer these questions with the same clarity and confidence with which President Obama is answering them. I have little doubt they would fail miserably.You can see more of these wonderful interviews by clicking here.

Amen

Little girl beaten to death in the name of God.

I am not going to use this incident to slam Christianity, or the teachings of the Bible. But I am going to say that we have learned SO much more about how to raise our children in the thousands of years that have passed since those books were written that following the guidelines for parenting that are laid out in the Old Testament is just nuts.

There is NO excuse for brutalizing a child, and if you believe in a God that condones or encourages such behavior, than my tolerance for your religious choice has to come to an end.

As hard as it is too watch this video I think it is important, because there are forces in this country that are demanding that we go back to a time when we received out instructions for how to live our lives, raise our children, and treat our spouses, from religious leaders instead of educators, scientists, and therapists.

There is a real attempt these days to discredit intelligence and to replace it with faith. In other words to believe, rather than to think. And in my opinion it is that kind of slippery slope which ultimately results in this kind of tragedy.

(H/T to CNN.)

New tidbits leak out from Mercede Johnston's Playboy interview. Oh, the Grizzled Mama is NOT going to like this very much! Update!

Mercede and her mother Sherry. Palin victims no more.

Courtesy of TMZ:

19-year-old Mercede Johnston (above left) just WENT OFF about the entire Palin crew -- calling Sarah Palin a bad mom who's "never there for [her kids]" ... adding, "She doesn't make her kids go to school.

She'd rather parade them around and put on a show, at book signings or conventions."

As for Bristol -- "Everything is about her, her, her. She has to have her own way. She'll be supersweet and then she turns into the most evil person I've ever known ... Honestly, she is the meanest person."Mercede adds, "I didn't know someone could be so vindictive and evil ...[She's] a sociopath. She doesn't think anything she could do or does is wrong."

Mercede also claims Bristol and Levi PLANNED their pregnancy -- saying, "They were trying to conceive for months." 

And for good measure ... Mercede explains why Sarah would have been a TERRIBLE president saying, "I think she'd have had a mental breakdown if she was elected [president] ... She can't even answer Katie Couric's questions." 

Just when you think Sarah's day could NOT get any worse.

You know I waited with bated breath for this summer (and the fall) to finally arrive, but even I did not realize just how many things were coming down the pike to help put an end to Sister Sarah's career as a political hatemonger.

Numerous tell-all books, a damning documentary, Michele Bachmann stealing her thunder, a painfully poor propaganda piece that failed to ignite her political career, unexpected grandbabies, a Playboy interview that reveals unflattering truths about the Palin family, newly discovered pictures proving she was not pregnant with Trig, the list just goes on, and on, and on.

Don't the Germans have a word for this? Schadenfreude if I am not mistaken.

(I looked it up for you Palin-bots so that you would not hurt your tiny little brains. Just click this link.)

Update: It looks like Hollywood Life has a few more tidbits:

Mercede tells Playboy of Sarah’s eldest son Track, “He would do a lot drugs. He did OxyContin but mostly cocaine. He didn’t choose to go into the army; he went there because his mom made him, to get him out of the way…” Track did ship out during his mother’s campaign, though it is uncertain when exactly he enlisted. 

He may not be the only fan of the drug either as, the interviewer writes; “Someone trying to get my attention makes the incredible claim to have snorted coke with [Sarah] at the Mug Shot (a local bar) and points to the very spot on the bar where said lines were cut up.” This is, of course, to be taken with a grain of salt. 

Mercede also labels Bristol as a thief, among other things. When asked what Bristol is into, Mercede says; “stealing her parents credit cards to order clothes. Literally. And chasing after men and partying.” 

Mercede goes on to say that she could bring any number of men to meet the interviewer and have them show some of the nude pics Bristol has sent them.

Okay I knew about the stolen credit cards, the boy chasing, and partying, but the nude pics of Bristol are a new one on me.

Not that I would have been interested if I had known about their existence.

Update2: More from Hollywood Life:

She is furious about Sarah’s treatment of her brother Levi, who is the father of Sarah’s grandson, Tripp. “Not once did Sarah contact us and say, ‘Is this okay?’”, about her decision to take Levi into the spotlight, when she became John McCain‘s running mate in 2008. 

