The things you miss when you don't have cable

Moonbat Central is watching MTV so you don't have to. Check out this enlightening (?) post on Cameron Diaz and Drew Barrymore's new show Trippin'. Apparently these two pampered celebs jet off to various third world backwaters and observe how happy the natives are without frivolous, earth-killing, western conveniences like electricity, running water, medical care, etc. Obscene.

Traumatized by the evening news

Yikes. I don't often watch the local news. Now I remember why I gave it up. Here are the stories from tonight:

-3rd grader pricks at least 19 classmates with a needle. One of the kids was HIV positive.
-Mother stabs two children to death.
-Boy kills shoots ex-girlfriend and kills her father.
-Man dragged under by alligator. Hasn't been seen since.
-14 year old pleads guilty to bludgeoning "friend" to death.

Turns out the first story about a young mother abandoning her baby at a hospital was the good news.

Send Mia to kindergarten? After that broadcast, I don't want to let her out of the house.

Decisions, decisions

So here I was thinking I would send Mia to the public kindergarten after one more year in preschool. They have a "transitional kindergarten" where the kids are in a special needs class most of the day and have lunch and gym with the "typical" kids. She already knows most of the academic stuff they learn in kindy. So I said "How much damage can they do in one year?"

That was before the handcuffing incident. I didn't think much about it until I read this Baldilocks post. So many of the commenters are saying "This kid is special ed" or "This kid should be special ed." I always figured special ed. was a dumping ground for behavior problems. I just didn't think the behavior problems could be so severe in kindergarten.

It got me thinking that special ed. really isn't a good fit for Mia. She's not academically delayed (that we've noticed, yet). She needs help with speech and with her social skills. I'm beginning to doubt she'll get that in a room with even one or two of these kids with behavior problems.

Sigh. Well, I have a year or so to consider.

From the "What was he thinking" files

(AFP/Jim Watson)

When I saw this on the news, I knew it was going to be a Jay Leno bit. And it was. Good thing he's not running for reelection.

Picture via Michelle Malkin.

Do opportunistic stabbings hurt less?

Far be it from me to second guess a military judge (really, no sarcasm), but you have to admit this was a poor choice of words.

Hassan Akbar, convicted last week of premeditated murder and attempted premeditated murder, also attacked one of his guards recently. From the AP:

Akbar took a sharp item from an office where he was meeting with lawyers and attacked the M-P who was assigned to escort him to the men's room.

But the judge won't allow that information to be used in Akbar's sentencing hearing because it was only an "opportunistic stabbing."

I own several pairs of scissors. I have the "opportunity" to stab people every day. Sometimes, I even have the inclination. But somehow, I always manage to make it through the day without stabbing anyone. I guess I'm missing my opportunity to go to prison.

(Via Michelle Malkin)

More Missouri Moonbats in the News

Apparently there is a "peace" protest every Wednesday in Columbia, MO. And every Wednesday one counter protester arrives with a "Support the Troops" sign. Well, it seems one voice of dissent was one too many for a certain Columbia peacenik:

"He started taunting me and reached out and pushed on my shoulder," Preckshot says. "Each time he pushed, it got a little harder. When I saw his hand come at me again, I grabbed it. I felt fearful."

As Preckshot pushed the man’s hand away, "he slugged me right in the face," she says.

Yes, that's right. He made a special trip down the street to punch a 5'2'' bespectacled 49 year old woman in the face. His mamma must be so proud. Of course his fellow peaceniks wouldn't give him up, even though they have a "strict code of nonviolence." This woman had to track him down at another "peace" event and take his picture, complete with middle finger extended, as it happens. Besides the assault, he was also charged with resisting arrest. Even by rural Missouri standards, this guy's a loser.

(via LGF)

We had to take Mia to Children's Mercy to have blood drawn today (allergy testing). For the past week, I've been completely obsessed with all the things that could go wrong. It's not easy to get a needle into those tiny little veins, and Mia has been know to put up a serious fight. But the nurse was highly skilled and Mia was as well behaved as one could reasonably hope.

