In the past few weeks, I have about ten subjects that have irked me to anger, but I can't write decently when I'm angry. So, here is a very serious problem I now deal with on a daily basis: 12 Problems Only Busty Girls Have.
As a former ranking member of the IBTC** whose middle school/high school/college/twenties prayers for boobs were all miraculously answered at once after having my second child [in what can only be described as a cruel joke by God], I can attest to having experienced all of these problems firsthand now [with the exception of the suspenders problem]. I hereby publicly apologize to all of my busty friends whom I mocked when they would complain about the "plight" of bustiness. I AM SORRY.
*They need to replace suspenders to swinging a golf club. [Who wears suspenders anyhow beside The Cajun Cook and beings from Ork?]
**IBTC: Itty Bitty Titty Committee
Friday, April 13, 2012
Thursday, March 8, 2012
A Feminist Distinction
Please check out "Modern Feminism Means Equal . . . Outcome?" by Chelsea Gruenwald at Misfit Politics. The piece makes a marvelous distinction between modern feminism's faulty focus on equal outcomes rather than equal means. A quick worthwhile read.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Mourning The Loss Of A Great Voice And Inspiration: Andrew Breitbart RIP
Right now lots of Andrew Breitbart anecdotes are swirling around on the blogosphere and twitterverse. I didn't know the man, but I am a huge fan of his. I've read a lot of these anecdotes and tributes today. My favorites, by far, were those of James Taranto of the WSJ and, of course, my favorite person on the internets, Jim Treacher [I mean, Sean Medlock, I still am not used it!] of the Daily Caller. I've spent most of today following @jtLOL's feed; Sean's been paying tribute to Breitbart's penchant for comically retweeting his detractors' vitriole.
The core motivation of conservatives' love of Andrew Breitbart was not that he was hyper-conservative, because he wasn't particularly hyper-partisan. It was because he had no compunction for calling out the lying, smear perpetrating, and hyper-partisan liberal 'journalists' [or DNC talking point shills] in that ballsy in-ones-face manner in which most conservatives would love to engage.
By definition, conservatives are, well, conservative. I joked during the Health Care Act Townhalls that the liberal media's portrayal of angry violent conservatives at these townhalls was ridiculous as evidenced by their wardrobe: golf shirts and madras and sperrys. Conservatives' version of confrontation is the same as liberals' version of restrained/repressed civility.
And then there was Andrew Breitbart: a living, breathing, erudite id and ego of the conservative conscience without the usual self-defeating conservative super-ego. He was entertaining even at his most obnoxious moments. I do not think I have ever laughed so loud and hard at anything recently than watching his confrontation of the 2012 CPAC Occupy Protestors. "Behave Yourself!"
I pray for his wife and children that they may have strength and peace. I hope his children will always know just how beloved and brave their father was. *Well, darn it, I hope someone writes a tribute this good about me some day. The Weekly Standard's Matt Labash obliges.
The core motivation of conservatives' love of Andrew Breitbart was not that he was hyper-conservative, because he wasn't particularly hyper-partisan. It was because he had no compunction for calling out the lying, smear perpetrating, and hyper-partisan liberal 'journalists' [or DNC talking point shills] in that ballsy in-ones-face manner in which most conservatives would love to engage.
By definition, conservatives are, well, conservative. I joked during the Health Care Act Townhalls that the liberal media's portrayal of angry violent conservatives at these townhalls was ridiculous as evidenced by their wardrobe: golf shirts and madras and sperrys. Conservatives' version of confrontation is the same as liberals' version of restrained/repressed civility.
And then there was Andrew Breitbart: a living, breathing, erudite id and ego of the conservative conscience without the usual self-defeating conservative super-ego. He was entertaining even at his most obnoxious moments. I do not think I have ever laughed so loud and hard at anything recently than watching his confrontation of the 2012 CPAC Occupy Protestors. "Behave Yourself!"
I pray for his wife and children that they may have strength and peace. I hope his children will always know just how beloved and brave their father was. *Well, darn it, I hope someone writes a tribute this good about me some day. The Weekly Standard's Matt Labash obliges.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Military Children Are Being Held Hostage
By bad schools and bad school systems.
In honor of National School Choice Week, I am writing about a subject very near and dear to my heart, military child education.
When it comes to the short end of the straw, military children get it time and time again--whether in times of war or peace. They move and start over every couple years in and out of public school systems who could give two bits less about them except for the federal moneys they bring with them. Mind you, these school systems are mostly located in areas whose ENTIRE ECONOMY is centered around the existence of that military base. Every year, these school systems receive extra funding for having active duty military attend their schools. Recently, due to the unignorable inadequacy of these military child holding pens masquerading as schools, the DOD has decided to give them even MORE money to the tune of $250M.