After all — Levi was only 18 at the time and hardly able to stand up to the powerful Governor of Alaska. “She literally took Levi from a hunting trip and flew him to the Republican Convention. He didn’t have a choice. I don’t blame John McCain — this is all Sarah Palin. She didn’t have to announce on stage that Bristol was pregnant. She doesn’t care, as long as she’s going to the top. But it’s screwed my whole family up. Levi was a prop, and once they didn’t need him, he was out the door.” 

No matter what your political persuasion you have to admit that Mercede’s accusations have a ring of truth when it comes to the Palin treatment of her brother. 

For good measure, Mercede also calls Bristol — “the most evil person I’ve ever known” and a “sociopath” and claims that she , Mercede, has been virtually excluded from baby Tripp’s life. 

Now, we all know that Sarah Palin can dish it out against her political opponents … and Katie Couric. She’s even been accused of inciting violence against Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords by placing her district in crosshairs on an “attack map” that she featured on her facebook. 

Do we really need a “Pitbull in lipstick” or a Mamma Grizzly ( Mercede calls that Sarah nickname “retarded” ) leading our country now? A woman who’s instinct is to attack even the father and aunt of her “beloved” grandchild, rather than reach out and make them a part of her family? 
  
Damn! Sarah and Bristol really screwed the pooch when they pissed Sadie off!

I actually don't know everything that Sadie talked about in the Playboy interview because she signed a non-disclosure agreement and was not supposed to talk about it. Technically I was not even supposed to know about the pictorial, but she did not want me to find out from anybody else.

P.S. I almost forgot to say that I also heard that story about the cocaine use by Sarah at the Mug-Shot. And no it was NOT from Sadie.

Lawrence O'Donnell and Matt Damon take a courageous stand to defend our teachers against the unrelenting attacks coming from the Right Wing.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I am not ashamed to admit that I literally had tears streaming down my face as I watched this segment.

Lawrence O'Donnell's passion in bringing this, and other important, stories to our attention should earn him this country's undying gratitude, and Matt Damon? Well in my humble opinion from this day forward Matt Damon should be considered a national treasure.

He did his mother, his teachers, and his country proud.

Lawrence O'Donnells' epic takedown of Teabagger, and deadbeat dad, Joe Walsh.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

As a divorced father myself, who gladly paid my child support payments on time and in full, I share O'Donnell's disgust with Rep. Joe Walsh.

I cannot tell you how angry it makes me to hear politicians use children to make a political point while refusing to support policies, or social programs, that they so desperately need.

How could we possibly trust a politician who does not even care about his OWN kids enough to make sure they are well cared for, to help protect ours?

Right Wing extremist murders at least 80 people in Norway.

Anders Behring Breivik, the face of terror

Courtesy of the New York Times:

Norway suffered a pair of devastating attacks on Friday when powerful explosions shook the government center here, killing seven people, and shortly after a gunman stalked youths at an island summer camp for young members of the governing Labor Party, killing at least 80.

The explosions in Oslo, from one or more bombs, turned the tidy Scandinavian capital into a scene reminiscent of terrorist attacks in Baghdad or Oklahoma City, panicking people and blowing out windows of several government buildings, including one housing the office of the Norwegian prime minister, Jens Stoltenberg, who was unharmed.

The state television broadcaster, citing the police, said seven people had been killed and at least 15 wounded in the explosions, which they said appeared to be an act of domestic terrorism.

Even as the police locked down a large area of the city after the blasts, a man dressed as a police officer entered the youth camp on the island of Utoya, about 19 miles northwest of Oslo, a Norwegian security official said, and opened fire. “He said it was a routine check in connection with the terror attack in Oslo,” one witness told VG Nett, the Web site of a national newspaper.

Of the at least 80 people killed on the island, some were as young as 16, the police said on national television early Saturday.

Terrified youths jumped into the water to escape. “Kids have started to swim in a panic, and Utoya is far from the mainland,” said Bjorn Jarle Roberg-Larsen, a Labor Party member who spoke by phone with teenagers on the island, which has no bridge to the mainland. “Others are hiding. Those I spoke with don’t want to talk more. They’re scared to death.”

Many could not flee in time.

After the shooting the police seized a 32-year-old Norwegian man on the island, according to the police and Justice Minister Knut Storberget. He was later identified as Anders Behring Breivik and characterized by officials as a right-wing extremist, citing previous writings including on his Facebook page.

I was watching this unfold yesterday on Twitter and via news updates, starting with the bombings in Oslo and culminating with the shootings at the youth camp, and I just kept thinking "Jesus, is it over yet?"