While we were in the waiting room, I saw a kid with a sweatshirt that was supposed to look like a college sweatshirt, but instead of KANSAS STATE or some such, it said MARY JANE. I'm sorry, but if you're young enough to be going to Children's Mercy, you're too young to be wearing a Mary Jane shirt. Yeah, that's right. Impress all those grade schoolers with how cool you are. Actually, they're probably just wondering why you're wearing Mary's shirt.

Putting the smackdown on heresy since 1981

The students at Benedictine College are very excited that the new pope is calling himself Benedict. The local news just has an interview with guy wearing a "Cardinal Ratzinger Fan Club" t-shirt. Club motto: "Putting the smackdown on heresy since 1981."

Update: There's a real fan club, with a blog and everything. (Via Ben Hammersley)

So a Rabbi and a Nazi walk into a bar...

well, an airport actually:

A rabbi and a man wearing Nazi insignias were cited for disorderly conduct Sunday after an alleged fight at Kansas City International Airport.

You can't make this stuff up. I heard about this on the local news last night and wondered why someone would be wearing a swastika shirt at the airport. Little did I know that the National Socialist Movement was having its annual convention here. And guess who the speaker was:

The speaker whom Boswell took to the airport was Jacques Pluss, a former adjunct history professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey. The university dismissed Pluss last month for missing too many days of class, but Pluss — a member of the National Socialist Movement — said he was let go because university officials thought he was too politically incorrect.

I guess now that he's unemployed, he has more time to devote to "the movement".

NCLB exposing a flaw in the system

Joanne Jacobs has an interesting post on the No Child Left Behind Act and why African-Americans should support it. She quotes from this New York Times Op/Ed:

The law is not perfect and will need adjustments. But its core requirement that the states educate minority children to the same standards as white children breaks with a century-old tradition of educational unfairness. The new law could potentially surpass Brown v. Board of Education in terms of widening access to high-quality public education.

I just had that unfairness underlined for me the other day. I live in a racially mixed school-district, but, you know how it is. Many white families send their kids to private school or move to a better district when their kids reach school age. As a result, the majority of the school kids are black. Well, the district newsletter came in the mail the other day and as I leafed through it, I saw a picture full of white kids. My first though was that I had been mistaken about the white-flight thing. Then I read the caption. It was a picture of the kids in the gifted program. Telling.

More African-American families are homeschooling, a traditionally white activity, because they can't get a decent education for their kids without spending a bundle on a private school. And the scary thing is, that it doesn't seem to matter how good the school district is. No matter what, you tend to find the minorities in the remedial classes.

I went to a very white highschool in the suburbs, but about 5% of the students were Hispanic. The thing was, that you never saw them in class. Then one semester, I decided to take a remedial math class because I was not doing well in the regular class. I discovered two things. First, I discovered where all the Hispanics were. Second, I discovered that the remedial classes were not intended to help the students brush up on their math skills so that they could do more advanced work later. Nope, they were just warehouses where the kids multiplied binomials all semester and never advanced. I had to transfer back to the regular class, more behind than ever. I think I may have been the only student to ever move up from the remedial track. The teacher seemed a bit flumoxed when I asked (demanded, actually) to transfer.

I could ramble on all night about the inadequacies of our public education system, but I won't. I'll just wonder when this is going to break wide open. Someday, they're going to open the doors of those crappy inner-city schools and no one is going to walk through.

Well, I can dream, can't I?

Refugees: Out of the frying pan, into the fire.

I missed this article last week on the corruption that infuses UN-run refugee camps. We've heard a lot recently about the sexual abuse that runs rampant in these camps, but this was new to me:

In fact, abuse at these camps went beyond sexual violations: Injustices of one sort or another were perpetrated by U.N. missions or their affiliated nongovernmental organizations every day in the camps I visited. Corruption was the norm, in particular the embezzlement of food and funds by NGO officials, which often left camp resources dangerously inadequate. Utterly arbitrary judicial systems in the camps subjected refugees to violent physical punishment or months in prison for trivial offenses -- all at the whim of officials and in the absence of any sort of hearing.

And this:

...local NGO employees who are contracted by the United Nations to work in the camps are covered by a de facto implied immunity. That is, if these individuals are identified as being connected with U.N. operations, they will probably never face charges for their actions by local authorities. In West Africa, most of the sexual misconduct accusations are leveled against local NGO staff members.

