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12 novembre Thoughts this Holiday SeasonWelcome to the Holiday Season, 2007!
I've been away for a bit. I had a blast at Halloween - decorating the house, giving away the BIG candy bars from Costco. Not the 'fun size'. Not the 'bite size'. Nooooo -- the full size candy bars. I had scary music coming from the garage, creepy tombstones in the yard, spider webs everywhere with bloody body parts hanging in the webs, and a cauldron bubbling over spreading fog all over the front porch. I even had two huge scary eyes hung in two windows on the side of the house facing the neighborhood. They made it look like a huge cat was living in the house! LOL! Shawn came over. He donned a Jigsaw mask (you know, from the SAW movies?) and after the youngster pushed the doorbell, he'd throw the door open and roar at them. Then, while they were jumping back with a horrified look on their face and screaming, I'd come to the door and calm them down and offer them candy and we'd all smile and laugh. All-in-all, the scary environment and Shawn resulted in one teenie dropping her dress on the porch and running away; two separate girls crying; and one teenie...well...wetting herself. But consistently through it all, everyone (including the parents) told us that our house (and huge candy) was the best of the night! :) Yep. All worth it. I can't wait for next year... ;)
What I'm thinking about lately:
Will the Liberal Press ever make news out of this? Likely No.
While watching national news this last weekend, I heard this week about the man who was the Arabic-speaking FBI agent (George Piro) who was tasked with debriefing Saddam Hussein after his capture. From the article I (finally) located about this (see link below), he interviewed Saddam every day for about a year. What's amazing is what he learned: that Saddam admitted that Iraq never had weapons of mass destruction, but that he was so worried about Iran possibly invading, that he initiated a detailed policy to spread misinformation world-wide to make other nations think that they had WMD. He did this to keep Iran away from Iraq's borders. He also admitted to continually turning away
the UN inspectors because he didn't want the truth to come out that he didn't have WMD.
This is profound. It explains HOW and WHY the US intel agents told the Bush administration that Iran did indeed have WMD; and why Colin Powell presented this information to the UN and went to war.
It appears that misguided female tendencies and liberals have single-handedly created a crisis for the US economy.
They've done this by ensuring that our children will not be able to successfully compete with their world-wide peers for jobs. I've watched the teachers union systematically oppose any attempt to measure and reward (according to performance) either teachers or students. Female tendencies never want anyone to feel bad. This is a good thing at home, but not at school. At school, this tendency eliminates all competition, giving everyone a gold star - no matter their actual performance in relation to others. Proof of this is a report I heard recently
where large employers were saying that hiring and managing 20-somethings is very challenging because they need constant ego-stroking and Thank-Yous -- even when their performance is substandard. I call this the 'gold star' effect. Everyone has to be a winner. I saw this reflected in my own life. While in elementary school, I was always placed in advanced classes. Then 'open classrooms' came along. The goal of "open classrooms" was to put all kids together in one big class so no one felt bad. The pace of the class was the slowest child, so no one was left behind. I got so bored with the slow pace that I mentally checked out and my grades inevitably suffered.
Another example of this tendency is the drive to eliminate bullies in school. I was bullied by some very mean and tough girls in high school -- bullied terribly. How did I deal with it? I used humor and ingenuity. I had to get creative to overcome it. But I'm not so sure that eliminating all bullies (which is a popular theme in schools today) is either a) possible; or b) healthy for our kids. This seems like another attempt to encase our children in padded rooms for fear that they should ever be hurt. What will the NEA do when these sheltered kids have a bullying boss, or a conniving coworker? Will the NEA be there to save that poor child? No.
My observations, and the fear these have occasioned in me for our future workers, were recently confirmed by a talk Bill Gates gave in March of 2007 to the Senate Health Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. From an article on his speech (link below):
"He noted that we have among the lowest high school graduation rates in the industrialized world. As we've said here before, so much of the resistance to education reform has come from none other than the National Education Association, a group that consistently puts self-interest above that of the students."
"He talked about the need for H1B visa and green card reform, to allow the world's best and brightest to come here -- or to remain here after their education -- so that we can keep our innovation edge. Otherwise, it is increasingly likely that the jobs will follow them home, a bad solution for Americans and American manufacturing."
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