All of those poor children doing nothing but enjoying their day at camp and suddenly they are screaming in terror running for their lives.

Is this guy Norway's Jared Loughner?  Another politically motivated madman, taking out his anger and frustration through terrorist acts directed at innocent bystanders and children? And will Norway respond the same way Arizona did, by refusing to implement more gun control laws to protect their citizens?

So much senseless violence for such petty reasons.

The Magic of Winnie the Pooh.

Before I begin this post I just want to mention that I used to be a power lifting and martial arts champion.

In other words I lifted really heavy things and punched people in the heads for trophies, and sometimes cash prizes.

Those are very, very manly things, I am sure you will agree.

Did you get that manly part?

Okay then, on to Winnie the Pooh.

In those emotionally overwhelming  moments when I first held my newborn daughter, I made a decision.

Well the first thing I thought was that somebody needed to take her and hose her off a little because she was covered in goo and it was making me gag a little, but the second thing that I thought was that I was going to make sure my daughter was exposed to the best things that life had to offer, which included reading to her from the classics of literature. (I actually wrote about that in an earlier post.)

So the very first book that I bought for us to read together was this one.

 

As you can no doubt tell from the tears in the cover and the weathered overall look, this book has been read, and reread, many, many times.

However I was in such a hurry to start reading the "classics" to my new born daughter that I literally purchased this book, which is NOT the watered down Disney version by the way, just days after her birth.

Though I was completely convinced that my daughter would have the IQ of a genius, it did occur to me that the current level of her comprehension might make this unsuitable for bedtime reading for at LEAST a few more weeks.

So to prepare her for the first step on her long literary adventure I bought this:

I know, isn't that adorable?

However in the baby instruction book that I bought, (because for some reason she did not come with one), it said that my daughter's eyes may not be able to focus on the mobile very well for the first few months, so I decided to buy one of these for her to sleep on:

And, of course, one of these:

Only the original Pooh bear would suffice for my daughter.

(You don't think I overdid it do you?)

So long story short, my daughter was raised around Winnie the Pooh, and Winnie the Pooh paraphernalia, and yes, she grew up LOVING the Winnie the Pooh stories. (So yes parents OCCASIONALLY the things you want your children to do they will actually do. Remember, I said occasionally!)

So let's fast forward about twenty three years into the future, to two days ago.

There I was surfing the net, looking for adventure movies full of action, and violence (and hopefully some tasteful nudity), to watch this upcoming weekend, when I happened to notice that this movie was also playing at the local theater.

Have you ever smelled a smell, or heard a sound, and suddenly found yourself transported to a different time and place? A distant, happy, nearly forgotten place which seems to envelope you in warm, soothing memories that quickly dissipate just as you find yourself reaching out to touch them?

Suddenly all thoughts of superheroes, giant transforming robots, and immature scatological comedies completely left my mind and all I wanted was to watch this movie.  This animated, G rated, Saturday matinee friendly movie.

Did I mention I used to be a bouncer at a strip club?  Well I was!

But you know I didn't REALLY want to see this move.........alone.

In fact there was only one way I would actually go through with it and humiliate myself by sitting in a sticky theater with a bunch of over caffeinated preschoolers. And let's face it there was NO WAY my too busy to even text her father back, adult daughter was going to want to watch this movie!

Right?

But I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask, so I did.

"So Honey, I happened to see that there was this new, probably completely screwed up, Winnie the Pooh movie out.  And I was wond..."

"Oh yeah, I was going to ask YOU if you wanted to go to that! I think it looks really good!  Do you remember all of that Winnie the Pooh stuff you bought me?  I kept it and still have all of it in storage! (You do?) So can we go tomorrow?"

"Sure.....I mean....if that is what YOU want? I guess I could find the time."

So it looked like we were going after all.

The only potential obstacle to our plan was that the movie started at 10:15 in the morning, which was the only time I could make it due to work commitments, and my daughter is NOT an early riser. (That kids, is what is known as a HUGE understatement!)

So the next day I decided to start waking my impossible to rouse daughter a whole hour before the movie was supposed to start. (Imagine ripping a giant tree trunk out of the ground, only then imagine that when you turn your back it replants itself and makes you start all over, and you will have SOME idea of what it is like to get my daughter out of bed before noon.)