Here's the dirty little secret that every single military parent knows. It doesn't matter how much money you pour into those school systems, it still won't fix the problem. Because when it comes right down to it, money is not the problem: lack of control over our children's education is. They are giving this money to crappy local school districts [on top of the federal subsidy they receive per child of non-resident active duty attending their school] and the military members have ABSOLUTELY NO SAY in how that money is allocated. The local school boards are elected by local residents and they are usually entrenched local yokels who have little to no connection to the military. How about we create thresholds where for every 10% of military children attending a school district, they have to reserve one voting seat on their school board for an active duty military member either electable or appointed by the local base commander. Then we tie the federal subsidies to fulfillment of this threshold requirement. Most military members I know would jump at the chance to be civic leaders where they are stationed, but they face the common obstacle in that they are unknowns in the community.
Right now, 32% of all homeschooled children are military. That's insane. I have a lot of friends who homeschool for various reasons, but the biggest one being they can't afford private schools that are 1] better able to control the fluidity and quality of their children's education and 2] have the ability to better control the self-esteem sapping pitfall of constantly being a new kid or outsider. Then there are parents like myself who spend every bit of our tiny military expendable income on private school for our children. On an officer's income it's a stretch and just another sacrifice we make as part of serving our country, but on an enlisted income it's an impossibility. To me, that is just unconscionable. We have laid just one more burden on the military spouse to not only get by as a single parent deployment after deployment, but now they have the extra added burden of homeschooling their children because no reasonable sane person could send their children to local public schools.
A further solution to the problem military families face would be to give military families the federal subsidy check. Let them get their kids into local private schools and subsidize their tuition!! Where I live in CA, the base schools are run by the CA school system. The same CA school system who, as of 2007 was ranked 46th of all states. FORTY-SIXTH. It should be noted, however, that the average classroom teacher salary in CA is over $69K per annum only to be outspent by second ranked Massachusetts at $71K per annum. Obviously CA is doing something wrong here. The school district where I would be forced to send my children is ranked 574/766 of all the districts in the forty-sixth worst state for education. The best rated local elementary school is rated 946 in the state out of 5188. Most of the children attending that school are children of field grade and above officers. The other base option is number 4513/5188. See where I am going with this?
The aforementioned 946th ranked elementary school raises $80K in extra funds from the parents over the course of the year. Yet their kindergarten class has 40 kids to one teacher, no aide, and no special subjects like art, music, gym, or technology. Pathetic. The local Catholic schools raise less than that per year yet costs $4500/student to educate [as opposed to the $8700 per pupil in the public school district]. Their student to teacher ratio is 10:1 while the public school district claims to be 16:1. This is truly an outrage. Let's save some money, DOD, and subsidize private school tuition instead of crappy mismanaged leeching school districts. Give our military children and families a chance.
In honor of National School Choice Week, I am writing about a subject very near and dear to my heart, military child education.
When it comes to the short end of the straw, military children get it time and time again--whether in times of war or peace. They move and start over every couple years in and out of public school systems who could give two bits less about them except for the federal moneys they bring with them. Mind you, these school systems are mostly located in areas whose ENTIRE ECONOMY is centered around the existence of that military base. Every year, these school systems receive extra funding for having active duty military attend their schools. Recently, due to the unignorable inadequacy of these military child holding pens masquerading as schools, the DOD has decided to give them even MORE money to the tune of $250M.
Here's the dirty little secret that every single military parent knows. It doesn't matter how much money you pour into those school systems, it still won't fix the problem. Because when it comes right down to it, money is not the problem: lack of control over our children's education is. They are giving this money to crappy local school districts [on top of the federal subsidy they receive per child of non-resident active duty attending their school] and the military members have ABSOLUTELY NO SAY in how that money is allocated. The local school boards are elected by local residents and they are usually entrenched local yokels who have little to no connection to the military. How about we create thresholds where for every 10% of military children attending a school district, they have to reserve one voting seat on their school board for an active duty military member either electable or appointed by the local base commander. Then we tie the federal subsidies to fulfillment of this threshold requirement. Most military members I know would jump at the chance to be civic leaders where they are stationed, but they face the common obstacle in that they are unknowns in the community.