This is appalling. Not only are the foreign UN officials and peacekeepers above the law, but they place their cloak of unaccountability around certain chosen locals as well. I'm embarrassed that the United States puts it's de facto stamp of approval on this nightmare everyday.

(via Inkwell)

April 15th

Jack Mercer has a post on self-employment tax sticker shock that put me in a nostalgic frame of mind. When we first got married, Brian was a graduate student and did some consulting. I worked at the university library. In other words, we were poor. After graduation, he got a job with an actual salary. He also happened to do a lot of consulting that year. We thought we were rich... until we visited the accountant. Oh boy. He kept asking "Are you sure you don't have more deductions?" So now that Brian is a professor, we can rest secure in the knowledge that nearly 50% of every consulting dollar he earns goes to taxes. And, just for fun, we get to pay the City of Kansas City 1% of everything for the privilege of living or working here.

Be sure to check out Jack's plan for a new, simplified tax form.

How do working mothers handle this?

Mia is sick, again. I knew she would get a lot of colds when I sent her to preschool last August, and she did. But what about all these more serious, stay home for days kind of illnesses? Since January she's had influenza with accompanying ear infection, rhotovirus (7 full sick days) and now, another high fever. Sure, it's inconvienent that I can't run the errands I had planned, but what if I had a boss to report to? Mia has almost missed enough school to eat up the generous number of sick days I had at my last job. And it's only April.

Update: It was strep. The first round of antibiotics wasn't doing the trick, so we had to bump her up to something a little more powerful. That's a bit unnerving. But she's getting better and I'm getting a little more sleep, so maybe I'll be able to string a few coherent thoughts together in the near future.

I'm not saying that this special diet is expensive,

but if in 15 years, Mia wants to know why we haven't saved anything for her college education, you'll know why. I just paid $4.99 for loaf of gluten-free breadthat's about half the size of a regular loaf. On the other hand, we're saving a bundle by not eating out.

Oh where, oh where have my comments gone?

So I just noticed my comments were gone. I haven't checked out my blog in a few days, so I don't know how long they've been gone. I have them back now and it looks like any comments anyone may have left are back.

Even Bunnies Blog

My daughter is a big fan of the PBS show Arthur. Too be honest, I like it too, especially the Postcards from Buster segments. Buster even has a blog. For those of you without young kids, Buster (a bunny) flys around the USA with his pilot dad visiting interesting places.

By the way, we've seen episodes on the Chinese New Year in San Francisco, Lebanese Christians and Orthodox Jews in New York, Hmong in Madison, Muslims in Chicago and many episodes on Hispanics in the Southwest. We also saw square-dancers in Kentucky and surfers in Cocoa Beach lest one be overwhelmed by the multiculturalism.

So Buster is going around the county, but he might as well be going around the world. I was reminded of the derision heaped upon non-passport holding Americans by Michael Moore. Passports? With all these ethnic groups living here in the US, we don't need no stinkin' passports.

Let's talk about something else

You know, I ignored Terri Schiavo (too horrible to watch) for as long as I could, and I should have stuck with that original impulse. Forgive me if I am abruptly cutting off any conversation but, I'm moving on. My blog is my hobby. It's supposed to be fun. Well, what do you know? Turns out that mothers of disabled kids can't blog about the legal murder of the disabled for fun. I guess I thought I could get away with it, because I don't really think of Mia as disabled, but... let's just say there must be some reason she qualified for that developmental preschool. Now, Mia's very high-functioning, but if the (alas) respected Peter Singer has no problem with offing hemophiliacs, then I can pretty much guess how he feels about autistics.

To sum up: blogging = fun. Wondering where my baby ranks on some academic's list of euthanasia candidates = not fun.

Zogby poll

Here's a press release regarding that Zogby poll that found Americans did not, in fact, want Terri Schiavo starved to death:

"If a disabled person is not terminally ill, not in a coma, and not being kept alive on life support, and they have no written directive, should or should they not be denied food and water," the poll asked.

A whopping 79 percent said the patient should not have food and water taken away while just 9 percent said yes.