However right when I had a couple of pots and pans to bang together in my hands, and was walking up to her bedroom door, I noticed that she was already in the bathroom getting ready. (Yeah I admit I had an "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" moment there.)

Before I knew it she was ready to go and we were on our way. On our way to see Winnie the Pooh.  The matinee showing.  My twenty four year old daughter and I. Why was I doing this again?

On the way we managed to catch up on all of the things that we are both too busy to discuss while living in the same house and sleeping only TWO DOORS AWAY FROM EACH OTHER! (Did I mention that she  texts me from inside her room when she wants to tell me something, rather than open the damn door and say "Hey Dad, I have something to tell you?" Well I am mentioning it now.)

When we got to the theater I told her she could get anything to eat she wanted, my treat.

So she did.

Thirty five dollars later (When did theaters start serving Filet Mignon?), we were ready to find our seats.

As anticipated the smallish theater was full of sticky little ankle biters that had apparently just broken out of the cotton candy factory, and were so hopped up on sugar I swear I saw their eyeballs vibrating.  But once the movie started they settled down to only intermittent screams of "Stop touching me!" and the occasional maniacal giggle.

The movie was okay, nothing special.  To be honest I liked the old Disney version a little better, but it was relatively entertaining. You know, for a cartoon.

But just as I was about to lean over and whisper my disappointment into my daughter's ear, I heard her laugh.

It swear it sounded different than her usual laugh, yet also...familiar.

So I glanced over.

It was just for a moment.  One bittersweet, precious, magical moment.

But it was enough.

Senator Lisa Murkowski addresses sex trafficking in Alaska.

Courtesy of Alaska News:

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said today that something must be done about the epidemic of domestic violence, sexual assault and sex trafficking among Alaska Natives and American Indians nationwide.

"The statistics on violence and assault are staggering, and whether it's one in three or one in four, any act of violence is unacceptable," Murkowski said in opening remarks at a Senate Committee on Indian Affairs hearing.

"I meet with far too many Alaskans who tell me things may be worse - there is so much whispered and silenced into the shadows, which damages not just the victims, but also their families," she said.

Murkowski's first question was to the Department of Justice, asking an associate attorney general, "Young women are being hunted. You've got predators waiting outside homeless teen shelters, going to events like the Alaska Federation of Natives conference. What is the Department of Justice doing to target these sex traffickers?"

I am very glad that Senator Murkowski is finally addressing this issue.


This has been one of Alaska's most terrible, and shameful secrets going back decades, and it is well past time that somebody well connected politically brought it out of the shadows and did something substantial to institute laws and educational programs to finally address the issue head on.

However I fear that Murkowki may not truly understand the depth of this problem. Here is how it was explained in a news report from December 2010, by the Fairbanks Newsminer:

Sex traffickers use a combination of mind games and beatings, promises and drugs to control girls, authorities said.

Alaska Native girls are commonly lured from their hometowns by friends or relatives who are already working as prostitutes. They invite the girl to come hang out and go shopping rent-free.

About one-third of the women arrested this year for prostitution in Anchorage are Alaska Native, according to Lacey's figures.

It was an Alaska Native girl who moved to Anchorage to stay with family at the age of 12 who helped point investigators toward another prostitution kingpin: Don Webster, also known as Jerry Starr, Goeden said.

Webster, who was sentenced to 30 years in prison in 2008, had tried to recruit the girl, Goeden said.

The FBI agent got to know the teen during visits to a youth jail. The pair talked about how the girl ended up selling her body at age 14 in Anchorage.

"Her response to me was, 'I could be back home in the village where I could be having sex with my grandpa for free, or I could be here getting paid for me,'" Goeden said.

"I didn't know what to say. I had no idea how to respond to this little girl."

 That is not a problem which a few stricter laws, or a few more rural community sex education classes, will solve.  This is a problem with deep roots in how some in the native community view women, how these women often view themselves, and how outsiders take advantage of these vulnerabilities.

If Senator Murkowski is serious about tackling this problem she needs recognize that this is going to require serious money going toward education in rural communities, providing much easier access to specially trained and licensed counselors, and an increase in a law enforcement presence that can go to a village to remove a child who is being molested immediately and put them someplace where they feel safe and will talk about their rapist without fear of being placed back into their homes.

(For those who are interested, I also addressed this terrible problem in an earlier post entitled Alaska's Secret Shame.)

Teabaggers let the cat out of the bag concerning ultimate goal for our public schools.

