Month: December 2003

Saddam Hussein was capture by U.S. Army forces. Quickly, there was a backlash. Howard Dean claimed that America is not safer? He may as well have claimed the sky is not blue.

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said he did not support the death penalty for Hussein. Surely there comes a point when a person’s evil justifies taking that person’s life. For Kofi Annan, hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of murders (not to mention rapes and tortures) does not rise to that level.

Please God, never let the U.N. become the global government it wants to be.

Paul Harvey told this story a few years ago. Honeybun laughs at me when I try to tell it. I cannot get through it without welling up. Here is an inferior retelling:

Sarah remembers living in an orphanage. During Christmas some groups would come by to give the children gifts. One year, Sarah received a Christmas card that was covered with felt. She opened it up and read the greeting, “God loves you, you are a special person. Merry Christmas from the San Jose Fire Department.�

Sarah kept the card and anytime she felt lonely, she would pull out the card, rub the felt and read the greeting. She read the card so often, the felt rubbed off eventually wore off. But every time she read it, she knew she was special.

Later Sarah was adopted. Her mother took her to the nursing home during Christmas to visit the residents. Each year she would see the residents participate in the activities except for one man who would sit and scowl at the celebration.

She asked her mother why the man didn’t participate. Sarah’s mother didn’t know. The next year Sarah was thinking of the man and remember how the Christmas card made her feel. She got some paper, glue and scissors. She cut some felt and pasted it to the front. Inside she wrote, “God loves you, you are a special person. Merry Christmas, love, Sarah.�

When they went to the nursing home, the man was sitting in his chair. Sarah walked up to him and gave him the card. The man looked at the card, opened it, and read the greeting. Then he looked at Sarah and said “Thank you.� That year instead of sitting alone, he sat Sarah on his lap and sang carols with everyone else. It was the first time Sarah saw him smile.

When they were leaving, Sarah asked her mother what the man did before he retired. Her mother said, “He was a fireman in the San Jose Fire Department.�

The December 8, 2003 issue of People magazine has a story about former NBA star Kevin Johnson. (Side note – my brush with fame was meeting Kevin Johnson right after he was traded to Phoenix when he came into the restaurant I worked in.)

Kevin Johnson was concerned with the failing Sacramento High School in California. People says the high school was “plagued by plummeting test scores, student apathy and a deteriorating campus.” Only 20% of students could read at grade level. His solution was to raise $7 million through his foundation St. Hope and convert the campus into a charter school.

Who could be against a philanthropist wanting to spend millions to educate inner city kids? Public educators. Johnson’s biggest opponent was The Sacramento City Teachers Association. A major reason was their objection to the school being run by St. Hope – a faith based organization.

Some people claim that religion leads to ignorance. It turns out Secularism led to ignorance at Sacramento High and “educators” would rather see kids condemned to a life without education than see them learn to read and perhaps hear about faith in the process.

Like a fellow blogger of mine that shall remain nameless (but is linked to from this site), I am lazy. Therefore, I do not proofread with anything that resembles attention-to-detail*.

It has come to my attention that I spelled “especially” wrong in my previous post. As a show of my rebel attitude, I refuse to correct it.

(*This is an example of why resumes cannot be trusted. In the opening paragraph of mine, I claim to have great attention-to-detail as a strength. Honeybun always laughs at that one.)

Tonight I’m going to a party hosted by a co-worker. These things are always touchy. You want to go and enjoy yourself, but you pray no one gets really drunk and does something stupid – espicially yourself. Since I can’t drink anymore, I’m not as worried about me doing something idiotic in front of my boss or his wife.

We’ll see if anyone else does anything embarrassing. We can only hope 🙂

UPDATE:
The party went well. No one got slobbering drunk and no teddy bears were subject to being thrown up on. The host did get himself engaged though. Good for him.

Amanda Stiles, a sophmore at Parkway High School in Shreveport, Louisiana, has been expelled for one year for having Advil in her purse. Amanda’s purse was searched after another student reported her for smoking at school. The teacher did not find cigarettes or a lighter, but did find the Advil.

The Board Superintendent claimed the school system is following a state law that requires a one-year expulsion and being consistent in the system’s “zero-tolerance” policy.

So another group of presumably competent educators has sacrificed good judgement on the altar of zero-tolerance.

The parents say they cannot afford private school. The result of this horribly short-sighted decision is a young girl described as an “average” student is being denied the opportunity to be educated. Considering the poor judgement the board used, she probably isn’t any worse off.

A denver judge has ruled that Colorado’s school voucher program is unconstitutional. Poor kids cannot use vouchers to escape shoddy public schools to get a better education.

Judge Meyer wrote, “I see no way to interpret the voucher program statute in a way that does not run afoul of the principle of local control.”

The voucher program is designed to allow parents with children in failing schools to attend private schools of their choice. In other words, its for districts that have chosen not to excercise the local control they have.

This is just another example of courts thwarting the will of the people. The suggested constitutional conflict is a thinly veiled attempt to rule by judicial fiat. Again.

Oppenents of the voucher plan claim it will undermine public education by siphoning off students and the tax dollars they bring. This is a bald faced lie. It will actually give more money per student to each district. The money put towards the voucher is less than the money paid to the district to educate the student. The district keeps the difference between what it would have received fo the student to attend the public school and what is put toward the voucher. Sounds great for the students remaining at the school.

But the oppenents aren’t really interested in educating students. They would rather keep the status quo where parents have no control over the way their children are indoctrinated.

13 days…..tick, tick, tick, tick.

George Harrison, Johhny and June Cash, and Warren Zevon (who was he?) all have something in common. They are all dead and all received multiple Grammy nominations this year.

If your career needs a boost – go ahead and die. Problem is, you can only do it once.

I liked this comic.