Yeah, this issue is really gonna hurt the Republicans. And on my pet topic:

When asked directly about Terri's case and told the her estranged husband Michael "has had a girlfriend for 10 years and has two children with her" 56 percent of Americans believed guardianship should have been turned over to Terri's parents while 37 percent disagreed.

Maybe that 37% is made up of married guys with girlfriends.

(via The Corner)

Family Matters

I haven't been over to Samizdata in a little while, so I just got around to reading the posts on Terri Schiavo. Check out this quote from Perry de Havilland:

To hear conservatives indicate that a husband is not the person best qualified to decide what his wife would have wanted indicates a view of what marriage constitutes that seems rather at odds with the usual conservative obsession with the importance and gravity of that institution.

I guess I've already made my feelings on this clear. Michael Schiavo stretches the conservative definition of "husband" almost beyond recognition and mocks the "importance and gravity of that institution." But that's not my point. Rather, I wonder, are all libertarians this tribal?

I would have thought that the primacy of the family unit as a group entity would be a social conservative position and the primacy of the individual would be the libertarian position. But here we have SC's saying "Screw the husband, think of Terri" and the Libertarians saying "What about the rights of the husband to speak for the clan." Odd.

Or not. I guess for SCs, "the culture of life" trumps opposition to government intervention in the clan, while for Libertarians, a dim view of government trumps opposition to clan imposition upon the individual.

Still, it's odd to find myself so strongly on the side of the SCs. I bought the whole "rights of the individual" thing hook, line and sinker. Enough to put me at odds with SCs much of the time. I thought it was a liberal and feminist position because, historically, the clan does not act in the interest of any individual member (except possibly the head) and those who suffer the most are the women, who are considered disposable.

Let's review how well the clan takes care of the ladies:

Dowry murder: The Indian government has reported that an estimated 6,000 women a year die as a result of dowry abuse in India. Many more are maimed and injured. While these figures are shocking, they may only be the tip of the iceberg. Others have placed the number of dowry-related deaths closer to 25,000 a year. [snip] The most common form of dowry homicide is a phenomena known as "bride-burning," whereby the women is doused with kerosene and set ablaze. The murder is often made to look like a "kitchen accident" or a suicide.

Female Infanticide: According to a 2001 census, the overall birthrate for India was 927 girls per 1,000 boys, a steady decline from 945 girls per 1,000 boys in 1991 and 962 in 1981. These statistics mean that, as a result of abortions or killing girls in infancy, up to 5 million baby girls "disappear" from India every year.

Honor Killing: In 1999, more than two-thirds of all murders in Gaza strip and West bank were most likely honor killings.

I could go on, but I'm depressing myself and I'm sure you've heard if all before.

I'm glad Perry trusts his wife with his life. I'm sure most married people do. But let's recall that 50% of Americans who marry will find out they were wrong to do so. And a quick google search reminds us that for women all over the world, such trust would certainly be misplaced.

Hence the desire to protect the individual. It's disturbing to see the libertarian side of the blogosphere respond with a giant shrug. Perhaps I'm just dead wrong about libertarian support for individual rights. Maybe, as long as it's dear old dad and not Tom Delay ordering a difficult gal doused in kerosine and set on fire, then it's OK. Libertarians, feel free to jump in here.

The Food Free Diet

I should have remained blissful in my ignorance. But no. I'd heard that some kids with developmental problems respond well to nutritional supplements. So, I took Mia off to a naturopath to find out if he could work any voodoo on her. Boy could he ever. We've got supplements out the wahzoo and a fun new diet that basically eliminates any food that a three-year-old might actually eat. Feingold, gluten-free, casein free, soy-free: essentially food free. So, for the past two weeks, I've been going blind reading the ingredients lists and straining my shoulder putting all those things we can't eat back up on the shelf.

I shouldn't complain though. Today, Mia said "I'm hungry." Doesn't sound like much, but she's never used "I" correctly before, let alone in a contraction. Could be a coincidence. Time will tell. If we don't starve first.

Update: Things are looking up. Talked to the doc today and tomatoes, grapes and jelly (staple foods around here) are back on our edible list. Alas pizza, mcdonalds and cinnamon rolls (also staple foods) are still verboten.