Courtesy of Think Progress:

In a series of e-mails and interviews, Teri Adams, the president of the Idependence Hall Tea Party Association, explains that her organization is involved in its voucher advocacy because it believes “public schools should go away.” Adams said that their ultimate goal is to “shut down public schools and have private schools only“:

“We think public schools should go away,’’ says Teri Adams, the head of the Independence Hall Tea Party and a leading advocate — both in New Jersey and Pennsylvania — of passage of school voucher bills. The tea party operates in those two states and Delaware. They should “go away,” she says, because “they are hurting our children.’’ [...] Adams says the current voucher program “discriminates” against wealthier students by providing public subsidies only to inner-city children in allegedly failing schools. Her group’s e-mails pushing vouchers caught the attention of James Kovalcin of South Brunswick, a retired public school teacher who asked Adams for clarification. She responded via email: “Our ultimate goal is to shut down public schools and have private schools only, eventually returning responsibility for payment to parents and private charities. It’s going to happen piecemeal and not overnight. It took us years to get into this mess and it’s going to take years to get out of it.”

Well there you go, any questions about the motives of the radical right wing now?


These people are willing to completely dismantle the American public school system, which has leveled the playing field to allow those who come from humble beginnings to rise to the top through hard work and access to a good education, in exchange for ONLY providing an adequate education for those that can afford it.

Essentially they are trying to gut the very foundation of the American dream, and attempting to impose a class system in this country, where only those who are born with means can achieve success. That is certainly NOT what the founders envisioned for this country:

After the Declaration of Independence, 14 states had their own constitutions by 1791, and out of the 14, 7 states had specific provisions for education. Jefferson believed that education should be under the control of the government, free from religious biases, and available to all people irrespective of their status in society. Others who vouched for public education around the same time were Benjamin Rush, Noah Webster, Robert Coram and George Washington.

And these Teabaggers dare to call themselves "patriots?"

If babies had the right to vote, the winner of our next Presidential election would be a foregone conclusion.

After I posted the "Oh Baby" video and the post referring to President Obama as the "Baby Whisperer" I found myself inundated with pictures of our president with babies. Apparently there are dozens and dozens of them.

Now I tend to resist the urge to revisit a topic after I have posted about it once, but I have to admit that after looking through these pictures there appears to be something almost magical in how Barack Obama interacts with our youngest Americans.

Take a look for yourself, and tell me if you agree.

And it isn't just the babies who are charmed by our President. Their older brothers and sisters seem to gravitate toward him as well.

You know if I were on Obama's reelection committee, I would simply run an political ad of nothing but President Obama interacting with children. The man gives an amazing speech, but his effortless rapport with children is an open window to his soul.

Take it from a guy who has worked with kids his entire life, and also enjoys a certain amount of automatic trust from them, you can learn a great deal about a person's humanity by how they interact with children.

Journalist Sarah Jones bravely delves into the world of the "Quiverfull Movement."

Vyckie Garrison ex-Quiverfull member

Courtesy of Politicususa:

Sarah Jones: Can you define “Quiverfull movement” and what you’ve identified as the patriarchal beliefs behind it?

Vyckie Garrison: I like to define Quiverfull as a very powerful head trip. It’s an all-encompassing vision of a big, happy family which infects the mind and affects every aspect of a Believer’s life. The term “Quiverfull” comes from a reference in Psalm 127 which likens children to “arrows” in the hands of a mighty man, “blessed is the man who has his quiver full of them.”

Quiverfull Believers eschew all forms of birth control in favor of “trusting the Lord” with their family planning. The Quiverfull ideal embraces a “biblical” model (read, fundamentalist) of the traditional family which insists that the husband is the head of the household and the wife is the submissive “helpmeet.”

Sarah Jones: How do those beliefs manifest for wives and female children? Can you give us some examples of expectations of wives and daughters that might surprise our readers?

Vyckie Garrison: In practice, the Quiverfull ideals often result in larger-than-average families (think, Jim Bob & Michelle Duggar of TLCs “19 & Counting” fame) in which the woman stays at home having babies, homeschooling, homesteading, dressing “modestly,” and most importantly, serving and submitting to her “lord,” i.e., her patriarchal husband.

The Quiverfull lifestyle is extremely demanding and the only way a woman can hope to succeed is to rely heavily on her older daughters. It is expected that a Quiverfull daughter will be fully capable of running the household, including all meal-preparation, laundry duties, child care and homeschooling of younger siblings by the age of twelve. Many girls are doing all this by the time they’re eight or ten because their mothers are so consumed with birthing more and more “arrows” to fill the quivers of their husbands.