Right now, 32% of all homeschooled children are military. That's insane. I have a lot of friends who homeschool for various reasons, but the biggest one being they can't afford private schools that are 1] better able to control the fluidity and quality of their children's education and 2] have the ability to better control the self-esteem sapping pitfall of constantly being a new kid or outsider. Then there are parents like myself who spend every bit of our tiny military expendable income on private school for our children. On an officer's income it's a stretch and just another sacrifice we make as part of serving our country, but on an enlisted income it's an impossibility. To me, that is just unconscionable. We have laid just one more burden on the military spouse to not only get by as a single parent deployment after deployment, but now they have the extra added burden of homeschooling their children because no reasonable sane person could send their children to local public schools.
A further solution to the problem military families face would be to give military families the federal subsidy check. Let them get their kids into local private schools and subsidize their tuition!! Where I live in CA, the base schools are run by the CA school system. The same CA school system who, as of 2007 was ranked 46th of all states. FORTY-SIXTH. It should be noted, however, that the average classroom teacher salary in CA is over $69K per annum only to be outspent by second ranked Massachusetts at $71K per annum. Obviously CA is doing something wrong here. The school district where I would be forced to send my children is ranked 574/766 of all the districts in the forty-sixth worst state for education. The best rated local elementary school is rated 946 in the state out of 5188. Most of the children attending that school are children of field grade and above officers. The other base option is number 4513/5188. See where I am going with this?
The aforementioned 946th ranked elementary school raises $80K in extra funds from the parents over the course of the year. Yet their kindergarten class has 40 kids to one teacher, no aide, and no special subjects like art, music, gym, or technology. Pathetic. The local Catholic schools raise less than that per year yet costs $4500/student to educate [as opposed to the $8700 per pupil in the public school district]. Their student to teacher ratio is 10:1 while the public school district claims to be 16:1. This is truly an outrage. Let's save some money, DOD, and subsidize private school tuition instead of crappy mismanaged leeching school districts. Give our military children and families a chance.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
The Problem With Perry
Let me preface this entire post by saying that I will vote for Rick Perry over Barack Obama in a general election. I will HATE doing it. I mean, I will absolutely loathe myself in that I-need-to-take-an-hour-long-hot-shower-and-still-won't-feel-clean-enough loathing for voting for Rick Perry. To me, in the contest of the lesser of two evils, well, Perry wins hands down. But I am the exception.
Rick Perry is unelectable versus Barack Obama. Period. The End. I don't care how much money the man has. I don't. Rick Perry will never win against Obama and it has nothing to do with the merits of his candidacy. It has everything to do with Barack Obama's ability to run against George W. Bush.
In the 2008 election, Obama ran not against McCain, but Bush. He was elected not for McCain or Palin's inadequacies, but for Bush's. For the last three years we have heard nothing but "Blame Bush" for every failure of his administration. Essentially, the man has run a perpetual campaign against George W. Bush for the last four years. And now in the face of this, there is a camp of people who want to place a drawling swaggering Texan with half the talent and capability of our last drawling swaggering Texan in a position to run against him. Why don't we just GIVE this administration another four years?
If there is one thing that the last three years has taught us it is that there is only one thing Barack H. Obama can do successfully and that is BLAME BUSH. So WHY in a million zillion years would anyone in their right mind pick a candidate with the accent and mannerisms of the second coming of Bush to face a person who has made a successful career out of villainizing him?
It is obvious that many have never gotten over 2000. Every presidential election since has been a 2000 rematch. Even an election where Bush was not a candidate. Two thousand twelve will be no exception.
Rick Perry is unelectable versus Barack Obama. Period. The End. I don't care how much money the man has. I don't. Rick Perry will never win against Obama and it has nothing to do with the merits of his candidacy. It has everything to do with Barack Obama's ability to run against George W. Bush.
In the 2008 election, Obama ran not against McCain, but Bush. He was elected not for McCain or Palin's inadequacies, but for Bush's. For the last three years we have heard nothing but "Blame Bush" for every failure of his administration. Essentially, the man has run a perpetual campaign against George W. Bush for the last four years. And now in the face of this, there is a camp of people who want to place a drawling swaggering Texan with half the talent and capability of our last drawling swaggering Texan in a position to run against him. Why don't we just GIVE this administration another four years?
If there is one thing that the last three years has taught us it is that there is only one thing Barack H. Obama can do successfully and that is BLAME BUSH. So WHY in a million zillion years would anyone in their right mind pick a candidate with the accent and mannerisms of the second coming of Bush to face a person who has made a successful career out of villainizing him?
It is obvious that many have never gotten over 2000. Every presidential election since has been a 2000 rematch. Even an election where Bush was not a candidate. Two thousand twelve will be no exception.
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