A Quiverfull daughter is taught from a young age that her purpose in life is to serve the man whom God has placed in authority over her. She serves her father while she lives at home (she does this primarily by assisting her mother in domestic duties and child care). She absolutely must remain a virgin and is taught to expect to meet and marry her future husband through a father-led match-making process called “courtship.” Her education is geared toward developing domestic skills ~ college is generally considered unnecessary and even dangerous for her spiritual well-being.

Sarah Jones: Do Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann (both of whom share a belief in the bible replacing the constitution; i.e., a theocratic takeover of the American government) represent the beliefs you were taught and if so, how? If not, why?

Vyckie Garrison: When I was a fully-convinced Quiverfull believer, I did question how Sarah Palin could justify her political activities so long as she had children still living at home. I also thought it ironic that, according to the ideals she espouses, women should not hold authority over men, or even be allowed to vote for that matter.

Still, I supported Palin because she understands and promotes conservative Christian “family values.” I was especially impressed by her convictions with regard to “taking back America for God” — in my Quiverfull-colored opinion, Sarah Palin “got it.” Meaning, of course, that she has a decent understanding of Dominionist principles and she has a plan to lead America toward a “truly Biblical” (read, theocratic) society.

This philosophy of breeding for God is as old as religion itself. Older even.

It dates back to a time when the only hope that a community had of survival was to have more warriors, and more people working to support those warriors, than their enemies had at their disposal.

One of the main fears that Christians, even today, have is that the Muslims are out breeding them, and that ultimately they will lose their religious dominance and power structure. By the way that is the same fear that the White Power people have concerning Hispanics, Asians, and African Americans. And yes, the two ARE tied together.

I am still constantly amazed how Sarah Palin is able to gain the support from these hyper Fundamentalists when her entire lifestyle is an affront to the tenets of their belief system. It seems that essentially these people are bred to accept the lies told to them by their leaders, and therefore give her a free pass.

Please do click the link at the top and read this entire interview.  Though it is very troubling, it provides important information to help us understand where the Republican party keeps finding their supporters.

Another thing that the President of the United States and I have in common.

Over the course of my life, I have been an attorney, I’ve been a professor, I’ve been a state senator, I’ve been a U.S. senator — and I currently am serving as President of the United States. But I can say without hesitation that the most challenging, most fulfilling, most important job I will have during my time on this Earth is to be Sasha and Malia’s dad

President Obama also wrote up a very nice piece in People magazine for Father's Day.

Here is my favorite part:

That's not to say I've always been a perfect dad. I haven't. When Malia and Sasha were younger, work kept me away from home more than it should have. At times, the burden of raising our two daughters has fallen too heavily on Michelle. During the campaign, not a day went by that I didn't wish I could spend more time with the family I love more than anything else in the world.

But through my own experiences, and my continued efforts to be a better father, I have learned something over the years about what children need most from their parents.

They need our time, measured not only in the number of hours we spend with them each day, but what we do with those hours. I've learned that children don't just need us physically present, but emotionally available – willing to listen and pay attention and participate in their daily lives. Children need structure, which includes learning the values of self-discipline and responsibility.

I also had an absentee father and was raised by my hard working single mother.

My mom was not perfect, and she was often exasperated by my behaviors, but she was there when I needed her.  Every single time.

When my daughter was born I swore that every time she fell down I would be there to pick her up. That every time she woke up from a nightmare I would be there to chase away the bad dreams.  That every time she did not think she could do something, I would be right there telling her that yes she could, and that I had all of the faith in the world in her.

I was not able to there every single time she needed me because after we split her mother wanted to move out of state, but I was still present as often as was humanly possible. And there was never a time that she needed to talk to me that I did not pick up the phone, or that she wanted to come home that I did not scrape together the money for the ticket, or a time when she needed limits set that I allowed the fact that I missed her so very much while she was gone to keep me from doing my parental duty and saying "No."  (Which is perhaps the MOST important word a parent ever says to the child that they love.)

Just like my President, I have not always been the perfect dad. But don't tell my daughter that, because despite my many failings, she actually thinks I have.

And I kind of think that when Malia and Sasha are older they will have the very same opinion of THEIR father. Don't you think?